The blood dripped. Over and over again. Like a faucet.
Like matching her footsteps.
For once, Abigail was holding a weapon dripping with the blood of a person she had neither killed nor intended to kill.
It was a strange feeling.
She had lived two thousand years too long, in search of freedom. But that didn't mean that she had experienced everything there was and ever will be, far from it.
She had lived for a long time, but always in the same way.
Forced by her condition. And by the people who were after her.
So this was new.
But not so new. She wasn't going to get carried away and start seeing herself as an ally of justice, or anything like that.
Amy had nothing to do with this.
She had done it for Desmond. That is, for herself, since Desmond and she were one. Literally and figuratively.
The boy's heart was beating in her chest, and her heart was beating in the boy's chest.
Something that had never happened before. Something that was not a standard part of the contract.
Yes, all the pieces were falling into place.
Everything indicated that Desmond was the person she had been waiting for all this time....
And that's why she was here, that's why she was going to make it this far, and not for any other reason,
Certainly not because Amy... reminded her of herself.
Abigail grimaced unpleasantly, biting her lower lip.
She moved forward.
As she moved forward, blood was falling from the sword. Drop by drop. People she encountered along the way turned away, terrified, as she passed.
They knew instinctively that she was someone dangerous.
Even if she hadn't been carrying Amy's sword in her hand, they would have known. She had an inhuman air about her. Something about her made people nervous, to say the least, even if they couldn't even imagine that she wasn't human.
Her presence and, of course, her blood"red eyes that no one else had.
Those around her now were none other than the staff of the mansion.
Butlers, maids, cooks, cleaners. They were not paid to get in the way of people like her.
Those who were paid for that were others.
And she met some of them, the guards, in the hall. They, tense, stood still at the sight of her, as if waiting for her to do something.
And she did.
Open her mouth, speak.
"You have no time to waste with me," she said. "I have killed the master of this estate, Henry Sunderland. With this sword. And his daughter is bleeding to death on the cellar floor right now. They pay you to protect them, don't they? You haven't done a very good job so far, but maybe you can save the girl."
Communicating silently, three of the guards walked past, very carefully.
The others stayed behind to stop her.
Abigail smiled. She was upset for some reason, but she wasn't going to take it out on these people who were not to blame for anything, who were just doing their job.
She wasn't a good person, but she wouldn't take it out on innocents. She hadn't sunk that low yet.
Smiling, Abigail was simply acting out her role as a maniacal killer.
So she wouldn't use the sword against them.
Only fists and legs, if necessary.She had already made it clear what she wanted to say, letting herself be seen and saying it directly.
Now all that was left for Abigail to do was to escape from here.
Escape and keep escaping.
Ah, anyway, what difference did it make? She had the feeling she had been running away all his life. It wouldn't make any difference.
"Let's play," said Abigail. "I hope you can entertain me. And the game in question will be, of course....."
She was rudely interrupted.
One of the guards raised his arms, clenching his fists, and lifted her ten meters above the ground.
"Well, well," she finished. "That's cheating, bad boy. Unfortunately for you, I know how to cheat too."
Abigail pulled out her knife.
With an inverted grip, she threw it in the direction of the mage who had her trapped in midair.One of the others deflected the knife by waving a hand, creating a blast of air, and the bladed weapon ended up stuck in the ground behind the mage she had aimed at.
But it didn't matter.
He hadn't been her target, she had thrown the knife in his general direction, as she had said.
She didn't care where it had landed. It made no difference.
The important thing was this.
The "cheating."
Not only could she return the weapon connected to her to her hand. Abigail could also transport herserl to wherever that weapon was, and that's what she did.
She appeared behind the one with a telekinetic affinity.
As he turned toward her, startled, she grabbed him by the shoulders, spinning him around and threw herself to the ground, kicking him in the chest.
The force of the impact ripped him off the ground.
It sent him flying and knocked him through a window. Not too cleanly.
Maybe someone would call that taking it out on him. She wouldn't.
She'd call it necessary.
Besides, it's not like she'd gone overboard. The guard would be fine, something like that couldn't have killed him, no way. He'd come out of that one with only a few scrapes and cuts.
And fear of red"eyed women, she supposed.
Abigail climbed out the broken window, which was now more like a hole, few panes of glass still stuck.
She broke into a run, pursued by the guards and their ranged attacks.
The race was on.
But of course, the outcome was already decided.
She always won.
Light. There was light again.
She heard footsteps. She saw shadows crawling along the wall behind her. Amy was only half conscious, as if she were floating, as if she were dreaming. Because of that, she heard voices too....
But she didn't grasp the meaning. In that state, for her words were just noise.
Several people arrived. Seeing herself surrounded, her heart, lethargic like the rest of her, began to beat with speed and force. Like the blows of a hammer.
She felt the impulse, though the motive failed to penetrate the milky haze that enveloped her mind, to get up. To fight, as if she were in danger. Was she? She did not know the answer to that question. In her state, she knew practically nothing.
The people who arrived grabbed her arms and legs. They lifted her among all of them, and carried her backwards, out of this blood"stained darkness.
Blood.
Blood...
Hers, but she wasn't the only one here. There was something else too. Someone else. A man lying on the ground. His face mutilated. It was not a man, but a demon.
At last she had managed to defeat the demon.
Still groggy, not understanding anything, her thoughts as if in a dream, Amy smiled as the corpse grew smaller and smaller in her vision.
As she was pulled away from it.
I win, she thought.
I win!
But that jubilation didn't last long for her.
Even though the demon must surely have been more dead than anything, his mutilated face came to life before her eyes.
His lips moved. He spoke.
"You will never escape. "Those words came from the mutilated and almost unrecognizable face of the demon, from that throat that should no longer be able to utter a sound.
A voice from beyond the grave. Deep and low, squeaky. It was as if he was speaking with a mouth full of grave dirt.
"I will always be with you. Always."
No. I've won, don't you understand? I've won, I'm free!
But her desperate thoughts didn't seem credible even to her. She felt as if not only the demon's face had come to life. As if his hands had too, and right now they were on her heart, trying to crush it.
"You carry me in your heart... and in your guts. I may not be your father, but we have the same blood."
That last word, blood, echoed again and again as she was pulled away from the darkness in which the demon was buried.
Everything was passing very slowly, as if time had almost stopped, and the word echoed as if they were in the depths of some cave. Lost.
And the lights in the hallway seemed to be getting dimmer, each time the word blood echoed.
Only that wasn't possible, no, no, the bulbs okay, but mostly the hallway was lit by sunlight and.
(I don't want to go back to the dark)
this couldn't be happening. The demon was dead.
"I'm not like you," Amy managed to say weakly, resisting to the end. "Not a bit like you."
"She's awake?"
"Hold on, miss."
She didn't hold on. She lost her fragile consciousness again, returning to darkness.
I don't want to die. Please, I don't want to die.
The light came back into her world, and when it did.
Amy was running through a field of poppies, running and laughing at the top of her lungs, even though she was covered in scrapes and dirt. Even though such things were unbecoming of "a highborn lady."
But it didn't matter, because she was having the time of her life.
But it didn't matter, because her mother was accompanying her. She was trailing behind her, grabbing the sides of the skirt of her dress and pulling it up so she could run.
That wasn't very proper for a highborn lady either, she imagined.
Her mommy clearly didn't care, though, so why did she have to care?
All that crap was boring. Better to just let it go.
This moment, this race, seemed to stretch into eternity. As if the world also knew that this was a precious, precious moment, and dared not break it.
Of course, at the time Amy did not think in such a way.
She already had the vocabulary to express it, but not the experience.
For her, it was a moment like any other. A moment of which there would be thousands in the future, because her mother would always, always be with her.
You didn't know what you had until you lost it.
One...
"Come on, Mommy, come on! "A voice charged with emotion. Had she ever been that person? She could hardly believe it.
Not one... no...
Amy plunged back into the depths of sleep.
"I'm trying! "Her mommy laughed" "For someone with such short legs, you run like hell, there's no catching you.
Yes, this moment seemed to stretch to the horizon, without end. Amy wanted to live an eternity in this moment. But, unfortunately, eternity was but an instant. Everything came to an end. Some things sooner rather than later.
"Hey, hey. Stop, honey, stop.
But he didn't stop. In fact, Amy barely heard her, she was too engrossed in this game between them.
Too absorbed in running and in the pleasant sensation of the flowers brushing her legs as she passed, and in the wind that seemed to be blowing against her, and in her chest that burned so lightly.
Living in the moment, she didn't know where she was going until it was too late.
Amy lost her balance.
She tumbled rolling down the hill and across the surface of the river, sinking into its dark waters.
The light was streaming away from her as she plunged into the darkness.
And, in the form of an unpleasant echo....
"Amy!
She heard her mother's voice calling her, coming from outside she couldn't reach. The darkness was taking her back.
Water was rushing down her throat and she was finding it hard to breathe.
It was the most painful thing she had ever experienced in her short life. She had never felt so much pain, or so much terror.
This all seemed like a different world from the one Amy had been in a moment ago, out of the water. A dark and gloomy world, a world where everything?
Was nothing.
Pain. A flame in the chest.
Pain.
Pain.
The light reflecting on the surface of the water was going away, no, it was fading, as was her heart, as was her brain, as was her whole body, fading, fading, fading, until there was nothing left but darkness, it was fading and even the warm memories she treasured in her heart and kept away the coldest, darkest nights, even, everything
Pain.
Pain.
Pain, pain, pain, pain, pain.
I don't want to
(die)
to disappear.
I don't want to
(go back to the darkness)
disappear like this.
The bubbles. She could see the air bubbles escaping from her floating upward.
upward.
toward the
the room. A double bed. And she...
"Your family doesn't like me. They'll never like me." The voice of the devil.
"But what are you saying? My mother adores you." And, following it, next to him, the voice of an angel.
He didn't deserve to hear that sweet voice.
He didn't even deserve to be in the same room as someone who had such a pure voice. But, despite that, Amy's mother had chosen him. She had accepted him, and had kept her fooled for years, making her believe he was her real father.
She didn't understand.
It didn't make sense.
It should never have happened. Yet Claudia had done it.
She was indirectly responsible for everything that had happened.
"Your mother, well, your mother may be...."
"I know."
"But your father hates me. He's disgusted by me. He's always looking down on me, just because he was lucky enough to be born into a prestigious family. Not like mine. Just because of that, because he was lucky and I wasn't, he thinks he's better than me. And that I don't deserve you."
You don't deserve her. You don't deserve her, deserve, deserve.
"Listen. It doesn't matter what he thinks. I chose you. That's what matters, Henry. The only thing that matters."
Yes, she had. It was true.
But it shouldn't have been... How could she not have seen the kind of person he really was? How could she not have seen, just as Amy had, just by looking into his eyes, that he wasn't a human being?
It didn't make sense.
It didn't make sense.
And if Claudia had found one, she didn't want to hear it.
"You think the same thing deep down, don't you?"
Everything changed with those words. The atmosphere, the lighting in the room. The smile on her mother's face froze.
As if she knew what was going to happen, somehow.
"What? No, why would I...?"
"Don't lie to me."
"Honey, you need to calm down."
He didn't. That's when it happened.
And she watched it all from the darkness, through a gap in a closet door.
The sounds. Those
(knocking)
sounds, and that clattering
(the rain of glass)
that did not prevent her from seeing
(the dripping blood)
her mother on the floor.
Maybe I'm still a child looking at the world through the gap in the door, she thought, and that thought had more clarity in her head than the horrible reenactment of one of her worst memories.
"You're there, I know you're there!"
Amy's heart leapt into her throat. No, this was wrong.
The demon hadn't realized she was there. It hadn't gone after her, looking for her. Amy gulped, fearing that the wild pounding of her heart would be more than enough to give away her hiding place.
And they were.
The door opened.
"You've learned your lesson."
The room disappeared, the demon, his mother, the blood and the scattered glass, all swallowed by the darkness.
No, not by the darkness, but by the water.
It was as if she were back in the river.
As if she was drowning again, and....
"I give up. I give up. I give up..."
Amy surfaced.
In other words, she woke up with her heart pounding, all her muscles seizing up and her breath coming in gasps, almost as if she had actually fallen from a great height into the water and barely made it out before she drowned.
She looked at her surroundings. A hospital bed. White walls.
There came over her the disorienting, dizzying sensation that she had woken up, this time for real, after having fallen into the forest and that these weeks had been part of an elaborate dream.
Well, sometimes a dream, sometimes a nightmare.
She felt the sensation of the present seamlessly connecting with the past, as if there was no difference, as if time had not moved forward.
And she was crushed by that desperate feeling. But what really bothered her was not that.
It was that she was alone, as usual.
Who knew if they had received the news yet, but, anyway, she had expected to find them by her side when she opened her eyes.
Because they were the only people she could count on.
"This sucks," she said, and took a deep breath. There was a lump in her throat.
But it would get better.
She' d come out of this, like Abigail had said she would, and sooner or later those two would.... No, why make them come to this depressing place? She would go to meet them.
Back to the only place she had ever called home after her mother's death.
The team room.
The beginning of everything. Of something better. And now that she had returned to the past...that had left everything behind her in ruins, she....
"I am free," she declared. She repeated, more forcefully this time, "I am free.
After so many years, the day had finally come.
Hadn't it?
The monster was dead and could no longer harm her. Besides, the blame would not fall on her, but on the "mysterious woman" who had appeared that day, attacking them.
In other words, Amy was free.
In other words, she had nothing to fear. Not even magic could raise the dead.
The demon would remain buried in darkness and Amy, as a free person for the first time in so many years, would walk into the light.
Her future was a path of light.
Even a soldier's future, stained with blood, was a path of light compared to what she had left behind. As long as she had companions she could trust... a family... all would be well.
There were no more obstacles to her happiness. In one fell swoop, it was all over.
Wasn't it?
This was it, wasn't it?
The worm of doubt remained inside her. Twisting her insides. While it was true that, with the demon out of this world, someone had to take its place...
It didn't have to be her.
She felt sorry for her mother, and for her family, who hadn't necessarily been to blame for anything, but she'd had enough of all this.
She didn't want to inherit that responsibility.
S"she'd give it all up. Yes.
Or Amy would give it all to whoever wanted it, she didn't care, she didn't care, it was enough to get rid of it, she didn't want to know anything about it, nothing, nothing anymore.
She would not allow circumstances to tie her to that mansion.
She was Amy. She was a human being, not a Sunderland.
She was much more than her last name...
And, once she got rid of what that last name meant, she would truly be free.
Amy laughed to herself. She laughed so hard her chest hurt.
I've won, she said to herself for the first time.
With those two, she would walk into the future as a normal person. Free. No strings attached. Whatever future she chose... and whatever ending she got.
Amy could accept anything, as long as it was her own decision.
Anything, yes.
Now, she would get up, put her affairs in order and go see them. With a smile on her face. As if nothing had happened.
As if none of this nightmare had ever existed.
Down the hallway, she passed a nurse who stopped her.
"What is it? "she asked. I'm healed, aren't I? I can go now.
"Yes, but get back in there. The police will be by soon to ask you some questions.
Amy grimaced.
Sure, speaking of getting her affairs in order, of course answering the police's questions would be one of those affairs.
The demon had been a rich, important person, and she was important too, if only by association, for the time being. Of course they would at least ask her a few questions, even if they didn't and couldn't suspect anything.
"Okay. "So she went back to her room, and waited.
Impatience was burning inside her, pushing her, nay, demanding her to get moving. But she had no choice.
Besides, she wouldn't have to wait long.
The nurse had told her to wait here.
Which meant the police were either already in the building or on their way to it.
Amy just had to wait a little longer, answer a few more routine questions and then get the hell out of there. Simple. No hassle.
She wouldn't even have to wait, following the train schedule from the city to the academy.
She was a rich girl, even after the demon's death.
She could simply have the chauffeur drive her to the academy as the last job he would do for the Sunderland family.
A little more... and she could go after them.
No, a little more and she would be with them.
The policemen came and asked their questions.
Amy said what she had to say. No more, no less. At first she considered lying, for everyone's sake, but Abigail's last words to her before she left were that she was going to attract attention.
She wanted to be seen, to take the blame. So there was nothing Amy could do for her.
She felt guilty realizing that someone else was going to bear the brunt of her decisions, her mistakes, but not too much.
After the interrogation, she was free to go put her affairs in order.
Technically.
But the funeral, inheritance issues, passing the mansion and properties to someone else or selling everything.... It was going to take days... No, what was she saying?
Weeks seemed like an optimistic estimate to deal with all this.
But Amy didn't want to waste time. She didn't want to waste a second. So what she did was hop in the limo and have the person who was still her chauffeur drive her back home.
But before that, they stopped by the bank so she could withdraw a good portion of the money from her personal account and put it in a suitcase.
A suitcase just for the money.
She spent the whole way fidgeting, fidgeting in the seat, with the suitcase on her lap. At first, the driver tried to make conversation, but then realized she was too distracted, so he stopped.
Lost in thought, the trip passed surprisingly quickly.
When she saw the towers rising above the tree line, her heart almost leapt out of her mouth from sheer excitement.
Finally, at last, here.
The driver parked. Amy got out, suitcase in hand.
That suitcase was the only thing she had with her. Apart from her clothes, of course. She hadn't wanted to stop by the mansion again, if only to fill a couple of suitcases with clothes. She'd have them shipped later. If this went well.
"Miss, what shall I do?" asked the chauffeur.
Oh, yes. Amy hadn't explained.
"You don't have to wait for me. Go back."
She wasn't sure that was true, actually, but she still preferred not to tell him to wait just in case. If she thought it wasn't going to work out right from the start, she might self-sabotage herself. Consciously or not.
The driver nodded.
"I'm sorry about your father."
"Me too. I'm sorry, and you don't know how much, that he didn't die sooner."
The driver didn't know how to respond. He reacted as if he had choked on something, perhaps on the typical response to what she was supposed to have said, then closed the door and left the way he had come.
Amy turned around, making a full circle, to see the grounds of the academy, to see the towers rising into the heavens, cutting through them like huge spears, to see all the people who were right now in the courtyard who now seemed precious to her, even if she didn't know them at all.
All that with a big smile.
It's a new beginning. The fresh start she wanted, but this time for real.
Amy walked into the newly rebuilt main building.
She wanted to go straight to meet her beloved teammates. However, she hadn't forgotten why she had brought her suitcase.
In the hallway, on her way to the headmaster's office, she heard a woman's voice rising.
"I care about you. That's all." Isabella's voice, specifically.
So Jacob was there, though not alone.
There was always the possibility that Isabelle was talking to someone else in Jacob's office. Sure, why not, but it didn't seem too likely, that's all.
"I know. I know, you don't have to swear to me. But we've had this conversation too many times. And it's always ended the same way. What makes you think today will be any different?"
"Absolutely nothing. But, as your friend, I have a responsibility to insist, even if I know it's useless."
Jacob sighed.
"What a headache.... And yet, I can't imagine what life would be like without you bothering me at every turn. But don't let it go to your head, okay? I don't want to encourage you to go along with this."
"Distracting me with jokes isn't going to work."
"Okay, you got me. But, please, can you stop now? At least for today?"
As if taking that as a sign, Amy then made her entrance. She had waited more than long enough and wasn't willing to wait a second longer.
The headmaster looked at her. His eyes widened.
"What are you doing here?" he asked hesitantly. It was strange to see him reacting like this... like a normal human being. She had always seen him on a pedestal. "I mean, after your father... and all..."
"It doesn't matter. "Amy reached over and put the suitcase on the table, opening it. "Please, I want to go back. That's all I want. To go back to my team. To my life..."
Jacob stared at the money inside the suitcase. He stretched out his hands towards it...
To close it.
Her soul fell to her feet and, a second later, soared above the clouds.
"You don't have to pay anything. If you want to come back, you can come back whenever you want. But, listen, after what happened, you should at least take a few days off. And, of course, we'll excuse you to go..... " He looked deeply uncomfortable in his own skin all of a sudden. "Well, you know."
He felt the impulse to deny that he cared with all his might, just as she had told the butler.
And maybe she should have swallowed it, but she didn't. She spat it out.
"I didn't care that he died. That man didn't act like my father once. The only thing that can help me now is to go back to my family."
"You guys!"
Amy found them outside the tower, playing catch to kill time, throwing it to each other. Seeing that, apart from happiness, she felt... a certain relief.
As if she had expected to see a third person with them.
A replacement they had found for her.
Out of surprise, Christina was unable to catch the ball that had been sailing through the air. Instead, it hit her in the face, and she grimaced.
They approached her.
Desmond was looking at her as if he had seen a ghost. No, more like he couldn't believe she was standing in front of him, plain and simple. But there was only concern for her on Christina's face.
Christina knew what had happened, but Desmond didn't?
Well, what did it matter.
What mattered was that she was home.
Desmond swallowed, visibly holding back the urge to burst into tears.
"It must have been hard," Christina said, her voice full of powerful emotion.
Like Desmond, she had no words either.
There were no words for things like this.
So she simply pulled the two of them close and hugged them tightly, very tightly, never wanting to let go.
Never.