When Evil woke up, she wasn’t met with her usual view- a black ceiling decorated with stickers and sketches of creatures watching over her- but a greyish ceiling, roughened by the passage of time. The ruthless years left it covered in dust and grease stains, hugged by spider webs ready to trap every fly foolishly passing by.
The room was drowned in the smell of disinfectant and a distinct essence of sickness. She sat up, feeling the bed creak under her weight. It echoed like a scream, cutting through the dead silence hovering over the room, which Evil just recognized as a hospital.
Why the fuck was she in a hospital?
She didn’t remember anything that could have gotten her into such a place. No accidents, no injuries. Or had she been in an accident and was suffering from some kind of short-term amnesia? Then she would have felt pain strike somewhere the moment she moved or been covered in the casts and bandages that were obviously missing.
She only wore a hospital gown, with her usual clothes nowhere to be found. Her phone was also missing, and so was her bracelet, leaving her wrist awfully empty.
Slowly but surely, panic started to wash over her. She got out of bed, somewhat hopeful she would feel some kind of pain that would clear up the backstory.
No pain whatsoever.
A cold breeze blew inside through the opened window, and under the thin material she wore. She shivered, wrapping her arms around herself in a pathetic attempt to trap the warmth. The window was old and broken, with no way of closing fully. Evil cursed and gave up.
She searched the entire room for her belongings. It didn’t take long, considering its size. It measured about half the size of her bedroom and lacked any furniture except a few cabinets and a chest eaten by termites, which smelled strongly of rot. The tiles on the ground had a checkered pattern of alternating blacks and whites with unusual stains and cracks etched along the way.
She walked over to the door and grasped the handle, twisting it.
Locked.
“Of course…”
Her heart sank. Millions of scenarios raced in her head all at once. She considered screaming for help, but settled on knocking on the door. After a few useless knocks, she took a deep breath, readying herself to let out a horrible screech in the hope someone would be alarmed enough to check on her.
Before her genius plan was set in motion, a woman in her forties, all dressed in white, promptly unlocked the door. Her posture gave her a hunched, curved back that took about a head from her height. Her skin was wrinkled like a dried prune, with big brown spots and hairs sticking out from her chin. One eye was lower than the other and horribly inflamed.
Her voice sounded hoarse, almost painful to pay attention to.
“I’m sorry, what?” Evil asked in a monotone voice, attempting to look into the nurse’s eyes and not at the bizarre mole just above her upper lip.
“What are you doing out of bed?” the nurse repeated in an obviously annoyed manner.
Well, got a ton of attitude for somebody whose mole looked ready to fall out.
“What am I doing in a hospital?”
“A psychiatric ward.”
“It’s a mental hospital?!”
“Psychiatric ward.”
A five-star vacation, if I do say so myself.
“Why am I in a psychiatric ward ?” Evil asked again, emphasizing the last part. ”I don’t even remember coming here.”
The nurse sighed theatrically, looking through the multitude of documents she carried. ”Name.”
“Evilyn Halcyon.”
The nurse flipped the pages one by one with her stubby fingers, taking her sweet time. Her eyes were scanning text which Evil guessed were patient records that had to include her name somewhere.
“Evilyn Halcyon, hospitalised at 1:35 PM, showing signs of hallucinations along with aggression towards the medical staff and teachers present in the school’s precinct. Diagnosis, along with duration of stay, will be determined after a scheduled appointment with a professional.”
Evil’s mind went blank for a second as she stared at the woman in front of her, who’d just finished reading and was looking through the set of keys she had pulled out of her pocket. Everything came back to her a second later, bombarding her with the memories supposedly fresh in her mind. She had had another bad episode, this time at school, and had been so lucky that her caring teachers decided to call a psychiatric ward and drag her out of there.
It was next-level disastrous.
Could she have been held there against her will? Or did somebody give permission? Did her mom know she was there? Did she agree to this?
Her head couldn’t take any more information. She grabbed the nurse’s arm, which had just sat upon her shoulder a second ago, trying to push her back in the room and lock her there. She frowned, looking at her with anger sizzling inside from all the nonesense going on. ”That doesn’t tell me anything. Where is my mom? You can’t keep me in here against my will!”
The nurse tried to remove her hand to no avail. ”We can keep you as long as you are considered a threat to people,” she said, sounding significantly more distressed than before. With one more squeeze, yet another pursuit to get custody of her hand failed. A sense of urgency came up on the nurse’s face who prepared herself to call for help.
“Where is my mom?! You’ve got to at least let me talk to my mom!”
The same sense of urgency came up on Evilyn’s face as well. The panic washed over her, and her grip was tightening more and more, to the point of her knuckles whitening while the nurse’s wrist redened.
The nurse waited for the one second that Evil let her guard down and yanked her hand, pushing her back in the room and locking the door on the spot. Banging or shouting didn’t help, as it made her almost blend in with the noise in the backround.
She internally screamed out of frustration and drank a bottle of water left on the nightstand that might not be water or have all sorts of dubious substances in it, but who cared? If she were to die, at least she would die from some stale bottled water in an asylum and not be eaten by the demons of Ferox.
“Just how does one human get in this much trouble every week?” Emma murmured to herself.
Emma didn’t go to school because she felt ill. It wasn’t exactly her style to be absent. She didn’t want to fall behind, but she told herself there’d be no harm. At the end of the year, the teachers paid substantial attention to the paperwork that needed to be completed and filed while the students had other occupations. Everything had seemed satisfactory that morning. No sign that Evil was being disturbed by malicious entities. She couldn’t have been sick, she didn’t feel down, and despite her lack of enthusiasm for classes, she looked good.
Or so Emma assumed. Maybe Evil was a better actress than Emma thought, because she just received a phone call from her mother notifying her that Evil had been hospitalized after displaying “aggressive behaviour”.
Ophelia wasn’t home. She said that she went to have a talk with her aunt Glorya, who lives in a house in the middle of the woods, reachable only by crossing a disgustingly long amount of land on foot. Emma had visited Glorya only a few times in her life, and the sore muscles she dealt with the following weeks led her to swear that she would limit their contact to a simple letter once in a while.
It would take Ophelia a while to return.
Emma couldn’t sit still. She could’ve sworn that she cared more about Evil than parents care about their own children. The thought that she couldn’t contact her in any way gnawed at her from within. She sat on the edge of her bed, phone in hand, kicking her legs like a rabbit. She checked the device at least ten times a minute, wishing that some news would pop up.
She sighed heavily and lay back on the bed, letting her phone slip on the mattress. She took two of her many plushes in her arms and listened to the music playing in the background. She closed her eyes, trying to feel its effects. Just when Emma was beginning to think, “Okay, I think this is working” , her peaceful atmosphere was ruined by the creaking of the open window.
Emma blew the messy curls off her face to see what had happened. She sat back up and watched the curtains flying free, pushed by the playful breeze outside. She didn’t remember opening the window, but stress can affect one’s memory.
She slipped behind the curtains and analyzed the view. A strange shiver down her spine rose the hairs on the back of her neck, telling her something was out of place.
She saw the backyard strewn with green grass and overgrown patches that ought to be trimmed. The white table, where her mother loved to drink tea, sat in its place, covered in fine dust, with four matching chairs around it. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
However, a chair was pulled back. The chair that decided not to be like its fellow furniture items was pulled farther from the other three, as if someone sat on it and forgot to put it back in its original position, like a barbarian without manners. Emma pressed her lips together and grabbed a pair of shoes to visit the backyard.
She approached the odd object warily.
She shook her head. “What a dummy,” Emma whispered to herself. She placed her hand on the worn-out aluminum and began pushing.
The chair wouldn’t budge.
“Huh?” Emma said out loud and tried again, pushing with more force. Nothing happened, so she looked down to see if perhaps one leg got caught.
To her surprise, the chair had found an owner in the five seconds she looked away. A man, a stranger, appeared out of thin air and was casually looking at her struggle to place the thing back under the table.
She let out a scream.
Emma backed away as quickly as possible. She stumbled back, her legs almost getting tangled in the process. Damn gravity. And her dumb legs. And strange men sitting in her backyard.
Her heartbeat fastened; she scanned the man from head to toe and didn’t even realize her body switched to fighting stance. Adrenaline kicked in. Her fists were tightly clenched, and she kept her distance while quickly thinking of a plan. If fighting was needed, then so be it.
But she was so absorbed by her own scenarios that it took her a good minute to realize the strange man hadn’t moved an inch. Hadn’t spoken a word. He simply sat in that dusty chair, legs crossed elegantly, and waited for Emma’s survival instincts to cool down, as he was much too comfortable to get up.
She followed his example and wouldn’t let out a word. Instead, she searched her mind, trying to match his face to a name, to a picture, a memory that would give her a clue as to who this was. His appearance was really unique, with a long face, a strong jawline, and defined cheekbones. Emma had never thought someone could look so intimidating yet somewhat friendly at the same time.
“Who are you?” she spoke up in a stern voice. The man just stared at her, somewhat captivated, which weirded her out more. “Who-“
“I’m Zachriel.”
Huh?
“Huh?”
“My name is Zachriel,” he repeated.
His name didn’t ring a bell, so she required more information that would convince her to not blast him off her chair. “I don’t know you.”
“But I know you,” he assured her.
“I’m not sure I follow.” What a situation. A man appears out of nowhere and swears she knows her, though Emma could’ve sworn she hadn’t seen him in her life.
“Of course, I know you,” he stated, “You’re an angel, aren’t you?”
“I don’t…” she tried saying and stopped midway, thinking it could be useless to even deny it. He could simply attack her right now, and she would be obligated to use her powers in a fight, thus proving his point easily.
“Look closely at me.”
Despite her conflicted inner monologue, she looked at him. Her eyes rejected it at first as if blinded by the sun once again, but this time something in her told her not to cover her eyes. Behind the man, the bright golden light drew outside the lines of two similarly shaped constructions. She blinked, and their shape roughened. Inside the lines, a feathery pattern filled in the void and expanded until it significantly increased in size. The light finally died down, similarly to the setting sun, and revealed a majestic pair of white wings attached to the man’s back, spread in all their glory.
Emma’s eyes had gotten teary, but she couldn’t get herself to close them out of fear of the image dissipating. Part of her expected the mirage to disperse as soon as it appeared, but it didn’t. The man –Zachriel- most likely waited for her to come to her senses and start asking the obvious questions.
“You’re…”
“An angel? Yes, indeed.”
Emma’s throat had gotten dry. She was completely astonished.
“You look pretty startled, dear,” he remarked, slightly amused.
Emma simply nodded. “Well, sit down, would you?” he offered. She sat across from him, half alert, half distracted. Many things were happening in her brain all at once.
“I know you’re wondering what is going on and why I came to visit you.” Emma nodded in response. “It came to my attention that you’re one of us, and I came to have a chat with you.”
“I’m listening.”
“I’m afraid I have to inform you of our precarious situation,” the man started. His fingers mindlessly slid across the table, and the wings moved ever so slightly in the wind. Emma couldn’t tear her eyes off them. “You certainly felt energies out of place.”
Emma shifted. Energies out of place? She wanted to blurt out a confident “no” and go back to a room without winged strangers. But she couldn’t. As the years passed, the shift in the collective energies worsened day by day. A black cloud loomed over humanity, and it rained fear and anger.
Humans were destroying themselves and everything around them. They were directionless. Their fate crumbled, and the strings that did still exist barely held on.
“I did”, Emma answered honestly. “What are they?”
“Infections are spreading in energy fields, stopping the flow at the root. We felt it too.” His wings fluttered. “It’s difficult to explain the situation behind it now, with so little time on our hands.”
Emma was rather suspicious. Their mom had been very clear about interacting with any kind of supernatural creatures. Would an angel harm her? The obvious response would be no. However, staying vigilant never harmed anyone.
Zachriel tapped his foot. “The other angels are weakening. Our armies are dying.”
Emma frowned. “How do I come into play?”
“I’m going to need a favor from you.”
A…favor?From her?
“You’re not asking me to help you with this thing, are you?” Emma’s wide eyes set on the other, waiting for a response that stalled to come. The corner of her mouth twitched anxiously. “But…I’m only fourteen! How can I be of any help?”
“You won’t be fourteen forever,” he interrupted her. “Maybe the worst won’t manifest itself right now, but in the future? It’s a given.”
Emma helplessly tried to force some words to come out. “What can I even do to be of help? I know nothing about your world.”
“I can help you train, as long as you stay vigilant.”
Her heart skipped a beat. “You want to train me?”
“Precisely. That way, you can be our secret weapon when you grow up. Grow stronger.” His mouth curved into a confident smile.
How could he be so positive about such a bonkers plan? Emma’s security in her abilities dropped every passing second. Her palms, sticky with sweat, were being picked at by her restless fingers. Would she be good enough?
In the midst of the storm, from her mind passed a quick thought,almost swept away by the winds of uncertainty. It wasn’t a question of being good enough. It wasn’t a dilemma, but an obligation. She must be good enough, because she was an angel, and angels must help people no matter what.
“I’ll help you.”
Zachriel’s smile widened, and he reached out to shake her hand. Then, in a gush of wind, he disappeared.
Life in a hospital wasn’t fun for Evil.
She was so bored and so famished that even the spiders on the ceiling began to look appetizing. An hour ago, a pair of nurses had come, similarly dressed to the one Evil had befriended earlier that day, with the deplorable posture and a frown forever carved into her cheeks.
She had woken up from a nightmare, screaming bloody murder. The nurses had barged in with syringes overfilled with sedative and grotesque smiles on their faces. Laughs reverbarated monckingly as she drifted into another sleeping terror.
The world around was reduced to a void. Everything as far as one could see was black, and the floor wet and sticky on her bare feet. She walked forward, increasing her speed with every step until she was running. Running from whom or what, she didn’t know for certain.
She expected monsters to materialize or rabid animals that would tear her apart bit by bit until she eventually woke up. She expected her fifth-grade math teacher to look her down with demonic eyes and long nails that would wrap themselves around her body and stab her, leaving her on the ground to bleed to death.
She didn’t expect to see herself.
The same double had been hunting her ever since the school fair. It could have been mistaken for an odd-looking mirror reflection, if not for the bizzare differences that set them apart. The double’s skin was unnaturally pale, even more so than her own, with signs of rotting from underneath. Both her eyelids and lips were a deep purple.
Evil’s gaze was tied to her corpse-looking self. It reached for its pocket, for now it wore the same clothes as Evil, and pulled out a small object- a marionette. The kind of wooden puppet to be manipulated from above by somebody using the attached threads. It reassembled a girl, with two black dots as eyes and smudged red where the lips used to be. Evil eyed it up and down, confused.
“Do you want me to take this?” Evil asked.
The thing gapes at her with the characteristic expressionless face and wide smile. It slowly nodded twice, placing the puppet in Evil’s hand before turning back and leaving in the same direction it came from. Evil didn’t call back to it.
She didn’t notice how the strings elongated and were now tightly wrapped around her fingers and wrists, binding her to it. She tried to pull away and unknot the threads, but quickly realized how awful a decision that was. They wrapped themselves even tighter than before. Trying to undo them didn’t work. They grew longer and longer, now going up to her arms.
Her arms were met with a strike of pain where the strings began cutting into her skin. Blood gushed, dripping from her elbows down to the floor in a puddle. She shrieked and forced them off, causing them to dig deeper into the flesh.
The double was nowhere to be found, and the only thing troubling the deadly silence were screams. The marionette was still attached to the strings, soaked in Evil’s blood.
She opened her eyes in a hurry, her eyebrows scrunching in confusion. The brightness of the light bulbs blinded her, and she let out an annoyed groan.
She wiped the sweat of her forehead with her collar and reached to her beadsite for a drink of water.
When she turned right, ready to be met with her glass of dusty water, a pair of eyes met her own instead. She instantly jumped up, pulling her legs close to her chest in a jerky movement. Sitting on top of the bed with her knees drawn to her chest, she surveyed the figure unblinkingly.
Next to her bed stood a boy she had never seen before. Not in her dreams, not in real life either. He could catch your eye in a crowd of thousands. His dark brown hair fell straight, long enough to almost touch his shoulders. His piercing eyes held an overwhelming weight- almost as dark as hers, except for an auburn ring around his pupil. Like a ring of fire.
“Are you real?”
Evil blurted out, still shaken from her nightmare. The overwhelming light from above blurred the edges of his features in an ethereal way. The more Evil stared, the less grounded her senses. His straight nose and frowning mouth were half engulfed by light, half overtaken by shadows.
“What do you think?” His voice wasn’t deep, but boyish and slightly raspy as if he was just hitting puberty. Evil squinted, trying to discern his features better.
The light flickered rapidly over his silhouette. He stood tall like an apparition, dressed all in black save for a graphic T-shirt. When he stepped closer, his metal belt clinked loudly in the heavy silence. A pair of guitar-shaped earrings dangled from his ears, balancing the visual weight of his sharp features.
She drew the blanket closer to herself, suddenly feeling rather bare in that ugly hospital gown.
“Who are you? Were you watching me sleep?” Evil tried to save herself the embarrassment by changing the subject.
“I’m taking you to your doctor’s appointment.”
“Don’t nurses have a dress code?”
He glared at her, earlobes reddening. She bit her lip to hold in her laughter and saved him the grace of pointing out the obvious. He stomped his foot impatiently, waiting for Evil to follow.
“Seriously, do you work here?” She asked, half-curious, half wanting to avoid a dreadful encounter with an old doctor who believed he would cure her with two tablets of ibuprofen.
“Do I look like I work here?” he snapped at her, glaring viciously from behind his wispy bangs.
“You could. Have you tried on those white dresses?”
He scoffed in annoyance and rolled his eyes. His boots echoed on the broken tiles as he took two steps towards her bed. Evil sat on the edge, unbothered by his presumed show of dominance. With a pair of red ears and teeth gnawing at the ring in his lip, he could only make Evil snicker to herself. Up close, she regarded his features as quite youthful. He seemed to be around her age.
“Alright, alright,” she raised her palms up in the air in surrender. “Lead the way, miss.”
Muffled voices echoed around the narrow hallway. Chatter paired up with faraway screams- so quiet they might have been only in her head. Patients were carried around in wheelchairs by nurses who seemed to be all too immune to the constant wailing of the pained. The patients reassembled corpses ready to fall and crumble if not for their tied-up wrists and ankles.
An old lady dramatically turned her head towards Evil. Her body might have been unable to move, but her gaze sent shivers down her spine. A soul trapped in a carcass, forced to witness in horror as it enters darkness.
Her head was as heavy as lead. The effects of the sedative lingered inside her body. Her limbs weighed a ton. With the last remains of energy, she dragged her feet to follow the boy. Evil could hardly escape the fog in her head after episodes of hyper-realistic phantasms. She found herself in an impossible game of hide and seek inside her own brain.
She hid from thoughts and ran from delusions. Often, they spilled between the plains of existence, and the real world wasn’t safe anymore, either. The screams she heard could’ve been real. The patients walking past must’ve been real.
Yet nothing was certain.
She gazed upon her arms and clenched her fists, feeling the pain of her nails digging into her skin. Like a mantra, she repeated “I’m real”, in a hushed tone to anchor herself, in fear, reality was a mere illusion. In fear, she was an illusion in someone else’s nightmare.
She stepped into a dimly lit office at the end of an empty hallway, all the way down the oldest wing of the ward. The walls were white, though devoid of the layer of dirt- the institution’s trademark. The furniture was crafted from dark oak, battered from use.
At the desk, with his back turned, sat the supposed doctor who would give her the diagnosis. Evil stepped above the threshold, muttering a quiet “Hello” with a hint of anxiety laden on top.
The doctor didn’t move. He sat on a chair facing back to the half-open window through which small streams of water escaped the rain outside. Evil simply wanted to get this show over with. She cleared her throat audibly to get the man’s attention.
The chair rotated until he faced her. He seemed much younger than she had expected beforehand, maybe early thirties.
“Thank you, Kian. You’re dismissed.”
Only then did the boy leave the room.
“Go ahead and take a seat.”
Evil sat down on the chair placed in front of the desk. The quietness in the room made the situation more unnerving, as if the room had been cut off from the world. She didn’t know if she should keep looking at the man or stare into space and pretend like she was listening. Getting something true from any doctor in that damned hospital was a waste of time.
“How was your day?” he asked.
“As good as it gets locked up in a psychiatric ward.”
The doctor lightly chuckled at her response, the smile not really reaching his eyes. Evil’s focus shifted to the strand of stray hair falling into his eyes, possibly blocking his vision. It crossed her mind for a second to urge him to tie his hair. The length looked to be just right.
“I guess you’re right. Well, let me properly introduce myself.” He reached his hand out to her. ”I’m Lucian.”
“Interesting name,” Evil replied, accepting his handshake. His hand was cold. ”I’m Evilyn”.
“I get that a lot. And that’s a very beautiful name you got there.”
“Thank you. I don’t get that a lot.”
He smiled again at her remark, leaving Evil puzzled. Ever since she had gotten there, the staff acted nothing but monstrous. Almost as much as the actual monsters she kept seeing.
“So tell me a bit about yourself,” he said, leaning back into his chair.
“Is that really necessary?”
“I want us both to have a conversation. You can tell me about your family, your school life, or even little nothings like your favourite color. You can ask anything back as well.”
“Weren’t you supposed to just give me a diagnosis?” She raised an eyebrow, trying her best to appear as reluctant as she felt.
“Patience. I want us to talk this out. As a doctor –your doctor- I prefer to get to know my patients before assigning a diagnosis and a bunch of medication. I want you to feel comfortable before we start touching on that subject.”
That guy was weirding her out. She had trouble guessing the essence of his demeanor. The atmosphere was heavy, palpable. The droplets of rain hit the railings outside, rumbling with the anger of the gods that once were. He stared, unblinking, with an uncanny patience. As inviting as he was, Evil swallowed word after word, too aware of her nervousness and too unaware of his temper.
“There’s not much to say about me. My family is small, just my mom and my sister. I like to draw and make handmade things. I play guitar sometimes. Normal things,” she shrugged.
“What about your dad? Is he not in the picture?” He paused. “Only answer if you’re comfortable, of course.”
Evil made a hand gesture like brushing off the last bit of the sentence. “My sister and I are adopted. Our mom raised us by herself.”
“I see, “ he hummed in response, tapping the pen on the stack of papers in front of him. “Know anything about your parents?”
“No. And I frankly don’t care.”
Lucian nodded after a long pause. “And?”
“…And?,” Evil asked.
“You haven’t told me your favourite colour.”
She raised her eyebrows, skeptical. ”Black”
“Why not something more…alive? And an actual color, perhaps?”
“I like black.”
“You’ve got to have another color you like.”
“Why is this so important anyway? Is it needed for my diagnosis?”
“Knowing somebody’s favourite color might be the most important part in getting to know them as a person.”
“…purple.”
“I’ll make sure to get you a purple present for your birthday then.”
Evil forced a smile, though convinced she wasn’t getting anything purple for her birthday. Maybe a purple muzzle would be handy.
Lucian kept talking, little bits about his life and career, along with his work ethic and such. Evil felt way too sucked into her own introspections to be paying much attention to the words coming from his mouth.
Her gaze wandered along his features as if studying a human reference in art class to make sure you memorised as many details about the anatomy before laying them of paper. The words said were no more than background noise for her to play pretend along while noticing the finer details, like the small but still visible cross tattoo on the side of his neck that could have meant he was either a religious person or a certified bad boy.
What a strange look on a doctor.
“So,” Evil cut him off mid-sentence, “what exactly is wrong with me and how do I get rid of it?”
“Why don’t you tell me that?”
“I’m not the doctor here.”
Lucian picked a black, shiny pen from the bunch sitting neatly in a pencil holder placed dangerously close to the edge of the desk. He followed by going over some documents, the pen glided above the paper and under each row of text. He tapped the paper twice.
“You attacked your teachers.”
“Not quite.”
“Not quite?”
“Not quite.”
Evil hoped the doctor wouldn’t accuse her of making fun of him. She was one hundred percent telling the truth that time. She didn’t attack her teachers; she attacked invisible monsters.
“How about telling me what you were seeing?”
Evil only remembered sitting in the classroom, and suddenly, without notice, the scenario suddenly changed. Unexpectedly, she was no longer in class, not the class she knew. The desks were all there, as was the blackboard, the chairs, and the horrible drawings made by her classmates hanging on the walls like an art exhibition made of works collected from the refrigerators of mothers with kindergarteners.
Evil couldn’t recall much else, save for a sharp pain in her back from slipping on a floor full of blood.
She told him bits and pieces, as it was a known fact she dealt with hallucinations. Not talking and pretending to hit teachers for no reason would have been a free ticket to a juvenile hall.
Lucian listened to her rambling mix of truths and lies. After she finished, he took one good look at her arms. “What are those?”
“Cuts, scratches,” Evil informed him like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“How did you get them? Did you make them yourself?”
Evil shook her head but didn’t explain the issue further. She couldn’t tell him it was both her fault, but wasn’t at the same time.
“Let me see.” Lucian reached over and took her forearm in his hand, examining the scratches and bruises with interest.
“You should bandage those,” he told her as he rummaged inside his drawers and picked up a small, metal box. A first-aid kit.
“No worries, they’ll heal.”
“But I’m assuming it’ll take a while.”
“I mean, yeah?”
“Healing powers get weaker when you’re in bad shape,” Lucian responded casually.
“Yeah…what?” Evil responded quickly, forgetting to hide the surprise in her voice.
“Because you get weaker when sick, healing powers slow down,” he explained in the same casual manner while taking bandages out of the box.
Did she hear that right? Could it have been strange wording? There’s no way he could’ve known. How could he?
“And besides, if we take what you told me into consideration, I imagine you must have a really hard time dealing with your powers.”
“I…uh, don’t know what you’re talking about.”
His fingers tightly gripped her arm started cleaning the cuts without reacting to any of the mumbling she did. “Don’t bother.”
Evil gulped and studied his face. Concern wasn’t at all present on it, not as much as it was on hers.
“You and I are very similar, Evilyn.”
“How so?”
He kept messing with her arm, face stern. Layers of white material covered her bruised skin. It stung and tickled a little, but the cold feeling coming off the said doctor overpowered anything else. She felt herself starting to shiver and blamed it on the thin clothes, despite that not being true.
He raised his head and sized her up, analyzing her anxious face. Lucian closed his eyes and opened to reveal a black-stained sclera with no trace of an iris. Every detail of his eyes drowned in an endless black ocean. His eyes…looked like hers.
Demon eyes.