For Love of Good
It’d taken almost 10 years for Emilie to be able to walk by the Shallow Water Apartments without having a panic attack. Even now, seeing the building still managed to get her heart racing, and she usually had to focus on some distant spot on the horizon to distract herself when she passed by it. Now, however, she didn’t have the luxury of being able to pick up her pace, or choose some alternative route; this time, it was exactly where she needed to be.
She’d dreamt of this day for years. Hundreds of thousands of different scenarios passed through her mind, both assuring and discouraging her about what was yet to come. As she stared up at the building, she was reminded of each and every single one, and for a brief moment she thought it might be best to simply go back home and forget the whole thing. But she’d worked too hard and for too long, and suffered too much to simply chicken out now. She wasn’t the same, frightened little girl that she’d been ten years ago when she ran away. She was stronger now, both in knowledge and character, and she wouldn’t let the nightmares of her past pollute the possibilities of her future. They had already taken up too much of her time.
In her backpack she had everything she needed to fix what had to be fixed, and she clung to it tightly as she entered the building. There was an eerie familiarity to the halls of the apartment, and as she neared His room, she couldn’t help feel nauseated. Every memory was coming back with a sickening speed. However, now that she knew that there was no turning back, the memories served to fuel the fire that had begun burning in her heart. It ended now.
She knew he’d be asleep by now. One would think that a Voodoo King would be up into the late hours of the morning practicing his magic, but Alaster had always been strict about his sleeping schedule. All the better for her. Using a key that Marilyn had given her (certified to be able to open any door, no matter what), she opened the door to Alaster’s apartment slowly, so that she was sure to prevent even the smallest of noises. Though the room was pitch black, she could tell that some things had been rearranged, though overall it looked relatively the same. She navigated around the furniture, making sure to watch her step and avoid bumping into anything, and stopped once she’d gotten to his room.
Her heart was pounding so loudly she thought it might burst out of her chest. She took several deep breaths to calm herself, then slowly, very slowly, opened the door to his room. His sleeping figure was silhouetted in the moonlight, and though he as at his most vulnerable, he still seemed just as deadly to her as he had the night that she ran away. She couldn’t make out his features very well, but it was clear by the new peppering of silver in his hair that he’d been aging as well. Approaching him slowly, she watched him for a short while to make sure that he was truly asleep, then she shrugged her backpack off of her shoulder and pulled out a length of rope. She stood over him, trying to figure out how best to go about this. If she moved him, there was a strong possibility that he’d wake up, and she didn’t want to imagine what would happen if he did before she restrained him. Taking one last, deep, breath, she carefully grabbed one of his wrists with a feather light touch, gauging every second to see if he was stirring. Eventually she managed to pull it up to the headboard, where she made quick work of tying a sturdy knot around it and his wrist. As soon as she was done with the first, she hurried over to the other side of the bed and began tying up his other hand; she wanted to finish before he woke up and had the energy to fight back.
Alaster had never really had enemies. The logic behind that was the fact that he knew that no one would ever really defeat him. He knew he had the ability to haunt, to strike fear into souls without even so much as saying a word. The only struggle he really faced was his personal battle against time and its repercussions. Over the years he relied on his cane a little more than he would have wanted to admit and getting up was an effort more than anything. His brain hadn’t slowed however, he was still on the grand path to ultimate enlightenment. The Voodoo King was so close to really perfecting his idea for armies of undead and once that was finished he knew that immortality would follow; it had to found somehow.
On any usual night Alaster slept with a perfect stillness and didn’t move until he woke up the next morning. However the night was an unusual one and something stirred him;once moved his eyes couldn’t help but open.
Without glasses life was a blur, but even though the haze he knew exactly who was standing over him. A face dotted in freckles and red hair never as fiery as all the other red heads he’d ever known. He liked to put that down to his own ability to dampened her poor, defeatist spirits. Emilie Cross had been the meekest and most innocent little soul he’d come across in his time as Voodoo King. She was good, truly good and there wasn’t a moment where he chose to rethink that. Her heart was pure and he supposed that he was one of the better judges of her character because of his own alliance within the eternal divide between good and evil. The sight of Emilie Cross in his bedroom in the dead of night did not make him fearful, in truth his first reaction was just quiet yawn. Had she come back to exact her revenge? Maybe. Had she come prepared? Definitely. Would she win? Of course not.
Alaster moved an apparently restrained hand to grab his glasses, looking up through squinted eyes to his own wrist tied to his bed frame. What was her plan? Was she here to kill him? If Alaster saw any sign of that he knew his fight or flight instinct would most certainly allow him to snap whatever rope she felt was strong enough to hold him.
“--What an odd way of marking your return, fi.” By the he’d come to his full senses and realized the whole situation his other hand had been tied too. He still wasn’t too concerned about the scene, his years of violence and torture had made him far too desensitized to danger. Even with his hands tied above his head, in the midst of a girl with every reason in the world to kill him he didn’t have that certain fear that he’d felt and saw in all of his victims eyes. Fear was something that plagued humans and those that lived on a mortal realm within any sort of power or point to them. Alaster Whyte did not fear; he was fear. He was the man who’s face was chiseled into the furthest reaches of your brain labelled nightmare. He was the fear that the night brought, an inconceivable uneasiness that left you clinging to any light you could find.
“Tell me-- Seeing as you’ve broken into my home and restrained me, what is your plan, Emilie? I’m very curious to know, because the only outcome I can truly see here is you never seeing the sun rise again.”
