She was breathing hard and for a quick second, there was lust in her at last, but she’d pushed it down and grabbed the handle of her door to open it. “Don’t push your luck anymore tonight.”
“It wasn’t luck that I had tonight, but skill,” I said, walking to edge of her door. “Have you ever seen a wolf-dog as they die?”
She flinched, her whole body freezing, her eyes going wide as she stared at me. I went on as if I didn’t notice.
“In those final moments, the pain becomes so bad, the dog part of them dies, and all that’s left is the wounded wolf. The wolf knows to fight to their final breath. It doesn’t care who or what, it could even be another wolf-dog, their own pup, and it will still claw and bite and rip them apart. No more friends or foes… It’s blind to everything else but its own survival… You remind me of a dying wolf-dog, Donatella. And its shame because you don’t have to die.”
I stepped out of the room, but she continued stand in the doorway; unblinking and staring at the space in which I had once stood. Frozen.
“I look forward to tomorrow’s battle. If everything goes as planned, I’ll be able to explain what it is I’m waiting for.”
She slammed the door closed.
Till tomorrow then.
DONATELLA
Sitting in front of the mirror, I couldn’t get Gabriel’s words out of my ears. They just kept replaying on a loop in my mind.
You remind me of dying wolf-dog, Donatella.
You remind me of dying wolf-dog, Donatella.
A…dying wolf-dog, Donatella—
“I’m not dying,” I said to my reflection. Reaching up I felt the burning in my throat…unsure of where the pain was coming from.
“I’m not dying.”
THIRTEEN
“The Devil is real and he’s not some little red man with horns and a tail. He can be beautiful because he's a fallen angel and he used to be God's favorite.”
~ Leah (American Horror Story)
DONATELLA
He was the Devil.
And this was Karma.
I had killed Tobias and so now I had…Satan. I was sure of his identity now. How else could one man walk into this family and make a mess of things so quickly? He caused chaos and destruction whenever he opened his mouth. What was worse, I wasn’t sure how to escape this yet… And just like always, it seemed I’d been left on my own to deal with the aftermath of someone else’s shit.
Satan had decided to marry me.
Of course, this was the type of life I had.
I really am a Greek tragedy in the making.
“Should I gouge out my eyes?” I whispered softly to myself as I floated in the water of the pool.
And Satan replied, “Seeing as you are already in water, why don’t you stick with Shakespeare and drown yourself?”
Opening my eyes and allowing my legs to drop down as I stood, I looked to where he was now sitting; in my white pool chair, drinking my smoothie, while once again reading the same book from lunch.
“And you’re here, why?”
“Here in this house? Or here at the pool?” he questioned, not bothering to look at me…even though I was half naked in the water…that was new.