In My Darkness: La Chatte Noire

Chapter Seventeen: La Chat Noire

Chapter Seventeen: La Chat Noire

Erik waited a few minutes, then walked up into her bedroom to check on her. She was leaning against the wall in the back of the room, her eyes downcast and her fingertips on the bridge of her nose. He walked forward and her eyes shot up to meet him. Her eyes weren't the usual color. All of the golden light had faded from them and they were purely a deep brown, almost black. It almost frightened him.

This was not the Camillé he knew. Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong. Her eyes reminded him not of a wild animal, not of a crazed psychopath, but of an emotionless, soulless, cold-blooded, logical, calculating killer. This was not the same woman who had kissed him so passionately the night before. This was not his beloved. No, this was someone completely new that he didn't know. He hadn't met this woman before. She frightened him; looking so much like his beloved and yet he knew they were nothing alike. This was the side of her that he hadn't seen, and a part he was unsure he wanted to.

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Camillé had felt her stir. She had felt the person inside her soul come awake and return to life. Damn Rabe for waking up the side of her that Erik didn't need to see. The side of her she didn't want Erik to see. This side of her was insane, this side of her was cold and lifeless, made only to do as it had to. She tried, she tried to push down the insanity that he had woken up in her. Yet she knew that it wouldn't leave, nor could she control it. Her emotions cooled and she numbed over, knowing that her mind was leaving it all behind. She was truly becoming la Chat Noire; the rogue, seductress, the murderess. Nothing rang in her mind but revenge. Giving those who deserve it what they deserve.

She heard his step and looked up at him, her face emotionless. The man she loved was before her, but her head blocked all feeling. She had been this way for so many years, it was simple for her to revert to the way she had been. Her heart was closed. Locked away until her mindset passed. Emotion was not a part of her mindset. After she had lost Araignée to De Manu Mortis, nothing had been the same. Her life had been ripped apart by these people and her mind sought only one thing, shutting off all else. She sought her revenge. And she achieved it.

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Erik watched Camillé carefully, as if watching someone unstable. He could tell that she was no longer there, that something had happened to the woman he loved. He had seen the same change in himself when he had lost his mind in Persia. Yet now he was seeing it in his sweet Camillé. He wished there were something he could do, but he knew that this was a flashback to her past. Still, he could not stand here and do nothing. If she stayed this way, he may not be able to retrieve her.

"Camillé?" he asked softly, "Camillé, are you alright?"

Her voice was flat. "I am perfectly fine. I believe it is time for me to go."

"Where are you going?"

She turned and picked up her bodice, lacing it in front and pulling the laces tighter than before. Her bodice didn't fit as it used to, but she paid it no heed as she pulled out each of her knives and checked them. All there, all sharp, and all fit for use. Good. She would need them where she was going.

Erik took another step towards her and she held out her hand, turning to him. "If you wish to retain your life, Erik, you will stay far away from me."

His earlier theory that this was a memory from her past taking over her mind was knocked away the moment she said that. They had not met in her past, so it would have been only basic facial recognition, not the full knowledge of who he was. But no, she knew him. So what was going on with his love?