Book Two: Aquiver (A. Saltzman)

Chapter Ten

"Diana?" Alaric asks as he steps back through the school looking for her. Everything with Caroline has been dealt with, for now, now he is concentrating on his girlfriend and her crazy twin sister. "Diana" Alaric rushes to where Diana is sat on the floor with Eva's body. "You're okay" He breaths around as he sits next to her, scooting closer to her. "You are okay, right?" she glances at him, seems to just stare at him a moment before she nods and looks back at Eva.

"I had to" She whispers. "I had to kill her"

"I know, it's okay" he assures her and then turns her face, his eyes scanning over the bruises there. "Let me take you home" he states softly.

"No, I need to clean this up" She whispers. "I have to get rid of her body"

"Okay," he agrees. "Then let me help"

"No" She stops him. "This is my mess...I have to clean it up"

"Diana..." he starts. "You don't have to do this alone"

"I do, I do have to do this alone" She whispers. "Please" he nods a little and then kisses her head.

"I'll see you later" he whispers warmly, she nods and watches as he stands and walks away from her. Diana lets out a breath and turns her eyes back to Eva, they flicker black a moment and then disappear again.

.................

Alaric wraps his arms around Diana when she crawls into his bed. It's late. Dark out. He attempted to wait up for her but ended up falling asleep instead.

"You're freezing" he grumbles as she rests her head on his chest, his hand rubbing at her arm to try and warm her up.

"Sat outside for a while" she whispers against his skin.

"No, seriously, Diana, you're freezing" he leans back to look at her. She looks freezing too. He touches her cheek and then climbs out of bed.

"Ric" she complains. He grabs a blanket from the closet and walks back to the bed as she sits up, he wraps it around her. She is very pale from the cold, almost blue. He can't believe she just sat out there. That she didn't feel anything. That she didn't think to move.

"Are you okay?" he asks her.

"No" She answers. "No, I am not okay" she looks up at him. "I just killed my twin sister, for a second time..." She reminds him, he lets out a breath and nods. That's fair. "I'm sorry" she whispers.

"It's okay" he assures her as he tucks the blanket around her slightly and climbs back into bed with her. "How did she survive the first time?" he asks her.

"She didn't...her soul did" she answers. "It hopped into another body just before her original body died....saving her life. It's one of her....power things" She adds. He nods a little, processing that information.

"When she was talking, she said that they locked part of you away" He points out, she nods and pulls the blanket tighter around her.

"Yeah..." She agrees. "Me and Eva, whilst we were at the school, we started showing that there was a darker aspect to our souls" She whispers. "Something...evil" he looks at her. "Artemis, she said that there was a ritual we could undergo to remove that dark part of our soul and lock it away, preventing that evil from ever surfacing.." she looks at Alaric. "I agreed to do it...Eva didn't....and that darkness just grew in her, spread, overtaking her soul till there was nothing good left....she killed fifteen demigods before I killed her...and she didn't just kill them, Ric, she tortured them....made sure they suffered in the worst ways before their deaths..." she looks away again. "That could have been me"