Beloved Evil

EIGHTEEN

The humans were busy that day. They had in fact been busy that whole week. Running up and down the corridors, preparing rooms, preparing meals, making sure that every new guest was taken care of.

Tara's absence had been noticed but not questioned. She was still holding up in Lucifer's wing of the castle, she had been for a few days now. Her bruises were slowly fading away as well as the pain in her ribs and her head. She was moving around now, even though there weren't much to do.

She had flipped through some of the many books in the room but hadn't really found any of them interesting. They were all about destruction, about sins and vulgar pleasures. They didn't teach her anything new about the world she lived in now, only worsened her view on the demons around her. But then again, they did remind her of some of the novels she had read on earth. The feelings were very much the same; anger, resentment, the urge to take vengeance. But she could only take that many negative emotions at a time, and she had a great deal of her own at the moment, so she had begun drawing instead. She wasn't very good at it, but it was something to do, so she did it gladly. The rest of the time she slept. Her body needed rest to heal even though she was regularly visited by the witches who helped speed up the process. They would make her drink a brown liquid with dirty bits and pieces from who knows what mixed in it. It was awful, but it helped.

She hadn't seen Lucifer, not since he visited her the day she first woke up. It had only been a few days, and she knew he was busy with the overseers from the other castles, but every time the door opened, she still hoped it was him.

But it never was.

She didn't know what to do with the disappointed feeling she got every time she saw one of the witches faces instead of his. She tried pushing the feelings away, ignoring them, but there weren't much to do in the room besides thinking, so it became quite impossible not to analyse her disappointment.

It was clear to her that her and Lucifer's relationship had changed. How it happened or when it happened, she didn't know, but she knew it felt different; To look at him, to talk to him...

She wanted to scream into her pillow when the hair on her arms proudly stood up by the mention of his name. She had to get out of this room or she would go insane. On the other hand, she knew danger waited just outside her door. Maybe she should just stay in that room forever.

A man came to her room later in the evening, the same one that came every day to serve her food. It was generous servings too, so Tara was always more than happy to see him.

But today, he had something besides food with him, something that made Tara's blood run cold.

On the silver tray, that she herself had pushed around so many times, laid a black and white uniform, identical to the one she had worn before and gladly forgotten about.

The man put the plates on the table, unaware of Tara's pulse that had suddenly picked up its speed. He then carefully placed the uniform on the back of a chair, as if it wasn't going to get torn apart the second she walked out the door.

The man left without a word. Tara sat on her bed for a few minutes, looking at the uniform with unforgiving eyes. She was angry, she realized, and the feeling surprised her, made her embarrassed. Did she really think Lucifer would let her quit after what had happened?

Maybe she did...

She had lost her appetite, but she still walked over to the table, plumped down on the chair and began eating. The food was better than anything she had ever tasted in Hell, so she wouldn't let it go to waste.

She tried to ignore her companion across from her, but the white ruffles annoyed her to no end. The dress starred at her, it taunted her. It told her she was worthless, told her that Lucifer didn't care about her, and that she was a fool to let those feelings bloom in her chest to begin with. As if she had a say in the matter.