The Black-Hearted Ninja (The Dark Triangle #1)

The Truth

"Where do I start?" Cole met Nya's hard gaze with a glare just as ominous. He attacked every syllable with vengeance, each consonant gaining emphasis. "You say I'm evil. That I'm bad. I killed people and I know that. But you never bothered to wonder why, until now? I have my reasons."

"You think you can justify this?" Nya gave Jay a little shake. "All of this?" With that she performed a gesture referring to the entire room, a hopeless, heavy motion. The bodies of everyone who'd died by Cole's hand still formed the heart around them. "What on earth could you tell me that would change my opinion of you?"

"The truth."

"Then let's hear it." Her voice was lower now, almost challenging him. There had only been about a 1 in 8 probability she'd be coherent at this point. This day was full of surprises.

     Cole almost said something scathing back. But Nya could never realize that Cole was the one she loved, Cole was her perfect match, Cole should be the person she would stand by, unless he showed her why he'd done it.

     "You don't know how much I cared for you back in the time Before." He started. It was a strange picture, that scene. Nya on the floor with Jay trapped within her arms. Jay's heart crushed with blood spattered everywhere. The dead bodies forming a heart around them. And then there was Cole, who'd started pacing back and forth nonchalantly like he didn't have a care in the world.

      "I thought about you constantly. I dreamed about you. When I became a ghost and you were the water ninja, I never gave up that we still had a chance, even though you could technically...kill me with one touch if you wanted-but that's beside the point. I tried to get you to realize how you really felt, Nya. I got into arguments with you just so we could have a conversation. You never knew, because of them." Cole stopped his pacing. More emotion was trickling into his voice, slowly, the most emotion he'd felt since the demon...possessed him? No, he was the demon. The demon was him. Cole did everything of his own free will. Don't question the demon.

"All our so-called friends never got it. They didn't understand us. They had to go!"

"You're insane!" Nya choked. "This isn't the Cole I knew! The real Cole would never kill anyone, not for anything!"

     "I thought you told Jay you just wanted me dead. Why are you making excuses now, huh? Because you don't want to believe this is the real me? Because you still love me, despite everything I've done?" Cole was back to his teasing tone, but now there was a hint of something else behind it. A kind of-pain.

    His pacing had begun again but stopped just in front of Nya as he leaned over her, close enough to touch. Cole hissed into Nya's ear like he had once done to Jay, enunciating carefully.

"Everything I did, I did for you."

Cole tilted his head slightly so that he was face-to-face with Nya. She didn't avert her gaze, although he could see she was struggling.

Jay said it first. Cole said it better.

     "We're perfectly matched. Yet even when I opened my heart to you, you didn't let me in. You went back to JAY. And I tried to let you go, but it's impossible. For me, there's nobody but you. I would wait for you forever. Jay may have been willing to die for you, Nya, but I went much farther. I killed for you."

     Cole was quaking. He had forgotten what emotions felt like and he didn't like their return. They made him vulnerable. He couldn't get them to go away, not Before, not now either. The demon was supposed to make feelings leave. His savior, his drug was failing him.

     "I would have done anything for you to look at me the way you looked at Jay. For you to hold me like you held him. Maybe I am insane. Maybe I'm evil. But isn't evil the absence of love? How can someone evil feel so much?" The hysteria was rising from deep within Cole. It was Nya's job to get all emotional and spill her true feelings, not his! What was he doing?

      Cole closed his eyes and took a breath. For one fraction of a second his face changed, and underneath his lids his eyes turned to brown, Before brown. It didn't last as the demon took hold, calming Cole's complicated thoughts and replacing them with the simplicity of his original plan.

    When he opened his black, black eyes, Cole found Nya still giving him that mysterious, unreadable stare. What was she thinking?

     Nya was a complete mess, cheeks hollow from malnutrition, clothes unrecognizable and completely covered with blood, fingernails long and jagged, and eyes gaunt and sunken from everything she couldn't unsee. Her face was so pale and delicate that could see her bluish veins. Cole caught the faint outline of the cut he'd made when he stroked Nya's cheek that fateful day. It was faded now, but stood out red against the ashen, almost gray tone of her skin.

"By the way, you look beautiful today."

Cole straightened up and reached into his pocket, pulling out Jay's finger bone. Nya's complexion lost even more color. It still had a faint sheen of blood.

       Cole cupped the bone in his two hands. As his talons closed around it, a low kind of humming noise pierced the room. The ground shook as black energy swirled around Cole's hands. It hurt, he thought. He felt power being wrenched out of him. Not all of it, but enough to weaken him. Luckily, the power seemed to be working as the bone twisted, warped, thinning and widening until it formed a shape. The newly made object rose up in shadow before slowly floating down to rest back on Cole's palm.

It was a ring.

The ring seemed to radiate darkness. Power surged through Cole as he touched it. His, the demon's, united as one.

Cole used his long claws to grip the ring securely. He lifted it from his palm and stretched his arm out until it was almost dangling in front of Nya's face.

"Take this ring willingly and you can join me, Nya. We'll be together forever, perfect. No worries because you can change, you can be like me."

"What if I don't?" Nya took a breath. "Will you kill me?"

"No. I'll simply have to convince you."

       Cole stood, waiting for her answer although he knew what it would be. Everybody told Nya to keep fighting and she never gave up. She was going to fight him until she broke, and then she was going to take the ring and be his forever. Cole wasn't looking forward to torturing Nya directly, he preferred to kill people she loved than physically hurt her. But if that was what it was going to take, he was prepared.

     Nya frowned and let go of Jay, standing up. She looked at Cole. She looked at the ring. Then, unexpectedly, a small smile formed on her lips.

"What took you so long, Boulder Brain?" She asked.

Cole blinked. What?

Nya held out her left hand. The smile stayed on her face, shining. Jay stayed on the ground, dead.

What Nya said was the last thing Cole expected. Something completely against everything he knew about her. The one thing he hadn't planned for, because it would never happen.

Never say never, Cole.

"Give me the ring."

Did Nya really do that? What's really going on here? Will this story ever end? Find all this out and more in the next update!