Miss Angelina [✔]

[20] Hiraeth

Owen was long gone when I heard the scream.

I'd have called it impeccable timing if it hadn't scared me half to death. It was feminine and sounded utterly terrified - my assumption wasn't Florence killing a new target, but instead, my first instinct was to walk to Luke's room. It wasn't as though murder was rare in the household, but this felt different to me, not quite the scream of someone being killed by a stranger. I approached his room and rested my forehead against the coldness of the wood as it slowly came ajar. I stood in the doorway as I took in the scene before me.

She was lying on the bed, hair sprawled against the pillow, her chest partially exposed under the sheets of the bed. He was hovering over her, knelt over her body with one hand wrapped around a glass of alcohol, and the other wrapped around a knife. The smell of copper was filling the room, and the perfect white sheets were drenched in the blood of a woman I adored. There was so much blood that I knew I couldn't push him away and attempt to save her - she was already dead. She was torn apart, completely mauled - it was the most feral kill I've ever seen Luke do. To put it bluntly, she was everywhere.

At first, I was speechless. I had seen this scene many times before, and my usual responses were usually "Did you enjoy it?" or "Where did you pick up this one?". These were questions of interest - I had no questions and no words for the scene in front of me. There was a slow feeling of anger that began to brew inside of me that was causing all sorts of feelings, and these feelings were creating scenes in my head that I desperately wanted to act out. Instead, I took a deep breath.

"Do you think she deserved this?" I call out to him, masking my undeniable anger with sympathy and pity. As much as I despised him at this moment, I couldn't bring myself to let him know that just yet. I could feel myself shake with emotion. I could already tell that I wouldn't be able to talk about this death well regardless of how heartless I wished I could be. Though one of my first thoughts was "At least, it wasn't Cleo - but I couldn't be sure of that, which only made matters worse.

"She loved me - this was a fine punishment." The sentence struck me as though it wished to stop my heart. Such few words brought me to a state of loss and blankness. I was absent from thought and breath. I was desolate; all vitality was taken from me. As the initial shock melted from my skin - anger soon replaced it.

"How could you do this? How could you take her of all people from me?" My tone had shifted from anger to pure and utter rage; I felt the need to ignore reason, to take the knife from his hand and slit his throat. My heart was beating much faster at this point, as though attempting to rip from the confines of my chest. My nails were gripping into my palm.

The silence he gave me in response was haunting. There was such a chill in the air, and as his eyes stared back at her, she understood why - there was a deadness in them, a completely frightening deadness, as though there was no love inside him anymore. I could only see the monster that I was the mother too, but the child of a monster is only one of two things, a greater monster or the end of the monster.

There are two types of anger in the world - wet and dry. The dry anger is your throat closing up, screaming, fighting - dry anger is wanting to kill someone with the fuel of all of your energy. Wet anger, this is what I was feeling - I was so angry, burning anger, but all that I could muster with my body was tears, warm tears that slid down my cheeks and washed out the colour of my skin. My gut was in pain; I felt as though I was rotting.

"I want you to leave this room Luke" His gaze lowered from mine to her lifeless eyes, before he moved off of the bed, and pushed past me without a word of regret or apology. He was a coward in more than one way - he was a coward in life, with people, business and management, but he was a coward in love - he hadn't embraced love since being a child. I replaced his mass on the bed, sitting as far on the edge as I could manage.