Dance With The Devil

by Erin Trejo

  “It hurts, Kellin,” she cries harder. Her body slowly gives out and we both slide to the floor. I cradle her in my arms as Lacrista hovers nearby. I look up at her and she gives me a short nod. Rose is hysterical. There is no calming her. There’s no way to erase what we did to her. What they did to her. There’s no way to take it all back now. She’s ruined and her mind is crushed. I see Lacrista walk back over with a needle in her hand. Trying not to cause alarm, I don’t say a word when she leans down and pricks it into the side of Rose’s neck.

  “What did you do?” Rose screams and tries to fight me, but I hold her tighter.

  “It’ll help you rest, Rose. You need to rest,” Lacrista tells her.

  “I hate you,” Rose whispers to the air, her eyes beginning to flutter. She could mean me, she could mean Lacrista - I don’t really know anymore. When she’s finally asleep, I lift her in my arms and carry her into the bedroom tucking her in.

  “You’re good with her.”

  “Is there a reason I shouldn’t be?” I ask as I walk back into the living room, grabbing and lighting a new cigarette.

  “No, I was simply stating a fact. You seem to be calmer than she is.”

  “I lived there my whole life, Doc.”

  She slowly shakes her head. “Which is why I would think this would be harder on you. Of course Rose was subjected to inexplicable things, but you were raised in that and now it’s all been taken away from you. It has to be affecting you.”

  “Stop psychoanalyzing me, Doc. Just because you think you know what it was like, don’t fool yourself into believing you understand. You have no fucking idea. I will deal with this in my own way on my own time,” I snap.

  “By hurting her?”

  “Is that what you saw?” I ask, trying to keep my temper under control, which is proving to be more difficult than I thought it would.

  “Yes, that’s exactly what I saw. You can’t counter her actions by doing them yourself. I know this is new to both of you, but you are both going to have to learn coping skills,” she tells me.

  “Coping skills?” I chuckle as I blow out a ring of smoke. “I was raised to worship Satan. I was made to believe that everything he is, is real. I was praying to the darkness of hell since I could open my mouth, and now you want me to learn coping skills! I think I’m doing a pretty damn good job myself. I haven’t lit a candle in days,” I remind her harshly.

  “If I were to set them in front of you, you would light them,” she states.

  “Is that a challenge?”

  “No, Kellin. It’s not. I know what I’m talking about, I’ve seen it. Just know that I’m here for you. For both of you.” With that she stands and walks toward her room.

  I bring the cigarette back to my lips and lean back in the chair. It’s only been a few days. I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel at the moment. Regret? Sadness? I don’t feel any of those things. Maybe I’m the broken one. Maybe it isn’t Rose after all. There’s a heaviness weighing me down, a boulder on my chest.

  Twenty

  Rose

  I can feel them. The evil presence. They taunt me, torture me in my sleep. I sit in the corner holding myself as I rock back and forth. They won’t stop. They won’t be quiet.

  “Rose?”

  “You still believe in it all, don’t you?” My eyes find Kellin’s and they’re just as bloodshot as mine are. I watch him but he doesn’t say a word. There’s my answer. Even after all, this he still believes. How can we move on like this? How can we change?

  “Don’t you?” I scream this time.

  “What do you want me to say, Rose?”

  “I want you to tell me why you are so reluctant to tell me. Why can’t you say that you never really believed in all that shit?”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why?” I scream louder.

  “Because, I can’t, Rose!”

  “Why the hell not?” I won’t let this go. I need an answer, because every time there were rituals, I could see the look in his eyes. Kellin shoves off the bed, running his hand over his face before he turns to look at me.

  “You want to know why?” I nod my head yes even though I see the pain in his eyes, even though it hurts him to give voice to these haunted truths.

  “If I admit that I didn’t truly believe in Satanism then I would have killed my mother for nothing! Does that make you happy?” His anger hits me hard but his words hurt me worse.

  “You didn’t do it because you wanted to, Kellin,” I remind him. He laughs darkly and shakes his head.

  “Don’t you get it? I did want to. I thought that’s what I was supposed to do to please the coven, to please him. I didn’t bat a fucking eye, Rose. I raised that knife and I plunged it into her heart without blinking!” He turns and storms from the room as I follow behind him.

  “It wasn’t your fault!”

  “Oh really? Then whose fault was it? Who took her life, Rose, if it wasn’t me?”

  At that moment, Lacrista comes out of her room but doesn’t say anything. She stands off to the side and watches like she has been the last few days. She talks to us; we respond minimally to her when we feel like it, but most of the time we do this. We fight until one of us slams a door. I hate it. I hate that this is what we’ve become. There are days that I wished we were back inside those walls because there I knew who and what I was. There I knew who Rose was to me. Out here, I don’t have a clue.

  “Them! They brainwashed you. They brainwashed me, Kellin, and even though I’m finding it hard to get away from it all, I know what happened.”

  “You don’t know anything, Rose. Do you know what it was like to see the devil in the flames that danced in front of you? Do you know what it felt like to have to fuck some girl on a slab of concrete just because they told you to? I’m screwed up, Rose!”

  “No, you’re not. She’s right, Kellin. You were brainwashed and it’s not easy to come back from something that traumatic. It’s going to take time for you to heal and learn. You can’t do it all in one day,” Lacrista adds.

  “No one asked you!” he snaps.

  “You never asked me, but you do take it out on her. Does she deserve that after what they did to her?” His breathing slowly calms down as he stares at the floor.

  “She doesn’t deserve any of it and I don’t deserve her. I let them hurt her. I hurt her,” he whispers softly but we all heard him. I step closer, but when his head snaps up and I see the look in his eyes, I stop.

  “You don’t know what you’ve done for me. You don’t know how many nights I wished for you. I’m safe with you. I’m safe in your arms, Kellin.”

  “I hurt you, Rose. I took you and forced you into that life. It’s Stockholm syndrome or something similar. It has to be,” he says, keeping his eyes on mine.

  No, I won’t accept that. I won’t believe that because when I’m with Kellin the world seems right. Everything is okay as long as he’s there.

  “I don’t think the feelings Rose has for you stem from Stockholm syndrome. Rose had to adapt, she was forced to take part in rituals and things that she’d never known about before. She sought you out for comfort, Kellin. She turned to you because you were the one place that she felt safe.”

  “I could have killed her. How was she ever safe with me?” His gaze is now on Lacrista.

  “Did you want to kill her?” His eyes slowly close as he takes a deep breath. When he opens them again, I can see the remorse. Oh my God. He wanted me dead.

  “At first, all I could think about was making her wither up and die. She was a rose after all,” he says, sounding pained.

  “But you didn’t kill her,” she adds.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I couldn’t. The more I saw her, the more I knew her. I knew she had already lived through her own hell. I replaced hers with mine. I pulled her deeper into the darkness, and if there was any way to bring her out of that, I wanted to.”

  I’ve never heard so much emotion i
n his voice as I do now. My heart beats a little faster, my thoughts slowing a little more. Kellin is slowly revealing a little more of his true self and I want it. I want to grab ahold of it and hold onto it for as long as I possibly can because without him, I don’t think I will survive.

  “And you did that. You brought her out of that world, Kellin. Look at her,” she says as his head slowly turns toward me. Hot tears already spill down my cheeks.

  “I let them ruin her. I let them take her to a place she never deserved. I’m sorry, Rose.”

  The sobs clog in my throat as I rush to him. I throw my arms around his neck, crying onto his shoulder. His arms wrap around me, holding me tighter than I’ve ever been held before.

  “You two have a long road ahead of you. This isn’t going to be easy and I think you both know that. It’s hard enough to try and overcome these things as a person but now there are two of you. I honestly don’t know if you two truly love each other or the idea of each other. In the moment, you were all the other had and that makes this that much harder. Now you both need to look at yourselves as individuals, not as one person. You need to find your own strengths and weaknesses and learn to be who you are meant to be.”

  Twenty-One

  Kellin

  Days bleed into night. Nights turn to weeks and then months. The struggle has been something I wouldn’t wish upon anyone. When you have nothing to believe in, you go in search of something. Alcohol has become my new friend. It keeps me somewhat sane. Even when people say your demons can swim, mine haven’t. Those fuckers have sunk with every drink I take which only makes me drink a little more. Of course, when the numbness wears off, they’re back in full force. They eat at the edge of my mind and feed on my soul.

  Rose? I don’t really know how Rose is doing. I walked away. I had to. The remorse, the regret that I felt ran too deep and I couldn’t see sitting there and hurting her more. But I miss her. Fuck, do I miss her. I could fall into her arms, knowing she would keep me safe and sane at least for a little while. But that’s something I find hard to handle right now. I could lose myself in her embrace and she would drown out all of the pain.

  My head spins as I sit in the back booth of the local bar downing drinks like water. I’m still not sure where the hell I am since I just walked away from everything and everyone. I never was much of a drinker in the coven, I never really needed it. Inside those walls I had a purpose. I knew what I was there and what was expected of me. Out here, I’m lost. I don’t know what to do with myself even though I don’t have to do anything. All of what my father had came to me after his death. Financially I’m set. Psychologically I’m fucked. But Rory made sure I would be okay. I still can’t believe Rory did it. He blew that place up and didn’t even blink. He let his life be taken so that we could live. At the time I didn’t know that’s what he was doing, but when the first explosion happened, I felt it. He made the ultimate sacrifice, his final and consummate attempt at atonement for his sins.

  Since I’ve been on the outside, I’ve found myself wondering. Was he damned to hell with Satan for eternity? That’s what we’re taught inside those walls, but out here there are other beliefs. We never learned much about God in the coven, mainly because there was no reason to do so. He was the enemy. Out here? He seems to be the go-to and that makes me wonder. Is there a heaven? Is there a God that people actually believe in, the way we did Satan? I’d like to think he’s somewhere better, that’s the only thing that can bring me a little peace in all that he did.

  I still have a hard time wrapping my mind around the fact that I killed my own mother. The thought that everything I was, everything I believed was for nothing makes it that much worse. Inside those walls, I was a Satanist. I was a member of a coven. I executed the deeds set forth for me by my King and by Satan. Or did I? Taking down another shot, I lay my head back and close my eyes.

  “This is the last place I thought I’d find you.” That voice drifts through my head but I figure it’s all the alcohol I’ve ingested. “Are you dead?” Now I open my eyes and see her standing here, a smile on her face. I blink my eyes rapidly to makes sure it’s really her and not a figment of my imagination.

  “Are you real?” She laughs now, and it’s the best sound I’ve heard in a long time.

  “I’m real, Kellin.”

  Shoving out of the booth, I grab her and pull her into my arms. She hugs me back and my heart beats a little faster. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe that she’s actually here after so long.

  “I didn’t know where they took you,” I slur. Ebony pulls back and it’s only then do I notice her stomach. Sickness tugs at me as I shake my head. Vomit lodges in my throat. That can’t be. No way.

  “It’s his, isn’t it?” I can’t tear my eyes away because I know. I know it’s his baby and the thought alone draws out the darkness in me.

  “I’m happy, Kellin. I have a great therapist who is helping me and I’m truly happy.”

  “Are you? That’s his spawn inside of you!” I roar. Ebony’s eyes fill with tears as she shakes her head.

  “No! It’s my child! My baby.”

  “It’s his though, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” She finally gives me the answer I don’t want. Fuck! Why is this happening?

  “Are you keeping it?”

  “What should I do, Kellin? Sacrifice it?” she hisses.

  “If you were smart you would! Nothing good comes from him. Look at me!” I scream, throwing my arms wide. The hurt in her eyes stings, but I can’t help it. He ruined me long before I was brought into this world and now there’s another one. Another spawn of his, something else that could come out as evil as I did. People stare as I wonder how she found me but then I figure Lacrista is probably still keeping some sort of tabs on me. She wouldn’t let me go without her people knowing where I am at all times, that isn’t like her.

  “I didn’t come here for this, Kellin.”

  “What did you come here for, Ebony? Huh?” I hate myself. I hate what I’ve done in the past, I hate who I am, who I was. They are all one and the same and I’m not sure that the bond between these facets of me can ever be broken.

  “I was asked before we were ushered out of the buildings to give you this,” she says as she digs in her bag and pulls out an envelope. “Rory wanted you to have it. I just… I didn’t have the strength to bring it or to see you before now.”

  We’re both silent as I stare at the paper in her hands. It takes a long time before she speaks again.

  “I wasn’t able to stay with the other girls. They split us all up but twelve of them killed themselves.”

  “Fuck,” I whisper under my breath. I knew it was going to be hard to get away from that but this hard? I never expected this. The pain that still lingers, the memories that still haunt me must have been worse for them.

  “Well, here. I just needed to give you this,” she says, dropping the envelope onto the table before turning.

  “She hates me. Rose does.” That caught her attention. She turns back and steps closer, resting a hand on my shoulder.

  “She doesn’t hate you. I don’t think you truly know what that word means. You should go to church, Kellin. Talk to them.”

  “Church?” I snort.

  “I’m serious. That’s the only way I’ve been able to deal with all this. God is something different. Something far better than Satan ever was. I hated this baby inside of me. I wanted it gone, I wanted nothing that had anything to do with him, but they asked me to wait it out. And once I was introduced to God, things changed for me.”

  “I’m glad they helped you, but I don’t think I believe in anything anymore. I don’t know that I can let myself do that again.” She nods her head and I can see the compassion in her eyes. She really is happy. I wish I could say the same.

  “I need to go. It was good seeing you, Kellin.”

  I watch her turn and walk out the way she came, leaving a path of light behind her. How can she move on so easily even after everythin
g that happened to her?

  “You shouldn’t be here,” Lacrista’s voice comes from behind me. I shake my head and huff out a laugh before sliding back into the booth. She moves to sit across from me.

  “Why not?”

  “This isn’t helping, Kellin.”

  “What would help, Doc? Huh? Nothing else has worked.”

  “Have you read it?” She nods toward the envelope on the table. She knows. Of course she fucking knows.

  “You set that shit up too?” I ask, grabbing my bottle and downing the last of my beer.

  “I knew she had it. The therapists have stayed in close contact with one another to keep up with progress.”

  “So you knew that they killed themselves?” I ask, raising an eyebrow. She looks down at her hands and nods her head. Figures.

  “I reached out to Ebony and asked her to bring that to you. I could have gotten it, but I wasn’t asked to give it to you. She was. I thought maybe if you saw how well she was doing, you would consider more for yourself.”

  “More for myself? Like what? Running off to a new faith like she did? Switching sides like taking a fucking breath?” The words are filled with pure hatred even though I can’t blame her for what she’s done.

  “She has more than herself to think about now. She has a child that needs it’s mother,” she says.

  “She has a fucking spawn forced inside of her by an evil bastard. Don’t you get that?” Anger is slowly ebbing out of control inside of me. I don’t want to be like this but how do I stop it?

  “I do get that, but that baby is also a piece of her and is a part of you. You share a father, which makes that baby your relative, Kellin.” Shaking my head, I snort a laugh.

  “That child is nothing to me!”