Lola's questioning lasted for what felt like hours in Al's mind. It may have only been ten minutes, but the boredom made it feel like an eternity. Only hours after she had left did he feel like he could finally begin making his way home.

  He had only just made it off the property line when he spotted her waiting for him by her car. The vulnerable persona wouldn't work seeing as she had already seen through it, yet it bothered him little.

  "Do you remember how many lives you've taken?" she asked him with sadness in her eyes.

  "Not really, it just becomes a blur after the first ten or so."

  The discussion between Jane and Lola had made it clear in his eyes that she had no power to put him in custody. All she could do now was try to sway him with words. But words would hardly steer him away from the course he was on when he had gotten so far.

  "You enjoy it don't you?"

  "Not particularly," he sighed.

  He had long since stopped enjoying the killing. The first few times had felt exhilarating, but with time it had grown mundane and almost ordinary. Only the battle against Garuda had managed to awaken some of the feelings he had experienced when he first took a life and he hadn't even been able to enjoy it at that time.

  There was a glimmer of hope in Lola's eyes. Almost like she thought that he would stop for no other reason than that the bloodshed had become somewhat boring and repetitive in his mind. It was foolish, because monsters like him didn't change. They only improved.

  "It's as if you believe you lack humanity, yet you clearly love Jane."

  That was strange. Nothing he had said or done when she had talked with Jane had indicated that he held any affection for the girl. How had Lola discovered that? Could be she wielded some magic that allowed her to sense emotions or maybe read someone's subconscious mind.

  "My feelings for Jane doth not a human make me," he said with all flowery pronunciation he could muster.

  "Pietro made you like this didn't he?"

  No, the trauma may have created the emptiness, but the vile darkness had always laid within him since his very first breath. That much he was sure of. The emptiness had just put his darker self on ice for a good number of years before Jane drew it out of him once more.

  "I suppose it depends on if you consider him making me to be his fault."

  He hadn't been normal for as long as he could remember. Perhaps the emptiness had made him seem more standard when it had controlled him, but there had never been a time in his life when the darkness hadn't been present in him.

  There had always been things that he just couldn't stop himself from doing. His relationship with the rest of humanity was almost always antagonistic in some way or another. If they got in his way he would kick them down, if they tried to rattle him then he would break them, and if they were on Jane's list he would kill them.

  "Even when you do monstrous things there's still a reason."

  "There's a reason for everything, Lola, all lifeforms are driven by motivations evolutionary or otherwise."

  "The first man you killed was for the Witts girl's sake wasn't it?"

  It had been for pleasure and nothing else. That fuck had disgusted him and seeing him reduced to nothing more than a faded memory was something that he had done for his own enjoyment. It had been nothing more and to assume it was would be utterly delusional.

  "You were worried about your sister and her friend's wellbeing so you convinced yourself you wanted to kill him when you were really just trying to protect them."

  How did she know about that? She was wrong when it came to the motivation, but how had she discovered that Annie's uncle had been an abusive piece of shit. That information shouldn't have been in Lola's possession seeing as not even the police had known.

  "You kill for Jane because you want to see her happy, and not because you enjoy the bloodshed."

  Those observations were far from the mark. Of course he wanted to see Jane happy, but he needed the bloodshed. The emptiness would almost certainly overtake him if the carnage stopped and Jane wasn't there to fill the void during his every waking moment.

  "Would you shut up already!" he hissed.

  "You deny that there's any good inside you despite the fact your true motivation is seeing those you love happy!" she cried out.

  She was reading something inside of him and maybe even forcing him to experience the new emotions that were coursing through him in that moment. Those strange new feelings raging within him were practically unidentifiable, but they disgusted him. He reached for the incomplete spell he had constructed within himself when he had fought Garuda and filled it with power.

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  "Nihil!"

  The wave of eroding nothingness struck Lola. A trickle of blood dripped from her nose as she cried out in pain and collapsed on the ground before him. His spell had found something to erase and it had inflicted unimaginable pain on the woman before him.

  Blood kept dripping from her nose as he walked up to her prone body. The nihil had erased whatever magic she had used on him, and the backlash had left her helpless.

  "You don't know anything about me and never claim that you do ever again," he said before he began marching towards the station.

  That new spell he had started constructing when he and the shadow had acted as one felt completely different from the nihilation. It didn't destroy things so much as erase them and it didn't seem limited to affecting physical objects. An invaluable tool if he could figure out how to complete it.

  Night had already fallen when he stepped into his home. He threw himself on the couch and could finally truly breathe.

  "Long day, Al?"

  The voice was high pitched, but it hadn't been his sister. The girl sitting next to him was around his sister's age and had bandages over most of her body. He could see the nasty burns on her face only barely covered due to how poorly they were wrapped.

  "Whoever wrapped your bandages did a terrible job."

  He leaned over and began adjusting the bandages covering half of Annie's face. He had forgotten she had been discharged from the hospital and would be staying with them from today onwards. His sister had refused to shut up about her friend living with them from now on, but he must have suppressed the memory somehow.

  "Thank you, Al, it was starting to really hurt but I didn't know how to adjust them myself."

  Most of the others in the house would already be asleep, but for some reason Annie hadn't gone to bed yet. She must have been sitting in front of the dark tv screen for quite a while.

  "We kind of match now, they could call us burn buddies or something."

  He must have forgotten to button the sleeve of his shirt. When she mentioned the burns he could feel them stinging again despite the fact they had healed years ago. But burns never healed cleanly.

  "You never talk about them, but I always noticed that you never left that arm uncovered."

  "I don't really like talking about them seeing as I got them due to my own stupidity."

  It was so strange how Annie could seem so positive despite how tragic her life had been. Losing her parents only to suffer the abuse of a vile guardian for years. Even now she seemed so strong despite the damage to both her body and soul. Maybe he should have taken care of her uncle sooner and this whole mess could have been avoided.

  "How come you're not asleep?"

  "It really hurts and the painkillers stopped working..."

  It would bother him for some reason if she was just sitting her all night. There was probably something he could do, but it would probably be risky.

  "Move in a bit closer," he said as he scooched back a bit in the couch.

  Annie crawled up to him and leaned against his chest. Why did he want to help her so badly? Had he always been that weak? Maybe the only reason he wanted to help was because seeing her suffering from those burns made the ones on his arm ache again.

  "It still hurts, but I guess it's not as bad as it was when I was lying in bed."

  It wouldn't hurt for much longer if what he was planning ended up working. He filled the spell inside him with power and activated it with a low whisper.

  "Nihil."

  He directed the spell towards her pain as best he could. The wave of nothingness washed over her and he heard a low sigh of relief from her. The pain had been erased, but it would most likely return so he kept pouring a little power bit by bit into the spell so that the pain would keep being erased.

  "Is that any better, Annie?"

  "Mhm, I think I might be able to fall asleep in a bit."

  Her pain would become bearable one day, but until then he would have to keep erasing it so she could experience the sweet release of a dreamless sleep. One day the emptiness might erase her pain for good or someone would come along to give her the joy she would need to conquer it.

  "I always knew you were nice, Al, but for some reason you pretend you're not."

  "I don't know what you mean," he muttered.

  First Lola and now Annie. Why were people obsessed with the idea of there being good in him? He only acted either because he desired excitement or because something was bothering him. It was ordinary egotism that they mistook for genuine altruism.

  "Remember when you were twelve and someone took Jennifer's stuffed bunny?"

  "I guess..."

  Jennifer had refused to stop crying. It had gotten so grating that he had chased the kid across half the city and beat him into pulp. The power he had felt in that moment was amazing and Jennifer had finally stopped crying. He had gotten rid of a headache and had experienced the euphoria of seeing someone helpless before him. It had been entirely for his own convenience, not some greater moral purpose.

  "I don't like violence, Al, but I can accept it because I know you do it to protect people."

  She was wrong, but what she didn't know couldn't hurt her. One way or another he got what he wanted when he stomped down the things that bothered him and if it convinced her that he was a good person then that was her problem.

  "You've always been protecting Jennifer and us when we needed you to, and even if they don't realize that it was you they are still thankful for it."

  Couldn't she fall asleep already? Her words were beginning to make him sick to his stomach. Helping them had been convenient and nothing more.

  "I know you killed him," she said sleepily.

  "What?"

  "You murdered my uncle and you were probably laughing your ass off and taunting him while you did it."

  How could she have know it was him? No, this had to be an assumption on her part. He sensed nothing magical from her, but how else could she have come to that assumption when there was almost no physical evidence linking him to the scene of the crime. There was no way she had even seen the crime scene.

  "Violence is wrong, but I'm still thankful that you answered the prayers in my dreams and tore him apart until there was nothing left."

  A surge of energy made the hair on his arm stand on end. He had sensed magic in her for a short moment. Was she emerging or was it a fluke? The power quickly faded within her after only a few short moments so it had to have been a coincidence.

  "Annie?"

  She had fallen asleep in his arms. He didn't want to wake her so he just remained seated. For whatever reason he did feel some kinship with her. Maybe the burn buddies comment had cracked him up a bit more than he would have liked to admit.

  He would just have to sit there until she woke up. One night without sleep wouldn't do him any real harm. The hours crawled along at a snails pace, which left him all alone with his thoughts and Annie's quiet breathing.

  He was a monster. There wasn't really any good inside him. Evil people would simply do what was most convenient. Whatever Annie, Lola, or anyone else saw in him was only something they had conjured up in their heads.

  Other than his love for Jane, he was nothing manifest. He was an urge to do violence. He was the eventual decline of all things. He was the night to their day, but why did the night seem so bright all of a sudden?