Bane

January 6, 1980

10:00 AM

Trent sat in his living room staring into the fireplace as the flames consumed his tuxedo.

Only the night prior he was covered in the lifeblood of the girl he loved, but a fresh shower and a restful night's sleep later he was back in step, evidence burning away before his eyes.

Trent sat back on the couch, and watched as the last piece of fabric curled in on itself and turned to Ash.

It worked for Lizzie Borden... except she was sloppy. Not sloppy enough for the court to find guilt in her, but sloppy enough to leave questions for all time.

There would be no question of his innocence. There would be no questions whatsoever. No one saw him - and no one would see him - not until his brush with Nadjia was healed up. He held his hand over the scabbed wound on his cheek. The piece of his face she bit off as some last bit effort at spite.

As though she understood what spite truly meant.

He did manage to dig the piece of his cheek out of her mouth, and took pride in his attention to detail. He wouldn't want the police on some macabre Cinderella manhunt, trying to match up a the piece of his cheek with its rightful owner.

The only loser in that outcome was Trent. So he left the piece with her eyes at the MacAllen​ ruins. He hid them well from sight, beneath the floorboards, and would return soon enough to put her eyes in a proper box.

Trent spent the majority of his life lamenting the absence of his parents. Always away on business, or holiday, and never including him in the family. A son scorned? No. That was a silly kind of dramatic, and it was not remotely the truth. Independence. That was his strength.

Once upon a time he dreaded their long absences, but especially during those rains that came bringing with them the nightmares of ghosts beckoning him to his doom. When he learned they would just as gladly buy his affection, and his silence, than deal with whatever trivial complaints he had, he embraced the wealth, and the wealth that came with his independence.

To be able to do whatever he would without anyone to tell him otherwise.

All his accomplishments before eighteen years.

Trent felt a rush of cold, despite the warmth from the fireplace, and stood from the couch, rubbing his hands together. He walked casually to the neatly stacked pile of firewood beside the hearth, picked up a log and placed it carefully into the fire.

Trent held his hands up to the fire and warmed them, unable to shake the chill in the room. Trent turned, and started back toward the couch, and screamed.

Nadjia sat on the end of the couch staring at him through cavernous hollows where her eyes had been. Trent back peddled and tripped onto the hearth, his hands catching his fall on the burning logs. "Fuck! Fuck! No! You're dead!"

Trent rolled away from the hearth, eyes clenched, blowing on his hands. He pushed himself along the floor with his feet until he felt the wall behind him, and covered his face with his hands, his palms stinging against his face.

Trent, knees pulled up, hands over his face, only heard his breathing, and the sound of the crackling fire, stroked by his inadvertent direct handling of the logs.

After a long silence, what felt like the passage of minutes, he uncovered his face. She was almost nose-to-nose with him as he stared into her ragged hollow sockets, her olive complexion pallid. Trent screamed, and felt warmth spreading from the front of his pants, to the back.

Trent felt light headed as his vision became flooded with splatters of black that finally stole his sight. There was only a vague sensation of falling as he slid along the wall to his side before darkness took him completely.