Lights Flicker And Fade : Kol Mikaelson [3]

239: Dead Angels

a/n: Happy Birthday MJ x
Love some Ruiz family flashbacks - remember to comment and vote <3

2003

Ryos had locked himself into a hotel room.

It had been three months since he'd left MiMi in New York, staring at the paper before him.

He had to tell her.

But he really didn't want to.

Not yet.

If his heart was still beating, he was not telling her.

Ryos knew his sister. He knew that if she thought he was about to die, she would sneak onto an aeroplane, which was the last thing the situation needed. She could not be allowed near him. Not while the smell of bodies was stuck to his skin.

He'd killed a receptionist, thinking it was Marcel.

He'd killed four random people on the street, thinking they were the French Quarter elders.

Two more, thinking they were Vincent and Eva.

'Thinking' was a dumb fucking word.

How could he think when black sludge was pumping through his body? Maybe that was the smell – it wasn't the deaths but the magic. Soaking into his flesh, unable to wash it off no matter how many times he stood at the sink, recreating Lady Macbeth until the skin started to peel.

"Don't pretend to feel guilty."

His mother was sitting on the bed.

"If you felt guilty, you would turn yourself in."

"We both know doing that would only make things worse."

"Do we?"

"I'd brake out."

"Only if you let yourself."

"I have a say in this?" Ryos spun to her, "I turn myself in - I still see you. And them. And let this – "

Dark veins wrapped around his body like snakes

" – Take over."

"For someone meant to be my child..."

Ana's hallucination sat up.

"...You are so weak."

He swallowed.

Everything was on fire.

Not actually – not the room – but him.

Blood burning with every step, infected with something he couldn't cure. He'd had to stop going to school – not because he'd killed someone, but because the veins had finally spread so far up his neck and arms that there was no way to cover it. Not without magic – but each spell he cast had his vision blurring. Waking up in a new space, no clue how he'd gotten there, blood across his hands.

"No wonder you handed Mira over to strangers."

"Shut up."

"It's good to know your limits."

"Mamí – "

A sharp breath in.

It wasn't his mother.

Enough of Ryos's mind was still intact to remind him of that. Staring at the gaping hole in her chest. The red bleeding across his bed as she sat on it, smiling sweetly at him. Skin waxier each day the hallucination refused to go away. Like he'd taken the corpse on the flight with him.