Chapter 14

This was the worse possible outcome. His fears had come true. His blood ran cold and he started to panic.

"No." Damien whispered, grabbing his head with wide eyes. "No, you can't be here. You can't see me. Fuck, you can't see me." He muttered and pulled his hair. He was shaking.

"But I have seen you, Aoi." Dana grinned and advanced on him, coming closer as she spoke. "I've waited so long to see you. Why did you hide from me? That's wasn't very nice, you know. I wanted to see you so bad."

Damien stepped back, eyes trained on her, until he hit a wall. She had backed him into a corner. She got closer and closer. He slid down the wall and covered his eyes, cursing under his breath. Dana stopped in front of him and knelt down to his level.

"I love you, Aoi." She whispered. The insane, bloodthirsty look in her eyes betrayed her words. "Did you notice? My alias sounds like yours. I chose it for that reason. To be close to you."

"I don't want you to be close to me." Damien said. "All you want to do is kill me. If you really loved me, you wouldn't want that."

"It's a special kind of love. You reject me, so we can only be together if you're dead."

"I keep telling you, I don't like girls." Damien snapped. "Just get over it and move on."

"I can only love you, Aoi. I've never loved anyone like I love you." Dana said with a blank face. She slowly reached over to touch him. "I remember when I fell for you. Watching you in that room, squirming in agony and shame. I wanted to do that to you, too." Her eyes became crazed again. "Can I do that to you?"

A horrible memory entered Damien's mind. When they were hurting him in that terrible room he now kept locked up, she was watching. When he was being demeaned and tortured, she was watching. She was always watching through the gap in the door. She didn't fully understand what was happening to him. She was too young to know what was going on. She may still not have known. She didn't understand it, but she liked it. It fuelled her sick fantasies, with herself replacing the men who did it.

She didn't love him. She loved the idea of hurting him. She would stop at nothing to make her morbid dreams reality.

The predatory look on her face grew and grew the closer her hand got to his face. She grabbed his cheeks with both and pushed her face closer to his. Her grin widened into a demented snarl. "I can't wait to slaughter you and keep your beautiful corpse as a trophy! You'll be my doll, and I'll do whatever I want with you."

It became too much for Damien to handle. He shoved her away, leapt to his feet and broke into a sprint. He had to get away from her. He didn't want to know what she had planned for him once he was dead.

He raced past her, but she wasn't going to let him go. She summoned her light kusarigama and swung the chain end at his legs. It wrapped around his ankle and tripped him up. His face and body hit the floor hard, making him dizzy for a second. When he glanced down, he saw the chain had encased his entire right leg in a tight grip.

Damien tore at the chain in desperation. Dana came closer, strolling over to him without a care in the world. He hated being anywhere near her. He knew what she was capable of. But no matter how much he pulled at the restraint around his leg, dug his fingers under it and made them bleed through the cotton gloves, he couldn't get it off.

Before he knew it, she was standing over him. He scooted away as fast as he could, but she dragged him back by the chain. She was now holding a vial of clear liquid. Damien's eyes widened in horror.

Holy water.

In a terrible panic, he tried to drag himself away, scraping at the floor with his already damaged nails. But she pulled him back every time. She shoved her hand into his hair, yanked his head back, pulled off his eyepatch and poured the liquid onto his face, straight into his eyes.

A searing, burning pain seeped into his flesh and eyes. He couldn't suppress the scream of agony that tore from his throat. He wiped at his eyes in a panic, trying to get it out. The pain was unimaginable, like the poison from a snake seeping into his skin and blinding him. All the while, Dana was laughing.

"Does it hurt, Aoi?" Dana asked. "I won't let you rest until you agree to fight me. I'll torment you until the end so I can own you forever."

Damien heard a familiar soft voice call for him in horror. He couldn't see, but he knew who it was immediately.

"Dimmy!"

☽☾

Kitty had been searching for half an hour when he heard a pained scream. He swore his heart stopped. Was it Damien? He prayed that it wasn't.

He raced in the direction of the shout and found Damien on the floor, clutching his face. A girl was standing over him, staring at Kitty like a deer in headlights. But his focus was on Damien. He rushed to his side and held him.

"Dimmy? Dimmy, what's wrong?" Kitty asked. His anxiety was growing. "Is it your eyes? What happened to them? Let me see."

Damien shook his head. "It burns." He whispered. "Oh God, it burns!"

"Dimmy, let me see!" Kitty begged him. He could feel tears welling up in his eyes. Damien's distress made his heart ache.

He managed to pry Damien's hands away from his eyes and gasped at what he saw. Red raw rashes around his eyes and various parts of his face, as if someone had thrown acid at him. His eyes were wide and bloodshot. Tears were streaming down his face, black from his right eye – his devil eye – and clear from his left. Kitty couldn't tell if it was because he was crying or because of the trauma to his eyes.

Whispering his name in stunned sorrow, Kitty cradled Damien in his arms. He was shaking and whimpering like a frightened child, digging his knuckles into his sore eyes to stop the burning. Kitty couldn't help crying over his condition. He'd never seen him so distressed. He hugged him tight, whispering that it would all be OK.

He remembered the girl standing next to Damien. She must have caused this. Kitty's head snapped around to where she was, a glare on his face. He was ready to yell at her and ask her what had she done, but when he turned around, she was gone.

All he could do was hold Damien and comfort him as much as he could. He desperately wanted to make the pain and fear go away, but he didn't know how. He heard someone shouting Damien's name.

Satan rushed down the hall and knelt beside his son. "Is he OK? What's wrong?"

"I don't know!" Kitty said. "I just found him like this. I didn't see what happened. But there was this girl standing next to him! He has burns on his face and eyes! I think she did something."

"Girl?" Satan had a terrified look on his face. "What did she look like?"

"I didn't get a good look at her. I was too worried for Dimmy. But I know she had short black hair."

Satan's eyes widened. "Shit." He muttered and shook his head.

He looked over at the now empty vial on the floor. There was clear liquid surrounding it. Satan reached over, index finger extended, and touched the liquid. His hand shot back and he hissed. His finger was burnt, like Damien's skin.

"Holy water." He whispered in horror.

Damien began hyperventilating and trembling more. Kitty tried to calm him, but he inhaled suddenly like he couldn't breathe, and became limp in Kitty's embrace.