Devil Inside

I Need Some Fresh Air.

*AN - for those following the soundtrack to this book, I've chosen Youre a Lie by the ever awesome Slash and Myles Kennedy to reflect Elsa's struggle with lying to her friend.*

Elsa's biggest challenge before she had college to focus on again, was keeping her mind occupied. She felt so alert all the time, so aware of everything going on around her. If she wanted to, she could count every particle of dust in the air in less time than it used to take the dust to make her sneeze. Her new abilities were taking some getting used to and she fluctuated between hating herself and being filled with awe and wonder at what she could do.

It was as she sat in her room during her second solid hour of testing how long she could hold her breath that she heard the front doorbell ring. To be more precise she had heard the sound of someone's fingertip hesitantly touch the doorbell without pushing it. Next she had heard their heart rate pick up a little and their teeth set together as they'd determined they would press the doorbell and then she'd heard the same fingertip jab at the button, holding it down just ever so slightly longer than was necessary before releasing. She knew who it was, the smell of Kate's blood was unmistakable to her, it was the only human blood she had ever tasted and Elsa felt the strongest surge of hunger she'd experienced since leaving the clinic. She gripped the edge of her desk, jaw clenched and her fingers sunk easily into the wood, making it crack and splinter. It took a huge amount of self-control for Elsa to recover herself enough to administer one of her emergency doses of serum and once she had she felt strangely proud of herself. If she could be around Kate without slipping then there was hope for her yet, and everyone around her.

Elsa looked at herself in the mirror, something she generally preferred not to do now. She felt that she looked like a completely different person no matter how much her father tried to convince her she was the same Elsa to him. She didn't see how anyone could fail to notice how her eyes looked like they burned with flickers of incandescent flame but Hesper had assured her that humans were 'not very observant' and Elsa just had to hope that was true.

Satisfied that her urges were under control and she looked as normal as she could, Elsa turned her efforts to now behaving as normally as possible as she walked down the stairs to answer the door almost as soon as the doorbell was finished ringing, mere seconds had passed since she first heard Kate's finger hesitate.

Kate looked surprised to see the door opened so quickly and took an involuntary step back. “Er – hi Elsa,” she said awkwardly.

Elsa read her friend carefully, Kate was feeling wary, undecided, confused. Elsa knew she had some ground to make up after their parting words a few weeks ago, Kate was unsure of where she stood and unsure of Elsa as she rightly should be.

“I am so sorry for what I said to you Kate,” Elsa launched straight into the apology she had been rehearsing, “I wasn't myself, I didn't want anyone near me, I said the only thing I knew would make you go away but it wasn't me speaking I swear. I wasn't well, I just didn't realise. I promise you on my life I didn't mean it.” She realised the 'on my life' bit didn't really mean much but hoped it made the whole thing more believable for Kate and she really was sorry, that much was true.

It was working, Elsa could feel Kate's wariness start to diminish and she suddenly felt full of warmth for her friend. She had always liked Kate, she was fun to be with, energetic and exuberant but now Elsa could really see into her heart and she realised she had vastly underestimated what a good, kind heart Kate had. Elsa had been so horrible to her and within a few short sentences she could already feel forgiveness emanating from Kate and even guilt that she had felt angry with Elsa in the first place.

“I, I should have realised you wouldn't behave like that unless there was something wrong,” Kate stammered.

Elsa shook her head, dragging her friend into the house, careful to be gentle as she was aware that she really didn't know her own strength yet.