A Tear Of Insanity

Chapter 1

Lillith

Do I have a heart? Yes. Do I really want one? No- no i don't, because pain and poison has coursed through my veins more than blood. Sometimes, I wish I could do more than sit around and survive. Sometimes, I wish I could take a slow, bloody painful revenge. I would take my time and smile a sweet smile, while I watch their eyes dim. Unfortunately, I am not living out my fantasies. I am, instead, sitting here in my freezing house, on the brink of starvation.

Every day is either surviving on anything I can steal or hunting out back in the forest. Even those are rare finds and never much, but enough to keep our eyes open. Today however, I can't think about scraps of bread when it's the week of Obsequium. The week when they will choose which of us are fit to work for them. Which of us must leave the ones we love.

As I sit up in our makeshift, straw bed, dread settles in the bottom of my stomach, memories flooding my mind.
"Odelia!" My Mother's last words as her and Father were dragged out the doorstep by the Derman soldiers. Soldiers that were once amongst us. That were once Imus fathers, brothers and sons. I will never forgive the Altus nobles, until I look down into their eyes to see the fear that they once saw in mine. Fear, that would make them wish they were more than dead. Everyone I had was taken from me, it's only rational that I take back from them.

I don't cry anymore. Not until I was 14, a year after my parents were taken. I knew that tears would just waste the limited water our district had left. So, instead, my sorrow is locked inside, bolted up and stowed away. Until these seven days, when everything springs back into my mind and I am at risk of letting my facade fall away.

As I drown in my mental inferno, a tall, lean, shadow engulfs the light coming from the door. I know his oak and pine smell anywhere.
"Miss Stryder," he's using his stupidly handsome grin on me and it's making my blood boil.
"Sebastian Gray," I say frowning at him. He's 4 years older than me, same age as my backstabbing brother Leo. How I think of my brother everyday. Oh, I didn't mean that in an endearing way but a venomous, twisted way. I wonder about the day I get a hold of him and more importantly, what I will do to him.

Sebastian throws me a loaf of bread, still warm and fluffy in my hands.
"Where'd you get this?"
"A thank you would have been nice."
"Yeah? Well, if you were told to protect me and Leila, then this is also part of the job, so you don't need a thank you."
"Actually, I very well deserve a thank you." He pauses, " And I got it from Central Market, Burners Bakery."
"With your hunting money?"
"Yeah."
I take a bite of it, the soft, salty taste curling my toes and warming my frozen skin.
"It's good?"
"Mmm... It's really good." I moan, placing it on the small kitchen counter. "It was a nice offering, I guess. I have tasted it now... so..."
I point my eyes to the street outside.
"You can leave now," I suggest, sitting back on the bed beside Leila.

He smiles, utterly oblivious, leaning nonchalantly by the doorframe of the house.
"I think I will stay, after all, I did just get you food, it is the least you can do."
Ignoring him, I look behind me at my sister, sound asleep. She is on her stomach, leaving her brown hair shooting in every direction. She looks nothing like me. Her hair is a replica of fathers and so are her eyes. I try not to, but I envy her appearance, hating my own because mine also belong to my brother. My traitorous brother, who left Imus for an Altus girl. Mother even said that he had no remorse when he left. The bastard.

As I touch her soft hair, I feel his lingering gaze on me.
"What?"
"Nothing, I guess I'm just surprised that Stryder here truly has affection." He grins at me again.
"Shut up!"
"Here I thought you would live for yourself, heck you might burn those who get in your way, then put them on display for everyone to see."

Now it's my turn to smile. A small, menacing tilt of my lips, changes the very air between us. I get up and stroll over to him, ever so slowly. He stiffens and visibly gulps, which gives me much satisfied pleasure. Once I'm inches from his smoky blue eyes, I lean up and whisper in his ear,
"I choose the latter."