The Devil's Bride (Book 1)

Chapter 15- First Blood

THIRD PERSON

His body was still collapsed on the wooden floor, and the two huddled above him, their eyes locking on the corpse in front of them. The woman moved slightly forward, pursing her lips as she overlooked the man's dead body. "What do we do with him, darling?" The woman caressed her husband's palm with her fingers, his eyes frozen on the still fixture of the man. He didn't move, he was dead. The woman leaned down towards him, tracing her fingers against his skin as she moved towards his face. The smile he once had had drifted away, and he remained frozen in position, his eyes wide open, his mouth closed shut. She traced her fingers towards the man's lips, her short nails clawing against his skin.

"We bury him later. First, we destroy the evidence. Clean this place, leave nothing behind. Clean him, leave no evidence of who he is. Then, we'll separate and I'll meet you later tonight." Her husband sighed, knowing this man before them was just another victim in their spread of disease and betrayal. He still couldn't decide if what he was doing to help his wife was correct, whether killing the innocent truly did revitalize their thirst for revenge. He had agreed to help her, but he had never known where she would take this. When they met all those years ago- however many it had been- he had thought she was just a girl who lost her love and wanted to find sanctuary with someone else, but she drove him further, and she began her rampage, spreading death through this town. Now he had to help her cover up yet another death, and in his heart, he wanted to escape. The man moved closer towards the exit, turning back for a moment to admire the woman's complexion. He smirked, folding his arms.

The woman turned towards him after closing the man's eyes. She began to stand, moving carefully around the corpse before them. "We will bury him later, then." She locked eyes with the dead man, studying him once more. Had she been foolish in believing he would have helped her? She wasn't too sure, but his foolishness had killed him, and she desperately needed to delve away from the past. She always did, and she hated the fact that the past will haunt you. Her past was the epitome of a ghost, and the misery drove her crazy. It had all began with her brother.

She was 23- let's call her Cora- and she had returned home for Thanksgiving to see her parents, her two brothers and her sister. The first day had gone perfectly, as she spent time with her mother and sister, cooking, shopping and enjoying the presence of the one woman she had admired for most of her childhood growing up. That night, however, as she crouched beside her father at the fireplace, he began to mutter some choice words about the family, and she could see the cracks in the family line glistening under the flame of the stoked fire. Her father, this man built strong from his own father, was scattering away from the woman she had thought was the love of his life, and in that moment, she thought about how her own life was currently. She had finished university, she found a man that loved her and she loved him, but would their relationship end in a painful divorce? Would she spend her Thanksgivings huddled by the fire, muttering to her own children about the lost love she shared with her husband? Her father sighed, moving away from his daughter and planting himself in his old recliner. She remembered the way he looked at her, obviously a mirrored version of her mother, and sighed once more, angered by the marriage he was confined to. By now, they have divorced, only fragments of the memories once shared by their family.

The next day, she expected another tragic occurrence with her father, but as she walked into the family's shared living room, he was no longer sitting alone in his recliner. Her mother clasped her cold hands around the girl's shoulders as she moved into the room, awaiting her father to ask for his morning coffee. She had known something was wrong, of course, because her father had not been his usual self as of yet. Her mother confirmed that he had left early that morning for a 'holiday' to his relatives across the country, and her world began to crumble before her eyes. Tears formed on her cheeks, her mind enthralled in a messy tangle of deceit and misery. She had known he might never come back. He never did.