Fin's Claim

Perspective

Taunting

Threatening

Laughing

The demon's voice tunneling underneath my skin, it's itchy vibration makes me want to claw my flesh off my bones most of the day. It's constant torment plague's my soul, infecting me with a sickness of who I am to Victoria.

"Betrayer," The demon only too happy to fill in my thoughts for me except the words are spit out in a splatter of disgust always nailing me in the face letting it drip slowly off until more words are thrown my way.

"Victoria, are you ready?" Knocking on her open door, the bags for Charlie are packed; she's in her car seat ready to be moved out of the clinic into our home.

"Wrong, it's not a home if you don't have a family inside it....it's your house, her house but not our home." The demon my constant companion now always happy to enlighten my thoughts.

"We're ready." Picking up the bags and the car seat while Victoria leads the way out. I'm constantly following that tail around. It's rare that she gives me a front view of her life, always I get her back view, always trailing behind her, in the wake of her.

Walking outside the scent of daffodils perfume the breeze that gently swirls around. The springs fresh colors brighten the landscape turning it into something new and full of life. The birds chirping their sing song in the trees as if serenading Charlie all the way home. Looking down her eyes are squinting with the light of day.

Victoria opens the front door, the owner now home. The first thing she does is climbs those stairs easily where before she needed breaks to catch her breath. Opening the door to the bedroom there is just enough room to walk to Charlie's den. The room littered with presents from the pack. So much stuff inside here that it would take days to go through. Victoria stills inside the room, looking everywhere at all the gifts.

"Is this all for her?" Disbelief written in her eyes.

"Most of it, some I think is for you. I didn't want to open anything without you being here." Her fingers travel over the bags, taking a peek inside them before moving to the next and the next. Taking the pup out of her seat holding her while her eyes are looking around her new surroundings taking in the terrain.

"We could open up the presents together?" Always referring the both of us as we so she understands that we still exist. She doesn't answer me. Instead, she's looking at the picture of us that's hanging on the wall.

When her hands grip the sides of the frame, she takes us off the wall. My heart squeezes just that much more inside my chest.

Heart damage is what she's inflicting on me now.

She flips the picture around, placing it on the floor, so only the back is shown, the portrait of us hidden from view.

Her statements are loud and clear except she doesn't have to use any words to wound me. She knows how to drive silver's edge deep into my chest without uttering a single thought.

Actions speak so much better than any words can.

"You can go now." Victoria is dismissing me from sight. Her hands are going towards Charlie, trying to take her from me.

"She's mine too, not just yours Victoria. You can't just try to take her from me whenever you feel like it. I have rights to her just like you." That makes her hands hang limply at her sides.

"You're right, Finian." She's always formal polite, not ever stirring the water or creating waves just going with the flow, eyes forward, shoulders back. She's trying to keep our actions together on a singular level while I try my best to pluralize our interactions.