What Doesn't Kill You...

Dead Man Rising

"Did you miss me? I missed you." Isabella's voice was soft like a lover's.

Words turned to ash in Damon's mouth. Rage and fear rose in his throat strangling him. He'd dreaded this moment ever since Death recruited him to hunt necromancers. Coming face-to-face with Isabella once again. The memories of his wretched past tumbled one over the other in his mind, a fast moving reel of his worst moments. Bloodshed staining his memories crimson.

"Did my baby forget how to speak?" Isabella teased. She reached out to touch his face.

Instinctively, Damon pulled away. The small act of defiance broke his silence. "Don't touch me." He wished he could have said his voice wasn't trembling. But it was. "Why are you here?"

She withdrew her hand, a hurt expression in her dark eyes. Damon didn't trust that expression. Vulnerability was a trick she used to her advantage. He'd seen many a person fall for it...including himself. "What if I said I came to see you?"

Damon narrowed his eyes. "I'd say you were lying...or have an ulterior motive."

Isabella stared at him for a moment, then burst out laughing. Her harsh laughter belied her innocent face. "A pity you weren't this perceptive before."

"I guess this fool had to learn from experience." He forced a tense smile on his face.

"You've learned nothing. Otherwise," Isabella replied, rising. "You wouldn't have teamed up with Charlie." Her eyes examined him from head to toe. "I see you still have expensive tastes. Dying violently must be hell on your wardrobe."

Damon shrugged. "I get by."

Isabella bite her lower lip. "I'm sorry."

"For what?" Suspicion laced his words.

"For destroying another expensive outfit."

Damon saw a flash of silver under the moonlight seconds before the stake pierced his chest. The stake tore through his body just under his heart and crunched into the asphalt. A scream of pain ripped out of his throat. 

Isabella cocked her head to the side and pursed her lips in thought. She looked like an artist contemplating a painting. "Am I crazy in thinking that red is your color? You've always looked divine in that shade. Especially your red."

"You're...only half...right." Damon grunted through clenched teeth. "You...are...batshit...crazy." Hands shaking, he raised his hand to pull out the stake.

"No, no!" Isabella stomped on his wrist with her heel. He cursed as he felt a few of the bones in his wrist snap. "You can't come with me yet. All in good time."

"You're never going--"

"To get away with this?" Isabella interrupted, grinding her heel harder into his wrist. "Please, spare me the cliches. I'm a busy woman."

Through his fading vision, Damon watched Isabella walk away. He hadn't seen which way Elric had taken the freshly made zombie. He'd been too focused on Isabella. He was vaguely aware of some high-pitched screaming coming from the direction of the diner. He let his head drop and saw the diner upside down. A few diner staff were running towards him and poor Frankie. 

What a world we live in... Damon thought as the curtain slowly closed on his consciousness.  ...where people and things like her destroy innocent lives on a whim. Just as his soul passed from the realm of the living to the land of the dead, Damon had a moment of clarity.

Maybe Isabella wasn't half right after all. Maybe red was his color. Her red.