Prom Queen ｡ Michael Langdon

19 - VIOLENT DELIGHTS

     Night made for the perfect cover, the perfect shadow, for Carrie Moore. The Westfield High prom queen was still graced with blood and soot and her ruined pink silk dress dragged along the ground, tearing at rocks and asphalt as she walked home. The blood that echoed on her pale skin had barely dried during the long walk home; the warm air devouring her whole, but tears still slipped down her cheeks, slowly and delicately. Guilt, shame, and grief weighed down on the girl like stone, crushing her. She had done so many terrible things tonight, evil and unspeakable things, but the night wasn't yet over. It wasn't even nearly close to daybreak. 

     No moon hung in the night sky, no lighthouse to guide her home, expect the shadows that walked side-by-side with the teenage girl wearing glory and chaos like a bride's veil. Or perhaps it was a widow's veil. Carrie knew she was forsaken, truly and surely, and it ached her heart that pulsed at a slow yet surprisingly calm tempo. 

     "You had a beautiful night," a voice called out into the darkness. It was a voice Carrie knew well, knew almost more than her own voice. It was a voice that belonged to the sweetest of her dreams, and also the wicked ones too with rushing blood, swollen lips and flesh against flesh. The dreams that made her rub her thighs together under her soft sheets, that left an aching need curling in her body that she desperately wanted to satisfy with twitching fingers. 

     Carrie couldn't stop the scoff that slipped past her lips that were red with blood. "Beautiful is the wrong word, Michael." Terrible. Horrendous. Evil. Monstrous. All those words were more suited to the prom of the century. She turned her glossy eyes towards Michael Langdon, leaning against the chain-link fence. He had been waiting for her all night. 

     "Nonsense, Carrietta. It was a night made for a goddess," he said, kicking off the fence to join her in the middle of the one-way street that separated their two houses. 

     Carrie just shook her head, fresh tears welling in her eyes. The death and destruction that she had caused flashed in her mind. Blood and fire, broken bones and gruelling screams. And she saw Ava Gold with eyes blinking awake after death. "A goddess promised to hell maybe," she whispered out, aware of how frightful she must look decorated in blood and ash and doom.  

     "Do you know the tale of Persephone?" Michael asked as a warm midnight breeze tangled through his golden hair. Even wrapped up in shadows he looked like an angel. It had been Ben Harmon who had taught Michael about Greek mythology, and of course, the tale of Persophone and Hades had stuck with the young boy with a mind for darkness and passion so haunting it was beautiful and tragic. 

     Carrie nodded glumly, trying to clean away the tears and the blood that dirtied her skin. "She was a maiden that was stolen by Hades and forced to become the queen of the underworld, of hell." 

     Michael shook his head. "Stolen? No, she went willingly. With each pomegranate seed, she grew hungrier, till she was starving for something this world could never give her, for something not even her godly mother or father could give her." Michael moved into Carrie's personal space, quick and lethal and his hellish heart reached for her as his eyes glittered with a wickedness of the purest nature—a true nature that belonged to a lion or a wolf. "She wanted blood and ash, wanted glory and chaos. She wanted darkness, wanted a prince of darkness that would fill her whole with everything she had ever desired." Michael's words were measured and heavy and completely knowing. His eyes captured Carrie and her heart leapt inside her ribcage. He lifted one hand, brushing it against her bloodied cheek tenderly, not seeing how horrible she looked covered in pig's blood and grey ash, but seeing how beautiful she looked, how divine she looked and not just on the outside but the inside too. For he saw her as a powerful maiden in Puritan attire with a heavy and layered black dress with a delicate white collar and cuffs. He saw her as a rageful teenage girl in a bloodied pink silk dress standing on a battlefield of her own doing. And he saw her as a goddess with womanly curves in shades of purple and Victorian lace with candlelight flickering against the shadows of the earth in a bunker with stale air. "So, she asked for it all with steel and ice. She asked for her dark prince and bled for him too." Michael's hand dropped to her side and lifted her hand carefully, his fingering tracing soft patterns into her skin. "And with her blood staining an altar, her dark prince kneeled before her, taking her hand and pressing a kiss to her skin, crowning her forevermore as the queen of the underworld, his queen." Carrie shivered at the story, her heart pounding like a drum.