Just leave me alone...

Her small hands were over her ears, her body hunched in the corner of the room. She rocked on the balls of her feet slowly, her muscles quivering.

Christian was yelling at her. Stephen was crying. It was why Christian was so mad at her again. She hadn't meant to make Stephen cry, she really hadn't, but he was always crying.

"Why do you hate him so much!? He didn't do anything wrong, Nikki!" Christian was screaming so loud the hands on her ears couldn't block him out.

"I don't hate him, Chris. I don't hate him. I just-"

Lana came in then, sighing. "Why do you have to piss everyone off so much, Nikole? Can't you just keep your mouth shut for once?"

Stephen sobbed softly and tears began to run down Nikole's cheeks. "Please, just leave me alone. They're going to come back in here when they hear you yelling..."

Christian let out a frustrated cry threw his gaze to the door, his voice raising even more. "Let them come! Ha!" He spat the words as he spoke, eyes narrowing to slits. "What are they going to do to us? You're the only one they really think is CRAZY, Nikki."

Nikole hugged her knees at his words, her tears drying on her face as she felt the sting of another wave approaching and about to flood her tear ducts. "I am not crazy..."

Lana scoffed softly, leaning her head back against the wall behind her. "No, you aren't crazy, Nikole. Who would ever think that, hm?" Her words were weighed with a heavy, dripping sarcasm that made Nikole feel ill. How could they be so cruel to her?

"Actually..." A small voice pipped up, as if not wanting to intrude too much into things, but Jacob just had to put his two cents in. He always had to. "She's classed as clinically insane."

"I AM NOT INSANE!" Nikole threw her head back against the wall several times until she could feel her brain pulsing inside its bone cage.

"You're so useless." Lana laughed, tossing her hair over her shoulders as she leaned forward, her arms resting gently on her knees. "You know you should just end it all right now. Then we'd never have to put up with you ever again."

As Lana spoke, Nikki's teary eyes fell to her wrist, idly counting the blueish-green veins that stood out against the deep pale of her skin, her finger brushing away the medical tag. She read her name softly to herself. "Nikole Peterson..."

"You can end it all, Nikki. You could be free of us forever. Isn't that what you want? For us to go away?" Christian's voice brushed against her ear and wrapped around that part of her mind that he alone could touch. He'd always been the manipulative type.

"Nikole Peterson..." Nikki said it again and a third time. Trying not to think of the voice that was snaking its way into her mind. She couldn't give in to what they wanted. They wanted her to do it and she knew if she did it would all be over. All that she was fighting for would be over.

"Peterson..." She whispered and the name brought back so many vague memories. Her family before they had sent her to this place. The Petersons. They had never been her real family...but they had always been there. They had raised her until she was 10, until they had put her here, in St. Claire's. The Petersons had been nice people. They didn't understand what was going on inside her.

Then again, did she truly?

"When did they die? My mother and father?" Nikole whispered, her arms coming slowly around to hug her knees. Her eyes dancing around the white walls of the room. The soft charcoal clothes they made her wear were scratchy against her bare knees.

Christian sighed, pulling back from the assault on her mind. He could not take over when she forced him out like this, with the memories of her past. "Your mother was a druggy who really cares?" At that, he tried once more to slip inside her mind, but again she held him at bay.

"You said once...that she had given me away."

"She left you in the hospital and fled. You were a spawn of a rape." Lana spoke as she stood and paced around the room to the bared window. "Your father...well you know very well what your father was, child."

"A demon." Nikole muttered and turned her eyes from the window as if the very thought made the sunlight burn her. "That's why you want me to kill myself...So, I'll be like you..."

"Yes." Was Christian's simply reply as he brushed the hair from her eyes, she opened them to see no one before her. "If you do not do it soon all may be lost. These people in this ward are not gentle. They have already sent for an exorcist and once he realizes what you are..."

"Then he'll send for the demon slayer if he does not kill you himself." Jacob whispered and sat down on the edge of the small bed in the room.

"You can not keep what you are hidden much longer, Princess. The hour glass only has a few grains of sand left in it." Christian sighed and Nikki looked at her wrist once more.

"What if he doesn't want me? My father..."

Christian chuckled. "He will love you, child. You are his only heir. You know what you must do..."

"But...I'm scared..." She sighed, bringing her wrist to her mouth, so that she felt the cool skin against her lips.

"There's nothing to be scared of..." Lana smiled softly.

Somewhere in Nikole's mind, Stephen sobbed again, begging for her not to do it. Not to let anymore blood flow, but she did not listened as her mouth opened and she set blunt, human teeth against her skin and bit lightly once. It hurt, but she knew what need to be done. She took a deep breath and bit down once. Hard and sharp. Her cry of pain muffled against the flesh of her wrist and the willing of blood that followed.

She cried for a long moment and they let her, after all it was the only courtesy they could do her, but as footsteps came running from the hallway, they knew they had no moments to spare. "Hurry, Nikki." Lana urged her eagerly.

Nikole stood and went to the door of the room, her injured arm limp at her side so the blood trickled down to collect in her palm. "How do I open the door to hell, Christian?"

Christian gave a deep laugh and she felt him raise her limp arm as if he were pulling the strings of a puppet. He was, after all a strong demon. "Things in our world are done in blood, Nikole. Contracts are signed in blood...Destinies are laid in blood...and the door to our world is opened with blood." He placed her bloody palm flat against the door. "Speak the words I taught you."

Nikole shut her eyes in thought, listening to the keys of some ward clerk outside as they frantically tried to unlock the door to the room. Her honey-brown eyes opened slowly as her lips moved with the softest of whispers. "Brimstone and Fire, Open the door to the Kingdom for me. The Wanderer wishes for home..."

A rush of heat washed over her as the last word fell from her lips and she saw the door to her room swing open as if toward her face as the ward and nurses rushed in. By then, however, they only saw the eerie shadow of a demon-eyed girl with shadows swimming around her body. She gave a wicked smirk then she was gone. Nikole Peterson was no more.

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Fin