Drew awoke and slowly raised his head. The back of his head was throbbing from the blow that he had sustained just before passing out. He looked around and saw that he was in a small room. He was sitting in the only chair and the only other things were a desk with a small stack of papers, and a lamp over his head. He blinked a few times, trying to clear his vision. He tried moving his hands but found them firmly bound behind his back. A piece of duct tape covered his mouth.

“Oh good, you’re awake!” a voice said, piercing through the darkness. Drew’s head spun around, trying to pinpoint the voice. An eerie laugh that chilled Drew to the bone came from behind him to the left. He craned his neck back and the sound of footsteps echoed off the walls. “Poor Drew,” the voice was directly behind him, “Trying to play hero and come after me yourself?” There was a ruffling of feathers and Drew saw a face coming toward him out of the corner of his eye. The red lips smiled and came close to Drew’s ear, “Big mistake,” the voice whispered.

The eerie laughter pierced the darkness again and the speaker stepped around Drew to stand in front of him. Her face matched that of the faded wanted poster that used to hang in his older brother’s room. She had blonde hair that came to her shoulders, green eyes, and unnaturally white skin. The only thing different was the clothing. She wore black pants with a large white skull patch on the left thigh. Her top was light grey with short black sleeves; the picture on the front was a single black feather near the bottom-as if lying on the ground. She wore no shoes and her toenails and fingernails were painted dark maroon. A black raven sat on the girl’s left shoulder. It bore into Drew with hungry eyes.

The girl noticed Drew eyeing the raven warily and laughed. The raven spread its wings and soared off of the girl’s shoulder. It flew around Drew a couple of times, brushing him with its wings, before veering off and returning to the girl’s shoulder. “You like him? His name is Rabe. It means Raven in German. And my name is Magdalena O’Maily or Alena for short. I don’t think we’ve meet before.” Alena held out her hand to Drew who just stared at it, “Oh, sorry. A bit difficult to shake hands when they’re tied up, huh?” Alena laughed and stepped forward, ripping the duct tape off Drew’s mouth. Drew yelled in pain as the duct tape tore away from his face.

“Why did you bring me here?” Drew asked.

“I didn’t bring you here. You brought yourself here,” Alena said, “What I want to know is why?”

“I wanted to kill you,” Drew said.

Alena laughed. “For revenge, right? Because one of my pets killed your brother.”

“How can you call those things pets? Those are savage animals!” Drew shouted.

Alena stopped laughing and locked gazes with Drew. Her eyes seemed to burn with fire. Rabe ruffled his feathers in irritation. Alena raised a hand and gently stroked the upset raven’s head. When the bird calmed down Alena spoke in a deadly quiet voice, “What you think is savage and what I think is savage are two very different things. For example, you think my pets are savage, well I think humans are savage for what they did to me.”

“What-?” Dave started to ask but stopped.

“What did they do to me?” Alena asked, “You mean your brother never told you what it was exactly you were supposed to be killing? I’ll tell you. You should feel special; I haven’t told anybody the full story of my past before.”

A/N: Magdalena is the German form of the Latin word Magdalene which was the name of Mary Magdalene, a woman cleansed of evil spirits.