The World Can Bite Me
“What’s a girl like you doin’ in a place like this?”
Stitches slammed another shot so she wouldn’t roll her eyes. She was sitting in the far corner of the bar, half-shrouded by shadow, in an attempt to keep jerks like this from coming up to her. Yet, here was another asshole, trying to seduce her, for at least the 7th time since her arrival. Even in her wasted state, men made her skin crawl, and it was taking every ounce of effort to ignore him. The others had left her alone for an easier catch, so she was hopeful this dick would do the same.
He was not as smart.
“Aw, come on, sweetheart!” He purred at her. “Give me a chance, and I will make you see Heaven.”
Wow, what a fucking loser.
She finally looked at him. He was not an ugly guy, she had to admit. Tall, strong jaw, deep-set gray eyes, and a lopsided smile. His Sinner form was that of some sort of lizard- no, salamander and human hybrid, with muddy-colored skin and webbed fingers. He looked as slimy as he sounded, though, which would have been a turn-off for her, even back when she had liked men fawning over her.
She shook her head. “Nah, you’re cute and all, but the only thing I need to see Heaven is a couple of bottles of vodka and the feel of my fingers.” She wiggled them in front of her face suggestively to make her point. “I don’t need a dick to do a woman’s job. Go try someone else, maybe that cute cat girl over on the dance floor.” She downed another shot, motioning for him to leave.
His face went through several emotions - shock, anger, arousal - and then settled back into a horny smirk. “Oooh, feisty! I can work with that…” He put a hand on her thigh, much too high up to be proper. He wasn’t going to take “no” as an answer.
And she felt the switch be flipped.
She leaned forward, and raked her knuckles along his jaw, smiling sweet as sugar. He blushed furiously, taken aback by her sudden change of attitude, but his pants were starting to tent. She leaned forward and nibbled his ear lobe, then purred right in his ear, quiet and thick with lust:
“They have private rooms here, right?”
He swallowed, nodding.
She pulled back and flashed him a smile, slipping off the bar stool and pulling him down by his shirt collar to lick the tip of his nose. He choked back a moan, his face blushing even deeper. “Lead the way,” she cooed, readjusting her purse on her shoulder. He quickly grabbed her hand and pulled her to the back of the club, and pulled her into a private room. The door had barely closed when he immediately tried to kiss her, but she put a finger to his lips, chuckling sweetly.
“Be a good boy, and turn around,” she ordered. “Strip for me, but slowly. Don’t turn around until I tell you to.”
He immediately did as told, his excitement bursting at the seams. He awkwardly attempted to make it sexy, but honestly, it was just cheesy and stupid. Had anyone else seen it, they would have laughed. He bent down to untie his shoes and she grabbed his hair, pulling his head back and exposing his throat. He looked at her with lust-filled eyes, until he felt the ice pick plunge into his throat. Then there was just terror because she had severed his vocal cords.
She grinned at him maniacally, retracting the ice pick she had pocketed from the bar. “You really shouldn’t have touched me, you fucking asshole. When a drunk girl tells you to fuck off, do it next time.” She then raised her arm up high and started stabbing him again and again, laughing all the while, each stab representing a pain, a sorrow, a wrong, a regret. She continued going until she was physically incapable from the lack of food, from her inebriated state, and from sheer exhaustion.
And as she stumbled to sit on the bed, looking at her mess, the man’s eyes empty and dead, the flip switched.
Shaking, she looked at her hands. She was covered in blood, as was the whole room. She yelped and dropped the ice pick like it was on fire. She remembered everything, she had done it, she was in control the whole time, but the difference was, in the moment, it had been
S
O
G
O
O
D.
But after, now that she was faced with what she had done? It felt horrible, and toxic, like she was the worst thing in the world. She tried so hard to control these impulses, to keep from harming those who abused, used, and manipulated her. Gods, he wasn’t even that bad! He was just a drunk asshole! I don’t even know his name! In all the times she had ever had the impulse, and followed through with it, she had never attacked anyone over something so minor. So trivial. So…
He’s not innocent, he’s in Hell. He wasn’t respecting my boundaries. He probably…
She shook her head. She needed to leave. She couldn’t stand to be here. She ran to the connecting bathroom, turned on the shower, and started cleaning the blood off, scrubbing it as she cried. She refused to look in the mirror, and didn’t even register that the water was ice cold or that she was fully dressed. It didn’t matter. She was a monster, so fucking off her rocker, she had just killed someone over nothing. His ability, as a Sinner, to respawn in a couple of hours meant nothing. Because if she could kill someone for something like that…
I could kill anyone.
She shook her head, fully sobbing now, and slid down to a fetal position, rocking back and forth, the water still pouring down. This was Hell, no one would care she had killed someone because it was expected here. The only people who would care didn’t even care about her anymore, and she was never going to see them again anyway. She could kill any Sinner she wanted, anytime she wanted, and no one else would care. But she had to see herself, every day, until the end of time. She would have to see the monster her spiral had turned her into.
Or do I?
______________________________________________________________________________
Alastor stood in front of Stitches’ door. His ears flicked, trying to pick up any sounds. But there were none, and hadn’t been the other half dozen times he had checked in the last couple of hours. It had been 1 am the last time he had heard movement, and now it was almost 4, and while her light was still on, she had not made any movement, not even a breath. It was not right.
And he did not like things to be “not right”.
His ear flicked towards the soft sound of one of Lucifer’s portals. He sighed, annoyed. Because of course, the tiny monarch would be hovering.
“Alastor!” Lucifer whispet-shouted as he approached. But Alastor ignored him, trying to see if the sounds of him softly stomping down the hall would cause Stitches to stir in her room, but nothing happened. “What the fuck are you doing here!?”
Alastor sighed and faced the shorter man, eyebrow raised. “Hmm, is Your Majesty the only one allowed to check in on our patient?”
Lucifer crossed his arms and glared up at him. “If you have come to harass her-”
Alastor scoffed. “Wrong again, my pint-sized fellow.” He turned to look at the door again, placing his hand on the door. “Something is not right.”
Lucifer looked at him, confused and then concerned. “What do you-? What’s wrong?”
Alastor frowned. “I have been checking on her off and on every hour since she locked herself back in. She slept mostly, then moved around. But since around 1 am, I haven’t been able to sense anything. Not even her breathing. Yet, with the light on, I was hesitant to send in my shadow to check, as it could send her into a meltdown, and that would make her recovery that much more difficult...” He turned back to Lucifer. “As her default guardian of sorts, how would you like to proceed?”
Lucifer was silent for a moment, weighing his options. “Send in your shadow.”
Alastor nodded, and his shadow, who had been nervously pacing around the door, immediately slipped under the door. It was a blessing that no one knew his shadow was an extension of himself, and was much less able to restrain its expressions than the body was. Otherwise, people might actually be able to know what she was thinking, and that would be… unacceptable.
He was prepared for his shadow to come back, reconnect to him and show she had simply fallen asleep in the bathtub or passed out next to the toilet. He honestly believed that to be the case. Even if she had hurt herself, this was Hell, and she had no access to the angelic weapons to permanently kill herself. She would simply respawn in a couple of hours, a day at most. That, too, was manageable, difficult for recovery, but possible to work through.
What he wasn’t expecting was the panicked shadow reconnecting with him, and showing an
Empty room!
He slammed the door with his shadow tentacles, shattering it to pieces. He took in the empty room, the bed sheets tied end to end and tailing from the bed to over the window’s edge, and it was only too clear what had occurred.
“She left!?” Lucifer’s voice was full of panic, as he ran around the room, checking every corner, under all the furniture, before finally looking out the window. “Nonononono, she promised! She didn’t even leave a note! I don’t-”
Alastor grabbed him by both shoulders, forcing him to look into his radio-dialed eyes. “FOCUS!” he screeched, voice distorted by static. It was enough to snap Lucifer out of panic enough to glare at him. Good, I need him thinking. He went back to his normal form. “Our vixen is not in her right mind. We miscalculated, and she has clearly decided to run off rather than accept assistance. She has been petrified about leaving the grounds, and as we are both aware, her fear about such a task has not been unwarranted. She has little to no defenses, and in her current mental state, I cannot imagine she would even care.”
Lucifer’s eyes grew wide in horror. “A-Are you saying-”
“That she may allow or even seek out harm?” Alastor sighs. “It is a possibility, yes. Even if that is not the case, she could easily be manipulated in this state and end up in a deal. Or worse.”
Lucifer shakes his head. "She wouldn't hurt herself, she couldn't-"
Alastor narrows his eyes. "She tore up her throat and arms in a panic attack. She refused to let you heal her. She has been drinking excessively for nearly two weeks, which is another form of self-harm. Do you truly believe she isn't capable of putting herself in danger, to look for death?"
“W-We need to go find her!” Lucifer pulls out his phone and starts typing. “I’m letting everyone know now. We’ll set up a search party. She can’t have gone that far in three hours-”
“I will go.” Alastor called forth dozens of small shadow puppets that vaguely resembled rats. They scattered, running out of the window. “Everyone else should stay here. I can cover more ground, more efficiently than any of you.”
“But I can fly, I can-”
“You need to remain here. You are the only one of us who has healing powers, correct?” Lucifer nodded. “If I am correct, she may require instant medical attention, or at the very least, a parental figure to comfort her. So stay put, where I know where to find you.” He began to recede into shadow, but Lucifer caught his arm.
“I don’t care what it takes, if you have to search all 9 circles in Pride, you bring her back!”
He doesn’t respond, just disappears into shadow, hoping he can.
______________________________________________________________________________
Stitches stumbles out of the club, dripping wet, and drunk as Hell. She giggles at that, seeing as she was in Hell. She had pulled herself from the bottom of the shower, gone to the bar, and put the last of her money on the counter, demanding a bottle of the strongest liquor they had that her money could buy. The bartender had given her a sympathetic look, probably assuming she was trying to wash her “moment in the backroom” out of her mind. Which, she was, but not for the reason the bartender thought. Hopefully the sweet guy wouldn’t be the one to clean up her mess.
Now here she was, after nursing the bottle in a corner for a good hour, stumbling out of the bar with the half-empty bottle. Wet and cold. Tired and weak. Raw and vulnerable. Yet she felt giddy, because she had finally come to a decision. She knew where she wanted to go, and what she wanted to do. So, she headed down the road, humming the I.M.P. jingle in her slow, drunk way.
The road beneath her feet slowly turned from black asphalt to multi-colored cobblestone. She was mesmerized by the kaleidoscope of color and kept stopping to look at it closer, taking long gulps of the vodka. It didn’t even burn anymore, hadn’t for a while. She might as well be drinking water.
She looked up at the sky. She could see where Heaven was, far above them, taunting the realm with its glowing light, like a bully holding up a cookie, just out of reach of a smaller child. Torture for the sake of torture, rubbing everyone’s face in the mistakes they had made. A glimmer of what could have been, but would likely never be. Maybe for some, but never for someone like her.
“Cheers, you feathery bastards!” she shouted up at them, toasting it with the bottle before draining it completely. She sighed, barely able to stand, relishing in the numbness. Her last drop of liquor, ever, if she played her cards right. After tonight, she would have made sure to not repeat her mistakes, to do the right thing, and to make up for every wrong she had ever done.
“Well, well, what is a dame like you doing in this lovely part of the Pentagram?” a jovial man asked.
She looked at him, blinking a few times, her eyes not focusing well due to the booze. His skin was pale, his eyes black pits in his head. He was dressed in old-fashioned garb. His toothy smile was sharp and drooling.
She grinned devilishly, tossing her arm out the side, not looking away from him, breaking the bottom off on a fence post. The man looked at her curiously, tensing slightly, as though fearing a fight. Instead, she took the broken glass and used it to cut across her chest, just deep enough for blood to flow. His eyes took on a wicked, feral hunger, and he began to come closer, motioning for a couple more cannibals to join him.
She smiled, peace washing over her as her plan came to fruition, her arms outstretched in welcome, the bottle dropping from her hand. Her voice came out joyful, yet quiet as they pounced.
“Who wants a bite?”