Never, Freyja. It’s never going to be okay. You can’t ever look back. The minute you do, you’re lost. You know what you did, and the rest of them know, too. They may not show it, they might pretend that they have no idea, but they know. They know, and they condemn you for it. They’re just too frightened of their own damned reputations to do any ******* thing about it.
Oh, the scandal.
How could the family survive on the back of such treachery? How could the great Nørgård name recover from the shame? No, their precious dynasty, their legacy; That is what is so important to them. The shining jewel of the Danish aristocracy, the unblemished House. That is all that had ever truly mattered. They knew what they were doing to you, driving the wedge between themselves and you. They knew that you were already going to break, that it was only going to be a matter of time.
A soft, faint sigh left the Amazonian blonde, her bright, luminescent drink sloshed sloppily in the tiny, shallow glass as she laughed at something the bartender had said. Honestly, she hadn’t heard the first word, but she gave her best smile and crinkled her nose, the way that bunched the light kiss of freckles on her face in that way that had always made Nine coo over her. Evangeline was no different, really. She always vied for Freyja’s attention, but she left much to be desired. Being her employee didn’t help matters. It felt like the flirting, the touching, it was all a ploy, just another game to maybe get her a raise, or put her in favor when it came time to pass out bonuses. Whatever the reason was, she was hardly interested. She could have her choice here, anyone she wanted. Evangeline was no Nine.
Nine. I killed her, too. There is so much blood on my hands. I don’t think that they’ll ever be clean again. I can’t begin to atone for my sins now. If I start to try and give a damn now, there’s nothing left to give but my own life. Let’s face it. I’m too ******* selfish for that. There’s just too much of myself in here to put an end to it all. There’s still so much more that I want to do. Honestly, I don’t know if I could ever put myself aside.
There is too much sin in me. I’ve had a taste of each of the Seven. It’s hardly a secret. Pride? Please. You could see my pride just watching me walk. Greed? My entire life is founded on greed. Gluttony? One only need ask Nine, if they could find her shade. She knew my thirst better than anyone. Sloth? I’m wealthy. I’m one of the elite. Doing anything for myself is almost out of the question. Envy? If I see something, I want it. If I want it, I take it. Wrath? Wrath is a part of my everyday existence. Rage is in my blood. Lust?
Lust.
I have an entire empire built on Lust.
No. No, I am damned. I am condemned. I have too much of every one of these seven in me to see myself to hell. Even if I can’t live with myself, I don’t have an option. I won’t give myself an option. So, like the song said;
One more drink, one more pill,
Just one more line to make me feel
Like I have something left to give,
‘Cause without it I’m just giving in.
Just one more line to make me feel
Like I have something left to give,
‘Cause without it I’m just giving in.
She put her hand on the Evangeline’s soft, velvety palm. Nails traced the lines in her hand as she sang the rest of the verse in her mind, the drink mingling with the pills, a haze filling her mind as she hummed, giving the honey-haired woman a flirty smile, pretending to listen intently to whatever story she was selling her now. Something about her night. She bobbed her head, like she was listening, each motion causing her head to swim. She laughed, the sound soft, melodic like a chime in the wind. She pat the woman’s hand and stood, lifting her drink. The strobes of Flux made the luminescent drink flash a garish pink color. She lifted the martini glass over her head and vanished from the bar, leaving Evangeline to her work.
Filthy skank. She only wants a raise out of you. Probably slept with her last boss, too. You can do better, anyway. You don’t need to sleep with the help.
The music in the club was thrumming through her, the alcohol making her entire body tingle. She could feel her skin pulsing with the music, the pills that had disintegrated under her tongue causing the world around her to swim in color. She liked the colors. Her tall, lithe body moved with an unnatural grace, her slim figure slipping between the bodies on the floor with ease. Her heels clicked incessantly against the floor, each step moving left, back, left, sliding her through the room as she danced with the club’s patrons. She closed her eyes, letting her body sway with the music, letting the beat carry her. Her entire body was alive, every nerve on fire with feeling. She could hear a thousand hearts, hammering against ribs, threatening to burst. She could taste sweat on the air, the sharp tang mingling with sex, musky and dark. When she opened her eyes, she could see the music, the way it caused the light to tremble with each deep pound of the bass. She could smell the drugged blood swimming through a thousand veins, an acrid scent she knew all too well. One that made her mouth water, threatening to make her drool.
Most importantly, though, she could feel the room. She could feel their emotion, their excitement. Flux was packed, wall to wall with flesh. Naked, clothed, sweaty, perfumed, everyone was one, here. Nights like tonight, you couldn’t tell who your partner was. Who you were dancing with, who you were mating with. It was a wild, out of control kind of party. Her life, personified.
She had edged her way to the rim of the crowd, close to the front door. She nearly crashed into Rosalyn, her head of security. The tall, African-Canadian woman stood several inches shorter than her employer, her dark lips set in a thin line as she looked the blonde over, strong hands holding the Danish woman’s small biceps in their grips, keeping her upright. “You don’t look so good, Frey. Maybe you should sit down and let me take this…” As the woman reached for her drink, Freyja lifted a hand and smacked her hard across the face. She didn’t feel the slap in her hand, just a numb tingling feeling. She could, however, smell the blood as it split the dark woman’s lip. Her stomach knotted tightly as it growled hungrily. Icy blue eyes met onyx orbs, blood trailing from the corner of the woman’s mouth as she ran the back of her fist across her chin.
“****, honey, I am so sorry. I was just trying to be playful. I’m fine, really. Here. Take the night off. Leave Amber in charge, and you go. With pay. I’m sorry.” The woman just smiled, and shook her head. She turned, and slipped into the crowd, leaving the tall blonde to watch her vanish into the writhing mass of flesh.
She’s a tough girl. You didn’t hurt her, or her feelings. She should have known better than to try and touch your drink. You told her about the drink. You know she isn’t taking the night off, either. You’ll just have to pay her double. Maybe a little something extra, come time for bonuses. She would like that.
With a sigh, she pushed her way through the front door, out into the street. The crowd usually waiting outside stretched out to the mouth of the alley. A couple, two women busy checking one anothers’ tonsils with the use of their tongues, broke apart long enough to wave at her, hoping that maybe she would recognize them from some night before or another. She stared at them blankly, clear, sparkling blues unfocused and confused. She lifted a hand in a half wave, and turned the other way, stepping deeper into the alley, into the darkness of the unlit side street.
She found the corner, and stared at the ground, eyes working their way up slowly as she counted the bricks.
Ten up. Four right. There.
She touched the mentioned brick, and it nearly fell into her silky soft palm. Reaching into the alcove, she pulled free a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. She worked free a single paper shaft and placed it between her lips, lighting it swiftly and tucking the items back into her hiding place. She didn’t have a place to carry them on her person. Her dress was too small, too tight. Her knife was barely concealed beneath the dress’s skirt, strapped high on her thigh, beneath a garter. She didn’t even have the room for her pistol, tucked neatly in her clutch with her expensive lighter and her other pack of cigarettes, left to the safety of the glovebox of her car.
In the dark, the little black dress blended with the shadows of the alley, leaving just a pale face and limbs to accompany her flowing golden mane. She was hardly subtle, even in the best of circumstances. Stealth was never her priority. She breathed, the smoke filling her lungs, spreading through her with such an intense good feeling that she felt her toes curl in her heels, lifting her onto the stilettoes as she leaned back against the rough brick wall. She exhaled, pulling the cigarette from her mouth as the air of the alley filled with a smoky haze, the only sight to see was the glowing cherry of her cigarette.
She felt like she could melt into the concrete, she felt so good. Like she could just become this… puddle. Every part of her was filled with a bliss she could only compare to that sort of post-orgasmic meltdown, where every part of your body was dead to the world, where every part of you just felt so good that nothing could bring you down. Her brain was swimming in endorphins. She felt like nothing could bring her down.
And nothing can. Nothing can take you down tonight.
It’s a perfect night to kill something. You should hunt something. Someone.
Her body reacted to the thought, a shiver of ecstasy shooting down her spine causing her to tremble. She slipped her tongue along her lower lip, thinking. She was hungry. Starving. It hadn’t been long since the last time she’d killed. Only the night before, with the paladin in the sewer. They were hardly a challenge anymore, to be honest. There was nothing to slow her down beneath the streets. She was free to open up, to go wild. Here, though? Here, there were people everywhere. Eyes watched you from every corner, from every shadow. Here, you had to be careful, you had to limit yourself. You had to be clever.
That was one think she had always been. Clever. She was sly, crafty. She was smart. Sometimes, the things that she did, the things that she thought of doing, they surprised her. To say that they frightened her… well, she had stopped being afraid of herself a long, long time ago. When you have blood on your hands and you aren’t even old enough to have a beer…
You can still feel her blood on your hands. Your own sister. How could you do it to her? She was so young… she had so much life left ahead of her, how could you just kill her like that? How could you be so… cold?
She chuckled to herself, the sound a dark, dangerous murmur of what laughter should have been. She lifted a manicured hand, blood red nails running through platinum curls as she took another drag of her cigarette.
It was easy, if we’re being honest.
She had something I wanted. She had his attention. He was always taking her everywhere with him, always pulling her along any time he had someplace to be. He had all but forgotten me. Him, and her, too. And the rest of them. I was just not that important anymore, and I hated it. I couldn’t ******* take it anymore, and something had to go. So. It was her.
I’d always been flexible. I still am, really. Maybe more so, now that I’m… you know. It gets me a lot of places, a lot of praises; Helps with cheerleading, makes for a lot fun with the right ladies, but more importantly, it makes for good concealment when I need it. I don’t really do the sneaking thing anymore. I had folded myself into the floorboard of the backseat of his Mercedes. The plan was risk-free. If they had seen me, I had just been sleeping on the warm leather seat, and rolled into the floor. I took a nap in the car more times than I could count; it would hardly be a lie, and lying was something I had always been quite skilled at.
They hadn’t seen me, however. I remained quiet, still as a stone in the floor as the car rolled to a quiet stop, and they both had gotten out. God, the cramps. My leg was agony when she finally came back in a huff. Such a flurry of anger, over what? A little waiting? She was spending time with him, time that he used to spend with me. I could feel my hands trembling. The knife… I don’t even know where the knife came from. I can’t remember. What I do remember is shooting up in the back seat, and grabbing a fistful of that silky black hair.
Hair like his.
She tried to scream. The steel bit deep, scraping against the bone of her spine. I nearly severed her head, the sound of the steel scraping against the bone setting my teeth on edge. A huge gush of sound left her throat, a splash of blood spraying across the windshield of the Mercedes as she reached for her throat, trying to stop the blood. The stupid *****, she was never going to stop that much blood…
She was never going to live.
I couldn’t have it.
Her legs kicked against the dash, one long, black heel snapping against the leather as she pounded her feet against the car’s frame, kicking in her struggle. Quickly, that ceased. She was dead before I had run. I remember kissing her temple as she slumped in the seat, staring into her dying eyes in the mirror. I said my goodbyes, and I ran. I don’t know how long it took him to find her, but I know it was him. I know it was him, and somehow, I know that he knows it was me. He just knows. I know he knows.
They all know.
But what they don’t know, is that I would do it again. I want to do it again. To anyone that thinks that they can take him away from me. They will all know what it means to try to replace me.
I can’t be replaced.
I’m me, after all.
I’m Freyja ******* Nørgård, and I’m one of a kind.
“I guess that decides it.” She said quietly to herself, finishing her cigarette and flicking the used butt to the asphalt. Without glancing at it, she crushed it beneath the toe of her stiletto, walking toward the entrance of the club. She walked with purpose, a natural, seductive sway to her hips as she approached the bouncer. She lifted a hand and pointed a lacquered nail at the couple that had waved to her before. “Those two, out of here. I want her, her, him, him, him, and her.” She pointed to each person she wanted admitted, and paused, looking over the crowd. She glanced over a woman about halfway back to the alley’s mouth, and pointed. “Her, too. The rest are up to you, but I want these two gone, or I'm calling the police to escort them downtown if they've got a problem with that.” She jutted a thumb at the couple of women and, before they could shout their protest, slipped back into the club, their shouts lost to the overwhelming bass.
There were a few things she used her clubs for. The biggest was the front for her trade, a wealth of pills pushed through each of her establishments every night; enough to bring any one government of the free world to its knees. She had connections in all of the great drug families, and laboratories all over Canada and the northern United States. Isolated little places that could produce, trade, and purchase at a whim, pumping the substances anywhere she wanted at a moment’s notice. The other, and nearly equally as important, was her hunting ground. Here was the place she scoped out the prey; whether she was looking for a wild night of sex or blood, she would find it here.
Tonight, as her stomach twisted again, threatening to bring her to her own knees, she knew which hunger it was that needed satisfying first. The real question in her mind was, does she do it here, where the kill would be as easy as the fool paladins beneath the streets that she had mentioned before, or would her choice be sober, somewhere out in the streets?
It was a choice she had time to make, the night wasn’t but about halfway through its course. She took a leisurely pace back to the bar, her body moving with the throng before she slipped into a stool once again. Her glass was empty. She didn’t remember that happening.
She shrugged, and let her icy blues move over the moving bodies.
The easy kill, or the challenge? The quick meal, or the satisfying hunt?
I might leave after all. Maybe just one more drink. Something fruity, girly. Nothing laced, enough of that for one night. Maybe another one for the road.
It’s turning out to be a grand night, actually.
And it was. She just had no idea just how great it was really going to be.
