“The ghosts of our past lives still dance within these halls. Do you feel them?” she murmured, turning her head to look at him. He wasn’t even sure how she heard his approach. His footsteps were near silent, but then again, Beatrice never did let her surrounding go unaware. He believed she would always have the upper hand when it came to that.
“When we were kids, I never would have imagined there’d be a day I saw this place lying in ruin,” she continued, kicking a piece of rubble on the ground.
He placed his hands in his pockets as he gently shook his head. “This place was falling apart at the seams back when we roamed the halls, don’t let time trick you.”
The tone of his voice irked her. Who was he to tell her how to process her memories. Without facing him, she responded. “Maybe so, but Vestin had a way of making these stone walls feel warm and full of life.”
“It was a facade that could only last so long,” he scoffed.
Her eyes flashed rapidly from hurt to anger. “Need you go out of your way to be cruel? Was it really that horrible to grow up here? In this place?”
He sneered at her misplaced longing. “You think this was a proper home for children to grow up in? For God’s sake, Beatrice! They picked us abandoned children up off the street. They experimented on us — turned us into monsters, and you’re really going to sit here and reminisce?”
“And you’re going to tell me you have no fond memories here?” Her voice rose with her anger. “Memories of playing hid and seek? Of sitting in the foyer in front of the fireplace while Vestin read to us? Of the rainy days spent down at the pond hunting for frogs? None of those trigger anything inside of you?”
He crossed the room and stood before her, her back now pressed against the stone. “And you’re telling me you’ve forgotten how they strapped us down to tables at age 9 to inject our bodies with God knows what? Or the trials they put us through as children? You’re telling me you’re choosing to ignore that with each passing year, there were fewer and fewer of us left?”
Pushing past his fuming figure, she sat down upon the old wooden stool abandoned in the hallway. “We wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for them. We wouldn’t be who we are today if it weren’t for them,” she replied with a silent resilience in her voice.
“Maybe you’re right; maybe we would be dead had they not taken us in. Or maybe you would have gotten the chance to live a normal life. One where you were seen as a human being instead of a monster. Maybe you could have finally been able to have the family you so desperately crave.” He shook is his in disbelief, exasperated that she still clung to this place. “Because this here — this fortress in the middle of the fucking woods? This was not a home. And these people, Beatrice? They were not your family. I am not your family.”
The fire within her burned relentlessly before finally creeping to the tips of he fingers. The light illuminating from her hands caused the shadows in her eyes to dance. “Go to hell, Anders.”
A wicked and taunting grin spread across his face. “Still can’t control it? Even after all these years?”
“Don’t act like you’re any better than me. I felt the flames radiating off of you the minute I expressed an opinion different from yours. But me? I have more control over them than ever before.” She smiled as she let the flames engulf her.
“You may claim they were not my family, that you aren’t. But despite how you feel, this place and the people here are our origins.” She willed herself to burn even brighter. “I guess now we’ll just have to wait and see who’s the hero and who’s the villain,” she mused, walking out of the place she grew up and away from the boy she once loved more than anything.
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