The Space Between

by Eunoia2140

Lana Winters would never be satisfied with ordinary.

A/N: Music to the ears: Cruel World - Lana del Rey

"Lana?"

"Yes, Kit?"

His brow was furrowed, unsure of what to do with his hands, fingertips twitching as if tiny shocks were sprinting through his nerves. "You don't think—I mean, I'm not very sure how your brain works anymore because of that nasty electroshock therapy they pulled on you—but, anyway, you don't think that the Devil is real? That it's here?"

Lana's jaw clenched, her gaze skeptic. "Are you referring to Briarcliff?"

"Yeah. No." He sighed, a deep frown chiseled into his normally soft features. "I don't know. It must be real, since all those women were killed so brutally. And because of this."—he gestured feebly between them—"Us. Being thrown in here. Loving someone isn't wrong." His eyes glittered, sadness tinting the irises.

"Spoken from true experience," Lana muttered, picking at the torn edge of her ratty smock. "You should go back to your cell, Kit, get some rest. Guard your thoughts; they're rowdy today."

Kit Walker nodded, steps heavy when he stood and walked out of the day-room, his shadow thinning until it was but a sliver on the cold ground and then gone altogether.

Lana Winters made a mental note to count the pills in the cup they'd given him next time the rounds were distributed.

She wondered if the eyes were indeed the gateway to the soul. If that were true, then her soul would be blacker than coal, icy like frost, tar cooling atop a frozen lake. Her eyes were all darkness, pools of pupils now that the light in her life had been snuffed out with a simple flourish of a pen.

Lana loved Wendy. She always would. But she was certain that she was not in love with her. That bridge had been burned when Lana was admitted into the asylum.

Love was such a fickle thing, such an idea, a feeling, that couldn't be bottled no matter how hard she tried. Through ink spilled on paper, she would forever attempt to catch it, no matter how effectively it eluded her.

Lana leaned her head back against the chilly brick wall, breathing in the stale air, pondering the possibility of sneaking more pills than they gave her tomorrow. For as much as she wanted to escape Briarcliff, physically, perhaps doing so mentally would be equally satisfying, even if it meant she'd be delirious for but a few hours. Kit had seemed so relaxed this afternoon, albeit against his own will. A state of such detachment sounded disconcertingly pleasurable.

Lana nearly jumped out of her skin when she caught clear blue eyes peering through the bars of the door. Pale skin, illuminated by the dim lighting, gave Lana the false impression that the figure was nothing but a hallucination, and she narrowed her eyes in irritation.

"I'm not a conjuring of the mind, Miss Winters, nor a ghost," Sister Mary Eunice remarked, amusement coloring her voice. Lana shivered at the way the nun spoke her thoughts. "I'm simply making my rounds."

"At two in the morning, Sister?" Lana inquired, words clipped.

Despite the darkness, Lana could see the blonde's smirk. "Clever one, you are. I suppose you've been counting the minutes since they called lights out. You've got quite a tongue, Miss Winters, especially for a convict."

"I'm not a felon."

"In the eyes of the Lord you are."

Lana hesitated but eventually stood, against her better judgement, and shuffled to the end of her bed, never taking her eyes off the silhouette in the small window. She crossed her arms over her chest, saying, "That's a matter of opinion."

"Whatever makes you feel better." There was a soft rustling sound as Mary Eunice shrugged, the fabric of her habit whispering to Lana through the thin bars. "As far as anyone else is concerned you're in here for a reason."

"An absurd reason."

"Again," Mary Eunice articulated, "whatever makes you feel better."

"What do you want?" Lana was tired of playing games with everyone she met in the asylum, especially the people in charge.

"I like you, Miss Winters." Mary Eunice shifted so that her body blocked what little light streamed into the cell, an ominous shadow encompassing Lana whole. "I like listening to what your conscience has to say."

"I'm not fond of the riddles you spit, Sister—and I'm not so fond of you, either." The brunette's voice was hoarse with trepidation.

For a moment there was silence, a singular second that sucked up the oxygen in the air, leaving Lana breathless as she awaited the peculiar nun's response.

"I hate to inform you, Lana, but that voice inside your head begs to differ."

And Mary Eunice walked away without another word.

Lana's feet carried her through the intricately woven corridors faster than she thought them capable, and her mind raced equally as fast, bile burning the back of her throat. She was antsy, nerve-ends itching to feel something that wasn't a needle digging into her skin, eyes blurry from seeing so many lewd photos of women she didn't even know. They made her sick, although not in the way Dr. Threadson wanted her to be, and she had discovered recently that speaking to Kit Walker afterwards (Kit Walker, the only other inmate who was innocent, sane) acted as an anchor as she floated in the aftermath of her "therapy".

She came to a halt outside of the hydrotherapy room, gears whirring in her brain. There was a time when such a sound would be soothing, but it had only proved it provoke the people around her and, consequently, gotten her thrown into this madhouse.

Kit's voice, calm and collected as ever, pulled her from her thoughts:

"Whoever is hiding can come out."

His face grew gentle when he spotted Lana. "Hey. Why are you sneaking around?"

"Doesn't everyone in this place?" replied Lana, edging into the room. She slid onto the rim of an empty tub, avoiding a particularly large, dark stain near the faucet, and gazed at Kit who was tucked underneath an equally unsanitary tarp. "I don't want them to find out I'm here when I'm not scheduled to be. They might decide I need extra time soaking if they see me spending the afternoon around the tubs."

Kit nodded, chin disappearing beneath the tarp. He raised a brow at her, a smile ghosting over his lips. "So you're slinking around just to talk to me, huh?"

"Yes," said Lana after a moment. "I was thinking about what you said the other day, about the Devil and Briarcliff."

"Pardon?"

Lana frowned as she made the connection with his confusion.

"They put too many pills in your cup. You were relatively incoherent when we last spoke."

"Sorry."

They sat in silence for a long time, water splashing about in Kit's tub, echoes from the other inmates leaking down the hall. The light from the barred window created the illusion that the room was wider than it was, and Lana shuddered at the way her eyes had decided to play tricks on her recently.

The fair-haired young man said, "Now that you've mentioned it, I think I do remember talking about that."

"That's good."

"What's on your mind?"

The brunette stared at her hands folded on her lap, bones protruding from her fingers. An imaginary tan line had formed on her left forefinger, something she only saw when her eyes were blurry with images of the past, of a life better lived.

A life when she was happy—but never satisfied. Lana Winters would never be satisfied with ordinary.

Instead, she said, "I agree with you. About the Devil being on Earth. I think it has forces everywhere, both tangible and mental. But I also believe that it's taken form in people."

"Like Jude," Kit said quietly, brown eyes trained on the tarp. Despite his comment, there was a hint of doubt in his tone, as if he simply said the name out of habit.

"Kit."

"Sorry, Lana. You're right. She hasn't done anything wrong; she's just doing her job. Sometimes I get so caught up in the bad stuff I forget about reality."

Lana nodded.

The walls of the asylum often pressed against her until they slid under her skin and crushed her lungs. Her soul felt like a candle whose wick was crumbling within the flame of insanity burning beneath Briarcliff, etched in each cell, each needle of medicine.

Kit shifted in the tub, face flushed from his time in the steaming water. Lana wished she could cut the fabric open or loosen the knots, but she knew her friend would stop her before she could get her fingers around a tie. He turned his head to look at her but closed his eyes and let his head rest gently back against the edge of the ceramic.

"Whoever killed those women," he murmured, "they're the Devil. And those things that took Alma. I'm not crazy, Lana, you know that—you're the only person in here who really believes me. Really, I'm grateful for that."

She shrugged. "You're the only one who's helped me."

The reporter stood then, after hearing footfalls approaching the hydrotherapy room, and walked to the door, feet almost silent on the floor. To her surprise, there were no pre-prepared excuses traveling through her mind, a disturbing clarity occupying it instead.

"Before you go," said Kit quietly, "you need to elaborate."

Briefly checking down the corridor for a guard, Lana glanced over her shoulder at Kit. "Elaborate on what?"

He didn't turn to speak directly to her—not that she wanted him to do so. Kit Walker's eyes could halve marble if he wanted them to, and Lana wasn't in the mood to stare into such brutal honesty.

"Earlier you said you thought the Devil was in Briarcliff, but you never said who you thought it was. I'm just curious, Lana."

She knew he wasn't lying.

"I don't know," was all she said before leaving the room.

And smacking directly into someone.

Hurried apologies fell from her lips but she gazed at the floor as she spoke. She wasn't in the mood to stare into brutal criticism, either.

"Hush, Miss Winters, I'm not going to cane you for being in a rush."

The reporter's heart dropped into her stomach and her hands began to tremble despite her conscious effort to keep them still. Reluctantly, she raised her gaze to meet a blue one—flecked with gold, she noticed now that she was pressed close enough to scrutinize the blonde's eyes.

A smirk climbed the girl's mouth, something sinister lurking behind her innocent demeanor. "But now I must ask why you were in such a rush?"

The brunette knew better than to let her tongue run wild, but she also knew that she could get away with it when regarding the blonde.

(She thought so, at least. Hoped so.)

"No reason," she said evenly. "If you'll excuse me, Sister, I didn't mean to bump into you."

Mary Eunice pouted, and Lana was thoroughly unnerved at the way her eyes swirled, pupils dilated. The girl said, "But I meant to bump into you, Lana."

And suddenly Lana was well aware of their close proximity and how she had somehow been backed up against the wall. Her breath stuttered in her lungs as she realized what a devastating position they were in.

"I overheard you talking to Mr. Walker." Mary Eunice nodded towards the hydrotherapy room that was barely a few yards away, another factor Lana noted anxiously. "Who do you think the Devil is, Miss Winters? May I call you Lana?"

Christ, the way her name resonated when the nun uttered it sent chills down Lana's spine. Like velvet slipping through fingers.

She tried to form a coherent response, but failed miserably, and gasped when Mary Eunice slotted a leg between hers. Lithe fingers took her chin in a deceivingly gentle grip, and the brunette knew she was a goner, particularly when she made the wrong decision to breathe deeply and inhaled a sweet smell like the ocean in the winter.

Mary Eunice grinned. Her lips moved but Lana felt like there was cotton stuffed in her ears. The reporter's brain was disintegrating by the second, yet she welcomed the pain, the distortion.

"Lana."

The air shifted slightly in front of her face, a tingling sensation crawled upon her lips, and she prayed to God that Mary Eunice wouldn't advance any closer to her for fear that their mouths would connect—and worst of all, that Lana would be unable to control herself.

"Stop that."

"Stop what?" Lana hissed.

"Praying. To God."

"Get the hell out of my head."

"Hm?"

Lana's eyes flew open. She didn't know when they'd slipped shut.

Mary Eunice stood an appropriate distance from her, hands folded together, blue eyes fixed on the pale brunette. There was no sign that she'd ever been closer to Lana than she was now, body language cool, gaze just as frozen.

"You should be making you're way back to your room, Miss Winters. Don't want Sister Jude catching you wandering about aimlessly, do you?" Perfectly sculpted brows rose beneath curved bangs. If Lana didn't know better, she'd say the girl looked like an angel from heaven.

The brunette shook her head, tears stinging the back of her eyes, a monstrous headache forming behind her forehead. Things happened so quickly, so often to her now; she could not decipher whether or not she was being affected by the drip Threadson had jammed in her arm.

But as she trudged away, shoulders hunched, ashamed at how easily she'd been defeated, exposed, she was certain she heard Mary Eunice giggle and mutter, "Clever girl."

And a swirl of satisfaction twisted in her stomach.

The Devil was indeed at Briarcliff.

Dr. Oliver Threadson was trying to help Lana escape Briarcliff.

And suddenly he wasn't.

Sister Jude was a nun.

And suddenly she wasn't.

People were dead.

And suddenly they weren't.

Mary Eunice still had the same scent woven in her hair as she had when she'd cornered Lana outside of the hydrotherapy room. The ocean on a cold day, sweetened by the sun.

Lana ground her teeth at her incessant thinking.

As she gripped slim shoulders her mind split into two dimensions and she saw what it must have looked like when Mary had pinned her against the wall. It thrilled her to the bone in the most frightening way. To have real power, however brief, to feel life beneath her fingers.

Something was playing with her thoughts, emotions, and she couldn't be less enthusiastic about it.

Anger bubbled in her veins at the flippant look that spread across the blonde's features as Lana hissed out accusations, things she was certain the taller woman had done but had no proof to support her.

Mary Eunice's eyes flickered, blue to gold, ruthlessness rolling like thunder in the shifting irises. With hardly a dozen honey-covered words, she was having Lana dragged down the hall into the hydrotherapy room.

The irony was bitter on Lana's tongue.

There was a sinking feeling in her stomach as the car drove across the dull landscape, clouds the background in her tragic story, yet her vision seemed to be enhanced.

She was free: of Bloody Face, of Briarcliff.

But Kit Walker wasn't.

Neither was Judy Martin.

The feeling in her stomach grew worse as they traveled along, simply her and the driver, who remained silent, a comfort, really, as opposed to her pounding head. She was out of that hellhole. That was what she was to focus on. She would go back for Kit and Jude.

She would.

The gun jumped in her hand, taking her heart with it, and Oliver Threadson dropped like a stone onto the carpet. Red and blue lights raced across the darkened room, illuminating the blood stain on the wall, crimson a harsh contrast to the paint. Vaguely, Lana registered the sirens, relatively far away, contradicting the bright flashes.

Peculiar.

She carefully made her way to where the body was, grimacing when she observed the grotesque wound splitting Oliver's forehead down the middle.

But she wasn't disgusted by it. No, Lana Winters felt giddy as she stared at it, not for the thrill of murdering someone but for the knowledge that Bloody Face was gone for good, and her revenge was executed cleanly.

Lana dropped the gun in her coat pocket and walked to the kitchen where the back door was located. The police (an anonymous phone call was all it took to draw them to the house) would be on the front steps any minute now. For as much as she wanted to shout to the world that she, Lana Winters, innocent ex-inmate of Briarcliff Asylum, escaped victim of Bloody Face, had disposed of the serial killer alone, she wanted to have the joy of keeping it as her own secret, even if only for a night.

"Selfish, as you always were. I'm surprised, Lana. I thought your time away from solitary would have changed you."

The reporter spun around to face the girl, whose blonde hair was no longer hidden under a coif but loose around her shoulders, spilling down her back, curls gleaming in the moonlight. She stood at the island, elbows resting on the expensive marble, hands cupping her face.

"What the hell—?" Lana began, but was cut off.

"Call it a coincidence," Mary Eunice said, teeth glinting when she grinned. "I could feel the death of evil coming on—but I didn't know you'd be the one causing it. Taken to murdering, have we?" She tutted, shaking her head and straightening up. "The innocent felon finally committing the crime. Go figure."

"I'm not a felon."

Mary Eunice rolled her eyes, sauntering towards the brunette. It was off-putting, seeing the girl in an outfit other than her habit, and the realization that something was not right at all hit Lana hard.

"Why are you here? How did you get in?" She couldn't help the tremble that worked its way into her voice.

"Oh, Lana, aren't you happy to see me?" Mary frowned. Her face lit up and she took a step closer to Lana, mimicking the position they'd been in weeks ago. Her voice was throaty when she said, "I thought you enjoyed our little rendezvous."

Lana pushed her away gently; still afraid of hurting the nun despite her knowledge that this woman wasn't the same person she'd met her first day at Briarcliff. She looked past Mary Eunice to where shadows were dancing on the floor, spilling in through the windows in the front room.

"They won't walk in before you want them to," Mary said without a glance over her shoulder.

Lana glared at the blonde, but felt the fight drain out of her. She began to inch towards the door, a fruitless attempt to detach herself from the demon who echoed every footfall, albeit she, too, seemed to be less animated now.

"You're just going to run away? Not take responsibility for your..." Mary hesitated. "Actions?"

There was more to the question, an extra word that ghosted over Lana's skin and sunk into the place behind her eyes. But she ignored it; instead turning away from the blonde and unlocking the door, pulling it open in the same breath.

She flinched when Mary Eunice spoke again.

"Play the hero for now, Lana, but we both know your future is tainted. Try hard, run fast, lie until you're in knots. You can't escape your shadow."

Lana's eyes flitted up to stare at the reflection in the glass of the window, expecting to see Mary Eunice standing there with a smirk on her face, as usual, but was met with the sight of empty air, a kitchen of which she was the only occupant.

The front door rattled and shouts rung throughout the house, the police on the front step.

The knob in her grip turned icy.

You can't escape your shadow.

She was right.

And Lana let go of the knob, shut the door, took out a cigarette as she walked back into the front room, waited for the police to come in.

Waited to spot her shadow.

She should have been happy.

Elated, really.

Her book was on its way to becoming a major success; she could already taste the money, the fame, that she'd dreamt about for her entire life; all of her hopes had fallen right into the palm of her hand.

But then there was the kid.

A little thing, beautiful, had she not known who the father was and how he'd gotten her pregnant. The baby stared up at her with his brown eyes—like hers, she noted with disdain and a hint of wonder—cooing, a doe abandoned before it could see. Lana was angry at the nurse for bringing him back to her, angry at her heart for throbbing at the sight of the glowing baby—furious with God who had allowed her to give birth to a bastard.

She gave him away with a numb mind, nodding dazedly when she heard a woman say he would be a John Doe until adopted.

Better for him to be a nobody and have his father and mother be forever behind closed doors.

She stared at the cross hanging above the hospital bed, chest still falling and rising rapidly despite her labor having been over for a long time. The back of her throat burned with an emotion she couldn't quite place, palms sweating where they rested on her lap.

At the flash of gold beside her, she clenched them.

"You're not welcome here," she hissed, gaze still fixed on the cross, which trembled in its place when a laugh like bells rang through the room.

The mattress dipped by Lana's side as Mary Eunice sat down, hand patting a thigh covered by the sheet. "Have you found your shadow yet?" she asked, words sweet like sugar, sharp like the cold.

Lana opened her eyes, stared at the younger woman, body involuntarily relaxing under her gentle touch. She let out an empty laugh, empty like everything that happened to her nowadays.

"That's not true," Mary Eunice enunciated, head cocked to the side. "You're filled to the brim, Lana."

"Stop playing games." Lana shifted away from Mary Eunice.

"You're the one who's playing games." The blonde frowned, the expression foreign. "Why aren't you enjoying yourself? You're on the brink of having everything you've ever wanted. Doesn't that excite you?"

"It—" Lana faltered, head pounding, throat tightening with sudden emotion. Guilt.

The demon trailed her fingers up Lana's side, brow raised. "There's nothing to feel poorly about. Your mood sets my teeth on edge."

The brunette laughed lightly. "My mood," she echoed.

"Come on, Lana, turn that frown"—her eyes gleamed in the pale hospital light—"upside-down." She sobered quickly. "You're like Alice."

"Alice's adventures were her imagination," Lana growled, raising a hand to pinch the bridge of her nose. "She was a little girl with a wandering mind. Mildly crazy."

Mary Eunice clicked her tongue. "That sounds familiar." Lana looked at her sharply, and she smirked. "I was just stopping by to see how the mother was holding up." She echoed her movements from earlier, patting Lana's thigh. "Mental stability is just as important as physical health."

The brunette said nothing, stared at gold eyes, crunched the words in the synapses of her brain, caught the shadows moving on the walls out of the corner of her eye.

Her lips tasted like candy—maple, particularly; the most delicious flavor of salt water taffy that was put on sale during the thick east coast summers.

At least, they were Lana's favorite.

She couldn't get enough.

Bark was digging into the brunette's back as her hands wandered over the ribbons and buttons on the other woman's dress, mouth seeking and taking, never giving. Mary Eunice purred against her, fingers tightening their hold in soft, dark curls.

"You've got quite a bite," she hummed, nuzzling Lana's cheek as the reporter panted despite herself. Gold eyes sparkled as they gazed into black ones. "But you knew that already."

"Don't ruin the moment," Lana muttered and kissed her soundly.

However, the embrace cooled off considerably, much too quickly, and Lana pulled away, sighing. A fog creeped over the trim grass, curled around their polished shoes, sunk into their skin. She gazed at the blurry silhouette of a young girl slumped next to a gravestone, a red hat flopped on her head, a reminder that they were not the only occupants of the graveyard. Living, that was.

Mary caught Lana by surprise and pressed their lips together, pinning her hands above her head, the brunette whining when her skin grew scratched. She kissed the other woman back with renewed venom, hate seething between them, something akin—akin, Lana Banana, only akin—to intimate affection breathed in their close proximity.

"This is highly disrespectful," Lana mumbled against Mary's mouth, contradicting her previous words. Then, after a few silent seconds, she said, obliquely, "I should visit him."

"Shut up," Mary Eunice hissed, nails digging into the fabric of Lana's jacket. Her mouth was relentless, body hot against the reporter's despite the chilly air. "Kit's done with you, Lana, done with you and Briarcliff. You're nothing to him." As if to punctuate her point, she tilted her hips up, making the other woman whimper feebly. "You're mine."

Lana's dazed look drained from her face, eyes sharpening in the bleary weather. Her eyes flicked to the blonde suddenly, and she pushed her away. Mary Eunice rolled her eyes, grabbing Lana's wrist as she took a few steps down the slight hill they were on.

"Don't bitch out on me," she articulated, words harsh.

The brunette sneered at her. "Like you did to me?"

Mary looked away. "I never left you. Sometimes you lost your way, floated a little too high, but you never lost me." She let go of Lana's wrist, arm dropping limply to her side. Her golden curls fell over her shoulder, tangible sunlight streaming down her back.

"Look at me," Lana said.

Nothing.

She sighed heavily.

"He deserves something. I left him—and Jude." Lana shook her head, staring at her shoes. "I told her I would save her. I made a promise that I can't break."

The blonde turned on her instantaneously, the height difference menacing for all it was worth, but Lana gazed up at her with defiance.

"Promises are the damnedest things, aren't they?" Mary growled. "You get all your heart's desires—the money, the fame, the adulation—but you still want. That's all everyone ever does. Want. No one is satisfied. You better stop making promises if your heart doesn't steel up soon, Lana."

"My heart is made of diamond," said Lana quietly. "And that's more devastating than anything you could ever promise me."

A sob rang throughout the cemetery, the sob of a young child, the fog sucking up the edge of it, and Lana felt her heart sink, skin tingle. Tears swallowed her eyes and she closed them in an attempt to stifle her emotions.

"You're ruining me," Lana said with a shaking voice, heart thumping against her ribs. "I don't know what I'd do without you," she added, words cracked and laced with desperation. "I feel like you've always been with me. Like I can't live without you. It's driving me insane."

"We're all mad here." A pause. "My little Alice, frightening herself with false words."

The reporter peered at the girl with the red hat through the fog, watched her hug a gravestone.

"Things are better left untouched. It will make things worse." Mary Eunice's voice was slipping away, as if the thick air was swallowing her up. "Promise me."

Lana Winters was left standing, alone, at the top of the hill beneath the ancient tree, legs enveloped in gray humidity, death surrounding her.

The wedding pumped elation through her veins. The dancing, Kit's kids, the humid air—all of it made her grin wider than she had in years. For the first time since she'd been admitted to Briarcliff she felt weightless, as if a pile of bricks had been lifted from her shoulders.

Her hair stuck to her damp skin as she spun towards the refreshment table, giggling lightly at the way the firefly lights made constellations in her vision. The cloth was soft under her fingers, sewn, she knew, by the bride and groom just a week ago. It was symbolism, Kit had said, of their ties together.

"At least the stitches are straight," she said to herself, running her hand over the white fabric. She picked up a small glass, poured water from the pitcher sitting on the table, gulped it down. Parties were so festive, so alive. Nowadays Lana noticed she needed to do more in order to feel alive.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw a mess of brown curls sidle up to her, and smiled.

"Here's the Groom himself," she teased.

"Stop it, Lana." Kit flushed, grinning. "You look just as magnificent."

"I never said you looked good," Lana replied and they both laughed, the sound surrounding them in warmth. She followed his gaze to where it was trained on his new wife, who was twirling around with Michael. "I'm so happy for you. It's wonderful that something good happened to you after all that shit it took to get here."

Kit glanced at her, the ghost of his grin still on his lips, but his tone was serious, humble. "I'm happy for you, too, Lana. I'm happy you finally got all you wanted."

The reporter gently clicked her teeth together at his words, guilt bubbling in her stomach as she thought about everything she did to him, to Jude, in order to be in the position she was. As if reading her thoughts, Kit said, "It ain't your fault what happened to Jude. I know you don't believe that—I know you didn't believe that when I first told you about her—but you shouldn't keep thinking about the past. Move on to the future. Life will be better that way."

"Kit Walker, honest as he's ever been."

They watched the party play out in front of them for a few minutes, a comfortable silence between them, before Kit turned to her with curious eyes.

"Hey, I was wondering—that sounds weird, doesn't it? I mean, I know someone—" He shook his head. "Listen, Lana, I've got a friend who I think you'd enjoy getting to know. She's a really smart girl, loves painting and takin' pictures—a true artist. She takes pictures for the newspaper and she seemed eager to talk to you when I mentioned that you're a writer.

"She's pretty, Lana." Kit's eyes sparkled with genuine affection. "She'd be really good for you. Think about it, okay?"

The brunette laughed out loud; Kit looked mildly bewildered. "I'd love to, Kit. No thinking necessary."

As the young man reached for her hand and squeezed before walking away, Lana swore she spotted a blonde girl in a dark dress by the tree behind Kit, but when she blinked there was just empty space.

The shadows in the room swallowed everything they touched, stained the red walls black.

Lana Winters nodded numbly, gripped the telephone a little tighter, as Julia Walker's soothing voice drifted through the receiver.

Kit had disappeared that morning, leaving no trace of where he had gone, alone or taken by someone.

Lana felt, for the first time since the deceased's wedding—a morbid thought, tinged with bitterness—completely and utterly alone.

Broken.

A spilt ink bottle.

The gun kicked her palm, more irritated than surprised at her finger pulling the trigger. She stared, indifferently, as her son, her little bastard, slumped to the floor. If anything she was vexed at the irony of the situation. There had been a time long ago when she had tried to get rid of the kid, a time before he would have had any chance to build a life, become attached to anything. But she had failed, and now, years later, she was in the same position, albeit successful.

She rolled her eyes.

"I'd make myself a drink if I were you."

Lana threw the gun on the glass tabletop, scratched her temple, made her way around the body as she went to the opposite side of the room to fix two drinks. When she was done she gingerly stepped over the slowly-growing pool of blood on the floor and handed a tumbler to the blonde woman lounging in an armchair.

"By 'you' you mean you," Lana stated wryly, tossing back her glass.

Mary Eunice raised her drink to her lips, eyes the same color as the gold liquid. "Whatever you want to think."

The older woman frowned at the body on the floor. "It's going to stain the carpet," she muttered.

"Lana Winters!" Mary Eunice gave her a wolfish grin. "I thought you weren't a felon."

"You've been playing the same card for years. Get over it," the brunette snapped. "I'm tired of the hell saturating my past. I've been done with that shit for a while."

"Never believe for one second, Alice, that you can escape your past." The blonde took a sip from her glass, mumbling the rest of her words into it; "If you do that, the only one who will trip and fall is yourself. You may end up tumbling down the rabbit hole again if you're not careful."

Lana licked her lips, pondering the woman's statement, and she crossed her legs, balancing on the arm of the chair. Mary Eunice nodded towards a picture hanging on the wall.

"Moved on, have we?" She raised a brow at the woman standing next to Lana in the Polaroid.

The brunette shrugged. "Don't pretend like you're surprised. I couldn't stay hung up forever."

Mary Eunice laughed, laughed because she knew what lie beneath the words. "Am I something to be thrown away, then? Only something to be used for when you're desperate?"

Lana recalled the taste of maple, the stifling heat of a lithe body, the way she melted at a single brush of golden curls against her skin.

"There's been this darkness," she began, knowing full well that she would not be able to stop herself, "that's been brewing inside of me since as far back as I can remember. I don't know what it is; all I know is that I'm bound to it. We're meant to be together; it's woven in my bones. But I don't feel an—anything else." There were tears meandering down her cheeks as she spoke, throat closing up despite her attempts to prevent her speech from faltering. "I'm empty. Alone.

"I've never thrown you away," she whispered, lisp apparent. "You're my shadow."

"Oh, Lana, you do understand." Mary Eunice's smile was sickly-sweet, yet Lana felt the overwhelming urge to kiss it away. The blonde set her tumbler down on the table, let her fingers trace Lana's cheekbone. "Everyone has evil in them. For some of us it takes longer to blossom. For others, it takes but a push off the edge for them to flourish."

Lana buried her face in the crook of Mary Eunice's neck, body shaking, stripped to her meager soul.

"Clever girl," the blonde remarked, quietly.