A/N: My muse has left me for my other stories so I figured I'd just try something new to get writing again. This will be a slower posted story, but the entire thing is planned out. I have other stories I am trying to stay with and finish, but got a baby on the way and that just makes it difficult to get in the mood to post weekly. Going to keep this one short in chapters and focus on Kate and Richie since they had such a cool connection at first. Seth is not the love interest here. Scott and Kate also will have a journey. This is from Kate's point of view. The rest is going to be regular 3rd person after chapter one. Please don't rush the story, it is already planned out, be nice or tactful, and let me know of any errors so I can fix them. Thanks for reading! Enjoy.


FDTD: Season 3: Santa Sangre

Ch. 1

The last thing I left this life with was a horrible emptiness. No one, not even God could fill it. I wasn't sure if I lost my faith, or had just gone over that line one to many times to feign ignorance. How do you even ask for forgiveness after all I've done? Regardless, I wasn't surprised that I was lost in darkness after a time when my last breath was uttered. Maybe I couldn't move on, even if it was to hell.

Perhaps that is why they came to me? All I know was that I was alone, and then they were with me. I didn't fight it, because…there was nothing to fight with. It was like I had eyes, but saw only blackness. Some other worldly sense made it possible for me to even contemplate where I was, let alone everything else. This was my sentence. But there was more in that blood, and I wished I had known that the devil would have her due.

They always played tricks on you in hell.

No matter what religion or faith you were, hell was hell. Unlike God, Gods, or religions that varied from group to group, it was more like you were going to feel endless pain, just depended on what shit you envisioned it to be. I didn't want to care, but I died knowing that there was more after life, so even the newly departed 'Kate' had fear.

Everyone I've loved and tried to save was dead-or worse-had used me to get what they wanted. I was alone by myself, yet I'd always been the strong one. Power, riches, and blood were worth more to those I loved and cared about. There was an ire emptiness in that knowledge.

Richie's eyes were the last thing I saw as the darkness of death engulfed me. Between him and Scott, I felt that emptiness as I left this life. I'd killed an innocent man, my own father, and robbed people. I'd covered up several deaths to cover for my brother. Truth was, I didn't much care. Nothing mattered when I learned Richie had betrayed everyone-and not even for love-just for power. Now they wanted to save me? When it was convenient to do so when I lay dying. Sure, whatever. So I stuck it to them both. There was no love left in me. I saw everything for what it was. Resentment fueled my inner sour puss. The way Richie'd grabbed me, forced me to look inward at my own actions, it was enough to rage a war inside my soul that lingered even now.

I'd died for nothing.

God help me, but I didn't think he would hear me now. This, this I deserved. So when I heard the voices, I wasn't expecting an angel. There was one voice in the many, a woman's voice. It was like she took pity on me. But then she wasn't really there like the others. Something tickled my conscious, but the thought was fleeting and escaped me.

My world had once been rich and full of life not even a year ago. Normal. In a short time I'd learned my mom was suicidal, dad was investigated for her death but he was really just protecting mom's image and getting her to a hospital. Then my life was uprooted on a road trip to hell. Then everything literally went to hell. The secrets were large, and the truth hurt worse than I ever imagined. Scott went full mafia on me and killed people from our home town, a lord took me as a pawn to use so Richie could rise in the ranks, and every good deed I'd tried to do, well…it was undone.

Love was nothing.

Fear not, her voice whispered.

I was no innocent, though. Not anymore. The price had been way too high, and I think I'd bartered my soul without knowing it. I'd done the selfish thing, and I let myself go because what was the point? Because staying in that world only made me lose more of myself than I cared to admit. There was nothing else, and the rampant and evident emptiness was just too much to bear.

I'd gone too far, but who wouldn't to save the one you loved? I was no different then Seth, my world full of denial and attempts to save someone in way too deep. But unlike him, I couldn't resort to drugs. Ah, the things we did for love-so stupid. Repentance was not something I could seek. Not the way I'd gone about things. The strange thing was, I wonder if I wouldn't have tried harder than I did. Maybe power was the only way?

It made me no better than they, but then what other path was there for me? I wasn't Job who could still love God blindly even after my entire family was taken from me. I didn't have enough strength to see the burning bush Mosses had and go out into the world blindly. I was just Kate, simple and true.

You can imagine what it was like to go from what life to this life. Like my father had always guided me, I'd never let anyone know just how hard it had been growing up. But I'd mentally accepted the role of preacher's daughter. After all I'd seen and done, I knew there was something else I was missing. The thing is, I never really belonged and it almost made me laugh when Scott had also confessed as much. And what good had it gotten me when I was alone? Nothing. So I found comfort in their suffering-those voices-they were like my own. A cry out into the night for desperate revenge.

I wasn't jealous. No, I couldn't be. Even all those messed up teen feelings got me nowhere. Since Richie met her. And he also betrayed her, did things void of love. It was like I never really knew him at all. For once, I thought there was someone in the world who got me. Granted he was different, but I couldn't explain it. Even Seth, who I had taken care of, shared what I thought was a bond with me. But for one another, I was again cast aside.

I was trying to protect you, they'd said. Bullshit. You hadn't seen me in months. Richie, you were going to kill the only person I had left-like your own brother. How had he'd changed so much? He'd even hurt me and sputtered all kinds of nonsense out of his mouth about striking first. Maybe this is what that felt like then.

I'd suspected Seth wanted to keep me safe, but I wanted that same bond with my own brother. I could really related to Seth in that way. How could Richie not understand that? But he'd crossed them all. Why did I feel that weird feeling when we were close? And why did it hurt so much to lose it? I'd stayed with Seth, tried to help him, but even that wasn't enough for him either. Not that Richie thanked me-no he'd been jealous. No one had a place where I fit, and my old life was gone. If I felt upside down then, I felt like I was lost in a storm now. Who are you kidding, Kate. You are a child to them.

I didn't belong in their world as Kate. I was too different.

There was an agony inside me, a pain so lifelike that it shook me to my core. It came right after I'd wished Richie to burn in hell. I'd felt something, but it had been fleeting. Wow, I could almost feel the rage as it filled me to the brim. My words that night haunted me. Perhaps he'd freed me after all. I was tired of trying. Tired of caring. When I first walked in that room where he was getting a dance, I thought maybe I could charm my way out of it. And then something weird happened which led not only to me kissing him, but he kissing me back. I wanted to be free, but from what?

And then I'd died. Everything I'd done burned inside me like gasoline cast on a living breathing person. Only it was me dying in the flames and no one could help me. Oh, Richie had done that one already to his father. It figured. Sick bastard. I meant what I said, I had no more love to give. I'd given it all for them, especially Scott. All the goodness was gone. The light was gone, the match was blown out. All that remained was agony.

And then, wrath. I knew there was no heaven for someone like me. So I embraced the darkness unable to find the peace I desperately sought my whole life. I belonged nowhere. Even dead, it was darkness and blackness. Somehow, I found I was no longer alone though. They came to me, they chose me-she was among them yet not. I was one of them after all, wasn't I? The joke was on Richie and Carlos, because they had the power, not the blood itself. When it came, somehow I knew it was mine to take. And so I chose it.

I'd died here with them, separated by spans and eons, but a sacrifice all the same. I was one with them in this way, yet I felt like a lightbulb had gone off in my soul when they became part of me.

I was no more, right? I guess my soul was forfeit after all. I'd been shot in the gut as they'd been cast open for the Gods. I still had my heart, but it had been metaphorically torn out and bleed by those I loved. Irony was funny like that. All we'd needed was an alter and it would be like in days of old. I know some used to sacrifice children in those days. Lucky me. But I wasn't just another soul. No, irony always had the last laugh.

I decided to accept my fate, and I let go. Why not? Whatever this was, it made me feel stronger, safer, and somehow more…real than I ever had. Not all the way, but it was like the memory on the cusp of your mind, but hidden in the shadows of forgetfulness. I didn't care, I embraced the darkness that I now was. We were angry. We wanted revenge. We had the power. I wanted to protect them.

I didn't know what love was anymore.

The dead belonged with me. Their hearts, their cries, were my cries. She-I- was their protector. I felt her blood enter my skin, and my eyes opened.

Maybe I am the psychopath for feeling anything for either of them. Images flashed inside my head, too many to count or understand. I was numb, yet so wired I must have gone mad.

Drawn like a butterfly to his darkness. Sad isn't it? Typical good girl falls for her captor, or a killer. Then why did I say those words to him even though I remembered the way his lips felt as they brushed against mine? Even now, it haunts me. Those words, "free me" as I said them. Maybe I should have been older, curvier, had sharper teeth and bigger tits. Well, I was free of them all now, wasn't I? Old me didn't matter. No one had wanted to save her. But new Kate was worthy of the blood. I knew my true name.

That's when I felt it. A door had opened inside of me, and what was once lost, was now found.

I heard the voices first, like some distant argument until it grew and grew. It wasn't like I could cover my ears and stave off the noise. But I was alone…so terribly alone, and they were with me-part of me. I could feel the wheel of fate turning, as a manner of speaking, and all I could do was cry out at my injustice. It wasn't fair! Part of me wanted to repent, but there was a darker part that roared with anger and rage. The voices grew as did my pain. Their injustice, their screams, became one voice. The power of all that death sought an outlet, and it was as if I could see myself. Taking what I wanted seemed only logical then. Everyone had a sin. I wasn't a bad person, but I felt the insanity grip me…There was no need to judge.

Even the Gods could rise anew.

I wasn't who I once was. The spans of lifetimes, so many souls, whipped through me. The wind picked up and cast aside the flimsy sheet used to cover my dead body. What was left of my soul viewed my sad and broken corpse, eyes wide with fear. Blood coiled and sought my still form and entered where the cut had been made. The cut that showed Richie where X marked the spot. Like a freight train, everything happened so fast. Then there was silence.

Next thing I knew, our eyes had flashed open. We were one again…