It's been a month since Otis began teaching his children how to kill. It's also been a month since Candice started to sleep in a different room than her husband. Candice has stopped talking to Otis, Baby and Cutter. It's the same with Lilly. Lilly and Candice only willingly talk to each other. The pair will only talk to the other Sanders' children when directly spoken to. Lilly has been known to lock herself in her room and only comes out to help her mother cook. Candice is either in the kitchen or outside on the front porch, not talking and barely thinking. Candice just goes with the motions now; she is finally completely broken by Otis. He has made her into a robot. No feelings, no thoughts, nothing. Candice rarely sleeps. If she does, Candice is plague by nightmares of her children dying. Only her children, not Otis, not Baby, just her children. When he isn't teaching his children, Otis is usually watching Candice. He can see how truly broken she is and it makes him even more scared. Candice is going to leave him, Otis just knows it.

"Otis, you have to do something about this. They haven't spoken to us in over a month." Baby stood next to her brother as the pair watched the mother and daughter move around the kitchen. "They don't even smile to each other anymore."

Baby is right, Otis knew that. They are slowly killing themselves but Otis still won't step in to stop it. "I know." His voice was barely over a whisper. As Candice started to push away, Otis began to close himself off. If his wife wants to hurt herself then Otis is going to hurt himself. It's only fair in his eyes, Otis did this to her. He pushed Candice too far, too many times.

"Why are you doing this to yourself, Otis? Why are you torturing yourself?" Baby stared at her only brother with tears in her eyes. Her family was slowly but surely falling about, bit by bit.

Otis turns his head and looks Baby in the eye. "I deserve this and much more."

He then turned and walked out of the kitchen. Baby watches him walk out the front door before turning to look at her sister and niece. Candice was looking at the front door with no emotion on her face but her eyes gave her away. What Otis said, hurt her even more. And right then, Baby could see what Otis sees when he looks at Candice. A pure broken soul with all of her sadness, pain, heartbreak and betrayal in her eyes. It's a mentally and emotionally scarring sight. No wonder her brother is physically torturing himself. When Candice is hurting, Otis is hurting.

No one has seen Otis since that morning and Baby is getting more and more worried as the hours passed. She doesn't think he would be that messed up in the head to kill himself. It would only destroy Candice even more if he did that. He is probably at the graveyard, visiting Candice's tombstone. For the last month, when watching Candice gets too much for Otis, he usually goes to Candice's grave. Baby thought that he would have taken the tombstone away but it still stands there proudly on top of the hill looking over where they used to bury their old victims. Otis will never get rid of Candice's grave. It was the only place where he can be alone and think, really think.

Damon sat on the couch looking out the window, watching his mother. Even when she was broken, she was still the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. Her black hair ran down her back in soft waves, her pale skin glistened in the moonlight. She wore a pair of black silk pajama pants and the matching black silk tank top. Her feet were bare and for the first time since he was born, her nails were bare from their usual black paint. She was hurting and Damon could understand that but she is still his mother and he wants her happy.

"Ma?"

Damon's voice was rough and ragged like his father's. He bent his tall body down next to his mother and placed a hand on her bare shoulder. Candice turns to look at her usually silent son.

"Ma, come inside. It's too cold out here for you."

And it was. The fall night air was cold and it made his mother's skin feel like ice but she made no movement. Candice just kept staring at her tallest son.

"Ma, please come inside."

Damon's throat began to become scratchy. This is the most he has ever talked in all of his fifteen years and he didn't even speak twenty words.

"I'm not cold." Candice's voice was barely over a whisper as she spoke to her son. "But you go in before you get sick."

"Ma, you're gonna be the one getting sick."

Candice shakes her head before turning to look out into the night. Damon sighs heavily before standing. He looks down at his mother before looking towards the house where he knew his aunt was standing there waiting. Damon reaches down and throws his mother's small body over his shoulder before walking into the house. Candice is fighting her son as he carried her. Scratching and clawing at Damon's back and neck. Damon, used to his father's rough teachings, doesn't even flinch as he stomps up the stairs. He passes the room his mother claimed as her own a month ago and kicked open his parents' bedroom door open. Surprisingly, Otis was sitting at his desk when the door opened. No one even knew Otis came back home as most was worried that Candice would just freeze to death outside.

Otis stands from his chair as Damon threw his mother onto the bed. Damon turns to look his father dead in the eye. "Neither of you are leaving this room until this shit is over and done with."

Damon turns and walks out of the bedroom, slamming the door behind him. The noise just made Otis realize that those were the first words, Damon has ever said to him in fourteen years. Hearing a broken moan come from the bed, Otis turns his attention to his wife. Otis sits on the bed before placing a hand on the back of Candice's head, turning her to look at him.

"I think it's time for us to talk, Princess."

"You want to kill our family."

For an hour neither of them talked and that was the first thing Otis has heard his wife say for over a month.

"You want to take my children from me."

Candice looked him dead in the eyes and Otis can finally see her emotions come back, but it was all at once and she is going to hurt herself.

"You only care about yourself."

Candice sits up from the bed and pulled her head away from Otis' hand.

"You never cared about me."

Candice shoves Otis away from her when he started to reach for her.

"You never loved me."

Her sweet voice turned hateful as she aggressively kicked Otis from the bed. She stared at him with detest and loathing. He really did make her turn on him and that just pissed him off. More at himself then at her. But being the asshole his usually is, he will take it out on her anyway.

They stare at each other, hackles raised.

It's Candice who set things off, as she leaps from the bed in an agile arch of fists, spine and legs. He braces himself for the impact but gets thrown to the ground. His higher body mass can't deflect her centrifugal move. She sits above his navel, using the time he needs to orient himself after the impact to her advantage. Her first fist in his face is a surprise, the second one he manages to dodge. As she tries for the first time, he catches her arm and feels the solid Deja-vu of the situation. He has her hand under his fingers, and grips hard. He knows her intent and what he did to deserve it. He broke the seriousness with a smile, as mad as he is, and rears up against the weight of her on him. She had nothing against his core strength. She tried to wrestle back, pushing her feet below his legs and lever him back. They struggle, but in the end she's the one who gets thrown back and lands on her side. She shuffles to her feet before he has a chance to throw his weight on her. With an annoyed growl he stands up, too, as he sees his chance of pinning her dwindle with her velocity. Fistfight it is then, as she charges him again, aiming for his head with her fist.

He is what he is, though and that is an asshole in love with this pissed off woman. He sidesteps her with ease, her angry howl betraying her intent to punch too early. His answer hits her hard. He gives her all she's given him: everything. He is close in her space and his fist is in her gut. The thin shirt she wore did nothing to soften the punch and she hears herself make a disgusting sound as her innards protested the violent treatment. She couldn't sink to her knees though, because Otis had grabbed her shirt with his other hand, fist full of clothing helped him hold her in place. The bile in her mouth, his chuckle in her ears, and the ghost of his beard at her neck fuel everything in her. Busting blind rage masks the screams of her stomach and the offended ribs. She thrashes with her whole body, makes him focus on trying to still her, and then thrusts her knee against his in a swift movement. She can see his perplexed face as his leg folds beneath him and throws him off balance. She used the opening and hit him square in the jaw again, optimistic that she has him seeing stars. He growled unhappy and shakes his head, lying on his back while she starts to grope at his shoulders trying to find grip with her hand. He comprehends her plan right in the second she takes a big swing above him with her knee, intending to sucker punch him in the groin with all she's got and sparkling eyes.

Something akin to real survival instinct kicks in for the first time since they locked horns. He coils himself into a ball and she only manages to knee his outer hip, pain searing up and down his side. She let go of his shoulder and hit him again, which, in hindsight, proved to be her final mistake in battle. He grabs her arm and throws her off of him. They struggle. Hands groping, pushing, hitting, but in the end more muscle overpowers less muscle and he has her on her stomach, fixed her legs in place with his knees, and her arms with his hands. She's like an angry desert cat beneath him, winding, clawing at him, and hissing profanities. He pushed his elbows straight after he's sure he'd got her and puts all his weight onto where he's holding her.

He takes the time to look at her, as he has never seen her like that. Powerful, but trapped. Defiant, but entirely secured under his body. The uncovered skin of her neck and thin covering on her back taunt him. He indulges himself in this moment, and overstretches her arms curled onto her back a bit more, straining her joints in sweet revenge for the almost missed kick. It doesn't make her stop struggling though. It only makes her louder. Swiftly, he bends down again, careful not to lose his grip on her. His mind is blissfully empty right here and now as he feels her struggle and press against him. Lush lips part and he sinks his teeth right onto her neck, testing the hardness of her muscles between his teeth, pulling a bit. He takes more of her into his mouth like a wolverine, tasting her sweat. It's delicious.

Candice went silent under him as she felt his teeth bore onto the skin of her neck. She is shocked and surprised and when she feels him tug at her skin even a bit offended. "Otis." She warns, it's the first real word what has crossed her lips besides angry hissing. With a last lick he lets her neck in peace. He neither moved away, nor did he let go of her. Candice could feel the tip of his nose bump her, when she struggles halfheartedly.

"You're so vicious." He speaks, his breath hitting the spit moist spot on her neck. She's going to show him who's vicious. In a spurt of angry energy she manages to rear up with him on her back, throwing him off balance again. With a loud wheeze she flops back on the carpet with him, short lived energy spend, but her arms are free to flail around again. She tries to grope something, anything what could help her cause, while he tries to catch her. The old spiel again and Otis really doesn't really feel like giving up his dominating position. In a somewhat desperate move he grabbed for her throat, and turned her head around. She stopped struggling then, her free hands at either side of her neck, too aware of his hard grip on her throat. "Motherf-.." she cursed, angrily, but the rest of the word staid stuck in her throat.

A coarse hum vibrated near her ear, delighted by the profanity. He would have said 'definitely', and deliver some sort of pun how, yes, he is in fact going to fuck a mother, but that would have just added to her anger. Instead of answering, he snaked his second arm down her side, pressing his thumb in a straight line down her ribcage, feeling every ripple of every muscle and bone. She twitched, involuntarily, as he thumbed a hard muscle and her reaction had him smiling into her neck. In a swift movement he raised his hips and made space. He laid his hand between her clothed buttocks and fondled downwards, deeper between her legs, where he could only feel softness under the thin fabric of her pants. When he pressed under her pubic bone, she moaned.

So he did it again.

He dug deeper and deeper between her legs, as far as her pants allow him. Sometimes he would reach all the way around her, almost under her, just to reach that bundle of nerves, which made her press herself against him, as far as she could move in the entrapment of his body. He turned his head slightly and kissed her cheek, mere millimeters away from her lips. Candice only huffed in annoyance and started to struggle halfheartedly against his grip again. "If you think I'll let you fuck me now… After everything you have done." she spat, but he saw neither fear nor fury in her face. When he moved in again to press a second kiss to her cheek, overcome with stupid sentimentality of his complete and utter love for his wife, she jerked her head up sideways and head-butts him. She hit his nose quite painfully, and he cursed. Meanwhile Candice was disappointed she didn't draw blood.

With that he reached under her hip to make short work of her pants. She struggled against his grip and his adventuring hand, like the trapped desert cat she was. "Candice." He growled and pressed his body harder on her, fed up with the struggling. She had the gall to snicker at him and he just growled again, louder this time, and ripped the trapped hand under her body downwards, hoping that he is just that skilled in ripping off silk pajama pants off of people. Turns out he was.

He found her soaking, and he didn't even have to push a finger between her lips to feel that. He just traced her sex with his finger, feels the slick liquid covering her slit. He's also generally better in opening his own pants and in a matter of seconds he shuffled his cock free, letting it lie heavy on the valley of her butt cheeks. He pressed her legs together with his knees, positioning himself just right above her legs.

"Don't you dare!" She growls, but all he hears is "Dare."

He lifts her hips slightly and rubs his penis between her slick lips. Once, twice, up and down. He guides his cock downwards over her clitoris making her jerk and badly suppress a moan, which he felt vibrating under his hand. It remembered him to grip her neck again, as his hand only hung loosely around her throat.

He flexed his finger, gripping her throat, and with a grunt he pushed inside of her. It was warm and slick and he could've come right here and now, the way her muscles were coiling around him and her back was trying to arch. He stilled and breathed and thought of not busting. Seven inhales later he began to pump. With every thrust, Candice moaned deliciously as he hit something inside of her just right. He kept his rhythm steady, as he rammed his pelvis as hard as he can against the curve of her ass, enjoying the sound. It's been a long time since he has heard this melody; his base grunts, her vibrant moans, backed with the percussions of their bodies. For each thrust, he planted a kiss on her. From her cheek in a path around his hand to her neck and nibbled at the nearly warmed skin again.

He must have made her mad, because as he pulled back for the next pump, she's rearing up against him, coiling her body together to knees in the carpet with an angry roar. He grunts, surprised and nearly loses his footing. It took all he has not to dislodge and fall off her back like the horny, overexcited dog he is right now. His only victory was clinging his arms around her hips, ensuring he stays buried inside of her.

She twisted her upper body around and gripped his collarbone, pushing is chest back and away from her. Their eyes met, two pairs of blown pupils clashing in a moment of stillness. He gets yanked forward. While he was still lost in the unsaid words, Candice must have seen what she wanted to know and pressed her lips on his. The kiss is openmouthed, wild and messy. Spit leaking and teeth clacking as she began to roll her hips, stroking herself with his cock deep inside. She groaned in his mouth almost too perverted to bear and bit the full curve of his lower lip. If its one thing Otis could do, it is how to recognize a challenge. He took her hips he just clutched almost desperately and pushes her away, just to pull himself into her again a moment later, with a satisfying force that has him grunting louder than her scream. He heatedly grips her elbow, yanking it back. It was just sweet how it allowed him to build the leverage he needed with every push of his hip, shoving her body against him again and again.

She displayed a surprising amount of flexibility right here and there, still halfway turned around and biting at his lips, while he plummets into her again and again and again.

Her body spasms and her back arches, teeth sinking harder into the flesh of his lips. He feels her pelvic muscles clench his cock in the rhythms of a second heartbeat as she comes, howling through gritted teeth. With closed eyes he continued to pump into her, but it was the taste of his own blood, what pushed him over the edge almost painfully hard. His balls tightened. It felt like an eternity, as he spurted his sperm inside of her. He felt like a god.

She had let go of his skin, lost in sensation. Her body was falling forward until she caught herself with her hand on the carpet, the other one still fixed in Otis' death grip.

Both their minds were fuzzy and absentminded, neurons trying to cope with transmitters, they both hadn't encountered in a while. Otis' hands knead the flesh of her hip under his fingers, stroking his slowly shrinking cock in a mindless movement against her walls, enjoying the feeling. Who knew when the opportunity would come along again? It's not like his wife is happy with him once more. Restlessness tingled at the edge of his consciousness again, but he couldn't find it in himself to indulge it. Instead he chuckled deeply, remembering the arching leap Candice did in her initial attack. If she would have just jumped into his arms back then, one or the other bruised bone would have been spared.

"You started this. " She said and had obviously regained her breath again. Her voice sounded soft and full, but he heard a discontented resonance in it he didn't like. Right now, her moans are his favorites and he felt himself twitch, and plotted how he could get to hear that sound again. She ripped her arm away from him and he let her go, disgruntled. When she moved her hips away from him, he stops her. He preferred the warmth of her heat of her body on him so much more than the heat of the Texas air. "N-no! " He started two times, his voice breaking again from the usual coarseness. She let him stop her, but felt stupid doing so, indulging something so foolishly primal. He didn't mean for his exclamation of unhappiness to stand for his answer, so he started a second time. "I mean, yes." He confesses, strangely vehement and couldn't push himself to feel guilty.

Candice sighed.

She struggled again to get up and again he doesn't want to let her go. This time, she is the one who digs her heels in, and gets up. The wet pop was delicious as his cock jumps free, glistering wetly and hanging abandoned between his legs. He saw her leaking his seed, right before she bowed down pull up her pants. It got caught mostly by her pants, but he sees splatter of little dark drops in the dark carpet below. He is mesmerizes, and she watches him like a hawk.

When he finally gets up to tuck himself away he remembers why the fuck his body didn't feel like getting up anyway. The pain in his knee burned well into his spine, and he can't control his gasp. She smirks a bit and leaned herself back on the bed. As she continued to watch him, she consciously had to control urge to help him up, he still is her husband after all. At that point she wasn't even aware of her own arm snaking itself around her midsection, as if trying to soothe the bruised organs below. He curses and wobbles and was finally able to get up himself, cock tucked away and his impaired knee gently bends.

Otis looked at her and sighed heavily. How can he be so stupid to fuck up the only good thing in his life and the only person that gives him the most happiness in life?

"I'm sorry."

Those words made Candice freeze, her anger and pain fading away. Otis rarely tells her he's sorry and actually means it. Looking in his dark blue eyes, Candice can plainly see that Otis means it. He is sorry for everything he has put her through and everything he knows he is going to put her through in the future.

Candice grabs his hand and pulls him on top of her. She grabs the back of his head and crashes their lips together. Her hands tangling in his long hair, his beard deliciously scratching her face as his hands, like always, grip her hips tightly. Breaking apart for air, the couple stared into each other's eyes. "Make love to me, Otis."

And that is exactly what he did.