Author's Notes: See chapter one for disclaimer.

Thanks to sunglassesANDunicorns, LiLSoRacHaN, Mrs. Terwilliger, Sheamaru, JuleWooster, Miscellaneous Penguin, SpamWarrior, and CamelofDOOM for reviewing chapter three! I'm glad you guys liked the cliffhanger at the end. I was afraid it was too obvious that it was going to happen, but I'm glad it went off so well. Thanks!

I apologize if the first scene in this chapter seems awkward. It gave me a fair amount of trouble, so I'm not sure if it's my best work. It's passable, but…argh. If you don't like the first scene, please don't kill me. I tried my hardest.

My Immortal
By Annie-chan
Chapter Four: Cause and Effect

Johnny blinked. He had just walked into a store without realizing it. He had been so caught up in his thoughts that he hadn't registered where he was going. So intent were his plans to catch up to, capture, and torture the fucking slob who had knocked him down and kicked him in the ribs a little while ago—to impress his equally witless buddies, of course—that he had been essentially walking on autopilot. His feet had carried him into this store of their own accord.

Wow, it's been a while since I've been in here, he mused, rubbing the surely bruised spot on his side where he had been kicked. He recognized the packed bookshelves and parquet-patterned carpet like it was his own home. He used to come in here all the time.

His eyes widened in alarm when something clicked in his brain and reminded him just where exactly here was.

Dragon's Books.

His gaze instinctively swung around to where he knew the front counter would be as he took a step back, as if expecting an attack. Oh, shi—!

Devi.

There she was, standing behind the counter as she always had been when he used to come in here nearly every day. Her hair was a bright magenta color that she hadn't had before, and it was hanging loose almost to her shoulders, longer than he had ever seen it, but he barely registered this change in her appearance. He wouldn't forget the face framed by that hair in a million years.

She was staring at him, seemingly frozen in place, utter shock and horror on her face. He suspected that he was looking back at her with a similar expression.

"Is this someone you know, Devi?" a female voice suddenly broke into his panic. A young woman wearing an employee apron was standing a few feet away from them, a glass of water in her hand. She looked disconcerted by the scene before her.

"I…I…uh…" Johnny managed to stutter before Devi could answer. He held up his hands and started backing toward the door. "I didn't mean…eh…well…I didn't know…I'll be going n—"

Devi finally moved, slamming her hand down on the counter, cutting Johnny off and making him flinch. Her look of shock had been instantly replaced with one of rage.

"I-I mean…!" He held his hands out in front of him, as if she were a predator about to pounce on him.

"Devi?" Twyla asked, getting more and more nervous. "Dev—WHOA!"

Johnny eeped in surprise, edging closer to the door behind him. Devi had just braced both hands on the counter and vaulted herself bodily over it. There was now nothing between them, and the look of absolute hatred seething in her eyes made him swallow hard. Her hands were clenched into fists as she fully faced him, and she looked as if she wanted nothing more than to have those fists clamped around his scrawny neck.

FUCK!!!

"What's going on?!" Twyla cried, clearly frightened by her friend's behavior toward this stranger. "Devi, who is this pers—hey! HEY! Wait!"

Devi had surged forward, grabbing one of Johnny's wrists and dragging him out of the shop. She slammed through the door so hard, it banged against the outside wall, the large glass panel in the middle groaning threateningly. The two of them disappeared down the street, leaving a shocked and very bewildered Twyla staring at the door as it swung quickly shut.

Fuck! Johnny screamed at himself as an obviously very angry Devi yanked him after her. Fuck, fuck, FUCK! Why the HELL did you go in there?! You promised she would never see you again! And you go waltzing right into where she works! You FUCKING IDIOT! AAAAAUGH!!!

His internal tirade was cut short as he was suddenly and violently swung around. Stumbling, he managed to regain his balance, but only barely. He realized he was in an empty alleyway a split second before he was shoved deeper into the narrow passageway from behind. A female voice, shaking and high-pitched in anger, assaulted his ears.

"What the fuck do you think you were doing in there?!" Devi raged at him. "Who the fuck do you think you are?! Walking right into that store like you own it?! Walking back into my life?! God damn it, Johnny, you little shit! You said you'd leave me the fuck alone!"

"I know!" Johnny fairly shouted back. "I—"

"Then why the fuck are you here?!"

"I don't know! I didn't mean to go in there! It was an accident!" The second it was out of his mouth, he realized how stupid it must have sounded.

"That's bullshit!" she bit back, raising a hand as if to strike him. "What do you take me for, an idiot?!"

"No!" Johnny was visibly aghast at the thought of thinking such an intelligent and vibrant woman an idiot.

"Then don't give me shit excuses like that!"

"It's not a shit excuse!" Johnny insisted, frustration beginning to replace his panic. "I swear I never meant to let you see me!" He cringed when he realized the implications of his words.

"Oh, I see," Devi ground out between her teeth. "You were going to wait until I left the bookstore, then drag me into some dark corner and kill me, right? Is that it?!"

"Devi, I would never hurt you!"

"Bullshit! You expect me to believe that?! After what you did?! I'm not stupid, Johnny!"

"I know you aren't," Johnny said quietly after a few seconds, his volume dropping off abruptly. "You're the smartest person I've ever known. I've never met anyone whose mind I've admired more. I would never think you stupid."

"Gee, I'm flattered," Devi hissed sarcastically. "That doesn't tell my why you dragged your sorry ass back into my life!"

Johnny shook his head. "I didn't mean to. I swear it. I never meant to walk into that store. It just happened. Please, you've got to believe me." He blinked rapidly and swallowed hard, fighting off the sudden urge to cry. He had sworn both to her and to himself that he would obliterate all feelings he had for her, swearing also that they would never cross paths again for as long as they lived. The first part of that promise was becoming increasingly difficult to fulfill, and the second part had just been smashed into pieces. It was enough to make him scream in frustration, yet he managed to restrain himself, biting his tongue so hard it bled.

Devi put her head in her hands and gave an exasperated sigh. "God damn it, Nny."

"I'm sorry…"

"SHUT UP!" she shouted, slamming her fist against the cement wall next to her, making him jump. "Shut up, Nny! Do you have any idea what I've been through?! Do you have any idea how hard I've been trying to get my life back on track?! How much I've had to force myself through just to function?! Damn it! I've never fought so hard in my life! And now look! You come strolling back into my life and fuck everything up! Shit! I had a great day ahead of me, and then you show up!"

"Devi, I never meant to—"

"Stop saying that! Stop pretending this is all some accident!"

"It was an accident!" he insisted. "I didn't even realize I was near Dragon's Books until I was in the door!"

"I don't give a fuck!" she yelled back, her voice getting shrill again. "That doesn't change the fact that the last person I want to see just waltzed right back into my life!"

Johnny was silent again, his eyes downcast. "I know it doesn't," he finally said, his voice soft. "I know I just ruined your day. Hell, I probably ruined your whole week. But…please believe me, Devi. I'm sorry. I didn't mean for us to meet at all, today or any day. I was just as surprised as you were, I swear. If I could take it all back, I would."

Devi crossed her arms and looked away. Just what exactly did he mean by that? If I could take it all back, I would. It almost sounded as if he were apologizing for everything that had happened since their ill-fated date so many months ago. But that was impossible. He didn't know everything that had happened since then. He had no idea of her ordeal with Sickness, and he probably assumed she still worked at the bookstore. He was apologizing for what had happened today, that's all. Still…that one sentence set off a sharp twinge of regret deep in her guts. The feeling of loss and disappointment she had experienced upon realizing he wasn't the man she thought he was hadn't dulled much at all since she had first felt it. What if things had turned out differently? What if they—

She shook her head firmly. Now was not the time to think about that.

"You're the one who killed those three people earlier this week," she asked suddenly, looking him straight in the eye. It was more a statement than a question.

"Yes," he replied, meeting her eyes steadily. Lying would get him nowhere with her, so he didn't even try to hide the truth.

"You're still kidnapping people to torture and kill in your basement, aren't you?" she pressed.

"Yes," he said again, giving a slight nod.

"So how do I know you're not going to try to kill me again, huh?!" she snapped, her tone rising again.

"I won't! I would never!"

"How do I know that?!"

"I…I guess you don't," he mumbled, shoving his hands into his coat pockets and looking down at the ground. "All you have is my word."

"Yeah, and we all know how good that is," she jabbed, no small amount of venom in her voice.

Johnny flinched, stung. He knew he deserved it, though, so he didn't contradict her.

"Just how many people did you kill while you were away?" she asked. "How many throats did you slit before they even knew you were there?"

"I dunno," he shrugged. "I lost count after the first month or so."

"Jesus Christ," she hissed, throwing her hands up in a gesture of futility. She should have known.

"I'm sor—"

"Forget it, Johnny," she interrupted, her teeth clenched. "Stop apologizing. I don't want to hear it."

"Then what do you want me to do?" he asked.

"You can stay the hell away from me, that's what," she replied testily. "I don't want to see you ever fucking again. I don't want to see you, I don't want to hear your voice, hell I don't want to even remember you. You got that through your head? Stay out of my life."

Without another word or even a look back, she turned and marched out of the alleyway. A tiny part of her warned never to turn her back to a known murderer, but she was too pissed off to listen to reason. She'd be damned if she even acknowledged his existence anymore. He was dead and buried, as far as she was concerned.

Johnny just stood there and watched her walk away. His hands were shaking, and a thousand different emotions were roiling in his chest, threatening to shatter his already broken heart. He thought he heard Reverend Meat's voice whispering smugly into his ear…

So much for obliterating all of your affection and interest for her.

He whipped around with an agonized shriek, slamming his foot into a nearby garbage can and sending it sprawling, its contents spewing out all over the ground. The crash was deafening in the confined space of the alley, the sound ricocheting off the walls all around him. The force of his spin knocked him off balance, and he fell painfully to his knees, feeling them bruise against the hard concrete.

His bony fingers clutched at his dark hair, pulling his head down painfully, straining his neck as he unconsciously tried to curl up. A low moan of despair escaped his throat, tears finally flowing from his tightly-shut eyes.

Fuck, he hated himself.

The apartment door slammed behind her. Wasting no time, she quickly turned around and flipped all four of the deadbolts firmly in place. When that was done, she stood there for several seconds, just staring at the light purple paint of the door.

Finally, she let out a long sigh, leaning her forehead against the wood, her hands coming up to rest there as well. Her little outing to the bookstore couldn't possibly have ended in a worse fashion.

Well…that wasn't true. She could have been hit by a drunk driver and run off the road, or grabbed by some serial rapist and had who-knows-what done to her, or had one of Johnny's knives lodged between her ribs as she walked away from him, or…

Fuck, she didn't care about what could have happened. She cared about what did happen, and what did happen was the one thing she had hoped and prayed would never, ever come to pass. She had met Johnny C. again. Not only that, but instead of letting him leave the bookstore, as he seemed about to do, she had grabbed him and shoved him into a dark alley to scream at him.

"Stupid," she muttered. "God damn it, that was stupid!" She balled her left hand into a fist and hit at the door, clenching her teeth in anger. Could she have done anything less wise? Instead of putting as much distance between herself and Johnny as possible, she had cornered him in a place where nobody would see if he turned vicious and attacked her. Not only that, but she had fully turned her back on him when she finally did retreat, giving him a wide-open target. He could have sliced through her back to her heart before she even realized he had moved.

You're a fucking idiot, Devi, she thought bitterly.

A shiver passed through her as she recalled what had happened after she had exited the alley. She hadn't been even half a building away when an unearthly scream reached her ears, followed quickly by a loud, metal crash. The sound had been barely human, as if ripped from the throats of the damned, writhing in their eternal torment in the deepest pits of Hell. Bottomless misery had echoed in that wailing cry, and she had almost answered with a scream of her own. The horror had so overwhelmed her that she had literally sprinted back to her car, jumping in and starting the engine before she even had the door closed.

Pushing away from the door, she turned around and faced the living room. Things looked so much duller than when she had left. Her unusually happy mood was now gone, and it seemed as if the color had drained out of the world with it. It made her want, if only for a second, to burst into tears.

Maybe I should paint, she thought. Yeah, that's it. Do some work on my latest job. Get my mind off of things. That'll do it.

Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, she shrugged off her coat and tossed it on the coffee table. Turning to her right, she entered the drawing room.

An empty canvas stood in the middle of the room, the paint-splattered drop cloth covering the carpet underneath. Yesterday afternoon, the last time she had done any painting, she had finished the picture she had been working on and moved it out to the living room to finish drying. Out of habit, she had placed a new canvas on the easel, in case the urge to paint something hit her suddenly. She hated setting up when her brain was screaming at her to start now.

She took a step toward the easel, then stopped, realizing she hadn't finished conceptualizing the rest of the commissioned pictures in her current assignment. She really didn't have anything more to do for it yet. If she was going to do any painting, it would have to be something personal.

Walking the rest of the way to the easel, she stared at the blank surface for several minutes, scrutinizing the tightly-packed fibers a bit harder than was necessary. It was an ordinary canvas, just like all the others she had painted on. She looked away only when her vision started to blur, and she realized that she was going cross-eyed with the intensity of her steady stare. Blinking the blurriness away, she looked away and found herself gazing at a pile of used canvasses that had been thrown into a corner and left there. Those were the discards, the paintings that had gone wrong or had dissatisfied her in some way. She usually knew that a painting wasn't going the way she wanted pretty early on, but sometimes they were almost finished before she rejected them. She always lamented the lost time and effort that had gone into those ones, but what could she do but push them aside and start over?

She hadn't taken the discards to the dumpster in a long time, and the stack was taller than it usually got before being thrown out. A corner sticking out from near the middle of the pile caught her eye, making her come closer. The paint on that corner was red, giving her the strange impression that it was actually blood. Ever since cutting her hands wide open while trying to fend Sickness off, red paint always gave her a bit of a shiver when she saw it in large quantities.

Grasping the corner that had caught her eye, she pulled the canvas it belonged to out of the pile, letting the ones on top slide off and fall haphazardly back into their places.

This was…the canvas.

A gaping hole in the red paint stared back at her, the outline of a small pigtailed doll suspended in the very middle. It was the imprint left behind when Sickness had crawled out of it into the three-dimensional world. The jagged edges and cracks in the red, like a window broken by some airborne object, were from the strain placed upon it while the doll had worked on taking real form. What had started out as just layers of pigment had gradually morphed into a tangible object, as solid as if it had come off of a toy factory assembly line.

Devi scowled darkly at the canvas, her lip curling in disgust. It was all Johnny's fault. That fucker had introduced her, however unintentionally, to this mental parasite, and she had almost lost ownership of her mind to a malignant creature from some other realm. And he had no idea what he had done to her, to the woman he claimed to "like immensely".

How dare he?

With a short cry of anger, she heaved the canvas up over her head and brought it down hard against the floor, cracking it in two. Dry chips of paint flew into the air, and she accidentally inhaled one into her nose, making her sneeze violently.

"Gah…fucking shit," she grumbled, rubbing her nose. For a moment, she actually wished Sickness was here again. It wasn't so her mind could be fed upon, of course, but so she could tear the doll apart again. It would be so much more gratifying than breaking an already ruined canvas in half. Alas, Sickness had been relegated to nothingness. Devi would have to satisfy herself with destroying the doll's former home.

She wasn't going to get any painting done today.

Sighing, she looked up at the clock on the drawing room wall. It was almost five o'clock. Derek was supposed to pick her up for their date around six-thirty.

May as well start getting ready, she thought. I look like a fucking mess. I'll need all the time I can get.

Walking out of the drawing room, she headed for the bathroom. A shower was first on the itinerary. She had washed her hair this morning when she had dyed it, but she hadn't taken a full shower since yesterday morning. If she went out tonight without taking one, she'd be constantly worrying whether she smelled like sweat or not.

I am not going to let Johnny ruin tonight. I'll cut off both my hands sooner than let that fucker run my life again.

SLAM!

"Fucking hell…" Johnny growled. He was standing in his living room, glaring murderously at nothing in particular. His short hair was standing up at odd angles, dirt and alleyway crud clung to his pants from when he had fallen to his knees, and dried tears streaked his thin face, all giving him a wrung-out, haggard appearance. Most noticeable of all, his clothes were stained with sticky, drying blood. A grimy, gory knife was clutched in his hand, knuckles white with the strength of his grip.

Damn it. He was pissed.

He was angry at himself more than anything else. Like a fucking imbecile, he had walked right into Devi's work. The meeting had set off the biggest storm of emotions he had felt in a long time, and had obviously thrown a wrench into Devi's day as well. Not only had he broken his promise to her, he had inflicted the biggest setback yet on his pursuit of emotional numbness. After breaking down in the alleyway, crying until he had no more tears left in him, his despair had quickly turned to blood rage. Before he had realized it, the knife he kept in his left boot was in his hand.

Now, four hookers and three of their prospective clients lay dead behind the Lusty Lady downtown. Streetwalkers frequently hung out around the strip club, picking up the drunken, horny men as they left the dancehall. Johnny loathed such vulgar behavior, so the slaughter had given him a rush of savage satisfaction. That satisfaction had since faded, however, giving way once again to his seething fury.

"Hey there, Nny," Reverend Meat grinned as he stomped into the bedroom. "Looks like you had a good time downtown."

Without even looking, Johnny whipped his arm out toward the voice, flinging the knife at Reverend Meat. The blood-spattered blade buried itself nearly to the hilt in the cardboard box Meat sat upon, rattling the ceramic figure on top.

"Whoa!" Meat exclaimed, not expecting that. "What's up your ass?"

"SHUT UP!" Johnny shouted, his eyes flashing dangerously. "I am in no mood for your shit!"

"Are you ever?" Meat countered, a sneer in his voice. "I swear, Nny, you throw temper tantrums like a five-year-old."

Johnny gave a wordless, infuriated cry, grabbing one of the handles sticking up out of the umbrella stand to the left of the dresser. With a tremendous yank, he extracted a grim-looking axe, its wicked blade stained black with the blood of previous victims. The umbrella stand fell over with the force of his pull, but he paid it no mind.

"What are you going to do with that?" Meat asked. "Hey! Where are you going?"

Johnny didn't answer as he exited the bedroom. His footsteps quickened to a run before they slowly faded into the endless network of basements below the tiny house. He was descending.

Moments later, the screaming began.

Beep! Beep!

Devi looked up from her mirror at the sound of a car horn. Her clock said six-thirty on the dot.

That must be Derek, she thought. He's right on time.

Going over to her window, she flung it wide and leaned out, spying a little blue car idling in the parking lot down below. A man was leaning out the window, waving up at her. Sure enough, it was Derek O'Farrell.

"I'll be right down!" she called out. Seeing him give her the thumbs-up sign, she leaned back in and closed the window. Looking in her mirror again, she gave herself a quick once-over, smiling as she did so. Makeup, hair, dress…everything looked perfect. Grabbing her nice black coat out of her closet—she wasn't going to wear her regular old brown one on a date—she practically ran out of the apartment, stopping only to make sure the door was locked behind her.

Oh, please let tonight go well! she prayed to whatever supreme being may be listening. Butterflies the size of vultures were fluttering in her stomach. Her last date had been with a guy who turned out to be a brain-chomping zombie. She hoped Derek wasn't hiding anything like that under his amiable smile.

The sun was half set as she trotted out into the parking lot, giving the world a soft, orangey glow. She glanced at the sunset, taking note of how pretty it was before opening the passenger-side door of Derek's car and seating herself inside.

"Hey there, beautiful," Derek said with a grin. "You look great!"

"Thanks," she replied, a hint of an honest blush coming to her face. She reached over her shoulder and pulled the seatbelt out to buckle up as he maneuvered the car out of the parking lot.

"You're going to enjoy tonight, Devi," Derek assured her as they started down the road. "I got it all planned out."

To be continued…

Author's Notes: Gah. This chapter turned out a bit different than expected. I don't think it's quite the best I could do, but I'm going to have to live with it. Like I said before the chapter, I had trouble composing the first scene. If I went back and tried to tweak it, though, I know I'll just make it worse. I have a nasty habit of failing miserably when I try to improve something. If I scrap it entirely and start over, I'll just turn out crap. So, I hope you all think that the first scene, though not my best work, is passable. I really did try my hardest with it.

Randomly, I figure Johnny assumes Devi is still working at the bookstore. I don't think he's had any chance yet to find out she's quit to work as a professional artist. This detail isn't very important, but I thought I'd mention it.

So, what do you think? Is this chapter as good as the others? I hope so. It's taken me almost six hours to finish, and that's not counting the time it took to edit it. My fucktard neighbors were playing loud music while I was editing, too, which made that take longer than it should have. Rrrrr. I hope you guys like this chapter as much as you liked the first three. Please let me know what you think. Hearing from my readers makes me ever so happy.

T.T.F.N.! Ta-ta for now!