IX – Electricity


"…If you want the truth, I never wanted a child... Much less a girl."

Caterina stood in front of him in shock, feeling her blood pulsing through her brain, neck, chest, and guts. She felt it pulsing through the veins of her wrist that he held so tightly.

"You…-"

"I am old, Caterina. Do you think I would have wanted a family after surviving on my own for forty years?"

Although he didn't sound accusing, she felt accused. The girl looked from his black eyes to his sharp cheekbones and strong jaws, following a scar on his neck to his shoulder and down his chest. She stopped to look at the bullet hole that had left a round white scar on the left side of his chest, visible even in the low lights of a dark night. Her brows frowned without her realizing it, her lower lip trembling. Her hand went limp in his as the fourteen year old used her remaining strength to keep from crying. Her thin legs trembled and her knees gave in.

The Dragon watched her as she slowly slid from his grip, falling into the water. He felt her breath hot on his skin, drifting from his chest to his waist. The man saw her auburn hair floating around her shoulders as she sunk to her nose in the warm water.

He sighed and walked out of the pool, taking the stairs. The night was chilly and at that height, the wind was even colder. Without a word, he walked into the apartment he had rented for the night and began to dry himself. The bathing suit ended up tossed aside and he turned on the TV.

'…earlier this afternoon. The firemen are still fighting to put out the fire, and it is believed the basement and the first floor had been flooded in fuel. The fire is believed to be no accident, but set on purpose. The neighbors said they knew about at least two teenagers, a toddler and the lady of the house being home at the time they had seen the flames.'

So, he had a toddler too… The Dragon watched the report with indifference. The youngest of three children wasn't scheduled to die, but he thought it better that way. Just as he was thinking about it, he noticed a trembling shadow on the wall.

"…Am I weak… in your eyes?" she asked in a calm voice. It sent a chill down the man's spine, unused to his daughter being so emotionless and so brutally calm.

When he turned to face her, he saw the girl dripping in water in her black swimming suit with her hair sticking to her chest and arms in a very uncharacteristic mess. The Dragon saw her green eyes darkened, drained by the very source of female weakness – emotion.

"…What am I to you?" she asked after a long moment of silence.

For another minute, they just stared at each other. Although he was naked and she wasn't far from it, none of them seemed to notice. The wind froze her bones before the Dragon hurried towards her and slid closed the glass doors.

"Caterina…" he breathed out with worry, uncertain of what he was feeling. The man put his large hands on her small shoulders, feeling her wet and cold skin. A few hairs stood up on her skin when she felt the warmth of his body pressed against her, as the man wrapped her in a tight embrace like none of them had known before.

"…Who are you?" she asked on the same tone, forcing all feelings back into the darkest corners of her being before she even had the chance to recognize them.

"…This is enough, for now… I will tell you, little by little." He mumbled, bent over her short frame.

"You won't…" she said in a low voice, her lips moving against her father's skin.

"I will. I swear I will. You will know everything I should have told you before…"

Letting go, the man took a large towel and wrapped it around her, rubbing her arms and back so strongly, the girl found herself taking small half-steps back and forth in order to keep her balance.

Caterina eventually held the towel over her shoulders and turned her back on him.

"…Do I look like her?" she asked all of a sudden.

"Like… who?!" the man asked.

"…Anastasia." The name rolled from her cold lips slowly, with such clarity it frightened him. The girl had a habit of talking fast, of pronouncing names faster than she could talk, so most of the time she didn't pronounce every sound. This time, she did.

The Dragon sighed. The girl let the towel fall to the ground and took off the top part of her bathing suit, standing in front of him only in a soaked bikini bottom.

His eyes fell from her face to her body, recognizing the beautiful fragility her mother had. He could tell this was how Anastasia had most likely looked like, three years before they slept together. He felt the desire to take her, the instincts threatening to take over at any moment, but he knew better…

"…You do," he eventually admitted upon swallowing hard and trying to control his breathing. "You look exactly like her, only younger and more beautiful."

"I will fade one day. Just like her…"

The man didn't know what to say, watching his daughter with the lust he felt for her mother fifteen years ago. Only this time, there was something more than just lust. He watched the low light of the TV screen play on her small chest, over her barely visible ribs and her flat stomach, unscarred by pregnancy or age. He watched the subtle shadows of her hip bones and the water dripping from her bikini, sliding down her legs in sparkling, cold droplets.

"You could never become as artificial and dead as her."

"Do you know why she does that…?" the girl asked, but only received a confused look from her father as a response. "To keep you interested. She starves herself to stay as thin as me. She filled her breasts with silicone because they were sagging. She glues plastic between her lashes and she doesn't tell you, but it stings. The glue burns her lashes, irritates her eyes. She's slowly going bald, dying her white hairs. She spends weeks every year in the hospital in order to get some plastic surgeries. In order to keep young… She may be superficial, but she's not blind."

The man went to hold his daughter once again and this time, her small hands went up from his hips to his back. She felt him hard against her hips, but knew he valued loyalty above everything else.

"Have you ever cheated…?"

"No."

"You have…"

"I have not," he replied quickly, trying to back away and look her in the eyes. Caterina only laid her head on his chest and held him tighter.

"You have… with me. Tonight… And before. You look at me like a lover, you talk to me like a lover, and you treat me like a lover. Anastasia knows…"

"Then you have already figured it out. I do not care about her, I never did."

"But she does. She always had, I believe."

"She is unimportant."

"She is weak…" Caterina said at the same time. "She is one of the weakest women you had met. Anastasia is weak because she feels too much and acts on feelings… right? She depends on you, she always had. Just like I do…"

The man froze with shock. He opened his mouth to speak, but was too afraid of saying the wrong words. He was terrified to think Caterina might push him away, leave him and never wish to hear of him again.

"…So, what am I to you?" she asked again.

A cold drop of water fell from his hair to her shoulder, sliding down her chest as she took a small step back. The Dragon had lost count of how many times he had to focus on breathing in order to suppress his instincts. He had to constantly remind himself that she was his daughter, and that he was married, that traitors and cheaters deserved nothing but the most painful deaths and that his adoptive father had died for the same sin he was so tempted to commit.

"You are… everything I never had." He mumbled eventually, his voice low and his eyes following the water drops from her hair going down her thin neck and slowly cascading over her collar bones.

"…Do you want me?"

Her hands went from his back around his hips and up his abdomen, reaching for his chest and shoulders. Still, her expression was the same cold and emotionless one that sent cold chills down the Dragon's spine whenever their eyes met.

He sat down on the fur thrown on the floor in front of the couch and grabbed her from behind, his hands going just below her ass and on her thighs. The man pulled her close and kissed her abdomen, just above the line of her bikini. Caterina gasped quietly as surprise washed over her face for a moment.

"I do…" he confessed with his eyes closed, feeling the unfamiliar sensation of guilt and relief biting at his heart. He remembered the last time he had confessed in front of a Cardinal in Rome. He had been too ashamed to admit everything he had done, so when he was asked if he had committed any of the seven deadly sins, the only words he could mutter were that he did.

"…Padre," she said, her voice trembling in fear. This was a side of him she had never seen. It was something unexpected, something for which she wasn't ready.

"I won't…" he began in the same low voice that Caterina never knew. "You deserve the right to choose… I won't rob you of it."

Her arms wrapped around her father's head and she held him against her flat belly. She untied his hair and let it flow on his back. The man closed his eyes and they remained that way for a long time. She didn't move until she felt his hands sliding down her legs.

"You're cold…" he said.

"I am."

He let go of her ankles and she stepped over one of his legs. Caterina wrapped herself in the towel he gave her before and went to sit on his lap. In silence, they tried to dry each other's bodies and hair.

It was long past midnight when Caterina fell asleep and he laid her in bed. The Dragon couldn't close his eyes peacefully, but he kept quiet in the dark apartment, watching television with the volume turned off. He took the couch to avoid waking up his daughter by mistake. A cheap film was on screen which he watched without any interest.

A few streets away, in a different apartment, Anastasia was trying almost desperately to fall asleep. Convinced of her worthlessness in the world, she had washed down her throat three packs of painkillers with a bottle of liquor she ordered from her butler. The old man had brought her two bottles instead and the woman was just about to open the second, her hands trembling and her vision blurred. A loud and desperate sob burned its way back up her throat.

The butler watched from the corner as the woman struggled to open the bottle. His eyes gleamed, aware she would not recall the events of tonight by the time she'd wake up tomorrow. He went and opened the bottle for her.

"I hope you choke."

Pushing the air out of her lungs, Anastasia drank a mouthful. Her throat ached and some drops went down from her lips to her chin, mixing up with tears.

"Nobody loves you. You are a whore. A tramp."

"Gno…" she tried between hiccups and sobs.

"You are a worthless, disgusting whore. A broken toy. What did your family tell you?"

"Ah… don' know… don' care…"

"You're a fabulous liar, you know? Have you considered the movie industry? You'd do great with that big round mouth of yours and the way you suck down alcohol when nobody sees you."

Leaning with one hand on the bottle, she curled up in a corner like a scared child.

"I don'… never…"

The old man stood, glaring at her in disgust. He checked that the windows were closed, then walked towards the door. The woman stumbled behind him, trying to form a coherent phrase. In all her confusion and misery, she was terrified of what was to come. Vincent hurried out of the room and locked her inside, where she would stay until the morning without any company and in complete darkness. Anastasia screamed between sobs, crawling into a corner and holding her head with both of her hands.

Vincent smirked and put the keys in his pocket. After that, he went out to meet with someone and make a few bets, in hope to gain three to five times the money the Dragon paid him. Even if Anastasia was not going to remember the events exactly, she would remember her emotions – fear, shame, regret, self-hate, humiliation? – and that should be enough to push her towards the edge little by little. Without anyone knowing, Vincent had been playing this game for nearly a year, every time Anastasia was left alone with him over the night.


Author's Note:

Last chapter proofread by Eat4Fun, released early thanks to OftheSunandStars who reviewed. Good to see there's some life out there, and since I promised faster updates, here you go.