Chapter Summary: Michaud watches as Annalise begins to experience the symptoms of drug withdrawal. His physical and emotional abuse finally take their toll on Annalise and she breaks.

Warnings: Violence

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

She knew he was there. She knew he stood in the doorway, watching her as she shivered, huddled against the headboard of the bed that sat in the middle of the small room. She looked across at him; his arms were crossed and there was no emotion on his face.

"What have you done to me?" Annalise asked, her arms holding her stomach, her words coming out in small gasps. Underneath the cotton nightdress she wore, new bruises battled with old bruises for supremacy; Annalise did not know how they had gotten there but she could feel them. The marks around her wrists now had companions in the marks around her ankles. She was tired and hungry and could not think beyond the new pain that gripped her from deep within, tearing her in two.

"Do you not remember?" the empty nothingness said as it began to cross the room. "Do you not remember the warning about drugged wine? Do you not remember I said there would be pain? Do you not remember I promised you would crawl to me to relieve the pain?" The nothingness had reached her side, sitting down, reaching out to pull her close. "This is the pain. This is only the beginning of the pain."

Annalise closed her eyes, shaking her head. "No. That was only a dream! This is only a dream! I will wake up and you'll be gone and my guardian angel will be back."

"You stupid little girl," the nothingness said, its voice growing deeper, "that was the dream. He is the dream. This is your reality - you and I and this room." The voice chuckled. "And the pain."

"No," Annalise insisted. "I will wake up and you will gone and we will all laugh at my silly dreams."

The nothingness gripped Annalise's arms tighter, eliciting a small cry of pain. "Does that feel like a dream?"

"No," Annalise admitted as her chin began to tremble. She opened her eyes and looked into the face of the evil that she had prayed was only a dream. "But if you are not a dream ..." She looked around the room, "and all of this is real," she looked down at her bruised arms and cut wrists before raising her eyes, "then ... then ..." she bit back a scream.

"Scream," the evil hissed at her. "Go ahead and scream! There is no one to hear you. No one has been hearing your screams, your cries for help, your pleas for mercy for the last five days." The evil let her go, shoving her backwards. "I am even growing accustomed to them. They are like sweet music to my ears."

Music. Mother. The word and image cut through the darkness and confusion in Annalise's mind. "What do you know of music or sweetness?" She managed before another knife tore at her middle, causing her to double up in pain. "My guardian angel would understand sweetness."

"Your angel," the word was spat out, "wanted you for one reason and one reason only. Now even he does not want you. He has left and will never be coming back! I am all you have left little princess. You will have to turn to me because there is no one else. Your fine family has not even bothered to search for you for they would have surely found you by now. And I shot that perfect little boy who was riding so hard to your rescue. So you see there is no one ..."

The mention of her family and of Andrew, the images that had comforted her reality, her dreams, her confusion, stirred some nearly extinguished flame of spirit within Annalise and she threw herself at the nightmare sitting by her side, knocking them both to the floor. She beat at him weakly, broken fingernails raising ugly scratches on face and neck. "You lie! They love me!" she screamed.

The evil had not been prepared for the reaction of a girl lost in drug-induced illusions, nearly broken and stressed beyond her endurance. Precious moments were lost as the evil searched through its mind in an attempt to understand. It reached deeply into a clear corner of sanity, another wave of rage building as it gained knowledge and began to react to the girl's actions. The growl began deep in its chest, as the evil radiated outwards, crowding out even the nothingness that was its mate. The growl and the evil took over limbs and consciousness, shaking every fiber of the inhabited body, wrapping it in a red haze beyond which nothing existed.

Annalise tumbled off of Michaud as a fist connected with her jaw. A small part of her mind begged her to stay still but it could not find its way through the misery and chaos that controlled the rest of her mind. Annalise struggled to her hands and knees, only to feel herself being flipped over and tossed onto her back. One hand was holding onto her wrists and another was encircling her throat and there was a voice next to her ear.

"No one loves you but me," it whispered to her.

"You lie!" Annalise shrieked, instinct taking over as she kicked out, a knee connecting with his stomach, knocking the air out of him, dropping him to her side. Annalise scrambled across the floor towards the closet, grabbing onto the handle, slowly raising herself to her feet. "My family loves me!"

"Then why are you still here?" the evil managed to get out.

Strength induced by the surge of anger was quickly fading and Annalise slid down the closet door. She let go of the handle, looking up at Michaud with what little strength and anger she had left. "Because you will not let me go," she said between clenched teeth as another sharp pain tore her in half.

"You can go," the evil told her as it stood up. "I will not hold you. Consider, though, where you would go." He walked over, stopping just short of where Annalise sat on the floor, doubled over and trying to find a way out from the pain that filled her entire being. "You have been here nearly five days." He leaned over so he could whisper. "Five days alone with a man to whom you are not wedded. That, in and of itself, will cause polite society to turn their backs on you. And when the world sees the pathetic little wretch the drugs have turned you into, there truly will be no one who will want you. Not your friends. Not your family." A smile grew on his face. "And certainly not your precious Andrew." He grabbed Annalise's chin, raising her head, forcing her to look at him. "You loved him and you did not even know and now you have lost him forever. You are damaged goods, little princess, and he will not want another man's castoff."

A spark of anger still burned deep within the part of Annalise that was able to rationalize and see things for what they were. It kept a shaky control on her actions, refusing to let her give up and give in. "You have destroyed whatever I might have had with Andrew and you destroyed whatever I might have had with you."

"You never had anything with me!"

"Because you never gave me a chance!" Annalise cried. "You never let me find out what it was I wanted!"

"I could see what you wanted!"

"I did not know what I wanted and you did not trust me enough to know my own mind!"

"Mind?" The evil wanted to know. "Mind? You no longer have a mind. You no longer even have a soul. They belong to me. You belong to me." He kept hold of Annalise's chin as he lifted her to her feet. "You. Do. Not. Exist." He told her, emphasizing the words. "Whatever you are is what I have made you. There is no past and no future; there is only me. Do you understand?"

Annalise managed to nod her head.

The evil pinched her chin, sending pain flaring through her sore jaw. "I did not hear an answer."

"Yes!" Annalise shouted and broke down into sobs. "Are you happy now? Yes!"

The evil slowly began to fade into the nothingness. "For the moment," it replied, taking Annalise by the hand and half-dragging, half-leading her back to the bed. "You will sit."

Annalise did as she was told, watching as the nothingness looked at her with that empty stare before walking out the door, the click of the lock punctuating his departure. Only then did the remaining small rational part of her mind surrender control, allowing Annalise to break down completely. She buried her face in a pillow and let out a keening wail that the goose down barely muffled. Her knees involuntarily rose towards her chest as another tentacle of pain wrapped itself around her middle, causing her to catch her breath, stopping the sobs. Annalise rode the pain out, finding she was finally able to draw a breath. She kept hold of the pillow she gripped so tightly and rolled onto her back, staring at the ceiling.

"It is not a dream," she whispered sadly. "Oh God, it is not a dream!" She was quiet for a moment as the tears began again, rolling down her cheeks, dampening the rat's nest that her hair had become. "I want to go home, please; I just want to go home."

"No one will want you," the words bounced off the walls of the room and the walls of Annalise's tired, stressed and confused mind. "No one will want you."

"I cannot go home," Annalise whispered, unsure if it was the thought that caused her to shiver, the cold she found she could not shake or the blackness that was beginning to replace her soul. "I can never go home. They won't want me after this." She choked on her sobs, deep coughs shaking her body. "No one will want me after this."

A familiar voice floated through the tangled corridors of her memories. "Listen to your head and follow your heart."

Annalise rolled onto her side. "I did not listen to my head and now it is all gone." She closed her eyes. "It is all gone." She laid still for a moment, fighting against the pain that gripped every joint and muscle, the shivers that played a strange counterpoint to the pain and the heartache and agonizing realization that had nothing do with any physical pain. "They are all gone. I'll never see them again." Images of family and friends danced in the world behind Annalise's closed eyelids as tears of goodbye traced down her cheeks. "God," she prayed softly, "don't let them forget me. Tell my brothers how much I loved them. Kiss my parents for me."

"You will never know how sorry I am," Annalise heard her father say.

Another pain grabbed at her from deep inside. "Andrew ..." she gasped as she breathed rapidly and shallowly, trying to find a way through the pain.

"I wanted to marry you." Memories and words became jumbled and tossed in the rooms of Annalise's memory.

"Let him be happy," Annalise managed as the pain once again receded. "Please let him be happy."

"What choice did I have?" Christine's voice called out to her daughter. "I had no choice."

"No choice," Annalise whispered. "No choice." She opened her eyes and managed to get herself into a sitting position. She drew a deep breath as the room began to shake and spin but Annalise refused to look away from it. She allowed herself to be drawn in the swirling vortex, watching as her old life with its memories of family and friends and endless possibilities was swept into a dark whirlpool where it disappeared forever. The spinning and swirling stopped as her life vanished and it was a different Annalise who shakily stood up from the bed. The nothingness that had been her tormentor, who had brought the evil and chased away her guardian angel was now a part of her, filling her, consuming her. There was no fear, no loss, no heartache.

There was simply nothing.

Nothing beyond the locked door of her nightmare reality. Nothing beyond the tips of the fingers she could no longer feel. Nothing beyond the pain. Nothing beyond the very breath she was taking.

There was nothing.

The door clicked open and Annalise turned empty eyes towards the sound, smiling vacantly at the nothingness that walked through. "What took you so long?" she asked softly as she crossed the room, hand extended for the wine glass.

"What are you doing?" the nothingness wanted to know as the wine glass was grabbed from its hand.

Annalise swallowed the drugged wine in one breath, throwing the glass against the far wall where it lay it shatters next to its broken mate from three days ago. "I made my choice," Annalise said without emotion as she felt a familiar warmth begin in her stomach. She smiled at the nothingness that was disappearing. "I made my choice."

"What are you talking about?" Michaud wanted to know as he stared at the stranger in front of him.

Annalise reached up to hold his face in her hands, "You sent those gifts. You must know the story of the woman who bore me. You know she had a choice to make. She gave up the passion in her life and for what? A safe life with a safe man?" Annalise felt the nothingness lift her up and set her free. "I do not want that. I want what you promised." She reached in and kissed Michaud softly. Once. Twice. The third kiss was hard and long. "I want the passion you promised would be mine." Annalise stood on tiptoe to breathe into her angel's ear. "I want you."

Michaud drew back, horror and confusion written across his face. "Not like this! You do not know what you are saying!"

Annalise laughed, a strange hollow sound, and twirled around, falling to the floor. She held on to Michaud's ankles as she felt herself begin to float away. "I will crawl to you, if that is what you desire; but I cannot do that if you fly away, dear angel. So you surely will not mind if I hold you tightly." She laughed again. "All angels should walk the earth enjoying the company of mortals. Did the ancient gods not do as much?"

Michaud took a step back, shaking himself free of Annalise's grip. "What has happened to you?"

"The woman who gave me birth let her angel fly away. I do not intend to let my angel get away that easily!"

Michaud bent over and gently lifted a giggling Annalise to her feet. "You mean your mother."

The giggles and the smile disappeared. "I have no family," she insisted. "There is only you. There is only me. There is only us." Annalise reached in and kissed him again. "Is that not what you desired?"

"Yes," Michaud replied. "No. Yes." He shook his head. "I need time to think."

"Oh my angel," Annalise breathed, "am I that frightening?" A deep cough shook her body.

"You need to rest," Michaud replied, leading her to the bed.

Annalise followed meekly, allowing Michaud to sit her on the bed, helping her curl under the light summer blanket. She reached up trembling arms, clasping them about his neck, drawing him down to her level. "Do you not wish to stay with me, my angel? Do you not wish to guard me from the others?"

The neck and shoulder muscles beneath Annalise's hands grew taut. Michaud forcefully broke away from her embrace. "It will be on my time and on my terms!" the angry stranger told her as he came back.

Annalise raised herself onto her elbows, barely able to stay steady. Her head fell limply to her shoulder. "And I shall be waiting." Her eyes began to close. "Just do not keep me waiting too long," Annalise told him as she blissfully walked into the waiting arms of the darkness, slumping back onto the pillows, lost for a few more hours in a drug-induced sleep.

The angry stranger walked over and sat on the bed next to Annalise. His hand reached out to touch her cheek, trailing over to trace the outline of her lips, running down the straight lines of her neck.

"No!" Michaud broke through the red haze that always accompanied the angry stranger he could not control. "I will not let you do this!" He stood, trembling and leaned over the sleeping girl on the bed. He brushed matted curls from her forehead and leaned in to kiss her. "I do not know how much longer I can keep them at bay," he whispered. "Please forgive me." He turned from Annalise, the trembling in his body visible and powerful, and walked out of the room, locking the door behind him.