Author's Note: I know it's taken me a longer time than normal to update this time, but that's only because I've landed a new job and it's taking up a lot of my time so I've been really busy. Updates should be more frequent again and thanks for being patient- reviewing would be lovely too. Enjoy, and thank you for reading!

1994

One… two… three…

Boots scuff the floor and no one realizes just yet that they're walking to their graves with binders and books tucked under their arms.

A teenage boy talks to his friends—tired from a late night and an early rise from bed for classes. His very last words that ride out past his teeth have something to do with his algebra homework before his brains paint the lockers behind him.

The students don't quite scatter until they've realized it's not a joke and it's not like on television. No, this is real because Tate Langdon's showed up to school today with a Mossberg 500 and a M1911 pistol instead of a backpack.

A blood-curdling scream rings through the halls and Tate makes sure the next bullet rips through the throat of its owner to silence the sound—something more of a spiteful action rather than proactive, because more kids are screaming and the squeak of shoes clapping against the floor to get them to safer ground echoes in his ears.

Westfield High has just become his new playground because with a gun in hand, everyone suddenly takes you very seriously.

A teacher—one that he'd never had for any of his classes—exits a classroom and holds up his hands in an attempt to stop him; maybe to reason with him. There's no more time for words and talking won't stop a man who's made up his mind—who's lost his mind and clouded it with lines of methamphetamines.

The bullet hits the teacher right between the eyes and Tate keeps walking.

This is Hell and he's the Devil come with sunken eyes like twin graves and knuckles wrapped tight to a trigger. Somewhere, someone screams, but it's around the corner and back where he'd shot the first kid. The police would arrive soon and it'd all be over. They'd see him armed and immediately send bullets ripping through his flesh.

Let them try.

The heavy slide of the fore-stock and the shell of the bullet clinks to the tile floor.

The kid's back is turned to him and he has no idea who it is—but whatever's inside his head ends up over his friend's jacket. Kevin Gedman catches the boy in his arms by instinct, only to drop the body seconds later out of fear; eyes wide and a gag on his tongue.

Kevin runs down the hall and to the library before Tate can send the next bullet through his skull.

Tate had forgotten how many he'd killed by now and it was only a running tally. What was he trying to get at and did he have a body count? He wasn't even sure, himself.

The rubber of his boots squeals when he steps in blood—smearing it across the flooring. Almost done; almost over. It had to be. Either he'd be out of there and headed home, or the police would find him and shoot him down on site.

Eyes with obsidian irises roll back in their sockets and visions of blood rushing down the hallways eases his mind. A great tidal wave—a current of deep maroon so thick and so vast that it swallows him whole as it fills every corner of the school hallways. Sweet, wicked solace.

Tate Langdon rounds a corner and heads for the library with jaw set and gun at his side.

Present day.

He still doesn't know why he did it. He can remember in vivid detail the sounds of the screams and the metallic smell of blood stinging his nostrils, but he cannot place why he showed up at Westfield high- armed and high on a cocktail of hard drugs.

Maybe it was the voices in his head, or maybe it was the need for carnage and blood on his hands. He could have taken the lives of others because of the simple fact that his father wasn't around and his mother didn't care.

Afterwards, curiosity had taken hold of him and he'd read the news headlines. His mother cried a lot and let the newspapers stack up on the front porch— he'd take it upon himself to fetch them and rifle through. A monster; people coined him as troubled and lonely. 'An off-kilter teen with too many troubles and a black hole where a heart should be.' He didn't believe it at first and it only angered him, but he was smarter now. Tate's all the wiser and he's been around long enough to sit and stare at the walls—to delve deep into his own mind. Sick and twisted; every wicked thing said about him was entirely true.

Even now, he can the recall the smell of blood and the way it squelched under his boots.

It gives him a rush that makes eyelids flutter and lips purse into a tight line.

When the front door opens downstairs, Tate is snapped out of his thoughts and brought back to reality.

Oh, he can recognize the way high-heels click on the hardwood and in the simple way she walks through the threshold. He knows.

"Tate?"

Shit. Constance Langdon had wandered into the Murder House with intentions of seeing her long since deceased son and he wondered quickly if he could hide and pass it off like he hadn't heard her. Too late now—like she could sense exactly where he was, she was headed up the stairs and towards his old bedroom where he sat on the bed with a novel.

"Tate." His name leaves her breath as more of a statement this time because she's standing at the foot of the bed he lay on with the book raised just enough so that he doesn't have to look at her.

"What could you possibly want?"

"I'm checking on you. I want to make sure you're feeling alright."

Tate scoffs under his breath and keeps his eyes locked on the page in the book, not really reading anymore, but it's an excuse to ignore her. "I was better five minutes ago."

Constance clicks her tongue lightly and shifts where she stands, before rounding to the side of the bed to hover beside him and reach out to place a hand on his arm. It only takes a second for him to pull it away and withdraw like she's touched him with a fire-poker.

"Leave me alone."

"Tate, I only wanted to check up on you. You are my son, after all, as much as you like to pretend you're not."

He's up and off the bed, tossing the book to the mattress and walking out of the room without another word. Nothing she could do or say could ever patch over the past. Too many years of coming home from school to her passed out on the couch—doing homework alone and hiding in the outside shed when her current boyfriend took to throwing glasses to shatter at the wall in drunken anger.

"Your mom is so full of shit."

"I know."

Violet is sitting on the floor in the living room and Tate's seated on the couch. His mother had left quite a while ago, to his relief and he'd gone back to wandering around the house aimlessly and reading books he didn't really care about.

Violet has a cigarette between her lips and the lit cherry on the end is one of the only lights in the room. It's dark and dim—Tate can only see her in the silver cast of the moon through the window. She looks like an angel sent down from the heavens with cancer in her lungs and eyes that have hardened over time, but he would never say anything about it. Angels weren't allowed back through the gates of Heaven when they'd had the Devil between their pretty little legs.

After he'd suffocated the girl in the upstairs bedroom not any more than a week ago now, she'd been different. Less angry and less bitter—maybe she even enjoyed his company a little more now that she was afraid of him. He hadn't so much as touched her since, however; civil didn't necessarily mean they were sleeping together again.

Though he couldn't lie to himself and say he didn't think about it.

"Hand me that," he said—not a question or a request, but an order.

"What? My cigarette?"

He looks at the female like she's stupid because she clearly isn't holding anything else and it's enough to make her hand it over and he purses lips around the filter to fill his dead lungs. Sharing—yes, they were certainly getting along a bit better off than they had been.

Maybe he just had to snap her neck from now on to solve a problem.

"Your mom—she doesn't care as much as she lets on."

"She just wants to know if you're talking to me again. She cares just enough to be annoying."

Dark irises fall and he stares at the floor while Violet watches smoke filter out between his ivory teeth in the light of the moon. She wants to run her tongue over those teeth, but admitting that would be admitting defeat. She's still supposed to hate him—she still does, but it's hard to care enough sometimes.

Tate catches her eye and raises a brow—like he can read her mind and it makes her lower her gaze. Violet Harmon playing shy? Weird.

"Wanna watch me put it out on my tongue?"

Violet doesn't answer him; she just slinks over across the space between them on her hands and knees to sit at his feet on the floor. He knew the answer was yes because she was just as sadistic as he was.

Tongue past his teeth, there's a sizzle when the lit cherry of the cigarette is pushed into the wet flesh—he can feel it nearly melt around the heat and he can taste blood. There's a spark in Violet's eyes that makes his cock press to the zipper of his jeans because she's like a whore begging on her knees just to see his blood.

"What are you thinking about?" Tate doesn't know why he asks her this, but the way she's staring at him, it only makes him curious—with eyes wide and lips parted.

"Can you taste blood?"

"Yeah."

Her mouth is on his in seconds and Violet moves quickly to straddle the male; perching herself in his lap and pushing her hips roughly into his. He responds with such fervor that he almost leaves bruises, and her tongue is nearly down his throat—dancing along the crater of a bloody wound left by the cigarette.

He tastes like ashes and blood and it makes her insides squirm pleasantly.

A hiss on his breath when the tip of her tongue delves into the wound he'd burned into his; she pushes her hips into the male's once again, and it gives him incentive enough to reach between the two of them and undo the buckle of his belt, before pushing Violet's back to the couch.

She doesn't fight it this time, she doesn't protest and she doesn't spit in his face angrily. No, she reaches between them to do the same and push her jeans down—push his down. He doesn't look her directly in the eyes. He's rushed and he's quiet when he gets his underwear down and around his knees.

Her panties come off and he's inside of her before she can say a word about it.

A moan that's strangled and desperate like he's had the wind knocked out of him; she arches into the blond and digs her nails into his back. He's strong and he's aggressive and her hymen breaks to bleed pink around him.

Violet Harmon died a virgin and that gives him way too much satisfaction for her to be comfortable with it.

But she's not made out of porcelain and he knows enough to know that she doesn't want to be treated delicately. A flower, but she was carved from marble and forged from steel.

Finally a toy that he couldn't break.

Heavy breathing at her ear and another moan comes low in his throat—Violet cradles the back of his head and weaves fingers in his hair to bring him closer as Tate slams into her wildly.

When she crests, he lets a hiss ride out past his teeth, following soon after and emptying himself within her. She's gentle when she touches him; running the pads of her fingers down his back or through his hair. She knows she couldn't bring herself to admit to any feelings, but she can at least touch him in ways that she used to touch him back when she did admit to those sorts of things.

Tate's breath is heavy like he's surfaced from somewhere deep underwater and she's quiet as she lays underneath him—patient.

When he pulls away from her, he doesn't say a word and his dark eyes are lowered to avoid her gaze.

...

"Why'd you do it? Do you remember?" Her words are soft in the silence of the house and they're sitting on either end of the couch now, fully clothed.

"I can't remember why—I guess I just…" he trails off for a moment and it's almost like he's holding his breath, before he utters the last bit. "…snapped or something."

"Fifteen kids. That's a lot."

"Yeah."

"Were you friends with any of them?" The question seems silly, but she asks it anyway. Surely Tate had to have hated the kids whose lives he took.

"No, but I didn't necessarily dislike any of them either."

Oh. She hadn't been expecting that answer and her eyes are locked on the ghost-boy beside her in confusion. There are times when she forgets that his crimes go far beyond raping her mother. She often forgets that there was a time—long before she even knew him, that he brought weapons to a high school and took fifteen innocent lives. It's strange to think that Tate would be in his thirties now if things had gone differently for him and he would have lived past the age of seventeen.

"There were so many things going on that I couldn't control," Tate starts and his eyes are locked on the opposite wall, away from her. Something in his voice and the way he talks has her wondering if he's reliving things in his head. "I was high—it's hard to remember a lot of it, but there was so much blood. I just remember the smell… and the rush." He stops again and swallows thickly; like the scent still stings the inside of his nostrils. "I wasn't sad—I didn't feel anything except maybe anger. And with everything that was happening outside of my control, it was empowering to know that I could control whether those kids lived or died. I didn't pick and choose—I just killed whoever was in my way."

A silence falls between the two of them and Violet's at a loss for words. Tate turns slightly, enough to look at her through his peripherals before speaking again. "It was fun to play God."

Violet turns to meet his gaze, before answering. "You played Devil's advocate."

There's a sick grin on his lips in response to her words and in that moment, she knows that there's not a single entity on Earth that was closer to the actual Devil himself than Tate Langdon.