Blood and Winter

by Eronald

Ethan's search for Rose is cut short when he finds himself captured by Lady Dimitrescu and her daughters. Ethan must bide his time and plan his escape. All the while, he has to survive being used as blood-cattle for the Dimitrescu daughters. Unlikely friendships are born. It might just be Ethan's key to escaping the castle in one piece and finding Rose. Eventual Ethan x Bela.

53. Cassandra

A/N: It's me, hi, I'm alive. I'll save the notes for the end.

On a warm spring afternoon, Cassandra Dimitrescu stood on a grassy field.

It was in the springtime when winter's chill finally took its leave, and the world awoke from its long slumber. Or, in the case of Cassandra and her sisters, it was when they could spread their wings and escape the castle, if only for a little while. The fresh, cool breeze in her hair, and the tranquility of nature were something to behold.

Or at least – it once was. More and more now, Cassandra did not particularly enjoy spending time outside of the castle.

Trips beyond the castle only meant one thing:

Carnage. Mindless, ruthless, bloody carnage.

Cassandra crossed her arms over her chest, fingers digging into the fabric of her sleeves for whatever comfort it could give her. The scent of blood hung thick in the air, and the hunt had only just begun, if Bela's mad pacing was anything to go on. Knowing Bela, the severed head on the ground was the first of many. There would be at least another dozen bodies on the ground before they would return home.

The way Bela insisted on dragging them along on each excursion was ludicrous. Cassandra and Daniela had made it exceedingly clear, whether directly or indirectly, that they cared not for the mindless slaughter – even if it did quite literally put food on the table. Bela was different. Like a bloodhound that caught scent of a tasty morsel, there would be no stopping her. No amount of reasoning, pleading, or bargaining could change their sister's mind.

Cassandra would rather be back at the armory, in the same way Daniela would rather be in the library, nose buried in the books. Just the other day, Cassandra had been quite rudely whisked away from her cataloguing of Castle Dimitrescu's armor sets – a task that had apparently been neglected ever since their mother first took control of the castle.

Even if sorting through the mismatched sets of plate mail could at times be maddening, it still beat this – slashing into a den of humans and getting soaked in their viscera, especially with the way Bela worked. Essential to their survival or not, blood was a taste Cassandra struggled to acquire. Through the months, it had grown on her, but she still preferred a cool glass of apple juice any day.

Or the liquor she sometimes snuck out of her mother's personal supply.

If only apple juice and liquor could staunch their otherworldly need for blood. Only blood gave them energy, fueling the swarm and the strange nature of their bodies. Without it, it would only be a matter of time before they withered away – or so their mother, and Bela, would tell them. And so, Bela only drove the point home – they must kill to survive.

Still.

Bela could put food and blood on the table just fine. She did not need Cassandra and Daniela to produce barrels worth of blood.

If they'd have their way, they would still be in the library right now, lounging on the sofas as Daniela read from that Hobbit book of hers. Bilbo Baggins' misadventures beat today's bloody mess by a longshot.

Anything would.

A hand landed on Cassandra's arm, while another wrapped the brunette up in a hug – and for a few brief, impossibly long seconds, she froze.

Contact like this preceded terrible, horrendous things:

Flashes of hot pain across her face.

Fresh cuts splitting open her skin, and bruises blooming all over her.

Harsh, loathsome, repugnant curses spat in her direction – as if she was the most horrid being to ever walk the face of the earth.

But none of that came today – not when Daniela Dimitrescu rested her chin on Cassandra's shoulder. The latter consciously sucked in a breath, and on the exhale, she did all she could to banish the dread and anxiety that wormed away in her chest.

Cassandra closed her eyes and expelled the hazy memories with a final breath. She leaned her head to the side, gently bumping her head to Daniela's.

Daniela chimed, "Getting bored, Cassie?"

"Terribly bored, sister," Cassandra answered with a certain unguarded ease that Daniela so easily elicited from her. "What I'd give to take a catnap in your library." She smiled a little smile that went unseen by Daniela. "Maybe you could continue reading me that story."

Daniela let out a little displeased sound. "We were just about to read how Bilbo saves the dwarves from those giant spiders."

A shiver danced its way up Cassandra's spine.

Overbearing darkness loomed in her mind's eye, mingling with the musk of mold, and the tickle of dozens of tiny legs on her bare skin.

She rolled her shoulders, clearing her throat to dislodge the lump forming within. Cassandra grunted, "Ugh. I hate spiders."

It earned a small giggle from Daniela, a sound that was always a tad contagious, and it was not long before Cassandra was laughing gently right with her.

Of all the people Cassandra had met in this strange new world she had awoken to, her new sister Daniela was the sunshine – the ray of hope and brightness despite all the gloom and doom that surrounded them. Lady Dimitrescu, their new adoptive 'mother,' as she liked to be called, was caring and showered them with all that they needed, yet she always remained distant in a way; she was an emotional arm's length away from them all. As for Bela, the eldest sister was unpredictable. Volatile and angry most times, quiet, thoughtful, and introspective at other times – the latter qualities being what had first spurred Cassandra on to opening up to Bela about the night terrors.

Daniela on the other hand was warm in ways that none of them could match. She projected a comforting, calming aura when simply in her presence – and no amount of her occasional outbursts towards the maids could dampen her endless well of patience and adoration for her sisters.

It was admirable. In the very back of Cassandra's mind – when the haunting visions of days gone were kept at bay, and when Bela's urgings to sink into the carnage could be ignored – Cassandra longed to be more like Daniela.

Free, in her own way.

"Worry not, Cassie," Daniela said, taking the brunette out of her musings. "We'll brave those spiders…" Her voice trailed off, and the sound that took their place was the soft slush of damp mud underfoot. Any mirth left in Daniela's voice was cut down. "…together."

The dark silhouette of Bela Dimitrescu separated from the far end of the small farmhouse. With violence in every stride forward, Bela approached with a shovel slung over one shoulder, and a filthy, bloody sickle in the other. Crimson coated her pale face and blonde hair – and even redder lips tugged up in a cocky smirk. A change from her usually dark scowl – but not a welcome change, knowing what was coming.

Death.

Cassandra tried her luck anyway, "Can we go now?" She motioned to the headless body on the ground, avoiding setting her eyes directly on it. "Clearly this man was the only resident. We should leave."

Bela wagged her finger, tsking audibly. "Not so fast, sister. I know you two may not think much of our duties, but I," Bela stopped where she stood in front of the house; her shovel came swinging down, digging into the soft earth, "I take our duties very seriously."

Bela closed the distance, pressing the bloody sickle into Cassandra's hands. She tried to pull back, but was ceased by Bela's fingers closing around Cassandra's – securing the tool in the latter's hands. All the while, Bela's narrowed, gleaming eyes never left Cassandra's.

Attention on the shovel, Daniela asked, "Where'd you get that?"

Bela shrugged as if it were the most normal thing on this earth. "I borrowed it. Someone had to take the initiative on this hunt."

Returning to the shovel, Bela maneuvered the tool with ease, striking the ground and then sending dirt flying. She allowed the wooden shaft to rest on her shoulder and then motioned to the filthy off-white sacks that had been hidden by the dirt.

"Clever creatures, these humans," Bela remarked. She stabbed the shovelhead into the ground before bending down to reach for the dirty bags. "They filled sacks of soil – piled them high, then buried those sacks as well. They sought to throw off the scent, and muffle all sound." Bela's red lips widened into a sinister grin. She chuckled, "Thing is, you can never hide from a nose like mine. I always find our prey, don't I?"

Bela's gloved hands seized several bags at a time, casting them backwards and overhead. She revealed the wooden cellar doors leading down into the ground. A long, contented sigh followed, and the twisted delight shone in her eyes.

"See that, sisters?" Bela straightened up, glancing over her shoulder. "A feast awaits us."

With the bags of dirt gone from the cellar door, the stench from the basement broke free and unobscured. Sour and pungent, ripe with fear and adrenaline. It was a scent Cassandra had grown intimately familiar with over the months. One that disgusted her as much as it intrigued her. She could claim all she wanted that it repelled her, but her growling stomach and her salivating mouth betrayed her.

Cassandra gulped hard, and shook her head – desperate to force the urges to disperse. Bela came to a stop before her.

For a long beat, Bela's expression was pointedly neutral. No seething anger, no lust for slaughter, and no burning thirst for blood. Then, Bela offered Cassandra a small smile.

"It means a lot to me that you joined Daniela and I today," Bela began. "I understand how much you enjoy the quiet time spent with Dani. No humans running around to spoil the fun. No killing to put food on the table." There was a tinge of sadness in Bela's eyes, but it was gone so quickly that Cassandra may as well have imagined it. "No need to get your hands dirty to do your duty, hm?"

Cassandra drew in a breath to respond, but Bela continued.

"I know, I know," Bela rolled her eyes, preempting anything Cassandra could say, "I must sound like a broken record to you. Duty this, responsibility that…" She chuckled under her breath, shaking her head. "But you understand the weight of this task… do you not?"

Cassandra sighed.

Excess or not, it was necessary to feed the Dimitrescu house. Cassandra only wished she need not be part of the process.

"I do understand, sister."

"Do you?" Sharp, canny eyes bore down on Cassandra, and soon Bela added, "It is more than just a simple matter of sustenance – you must understand this as well. Our responsibility goes beyond filling the larders. It is our duty to protect the Dimitrescu House from those that wish it ill."

Bela had spoken like this before – but never in too much length.

Finding her voice, Cassandra cut in, "They're farmers, sister. Simple folk living their boring, ordinary lives. They don't care about the Dimitrescu House. Even if they wished us ill, what could they possibly do to harm us?"

Bela's lips formed a thin line, and her stern voice rose, "Your underestimation of our prey could lead us all to ruin, Cassandra." She took a breath, keeping her volume more leveled as she went on, "You and Daniela may have had the fortune to participate in our tamest hunts – but I have not been as lucky. You two have yet to see what these humans are truly capable of. They are a threat to our very existence."

Lies, surely.

Cassandra frowned and responded anyway, "What are you talking about, sister? These humans are defenseless – they pose no threat to us."

"Just because they have not yet threatened you does not mean they are incapable of harm," Bela's bloodstained mouth curled in a grimace. "Countless times now in my lone hunts – these pesky vermin have brandished weapons against me. Guns, knives, axes – not all of these creatures are as meek as you think."

Bela's gloved fingers wrapped around Cassandra's wrist. The latter remained perfectly still, her breath catching in her throat.

Bela huffed. "I would have thought you of all people would understand how dangerous humans can be."

With her other hand, Bela peeled back Cassandra's sleeve, and gently pressed her fingers to the scars crisscrossing her skin.

"Or did you already forget?"

Cassandra flinched.

Dark brown eyes narrowed in rage.

Pain erupted across her face.

Warm blood poured down her nose.

A cacophony of shouts and curses and vulgarity filled her ears.

Hands then closed around Cassandra's shoulders, and she recoiled again, only for Bela to hold her in place. She blinked once, twice, and again until only Bela stood before her in front of the lone farmhouse.

"Think, Cass," Bela urged. "Remember how cunning these humans can be. Remember what they've done to you. That is what makes them dangerous – they are not mere prey; they think and plan, and conspire to be rid of House Dimitrescu."

Bela went on, "If they have their way, they will destroy our castle and all we hold dear – this is the retaliation they wish to deliver. Only we can stop them." She squeezed Cassandra's shoulders, ducking her head down to meet her gaze. "You know how, yes?"

The sickle in Cassandra's hand trembled. Her voice quaked no less than her body did. "Yes."

Not like this.

"We must strike them first, and strike them hard." The growl returned to Bela's voice. "By defeating them with such overwhelming force, we will make sure the humans will never get the chance to fight back – because that's what humans do, Cass." Her lip curled further, and she spoke in a harsh whisper, "They fight, and they hurt, and they kill – just like what they did to you."

Cassandra shut her eyes tight as the tide of emotions threatened to crash through. The endless torment and pain took Cassandra's breath away, drowning out the insistent, nagging voice in the back of her head. The agony of her past robbed her of all sense of self, and all she had to stop from being swept away entirely was Bela.

"But they cannot hurt you anymore, Cassie." Bela's words were a promise. A ray of light to smite the wicked shadows. Bela's firm grip grounded Cassandra as she ran her hands along the latter's arms. "You are so, so much stronger than you know."

"These fucking worms may have been able to hurt you once, but not anymore."

Cassandra opened her eyes, finding the rising anger in Bela's golden irises.

"They tortured you, they mutilated you, they made you think you were nothing – but no more." Bela gave Cassandra a slight shake as she brought her face closer. "Never again… with the power we have now, we will make sure that never happens to you again."

Bela's face drew an inch closer still, as she made her pledge, "I will make sure that never happens to you again."

An unfamiliar warmth rose in Cassandra's chest, simmering until it erupted into a bubbling, boiling heat. Tingles spread through her body, prickling all the way to her fingers as she tightened her grip on the sickle. A light haze settled into her head, which similarly radiated with heat.

A smile began to split across Bela's face. Ferocity set into her snarl. "We will cut every last one of these animals down so none of their kind will ever again think of hurting you."

When Cassandra finally opened her mouth, the volume and force in her voice was nearly foreign to her. "We'll make them pay. Every last one of them."

"Yes." Bela nodded once, her hood and her bloody blonde hair bouncing. "We will repay tenfold all the suffering you ever felt – and I will be right by your side the whole time, sister. Daniela and I have your back, always."

It allowed a certainty to settle into her bones – a conviction she'd not ever felt before in this life. It burned hot, even as Bela spoke soft, giving her a squeeze as she stepped to the side. "I will have a quick word with our sister."

Bela was right.

She'd been right all along, and Cassandra was unsure how it had escaped her all this time.

The duty to feed their family was one thing, but this – the responsibility to protect their family from humanity's vile wishes – this was something else. The power they'd been reborn with came with that obligation to defend their home and do so much more.

It wasn't just power – it was a gift.

In that last life – the life that was long gone, she was a nobody. A small, pitiful, pathetic weakling.

She wore bruises as much as she wore tattered clothes. The blood of her split lips was a more familiar taste to her than a homecooked meal. The people she loved – that should have loved her – only expressed their care with an open palm to offset their usually closed fists.

In the final, darkest days of that life, pain and torment were all she knew. In the mornings, blunt and rusty blades carved ugly, jagged lines across her pallid skin; infected, pus-filled boils inevitably sprouted up, only to be burst and torn open day after day. At midday, bottles of acid or the burning heat of a welding torch mottled and melted her flesh; she could scream and tug at her restraints until her voice grew hoarse, but no reprieve came. In the afternoons, the needles came in, slow and sharp, piercing beneath her fingernails and in the softest, most sensitive bits of her skin. By the evening, the bludgeons came, and the sound of crunching bone was only matched by her mad cries.

The only good thing to amount from that life was her death.

Death allowed her to be reborn into Cassandra Dimitrescu.

Coming into this world, familiar yet alien, and coming to terms with her new family – as strange and violent as they were warm and endearing – had taken much adjustment, and even now, she knew there would only be more bumps down the road as she learned to accept them all.

But no matter the distance from their mother or the violent outburst from Daniela or the endless stream of rage from Bela – she would pick them over her last life any day, without a single split second of doubt.

They never hurt her.

They all cared for her, in their own ways, all expressed so differently from one member of the family to the next.

They sheltered her, fed her, clothed her – and armed her to face the hostile world beyond the castle walls. With this gift of the swarm, and all the power that came with it, she was ready for what was to come – ready to strike back at the world that had hurt her – tortured her and snuffed her out. She would make them regret it – make them all regret ever turning to their wicked ways.

The humans would all die screaming their lungs out and writhing, pleading to their Gods, just as she had.

Cassandra adjusted her grip on the weapon in hand, just as Bela and Daniela arrived by her side in front of the cellar doors. She looked up at them, a scowl on her features as the righteous fury boiled in her veins. She growled, "Let us end this."

Bela grinned wide and nodded. She placed her hands on the cellar door's handles. Her head craned to either side – to her two sisters at the ready. Bela's sinister smile only widened with each moment that passed. A soft giggle, and she asked, "Shall we?"

The last ebb of doubt fizzled away.

Cassandra's teeth bared as the vengeful rage reached its tipping point. "Do it."

Bela tore the cellar doors free from their hinges with a singular heave. The metal gave way, and the wood cracked and protested as the doors flew into the air. Not a pause followed as Bela stormed the cellar with Cassandra hot on her heels, sickle in the air and ready to cleave.

The small cellar had been pressed into service as a storage space, with old wooden shelves and crates filling the area. Now, old, filthy yellow mattresses occupied the floor. What looked like an extinguished firepit was tucked away into one corner, above which hung a little metal cooking pot.

There were at least a dozen humans crammed into the basement. They pressed themselves into the walls and shelves – putting all the space between them and their coming doom.

"Strigoaica, p-please, you don't have to –" A man from the crowd was promptly silenced by Bela's hand around his throat.

Men, women, children – Cassandra could hardly distinguish between them. All she could see were wicked faces hiding behind masks of fear. They waited for Cassandra and her sisters to show weakness, so they might maim, torture, and kill them once they had the chance. They made their pathetic please for their threatened lives – as if they wouldn't be doing the same to the Dimitrescu House, given the chance.

They were vermin. Nothing but filthy pests down to the last one – rats that would be happy to either stand by uselessly, or cannibalize one another if it meant their own survival.

These creatures were the very reason she had died and become Cassandra Dimitrescu. This was nothing but bloody, karmic justice at work. They had sowed the seeds, and Cassandra was here to reap the harvest.

Not a single word exchanged between Bela and the humans caught Cassandra's attention. It was a haze of distorted sound and garbled nonsense as her blood pumped, and the adrenaline surged through her veins in a rapid torrent. The quaking sickle in her hand twitched and yearned for blood and it took her all to keep it from crashing down.

And then it came – the first gush of blood as Bela tore a man's head clean from his body. The moist stone walls and the decaying wooden ceiling were sprayed with a slick coating of crimson. Cries of terror mingled with Bela's laughter – until the sound caught in Bela's throat, and she twisted her body towards Cassandra.

Bela's gloved hand closed around Cassandra's wrist, tugging her down as an earsplitting bang joined a brief flash of light to flood the cellar. Cassandra blinked through the daze as the ringing set into her ears, deafening her to all other sounds. Her instincts had her following Bela's line of sight to the side – to the smoking muzzle of the shotgun one burly man was pointing in their direction.

Her memories were spotty at best, and firearms were no different – but one need not remember them in excruciating detail to understand the simplicity of their operation and the magnitude of death they could unleash.

The enraged cry flared up from Cassandra's lips as she shot forward with maddening speed. Her sickle swung down, and the steel pierced bone, burying down into his skull all the way to the handle.

If this cellar had been colder and Bela hadn't pulled her away in time –

No.

Cassandra released another guttural roar, seizing the weapon from the dead man's twitching hands as he dropped to his knees. She tore it free, her hands and arms moving of their own precise accord as she shouldered the weapon's stock, turning it to the closest man – undoubtedly the next filthy creature that intended to use the weapon against her.

Bela had said so herself:

Never again.

Cassandra tugged back on the weapon's trigger. Her eyes never closed, and she never lost sight of her enemy. She would not miss.

At point-blank, the sheer power of the buckshot ejected the man's eyeballs right from their sockets as bone fragments, and the meat of his head splattered the stone wall.

She gripped the shotgun like a club and turned, swinging it with all her might at the closest person. It connected and shattered her jaw on impact. The concussive force of the swing lodged the bloodied, cracked buttstock halfway into the woman's head, dropping her to the ground. Cassandra paused only to rip her sickle free from the convulsing body on the floor, sending blood spraying out in a wide arc as she pounced forward.

It was a blur of slaughter from there.

Daniela had lost herself to the madness of murder, bringing her sickle crashing down on anyone in her path. Bela had no need for a sickle, when she was always so proficient with her bare hands. She ripped right through her prey with the precision of a surgeon, leaving a path of entrails in her wake. Squirming, moaning bodies dropped one after the other. No death was too quick for any of them, as they continued to writhe on the ground in puddles of their own blood and filth.

Cassandra lost all sense of time in the busywork of killing.

She could kill, and kill, and kill, but it wasn't enough. Every inch of her was dripping with human blood and viscera, and still, it was not enough.

It did not even come close to what these bastards deserved for everything they did to her. More needed to die. More needed to suffer. Until there were no filthy humans left to sow pain on this world – Cassandra would not stop. Her vengeance would not tire, and her righteous fury would not cool until they were all dead by her hand.

Eventually, through the droning in her ears, Cassandra grew vaguely aware that the crying, the sniveling, and the begging had all ceased. They were left with the silence of the dead.

They were pathetic.

So easy it was for them to tie her down and torment her day after day until her mind broke. Yet easier still it was for her to carve their flesh from their bones and drink the blood from their bodies.

Pathetic.

Nothing but pathetic, sniveling bags of meat, blood, and bones.

Cassandra's shoulders heaved with deep breaths as she surveyed the scene. The grumbling in her stomach morphed into an inconsolable, insatiable hunger. With nothing but dead around them, and not a threat in sight, she dropped to her knees. The old blood-soaked mattress beneath her let out a wet squelch. She grabbed for whatever was left of the closest body – tugging it closer by its clothes. Her salivating mouth could wait no longer as she tore into its neck and let out a low moan. The life-giving nectar of blood filled her mouth – sweet, bitter, and a tad sour all in one. It was the taste of righteous vengeance – of hunter being hunted and slaughtered to reveal their true colors: they were never hunters at all; humans were nothing but conniving vermin.

In the euphoria of her fresh kills, Cassandra began to sink her teeth deeper into their skin. She tugged her head back, peeling flesh free from bone so she could chew it at her own leisure.

They were nothing.

Not hunters, not tormenters, not anything.

They were simply sustenance for the Dimitrescu House. Cattle, waiting to be slaughtered, drained, and devoured.

It was ridiculous to think she had seen them as anything else.

A pair of heels stopped just off to the side, and Cassandra finished chewing, swallowed, and looked up.

Bela soon crouched down next to Cassandra, looking every bit as bloody as the latter. She grinned a bloody, toothy smile at her sister, reaching out to run her slick fingers through Cassandra's hair. With a soft laugh, Bela declared, "You did amazingly today."

Cassandra found herself returning the laughter. Licking her lips, she admitted, "It felt good."

"This is just the beginning, Cassie," Bela said. "You showed them not to cross our family."

The increasingly familiar anger was latent in Cassandra's heart, even then. "I made them pay."

"That's right." Bela nodded. "And I am so, so proud of you for fighting back. You protected our family, Cass – no, more than that." She pointed a dark, bloody gloved finger at Cassandra. "You took your dignity back – your honor! No, your life! You took your life back from these fucking vermin." The dark, endless hunger in Bela's eyes mirrored Cassandra's own glower. Bela's wicked grin grew wider, and Cassandra found herself emulating the expression. "Because of what you did, they will never hurt you again. They'll never hurt any of us. You should be proud of that, sister."

Bela was right.

For the life of her, Cassandra did not know how it could have escaped her for so long.

Bela was right, and Cassandra owed it to her sister for finally waking her up.

Cassandra wiped the back of her gloved hand across her mouth, and set her hands on Bela's arms. "Thank you, Bela. I feel like…" She huffed softly to herself, shaking her head slightly. "Everything is so clear now."

Bela smiled. "It is nice, isn't it? Having a clear, simple goal in mind."

Cassandra had to clench her jaw tight for a moment – just to keep the growing anger at bay. "I'll make them all pay, sister."

A soft giggle, and Bela promised, "You and me, Cassie – for as long as we both walk this earth, we will make them all pay."

---

Today, Cassandra awoke with a start, one hand clutching her blankets, and the other gripping the front of her nightgown. Labored breaths rocked her body, which felt cold – far too cold for her liking. Sweat caused her messy hair to stick to her forehead – even as she took the moment to try and swipe it to the side.

Blinking her bedroom back into focus, Cassandra finally released a long, relieved sigh.

Gone was the cursed cellar and the mountain of bodies they piled that day. Gone was the blood in her mouth and the chewy flesh and bits of bone stuck between her teeth. Gone were Bela's honeyed words and silver tongue – and the brink Cassandra had toppled over.

The brink Bela had pushed her over.

Today, that was all decades in the past, even if she remembered it all like it had happened mere moments ago.

Though Cassandra knew all too well that no amount of time would ever wash away the blood staining her hands.

Cassandra sighed, rubbing the drowsiness from her eyes. When she drew her hand back, it gave her a clear look at Daniela – who'd been as still as a statue, crouched by the fireplace and wearing her usual dark dress.

As difficult as it was, Cassandra put on a small smile. "Good morning, Dani."

The poor girl had undoubtedly been so motionless in the effort to avoid agitating her. Cassandra knew how volatile she was when freshly woken from the throes of her nightmares. The last thing she wanted was to accidentally hurt Daniela, who'd been her anchor ever since barging in last night.

Daniela straightened up, setting the fire poker to the side. She returned her sister's smile, approaching with slow paces. No bubbly remark or skip in her step – Daniela moved with deliberate caution. With each little stride forward, Daniela's bare feet gently pressed down on the spare mattress she'd carried into the room last night; the bed took up most of the floorspace directly in front of the fireplace, just to Cassandra's side. Daniela then finally eased herself down next to Cassandra.

"Morning, sleepyhead," Daniela chimed in a sing-song voice that was enough to part the raincloud over Cassandra – even if only for a moment. She reached over to run her fingers through the matted locks of Cassandra's hair – doing what little she could to restore order to her disheveled appearance.

Cassandra managed the smallest of smiles in spite of the overbearing weight of the past days.

Daniela Dimitrescu was an angel, Cassandra was convinced. While the woman had not come to her last night with great feathery wings or billowing, pristine robes, Daniela did appear in the armory in a simple nightgown, a blanket wrapped around her neck like a scarf, and with a mattress tucked under one arm, along with a pillow and a book cradled in the other. An odd, unexpected surprise, but one that Cassandra ultimately welcomed after some initial resistance.

When Daniela had first declared that they would be having a sleepover, Cassandra went from confused, to stunned, to argumentative all in the span of seconds. A terrible storm had been ravaging her mind, every bolt of lightning unleashing a new wave of anguish and sorrow and self-loathing. The maelstrom of emotion had been wreaking havoc since the moment Ethan had inadvertently broken the dam keeping her memories locked away. Reprieve had only come when she'd come to Ethan, staining his clothing with hot tears, confessing her litany of sins into the cotton of his shirt.

It tightened her throat just to think of it – like a hand clamping around her neck, the more she recalled the man's soft whispers, and the absolution he offered, which Cassandra did not deserve.

Cassandra supposed that was why she bolted out of Ethan's cell the moment she woke before the crack of dawn.

With a scream threatening to erupt from her mouth, and her dreams torturous and cruel, it was a serene sight to wake up to – seeing Ethan in the dim lamplight, sitting by the foot of the bed with his back to the wall, and his hand on her hip, gently clenching onto her own. Apparently, he'd not untwined his fingers from hers since she had fallen asleep the night before.

Ethan was a handsome man – of that, Cassandra had no doubts.

But it was the uncanny similarities to Boris, her rock, her anchor, her all on this earth, that made her heart flutter and ache at the same time – because it was only due to these parallels that she even thought of swooning for the loveable oaf that sat with her through one of the hardest nights in this lifetime.

The fact that Bela was so clearly madly infatuated with the man served as the final reminder that this was Ethan, and not her next Boris. As much as she could appreciate the support and the kind words he offered, Cassandra had to consciously remind herself that he was not meant to plug the hole in her heart that Boris' loss left.

Nobody could possibly fill that void.

Still. That did not stop the tears from trickling free when she saw him in the warm glow of the lamp, ever watchful and ready to comfort her, even in his sleep.

It was just as Boris had done it, a whole lifetime ago.

There was no feeling of security that could compare to blinking into consciousness with Boris in the room. Even before they had truly taken to each other and started sharing a bed, Boris' aura of protection was unmatched.

In the early days of their budding companionship, she would awake with a start, a nightmare seared into her eyelids. The bandaged self-inflicted wounds on her arms were countless, and they would throb up a storm once she started to regain her bearings, and whatever painkillers Bela had prescribed her began to wear off. Freezing half to death and battling the infections from her wounds ensured she had a prescription list the length of a small novel. Despite the pain shooting through her body and the terror gripping her heart, she could always find her center when she laid eyes on Boris.

Each morning without fail, there he was – sitting in the ruin she called her home, on a rickety chair at the foot of her bed, arms crossed, head leaning on the wooden wall. Through the crack in the curtains, the light would strike the corner of his face just right – never enough to get in his eyes and wake him, but just enough to pierce the dark thickets of his beard.

Cassandra never forgot the small, innocuous thought that came to her the first time she witnessed Boris' bearded face being lit up by the morning sun:

Huh. He has brown hair, just like me.

Completely meaningless and with absolutely no impact on the bigger picture – but Cassandra took that little moment in her heart and cherished it just the same. Most times, she would hear Boris before she saw him in the village, loud and cheery as the man was. But in the times she did seen him, she'd always noted his messy hair and rugged beard, dark as night.

In the silence and, dare she say, peace, of her bedroom, she could see the man in a new light, that she figured few ever saw – and such discoveries were significant in their insignificance.

His hair was brown. A deep, chocolate brown that shone in the sun.

In the privacy of her mind, Cassandra enjoyed her findings, taking an odd sense of comfort in the fact that perhaps not many knew of this mundane fact of the village's burliest, toughest hunter.

Odds were also good that not many knew of Boris' seeming sixth sense – his almost unsettling ability to wake whenever being stared at for too long.

Because God only knew how much Cassandra stared at Boris upon waking. The man was her anchor, even before he really knew what he was getting into by saving and caring for her.

Though of course, in her mind, it was never staring.

It was admiring.

She admired his strong, squarish features. His thick, yet well-groomed beard. His bear-like build, yet the utter grace and tenderness with which he carried himself whenever he was around her, as if fearing that any sudden movements would scare her away.

When it came to Boris, there was a lot to admire, and Cassandra could not be faulted for taking her time to admire the man upon joining the waking world. And each time, just before her girlish daydreams could take root, he would awake, as if disturbed by her eyes glued to his person.

Each time, his greeting would be the same, with a tender smile just for her, and in his husky, rumbling voice, heavy with sleep, "Good morning, sunshine."

(It was only natural that most of Cassandra's early daydreams did, in fact, include Boris endearingly referring to her as his sunshine.)

With the greeting out of the way, he would be on his feet in moments. He would stretch, sending a few audible clicks and pops out from his joints – and straight he would go to the kitchen. Still yawning, Boris would prepare breakfast and a kettle of water – tea for her, coffee for him. As the man would always say, she needed a full stomach before her first dose of painkillers – lest she wish for an aching tummy.

In classic fashion, Boris would then offer a sip of vodka to help with the pain. It would be a boon for her health, he would say – as this was what his babushka had always told him. To this, Cassandra would reply it was barely six in the morning.

Invariably, Boris would tell her that it was drinking hour somewhere in the world.

It often ended with a fond smile and a roll of the eyes most days. On the days her wounds throbbed in particularly nasty fashion, she would instead accept his offer of alcohol – not that the liquor truly did much to help.

Cassandra sighed.

That was a past which she could not return to – and to wake up to Ethan sitting in the same way that Boris did – it was too much. She left as quickly and as quietly as she could, the fresh surge of emotion shattering her heart in its entirety. Cassandra retreated to her room, where she intended to be alone, and ride out the sorrow alone, just like in the past. She didn't need anyone, or their pity. After all, she had done just fine when Bela left her in the dark all those years ago. Cassandra had done a rather good job of isolating herself in her depression up until after dinner.

Daniela had other plans.

Cassandra had tried to shoo her away – to tell her that she was in no mood for games or chitchat or reading. Daniela was nothing if not persistent, and when she turned up the damned puppy dog eyes, Cassandra found her will faltering.

It wasn't long before Cassandra opened her door fully, allowing Daniela passage into her room. All the while, she mumbled under her breath that fine, she could stay the night; it would be a waste of effort for Daniela to have dragged a mattress to the armory all for nothing, Cassandra had told her.

The spare mattress found its place next to Cassandra's own bed. Daniela's extra pillow fell into place with a soft thud soon after.

Cassandra considered herself quite sharp and intuitive most days – but she had no need for that tuned sense of intuition last night. It was obvious Daniela had definitive yet hidden motives for showing up at Cassandra's bedroom. This wasn't just a surprise visit because Daniela missed her. Daniela was not lonely, as she had claimed (or rather, if she were lonely, that had not been Daniela's reason for barging in).

It only served to drive the knife further into Cassandra's gut and twist it. If any of them were truly lonely – it was Daniela. It would be futile for Cassandra to try and count the number of times Daniela had been lonely, only for her or Bela to turn their youngest sister away for one reason or another.

Daniela moved with an air of caution. No sudden, snappy movements. She kept her voice softer than its usual upbeat volume. Even her smile had been plastered on with a little too much intent.

Not that Daniela's enthusiasm was ingenuine, of course – because when it came to Daniela, bonding time was always her favorite thing in this world, rivaled only by her love for literature, her library, and bonding time over said literature in her library.

No, it was not her eagerness to spend time that was false – but Cassandra could read her sister clear as day, especially given the amount of time Daniela spent with Ethan:

Daniela knew.

Cassandra was unsure of just how much Daniela knew, but she certainly knew something of the previous night's events, and Victoria's grand reawakening.

That was the only reason Daniela would show up here unannounced, moving and speaking as though she were walking on eggshells, yet refusing Cassandra's attempts to turn her away. It was why Daniela was trying her hardest to get a read on Cassandra – to avoid saying anything that could possibly set her off.

There had been an initial flare of anger towards Ethan. The whirlwind of the past few days was something Cassandra kept close to her chest, and here came Ethan spouting it all to her sisters without her permission. Cassandra had needed to take a moment to calm down then – and process why Ethan had gone and blabbered on. Surely, he had good reasons.

For several long, long minutes the night prior, Cassandra had kept her guard up. It felt far too like Ethan's attempts at gentle prying. She had spent enough time with the man by now to know his modus – buttering her up with niceties and little laughs, right before getting into the probing. Little leading questions here, and innocent curiosities there – and in Ethan went right into your psyche. She knew it well by now, after he pulled it off time and time again without her realizing it at first.

How it was that man developed such a gift of gab was beyond Cassandra. How it was that it was so damn effective on her was an even greater mystery.

For maybe half of an entire hour, Cassandra expected the moment to finally come, and she'd braced herself accordingly. Daniela would inquire about last night's discovery and subsequent breakdown – and then Cassandra would swiftly give her the boot from the room, as she was in no mood to discuss such heartache.

Yet it never came.

Daniela – bless her social graces – never made a single peep about it.

Instead, Daniela had simply chatted away, talking about how life had been – particularly, life since Ethan's arrival in the castle. The man's entrance to the castle had, after all, dealt the biggest blow to the status quo since Bela regained her memories all those years ago.

In Daniela's case, the change manifested in her having a new dear friend by her side. They painted together, wrote fiction together, and chatted each other up long into the afternoon on a daily basis – which Cassandra had slowly pieced together herself over the past weeks, even before she barged in on Ethan and Bela in mother's room.

Her spying on them – on Ethan in particular – had originally been born of anger and spite. Then, out of her duty to protect the castle. And finally, out of pure curiosity, as she could not understand how it was Ethan was endearing himself to both her sisters with such ease.

Still, it was another thing entirely to hear firsthand just how upbeat and uplifted Daniela was by the newfound companionship – which, admittedly, she and Bela had fallen short of providing to her for as long as Cassandra could remember. Yet even if they had been by their sister's side, the effect Ethan had on Daniela was unparalleled. Beyond simple friendship, the man had somehow brought Daniela immense peace of mind and soul; those violent moods she swung into were reduced by a great amount, Daniela had happily reported.

Cassandra didn't even need to take Daniela's word for it. Tanya had recently made mention of the same. Daniela had not injured anyone during her outbursts for some time now.

It shifted something inside of Cassandra to hear how well her sister was doing. The last loose bricks of the wall she had erected to protect her emotions – it soon came crumbling down with each happy, dreamy word from Daniela's mouth.

Cassandra did not know she had it in her, but then there she went – talking about her own experiences with Ethan the past weeks.

How it had started so heated, and how deep, deep down, she could admit she was jealous of all the time Ethan had spent with Bela, and how much she hated him for it. Their eldest sister had been Cassandra's closest confidante for so long before she threw Cassandra down in the dark to fend for herself. Even if resentment and anger lingered with all the emotions in her swirling heart – Cassandra knew there was a deep longing tucked away as well. As Cassandra had told Ethan, at the end of the day, she just wanted her sister back, and for things to be good again.

The minutes ticked by into hours in the late evening as Cassandra told Daniela of it all. The hand-to-hand sparring, the knifework, and even the visits to her gun range in the dungeons – they had all been highlights for Cassandra.

It did not take long for Daniela to begin probing her over the late-night teatime she'd heard about. Cassandra and Ethan in their pajamas (as Daniela recounted), sharing alone time in her room – that must have been something.

Of course, Cassandra bit back, even if the heat in her cheeks and the smile tugging at her lips gave her away. If anything, she was more flustered that Ethan had managed to share even that with Daniela.

Ultimately, with just a taste of bitterness at the back of her tongue, Cassandra could admit to Daniela that her time with Ethan had been some of the happiest in the past decade.

Maybe even the happiest in this whole cursed life as a monster.

With Ethan – fighting with him, shooting with him, learning from him – she was just a woman who enjoyed her martial and combative pursuits. She wasn't a bloodthirsty creature that brought death with every swing of her sickle. While she couldn't quite admit it aloud to Daniela, she could come to terms with it in her heart.

She missed the simplicity of it.

Cassandra could simply be a person with him – even if nothing could be farther from the truth, no matter how much she wished it to be so.

Bitterness and all, Cassandra had felt lighter during her talk with Daniela. The overbearing weight on her shoulders could not so easily be completely alleviated, but it did lighten a smidge, and that was enough. Drowsiness took them both late in the night, and they eventually went to sleep with the lanterns dimmed low.

Now, in the present, with Daniela's cautious smile back in place as she sat next to Cassandra, her hand smoothing Cassandra's unruly bedhead, a fresh round of worry rippled through her. Not due to her sister, no – but because of her bedside clock, which read they barely had half an hour until noon.

Following Cassandra's gaze, Daniela spoke up, "You were sleeping quite soundly, Cassie. I didn't want to wake you. I thought sleeping in would be good for you."

Frowning slightly, Cassandra sighed, "It is rather late, don't you think?"

"Not too late to miss lunch," Daniela offered a sheepish smile and continued, "While I was out, I bumped into mother." She let out a soft sigh. "Apparently, today is a 'day off' for her. She wishes for us to be in complete attendance for lunch."

Cassandra sucked in a deep breath through her teeth. The curse came out in a mutter, "Shit."

She had just been getting used to letting her guard down around Daniela – and now it was back to either putting on a fake smile or wearing a more in-character scowl in front of mother. Act like everything was normal and fine – like she wasn't dealing with the biggest emotional crisis since she'd woken up as a monster on that fucking operating table.

This sanctuary with Daniela had only been temporary, and Cassandra only had herself to blame for thinking it would last forever – to think that she could postpone the overdue confrontation with her emotions and the real world.

Cassandra avoided her sister's gaze, staring instead at the spare mattress on the floor.

She would pause time if she could. No wonder Bela had distanced herself from the world upon regaining her memories – going entire days without leaving her room. The prospect of facing the crushing reality of the world around them filled Cassandra with dread. She couldn't hide in her bedroom with Daniela any longer – she had to face the waking nightmare of her life as a monster. One that killed as easy as breathing, got drunk on the bloodlust, and all too readily lost herself to the madness of vengeance – revenge on people who had done her no wrong whatsoever.

And to top it all off, she would be facing her mother who had been perfectly fine with all the slaughter for more than half a century. The very same mother whose castle storerooms hid Victoria's personal revolver.

Why?

Was it a trophy? Stored away after successfully capturing Victoria van Helsing? Had it simply been among her personal effects when she died? Was it transported along with her remains to this castle, where she was then turned into the monster, Cassandra?

There were no answers to be found while stewing around in her own mind. But something told Cassandra attending lunch with mother would yield just as little answers. Even if she did try to ask, she knew they would not get anywhere.

Any prior attempts to get answers would be summarily shot down. Bela had done her fair share of prying and pestering in the past decade, only to quickly learn that asking too many questions resulted in being assigned to scrubbing the castle tiles with a toothbrush. That shut Bela right up early on.

Not like she could decline the call for lunch even if she wanted to, though.

Cassandra sighed aloud, turning to Daniela. "Would you give me a moment, Dani?" She motioned out the bedroom door. "I need to get dressed and all. Give me a little privacy, would you?" Her hand came down to settle on Daniela's shoulder. "I will see you later in the dining room."

Concern furrowed Daniela's brow, and her eyes ran all over her sister's face for a long beat.

"Don't worry. I will be just fine, hm?" Cassandra offered an attempt at a smile.

Eventually, Daniela conceded. Then, she nodded, leaning over to wrap Cassandra up in a quick hug.

Cassandra gave Daniela a soft squeeze of the arm as she pulled back. Daniela straightened up and off the bed. "I will collect the mattress later. See you soon, Cassie."

With a final wave and a smile, Daniela disappeared out the door, closing it behind her with a gentle click.

Once Cassandra was alone, she let slip a long sigh as her façade of calmness crumbled away. Her limbs began moving her forward on their own accord. Fresh clothes were pulled from her cabinet, and a towel was slung over her shoulder. Her eyes tunnel-visioned forward, not quite consciously seeing the path she took as her thoughts raced.

She'd walked the path to her bathroom so many times now that she could do it blind – which was what she may as well have been doing. Cassandra felt as though she'd only blinked, and then there she was out the door, through the armory, and into her personal bathroom, locking the door shut. Her nightgown, damp and sweaty from the terrors in her sleep, lied crumpled in a messy heap on the floor. Her hands gripped the cold ceramic of the sink. Her tired eyes glared back at her in the mirror.

Cassandra dared not stray her eyes away from her own in the mirror – which she usually draped her towel over. She loathed the sight of her countless scars enough as it were – she needed no fresh reminder of all the angry pale, pink lines and splotches that marred her ruined body.

Cassandra released the sink before her grip could tighten too much – lest she break the damn thing again.

Into the shower she went, blasting herself with a hot stream of water, as if it could wash away all her sins and all her failings. Cassandra stood under the hot spray, hands rubbing rough circles against her face as she winced hard. Steam filled the room as the water's simmering heat bordered on painful. When her hands came away from her eyes and settled over her mouth, her gaze fell to the drain.

The water swirled its way down – a spinning vortex in the drain.

Not unlike the drains in the bloodletting rooms – the lowest level of the dungeon. During times of heavy rain, when the stray leak or two revealed themselves, it was down there that the water would invariably pool, and down, down they went into the drain, mixing with the stray blood that splattered onto the rough stone floor.

The basement in that damned farmhouse had a floor drain, too.

With fresh, gummy human skin in her mouth, Cassandra had idly surveyed the gore-strewn basement. Blood had pooled by one corner, and slowly drained out, only to stop when clogged by viscera.

She could vaguely recall a liver and what looked like a small intestine as the culprits behind the clog.

Artyom had been the one to brandish a shotgun at Bela and Cassandra on that fateful day in the cellar. Older and greyed with age, but his rough features were unmistakable. Cassandra had killed her old friend just as he'd lived – defending his comrades. Artyom had survived the epidemic that tore through the village, only to meet his end at Cassandra's sickle.

Cassandra planted one hand to the wall to steady herself. The tightness in her throat bubbled out as a breathless sob as the onslaught of memories from that cursed day bombarded her mind. She clamped her other hand tighter over her mouth in the effort to bury the sorrow.

As if burying her emotions would undo all the bodies she had buried – no, not buried – the bodies she drained and bottled up for easy drinking, or devoured on the spot, if she were feeling particularly ravenous. After they were done with them, it was rare that their victims' bodies remained unscathed and in any condition for burial.

One need not even look farther than the castle basement to witness the prolific nature of Cassandra's brutality. She'd personally butchered so many maids for the slightest missteps – while others wound up as Moroaice, doomed to wander the dungeons after their untimely departure from this world.

The stinging in Cassandra's eyes alerted her to the fact that it wasn't just water streaming down her face anymore.

Through the sorrow and the remorse, Cassandra gritted her teeth, eyes clenched shut.

She could have been mourning her victims or her own lost life, Cassandra didn't know anymore. It all spun together in her head in a maddening tornedo of anguish. All the lives she'd taken, all the blood she'd spilled, all the suffering she'd brought into the world.

The level of violence and brutality she'd committed in this life was unparalleled, and it rung in her head with no reprieve. She deserved no forgiveness, no absolution. All she deserved was for Ethan to put her down like the rabid animal she was, when he'd had the chance.

From a successful hunter that pulled her life back together after the brink – to this. Utter depravity and senseless cruelty.

What would Boris say?

What would he think of this beast she had become? What would he do to this monster she was today?

Another sob escaped Cassandra's lips – or was it a heave, as she was so thoroughly disgusted with herself that she may as well be retching?

Boris was gone.

His kind smile, his loud laugh, and his endless well of patience and care – they were gone. Cassandra knew it in her heart – wherever he'd gone to in those final days of her life, Boris was gone now regardless. It would only be too merciful of a fate if Boris had lived this long, growing into an old, unharmed man, living a peaceful life far away from the hell of this Village. That was not the sort of fate that Boris would be dealt. Even if it was what he may have deserved, Cassandra knew Boris was damned for mere association with her. One way or another, Cassandra knew it without a shred of doubt – the man she loved was gone.

All that remained of him was her wish that he'd suffered a better fate than her and her sisters. Cassandra could only beg to the wheels of fate that he was truly well and gone for good.

As gone as that last life – her good life, that she'd somehow scraped together with Boris, after she tried to end it all. That life was nothing but a bittersweet memory now, and it was her own damn fault that it was gone. If she'd simply been stronger, she could've avoided the torturer's table. Hell – if she'd been stronger mentally, she could have resisted Bela's manipulation and her treacherous words in this life.

If she'd been smart enough to avoid Bela's corrupting ways, she would not have become a killer. Cassandra would have still lost Victoria's life and everything she lived for – but at least she would not be a monster. At least she would not burn and raze to the ground everything from that life, with no way to come back to it. She would not have turned into a wretched, monstrous shadow of her former self – a horrendous killer instead of the village's staunch protector. From the person who'd tried to save them all, she'd winded up as the person who sowed the most death and despair into the land – turning Victoria's legacy into a complete mockery.

Under the hot spray of the shower, Cassandra curled into a ball sitting on the plastic mat of her tub. Her back pressed against the smooth wall before knocking her skull into it with a few thuds – maybe some new head trauma would allow her to forget it all, and grant her some semblance of peace. But, having no such luck, her face fell into her hands.

It was terrible. It was all so damned terrible and there was not a single thing she could do about it.

These revelations had done nothing but bring grief and sorrow into her life – Cassandra almost wished Ethan had never broken through her subconscious to begin with. Even the happiest of memories of those long gone days tore her apart. They each hurt her in a new way she never thought possible. More than Bela's manipulation could ever hurt her – the truths of her past cut deeper than any lie ever could. She almost wished she never remembered – wished that these memories were all falsehoods.

What if they were?

Cassandra gripped fistfuls of her hair, the heels of her palms digging into her eyes as the torrent of shower water bore down on her.

What if it was all a lie?

She knew by experience now that the memories were spotty. What if it wasn't real?

What if it had all been a fabrication of her mind – some symptom of the spiraling dementia she was obviously experiencing ? Maybe her true age was finally catching up to her? Because no sane, normal person would be slaughtering people left and right like she was. Maybe she had more than a few screws lose, and these memories – these hazy images, voices, and sensations – they were all just her mind's attempt at coping with it all.

A consolation prize for all the madness. The idea of warmth and comfort from a past life, to make the present not seem all bad.

Yes.

Yes. That was surely it. The madness of living through all the nightmares and torture were finally doing her in.

Those memories couldn't be real, and they couldn't be hers.

For decades now, Cassandra knew what her real memories were.

Pain, abuse, and suffering – that was all her life had amounted to. Death was a release – it was a transition from that terrible world into one where she stood a fighting chance against it all.

The memories of anything else could not be real.

It was all too horrible – too unspeakable that she'd somehow led a good life with some kind, bearded hunter by her side who cared for her, saved her from that miserable life, and loved her. That could not have been the life she'd led – the life she'd turned her back on so she could rip people apart with her bare hands, laughing all the way.

No, no, no – they weren't real.

None of it was real.

Cassandra allowed the back of her head to thud back into the wall as she gritted her teeth.

It was horrid enough that she was a sadistic monster – it was even worse that she'd become one for all the wrong reasons – because of the blanks in her memory and the sway of Bela's silver tongue.

It wasn't real.

It couldn't be real.

The only thing real was the suffering she'd endured from her father. The acid in her boyfriend's words and the sharp cut of the rings on his knuckles. The myriad of tools her torturer had taken to her body for days upon days until death granted her peace.

That was the only thing real.

Cassandra could not – would not – accept any of these recent fabrications of her mind as a reality.

There was no Victoria, there was no Boris, and there was no famed protector of the village. If she had been a Victoria, then the Victoria that she knew was a weak, pathetic wretch, who keeled over and took all the abuse, all the pain, all the torment – and never fought back. She deserved all of that pain for being the useless, spineless piece of filth that she was. If there had been a Boris in existence, then only God knew what role he truly played in her life. For all she knew, maybe he was the sick bastard who toyed with her feelings one moment and struck her with his bony hands the next.

The woman she had been in that life was a nobody – something that everyone in her life never failed to remind her of. Somebody as useless and weak as that would never have been able to protect the village. She would sooner cause them all more harm than any amount of good – not that they deserved any protection to begin with. They allowed it all to happen after all – they allowed and enabled the torment to carry on.

None of the visions of peace and happiness were real.

They were simply mad illusions produced by her deteriorating mind.

---

The family was in complete attendance for lunch. Even more so than complete family dinners, these were a rarity, as mother was almost always out working, and the sisters preferred to keep to themselves.

She'd hoped with every fiber of her being that Daniela had been wrong, and that this would be one of those days – blissful peace and silence in solitude, rather than forced companionship and plastered smiles.

Alas, luck never was on her side.

Cassandra sat up straight in her chair to the left of Lady Dimitrescu, who was positioned at the head of the table. Daniela sat farthest from their mother, to Cassandra's own left. Across from Cassandra, and to their mother's right, was Bela.

The first fifteen minutes had passed with Cassandra successfully evading all attention from the rest of her family. Avoiding eye contact, focusing on her food (delicious – not that she would tell Bela), and keeping quiet resulted in her masterful evasion act.

As long as Cassandra kept breathing in and out, avoiding dwelling within her mind – she could keep up appearances. She could conceal just how close she teetered over her breaking point. But of course, today of all days was when their mother decided to try and be a good, attentive parent.

Though even if the castle matriarch had not outright pointed anything out, she was eyeing her children with great interest today. Even from the corner of Cassandra's eye, she had noticed it easily. The woman appeared to be absolutely burning with curiosity now.

Understandably so, as Bela was acting remarkably different today.

Cassandra could thank God for small miracles for once.

The eldest sister wore a perpetual smile on her face – even when she ate, or spoke softly, a little smile would persist at the corner of her flushed, pink lips. The tired bags under her eyes had vanished almost completely. Her makeup, compared to yesterday's hasty application, was neat and tidy, with the blush on her cheeks painted a rosy pink. This was similar to her light lipstick, contrasting the usual dark and gothic look that was their norm.

Daniela acted rather uncannily like their mother, watching both Cassandra and Bela with great interest, eyes snapping from one to the other. She may have been trying to read their minds, with the hopes that their moldy, Cadou-laced origins granted them some sort of shared telepathy they had yet to discover.

Cassandra simply kept her head down in the hopes of avoiding mother's attention, and preventing her mind being read, in the unlikely event that Daniela willed shared telepathy into existence. Only a few more minutes and this would be all over, and Cassandra could return to sulking in peace.

"I must say," Lady Dimitrescu eventually broke the silence first, "You're looking quite darling today, Bela."

A soft giggle escaped Bela's lips. It took a conscious effort for Cassandra to not roll her eyes, or toss a fork at Bela out of spite.

"Thank you, mother." Bela smiled, and Cassandra eventually risked a direct glance at her sister – and there she caught it.

It passed quicker than she could blink, but Cassandra could swear Bela's smile did not reach her eyes. There was no doubting the lightness with which Bela carried herself. The woman was positively glowing in a way she hadn't seen since the first time Ethan endeared himself to her. Yet despite that, there was a guardedness to her eyes. There was restraint to her laugh and to the mirth she put on display for her family.

Bela was hiding something.

Cassandra kept her expression pointedly neutral as she began to watch her sister closely out of the corner of her eye – pretending instead to take great interest in the hearty stew in her bowl.

"Hm," Lady Dimitrescu hummed for a moment. Her slender fingers drummed against the dark wooden table. "You're certainly in better spirits."

"I am," Bela replied, perhaps a little too quickly. She looked down at her meal once, before glancing up at their mother. Like clockwork, the smile fell back into place – the display of pleasantry, even if it was a complete fabrication on Bela's part. Softly, she added, "I feel like…" Bela bit down on her lip for just a beat. "I feel as though I am finally seeing the world clearly for the first time, after being in the dark for so long."

Her face painfully neutral, Cassandra cursed internally.

First Daniela knew, and now Bela knew things too.

God damnit Ethan.

Cassandra couldn't connect all the dots just yet, but she knew the sequence of the last few nights' events could not be unrelated.

First, Cassandra suffered a mental breakdown and her mind conjured up a plethora of false memories as a result of her downward spiral to insanity.

Then, Ethan told Daniela about what happened, and either asked her to watch out for her sister, or Daniela had done so on her own.

And then, Ethan somehow made amends with Bela, and told her about Cassandra's breakdown – and if not, then Daniela had filled her in.

Probably.

Fucking perfect. Did nobody in the castle have any sense of respecting privacy?

Cassandra could not be certain how cleanly the events flowed into one another, and if her guesswork was correct. All she knew was that Bela had been in increasingly worsening spirits for some reason, and had grown colder and colder to Ethan – and now she was practically vomiting sunshine and rainbows, but giving their mother the stink-eye at the same time.

These things had to be related somehow. It was anybody's guess what in particular from their mother drew Bela's ire. But if, hypothetically (unlikely – no – Cassandra refused to consider it), the memories Cassandra regained were real, then there would be many, many reasons for Bela to be angry with their mother.

Lady Dimitrescu put on a little smile. It tugged at the corner of her dark red lips as she retrieved her wine goblet. The bloody alcohol swirled within as she spoke slowly – almost cautiously, "I am glad to hear it, dear." A pause, just long enough to allow her a small sip of Sanguinis Virginis. "What changed, if I may ask?"

Bela's sharp eyes met her mother's. She raised one shoulder up in a slight shrug as she began, "Not a whole lot changed, to be honest. But in a way…" The faux smile Bela wore faded away. Cassandra watched with a quiet, growing sense of dread as an eerily familiar anger lurked just below the surface of Bela's expression. A creeping fury that chilled Cassandra to the bone. She had not seen this contained rage in ten years.

Strigoaica Bălaie may have been long gone, but her fire and drive appeared very much alive in the restrained hostility in Bela's eyes. Taking a breath, Bela continued, "In a way, everything changed." A brief pause, and Bela added in afterthought, her voice dripping with venom, "Mother."

Cassandra slowly tore her eyes away from Bela – looking now towards their mother. She took a longer sip from the goblet before setting the half empty glass down to her left side. One maid standing by the back of the room took notice of this and approached, bottle of wine in hand.

Lady Dimitrescu leaned back in her grand chair. Her elbows rested on the armrest's cushions, and her fingers met to intertwine before her. Their mother tilted her head to one side, watching Bela from down the tip of her nose. Her dark eyes narrowed by just a smidge.

As the beat of silence came and went, Bela reached for her goblet of water, taking a slow, prolonged sip. At the same time, the maid tilted her bottle down, trinkling wine into the castle matriarch's goblet.

"By any chance, daughter," Lady Dimitrescu began, and mimicked Bela's own casual half-shrug. "Does our guest Mr. Winters have anything to do with this?"

Bela choked and sputtered on her water, sending the fat droplets out with a small spray.

The maid by Cassandra's side turned sharply at the sudden commotion – the mouth of her bottle snagging on Lady Dimitrescu's goblet. The bloody wine spilled and splattered all over Cassandra.

For a solid second, the table fell silent – even Bela's choking was briefly halted for just long enough to let the moment sink in. In the perfect stillness of that moment, the maid's sharp intake of shaky breath was louder than any gunshot Cassandra had heard.

"…Cass?" A soft voice came up first – either from Bela or Daniela, Cassandra wasn't sure.

Cassandra's hands came up to the wine-and-blood-soaked front of her dress. When they came away, and she blinked, she could see much, much smaller hands drenched in a clear, potent-smelling liquor. She could see a filthy, grey tablecloth illuminated by a flickering lamp. She could feel pricks of broken glass stuck in her palm, stinging sharply as the alcohol dribbled down her skin, mixing with the blood.

In the shadows, in the endless abyss beyond the dying lamplight, a stocky figure seethed, radiating hatred and violence.

A soft, trembling voice came, "M-my apologies."

Cassandra blinked.

A regal dining room with a polished hardwood table and embroidered tablecloth. A crackling fireplace emanating warmth. Three women staring at her with breaths held – waiting for a reaction.

She fluttered her eyelids shut again and again – rooting herself to the present as her heart raced and the horror dawned on her – she had not the faintest clue if that horrified apology had come from herself or the maid.

"Forgive me, my lady," The maid shook with the first step she took in reverse, stuttering out, "I meant no harm."

Cassandra shut her eyes tight.

I'm sorry, papa – it was an accident.

The words spoken and the words remembered may as well have been the exact same.

The maid once again spoke up, apparently so terrified by her silence, "L-lady Cassandra, I –"

Cassandra snapped.

"You stupid, little…" She stood up, sending her chair clattering to the carpeted floor as she seized the wine bottle from the maid. Cassandra slammed the bottle onto the table and turned, grabbing the woman by the throat. With a single tug, she raised the woman into the air. Cassandra's voice came out venomous, with a rage that had long lied dormant. "What kind of filthy, backwater slum did you come from?! Is this any sort of way to serve your masters?!"

"M-my lady, please! I did not mean to!"

Cassandra had none of it.

Papa, I'm sorry, really – I did not mean it!

"We take you in, we shelter you, we feed you, we clothe you," Cassandra went on with a growl as the maid's hands desperately clutched Cassandra's, "And this is how you repay us? With carelessness and disrespect?"

"Please, I –" The maid's plea was abruptly halted by Cassandra's gloved hand slapping her across the face – sending her tumbling to the ground. By the time Cassandra yanked the woman back up, another voice cut in, cool as ice.

"Cassandra." Bela's voice hedged on warning.

"What a pathetic, worthless wretch." The woman in Cassandra's grasp wriggled and cowered, and it only served to fuel her anger. "I'll show you what a useless, careless brat like you deserves."

This time Cassandra put her entire body into the blow as she swung her open hand at the maid. A whirlwind of buzzing wings – and within a split second, Bela caught Cassandra by the wrist before the strike could connect.

"That is enough." Bela oozed defiance, and it only served to rile Cassandra up further. "Let her go."

Cassandra took in a breath, the words hot on her tongue.

But it was their mother who spoke first.

"Step away, Bela."

Lady Dimitrescu remained where she was, reclined in her grand chair and watching the scene unfold before her. The only move she'd made was to lift one hand to point a finger at Bela in warning.

The anger curled Bela's lip, and she glanced back at their mother. When Bela held her ground for a beat longer, Lady Dimitrescu's voice dipped an octave lower, and any semblance of amusement vanished. "Step away, now."

Bela remained rooted in place for another long stretch, glaring down at their mother. The castle matriarch's scowl grew darker by the moment, and ultimately, Bela relented. Though no fear of their mother shone on Bela's face.

Only disgust.

A huff and Bela released Cassandra's wrist, dropping it with force and sending Cassandra a step back. Bela paced over to stand by the window and cross her arms.

"All this fuss for this poor thing." Cassandra scoffed, securing her hold back on the maid's clothing, who began to beg and plea all over again. In the scuffle of the maid's mad attempts to get free, her veil came loose.

She was a skinny, gaunt thing with dark brown hair and equally brown eyes. Her pallid complexion was flushed pinkish at the cheeks as she sobbed and begged for her life.

"Please my lady, it was an accident," She bawled, "I meant no harm."

It was an accident, papa! I'm sorry!

Pathetic. What a sorry, pathetic creature.

Cassandra struck the brunette maid across the face, leaving a harsh pink imprint on her cheek, knocking the veil away completely and bloodying her lip. "You," Cassandra growled, "Have brought nothing but difficulty into our lives since you came along."

She couldn't tell most maids apart, save for Tatyana.

Still.

Anyone who was as spineless and useless as this undoubtedly did cause them much trouble. Cassandra had enough of allowing this waste of oxygen run free.

Cassandra released the woman's dress in favor of seizing her by the hair. She cried out in pain, hands coming up in vain to free herself.

"No, please! P-please, my lady, I will be better!"

Stop it papa, you're hurting me!

"We'll do to you what we do to all the other nuisances." With effortless strength, Cassandra tugged the maid forward.

These weak, pathetic creatures couldn't stand up for themselves. What good were they for then?

The woman screamed and kicked to no avail as they went down the hallways. They turned the bend to the kitchen, and Cassandra kicked the door open, throwing caution to the wind.

All people like this were good for was begging for their lives.

I'm sorry papa, it won't happen again. Please, stop.

The alarmed yelps of the maids in the kitchen fell on deaf ears. The maid in Cassandra's grip could holler for help all she wanted, but nobody would come to her aid. Not when they were all pathetic rats, just like her.

Cassandra knocked the maid's head into the frame of the larder's doorway – effectively shutting her up, if only for a few moments.

A shove, and down the woman went. She tumbled down the steps, heaving and crying out in pain before hitting the bottom with a pointed crack ringing out from her wrist. Before she could prop herself up on an elbow, Cassandra's fingers returned their steely grip on her hair. She dragged her down the corridors, and down – down deeper into the dungeon, and the cries only grew more frantic from there – but in a much lower volume now as the blow to her head thoroughly disoriented her.

Everyone knew what went on down here, in the deepest pits of the dungeon.

This was where useless wretches like this one came down to die.

Cassandra dragged the maid through the dimly lit chamber, and into the bloodletting room. With a careless toss, Cassandra secured the maid onto the chair. She made to spring up and escape, only for Cassandra to strike her across the face again. Then for good measure, Cassandra twisted – putting her weight into the blow as she crashed her fist into the maid's ribs. An audible crack, and it sent the maid back down, head smacking against the chair's tall backrest.

"Be quiet!" Cassandra roared.

"Please, my lady," The maid croaked, wheezing in her breaths between sobs. "I'll do anything!"

Please, papa. No more.

Cassandra clenched her eyes tight shut and struck the woman again. When she opened her eyes, she took in the woman's disheveled, blood-matted brunette hair. She took in her bruised face and her damaged lips. She took in her tear-streaked makeup and her rattling sobs.

A lump formed in Cassandra's throat, and for the briefest split second – her knees buckled.

Cassandra took in the sight of Victoria's face, looking back up at her pleadingly.

This was the weak, pathetic wretch who never stood up to her father. The same one who suffered at the hands of that boy – trusting him even when she never should have.

Cassandra struck the maid with her fist – right into her face, with the crunch of bone giving way. The maid coughed and sputtered, blood steadily dripping down her clothes and to the filthy stone floor.

"You deserve everything you're getting, you damned, sniveling rat!"

This was the sort of beating Victoria deserved for being so weak – for allowing people to hurt her. It was the beating that should have finished Victoria off.

Victoria should have died long ago. Now, Cassandra would make sure of it once and for all.

Those were the only real memories after all – all the pain, the suffering – and oh, how she should have succumbed to the pain then and there.

"P-please," The woman moaned.

I will be good, papa – please!

"Shut the fuck up!" Cassandra shouted and swung her fist again.

None of the rest of that life was real.

None of it

There was no Boris. There was never a good life.

There was only pain – the very pain that molded her into the monster she was – and it was only pain that she could bring to this world.

"Please," The maid managed out between gasps. In the thick of delirium, she sobbed out, "Mama…"

"Shut up!" Cassandra glowered down at the woman – this wretch who wore Victoria's face and uttered her cries for mercy. "Shut up, Victoria! Shut up, shut up, shut up!"

Cassandra swung low with her fist again, striking the woman in her ribs with an audible crack -worse than the last one. The maid recoiled in her seat, taking in horrible, wheezing gasps for air as Cassandra finally secured the straps on her wrists. Once the restraints around the woman's legs were in place, Cassandra turned to the tool rack on the wall. There wasn't an ounce of hesitation in her movements when she recovered a familiar sickle hanging from the wall.

When Cassandra turned around, sickle raised in the air, her breath caught in her throat.

There Victoria sat – just a young girl, pencil-thin limbs bound by cloth – strips of stained table napkins. Blood trickled from her matted, sweat-slick hair, the crimson flowing down her face, head drooping as she slipped in and out of consciousness.

The sickle trembled in Cassandra's tight hand.

"THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!"

The roar came free from her lips, and Cassandra's breathing ran ragged and shallow.

It was all because of her that Cassandra's life had come to ruin. Too weak to stand up to her papa, too stupid to send that boy away. Nothing but a glutton for pain and punishment, too pathetic to put an end to it all. Too foolish to just die early in that torturer's cabin.

If she had just been a good girl and died, none of this would have happened. She would be free from this living hell.

Cassandra gulped.

She could fix this now.

She could right all the wrongs with a single stroke of her sickle.

Cassandra's eyes came to a firm shut, and out came another guttural scream – all the rage, torment, and suffering bursting free – and then she swung down with all her might to end the past once and for all.

The sickle met resistance as it embedded hilt-deep into its target.

When Cassandra's eyes fluttered open, she found the steel of her weapon wedged into the bloodletting chair's backrest – caught in the wood, just a few inches above the woman's head.

The scene grew blurry before her as Cassandra blinked hot tears out of her eyes. The tremble in her legs grew unbearable, until Cassandra fell to her knees – her hands landing on the maid's skirt. She tried to scream, but no sound came forth – save for her harsh, sharp, shallow breaths. Cassandra gripped the rough fabric tight as her eyes went up.

Sharp, youthful features colored purple with bruises, and long, dark hair sticky with blood – but not Victoria's face.

No.

Cassandra knew Olga anywhere – knew it was her the moment she stepped into the dining room.

She could tell each and every one of the damned maids apart, despite her projection and her attempts at dehumanizing them. She couldn't do this. Not anymore. Not now, not ever again.

Cassandra gripped Olga's skirt tighter, burying her face in the fabric as the woman's wheezes and gurgles for oxygen filled the stillness of the bloodletting room.

Under her breath, Cassandra cursed out a sharp, "Fuck."

A/N: First and foremost, thank you for your patience and unwavering support over the past - *checks calendar* - year since my disappearance. I know I said I'd be back by Q2, but life happened. I'm genuinely grateful for everyone who's stuck around and popped their head in over the year, patiently and sometimes impatiently (understandably) looking for updates.

The wedding was fine, all's well with me and the Mrs, it just took a great deal of time for me to adjust to the non-bachelor lifestyle. On top of that, I honestly experienced some major burnout while writing, and went through a pretty long period of love-hate with the story. I won't bore you with the details and excuses.

Bottom line is I do apologize for the great delay, and am grateful for your patience. The hiatus was never meant to be this lengthy, but things got out of hand, and ultimately, I never got as much writing done as I would have hoped. As of writing, I've got 10-ish drafts in the bank, but they're unrefined, full of typos, and will take time I do not have to clean them up - time better spent churning out other raw drafts. My most notable raw typo to date is, "Bela holds her breath. She turns it over, handing it to Ethan as she shits on the bed."

So yeah, you get what I mean by *rough* drafts.

Anyway, I intend to continue with the original plan as is - that is, I'll finish the whole damn thing so I can guarantee proper quality and continuity, then go over the rough drafts one by one, then post them rapid fire for everyone to read. I'm not gonna even try to give a date for my next sign of life, other than that *hopefully* it will be before 2024 ends, as I am eager to move onto new projects and close the chapter that is BAW. I estimate I've got about 11 or so rough drafts left, so assuming I churn out a chapter a month at a snail's pace, that still puts us within a year, with y'all getting a hearty Christmas present next year of a completed BAW. But again - no promises. We'll see where my limited free time takes me. I just want to assure you fellas that BAW isn't dead, I'm not dead yet, I'm finishing the story - it's really just taking longer than I ever anticipated.

And for some rough notes on this chapter - ever since conceptualizing Dani's revisiting of the dreaded cellar incident, I've wanted to do the same with Cass. I'm lowkey a big fan of that storytelling method - revisiting a certain scene through the lenses of different characters. I thought it worked well for this scenario, as we see Cass' descent into madness firsthand, and then as progress and recovery are never linear, we see a mini-relapse as Cass sinks into denial - only for her to, at the very end, pull herself back. Olga is spared, and Cass makes the decision to live with the consequences of her actions. Where shall those consequences take her? Well, we'll have to wait for the next update to see.

I hope you guys liked this update and sign of life. I can't guarantee I'll be getting back to everyone who writes in, but do know I appreciate you sticking around. As I mentioned before, this story never would've gotten off the ground without all your support, and for that, you will always have my gratitude. Check the socials and all that, you know where to find me - but for now, I'll see you guys on the other side. Catch you at the next update when it's ready.