"Mia, I-I should hate her." Ava suddenly let out after moving away from my arms to rub her eyes. "I should be glad she's dead. Glad, that the monster that haunted my nightmares is no more."

Her voice broke on the last words and she felt herself sink to her knees in despair. She let out a few hiccups before I held out a hand to help her up. She waved my hand aside and stood up, albeit a bit shakily, and went on.

"But why don't I? Why do I still cling on to the happy memories that she herself admitted meant nothing to her? Why do I make excuses for her attempt at killing me? Why ... why do I still love her Mia?" Ava asked hysterically. I took a sharp intake of breath as the last words left her lips.

"Come this way, Av. You're not making any sense now," I muttered in annoyance, pulling her out of the cab I had rung for after the disappearance of her father.

Love her? What was Ava talking about? No one could love and hate someone simultaneously, could they?

No, I told myself. Ava was just confused. She had to be. After everything I had done for her...there wasn't any scope of her loving the woman.

I bit back a scream of frustration as I examined the scar on Ava's wrist. It was a scar a mother had inflicted on her daughter. I may have been an orphan for as long as I could remember, but even I knew almost killing your child did not warrant you the 'mother of the year' award. Especially when your child was Ava.

How could she love a woman like that?

"Ava, I-uh-I have something to tell you," I muttered to the pale girl as I opened the door of my room and made her sit on the bed. I had to do this. It was the only way I could learn the truth.

I couldn't wait to see the glee in her eyes when I told her I had been the one who had done the impossible. It was me, that had slain the dragon for her and rescued the princess from the nightmare her home had become.

"Ava, I'm the one we've been looking for. I freed you." I took a deep breath and willed myself to remember the moment I had poisoned the woman's drink. Willed myself to relive the moment her gurgled screams had filled my soul with satisfaction as she choked on her drink. She deserves every bit of the pain, I remember thinking to myself. She had made Ava's life a living hell.

I was merely returning the favor.

I took another deep breath and went on, "I killed Amy Jones. And I regret nothing."

With those words still hanging in the air I gently let a gently snoring Ava down on the pillowcase and then pulled the sheets over her.

My hands may tainted with the murder of another woman, but my heart was filled with nothing but love for this one.

Green, I muttered to myself. Don't you see it Ava?