Sorry for taking so long to update. But, hopefully, I will publish another chapter today! The book is almost done. Excited?

Revenge.

I can finally have it. My revenge against Cole for all he's done to me, to my friends, to my family, to Jay. When he was a demon he wouldn't feel the pain as intensely as I would hope. But now, he is a human. Not a ghost, not a demon, just a human.

    Cole has flesh that I can tear into with my claws. Blood that I can almost taste on my lips-or maybe that's my own. Cole has a mind capable of feeling real emotion, of thinking real thoughts, a mind I intend to manipulate until he breaks. I want to be there and watch the light, so barely there even now, completely leave his eyes.

I want his body, now frail, to shake with sobs. I want his throat to bleed from his screams. I want his heart torn out so many times he loses count and I want him to hurt the way I hurt.

I want Cole to die.

    He lays on the ground like a crumpled tissue. Limp, not strong and solid but instead wasted away, his body wrecked. His hair is no longer shiny, only dull, his skin is no longer tan and smooth, instead waxy and ashen.

    Cole squints as if a bright light is shining onto him. I don't know why, for the room is almost completely dark. The ring seemed to suck out any remaining light from the sky, making the night outside even more of a deep black color. Cole's eyes used to be that color. Not anymore.

    He frowns and looks down at his hands, then gives a little gasp of surprise. Reaching up, he touches his face, feeling all over. For a second, a hint of joy appears as his rounded, not sharp, fingers travel his own skin. Not a demon.

But then it hits him. Like an anvil dropped from the ceiling, reality literally seems to crush Cole.

The realization of what he's done.

    Cole's head swivels on his now frail neck as he takes in the ruins of the training room. The broken bodies forming a heart around me, him thrown to the outside. And, of course, his greatest mistake, on the opposite side of the room.

    Jay's head is turned, and as I watch, Cole's eyes meet his.

Cole has an expression of horror, a kind of deep pain within his brown eyes. But Jay has nothing.

    We form a triangle. Cole and Jay, on opposite sides of the room, both destroyed in their own way. And me, still in the center of the heart of death. My power is greater than anyone could ever imagine. Who would have thought that Nya, the girl always pushed to the sidelines, the helper, the supporter, would end up being the last one standing? Now that I removed the Darkness from Cole, I only feel stronger.

I feel like I can do anything I want.

I still want to kill Cole.

I watch him. He doesn't see me. He's still staring intently at Jay like Jay's going to come back. Jay won't come back. Jay is gone.

What would Jay say to you right now?

I quiet the voice, my voice, in my head. That isn't me anymore. This new me doesn't imagine. New me only does.

"Hi, Cole." I say. "I missed you."

    He starts, his head whipping around to look at me. As soon as Cole lays eyes on me, he tenses with fear and tries pitifully to escape, to scamper away from me. Cole's body fails him and he falls, lucky his fragile limbs don't break of their own accord. That wouldn't be as satisfying than feeling them snap in my own hands. Cole is really too ravaged to do anything anymore. I have to move quick or he'll stop breathing on his own.

"Nya."

Cole breathes the name out in a gasp that's all jagged edges and fear. He tries to move again but can't. The name that isn't mine.

"Nya, what happened to you? What-what happened to me?" Cole says, looking around the room again and again as if searching for a clue, until his eyes rest upon mine. His confusion is nearly as apparent as his fear.

    I take a step out of the heart of bodies and sink down until I'm kneeling less than a foot away from the remains of Cole. Our eyes are still locked as my right hand stretches out to touch him. Cole tenses. Very gently, with the same affection Jay used to have for me, I tuck some of Cole's black hair behind his ear. I smile. Then, my fingers caress his face, trailing along, catching on skin as my talon digs deep into the surprisingly tender skin. A precise, thin line of red appears on Cole's cheek, ending with a slash at his jawline.

    Cole's jaw clenches as he tries to hold back a squeak of pain. His brow furrows and his eyes water and I know it hurts because he did it to me, once, back in his room the first time I truly knew he was changed.

"What happened," I say softly, "is love."

In a second I've moved backwards as if launched. I'm standing again, and blood oozes from the cut on Cole's cheek like the tears do out of his eyes.

"Such a basic human need, love. Love and lust and attraction and want and jealousy."

Cole looks down, averting his eyes in...shame?  He may be confused, but I know he knows what he did. And he knows why he did it.

"Love is the weakness of humanity. It's their greatest joy, their greatest pain. It was my weakness, once. Love held me back, my love for my friends and my family and my fear of hurting them. My fear of hurting you."

I clench my right fist, and my claws, still dripping with Cole's blood, break into the delicate flesh on my palm. I feel the wetness of my own blood as it slips down my hand, but not the warmth. Definitely not the pain. I don't feel pain any longer.

I don't feel most things any longer. Hate is my major emotion.

"But when you took away Jay, you took away love. So maybe I should thank you, because love is more trouble than it is worth.  I see why you liked being a demon so much. It takes away all those little annoying things like feelings."

With that, I'm back at Cole's side, only this time he's pinned up against the floor. I'm holding him down with one arm, my right arm. I can't seem to move the left. It's rigid with the power of the ring. That isn't a problem because the new me has so much strength I could hold down Cole with one finger.

"I'm the demon now. And you're the human. The weak, crying, helpless, pathetic human."

I trace a thin line following Cole's collarbone with my razor-sharp claw.

"It's time for you to feel how I felt."

Cole doesn't even try to fight me. He knows he doesn't stand a chance. I put my knee against his chest, crushing him like he crushed me.

"And I can be like you. Just like you, Cole. I can make you scream."

My fingers go through the skin of Cole's upper arm as easily as if it were paper. They rake down toward his wrist and the blood flows like a river. I release his arm and through the long, thin, uneven cuts I can see the white of his bone. I repeat the same on the other side, what with my left arm paralyzed.

The sound Cole makes is somewhere beyond a scream. It's like a sob, but with more pain, more fear, breaking off and starting as though he's choking.

"How does it feel to be the victim? What's it like to drown in your own guilt and grief and terror?"

I move up from Cole's wrists; my bony knee still digging into his chest, I reach under him and find the curve of his back. The fabric of his shirt makes a satisfying ripping noise when I run my index finger along his spine, up to the nape of his neck, curving around under the fringe of his hair to the back of his left ear.

"To know the person you love is gone gone gone gone gone forever?" I whisper into the same ear.

I move my head so my breath falls onto Cole's face. He's barely breathing at all, anymore. I look down into his deep brown eyes with mine, which I know are as black as the night outside, as black as my own heart.

"The roles are reversed now."

I smile, but I'm not happy.

"You killed them all. You killed Jay, and when you killed him you killed Nya." I am not Nya anymore. "And now it's your turn to die."

My knee lightens off of Cole's chest but only because it was in the way. I place my hand flat on his ribs, feeling the uneven, quick palpitation of his heart. The heart that will soon be in my hand, though hasn't it always been? I will kill him and he will die and I won't have to look at the remorse in his eyes any more.

I give out a small, mirthless laugh. "Any last words?" I ask.

Cole swallows back tears as well as some of his own blood. Every part of him shakes under my cold touch.

"Nya..." he starts, voice cracked as broken glass.

"Don't call me that!" I snap. Calmer, but with the same venom, I state: "I'm not her."

"Nya," Cole says, "I know you're still in there. I know you can hear me."

No.

I'm not Nya.

I can't be her.

I can't live as Nya.

"I'm sorry."

He's lying.

He's lying to save his own life.

Don't listen.

I look into Cole's eyes. Through his tears and blood I can see the brown, the deep warm brown I used to know, and I know he isn't lying.

Kill him. Kill him now. Don't look, stab.

My fingers tighten on his shirt, right above his heart. My left hand is still locked, and I feel a faint tingling within. It's painful.

I don't feel pain.

Don't look at Cole.

Kill. My brain screams. Kill. He deserves to die. He should be punished.

A water drop lands on Cole's cheek.

It isn't his tear because it fell from above.

"I'm sorry." Cole says again, but his voice says much more. Some things cannot be put into words. "Go ahead, kill me. It's what I deserve. After what I did."

My hand tenses, preparing to go for his heart.

Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill.

"I can't."

The words fall out of my mouth before my brain even registers them.

"I can't. I can't kill you."

Why not? Is Nya fully demony (my favorite made-up word)? What do you think of the story? Tell me what you think in the comments!