Desirable Trinity

Chapter 13

Dianna is unsure if it is the moans of dying souls or the sound of her own blood gushing down her ears that keeps her awake at night. Lying upon this metal table, as if an experiment for all to gaze at, she can only feel every surreal pain pulsating throughout her body and can only hear the souls around her pleading for death. To say she was in hell would be an underestimation; she is in a place far less forgiving.

To decide which part of her body is in more agony would be like a mother choosing her favorite child; it is a near impossible task. She could say it is her fingers, which are throbbing and missing eight out of the ten necessary fingernails. Or the worst pain could be the gap where her brown eye once rested and the eyelids horribly sewed together, but if Dianna was forced to choose she would know the most excruciating pain at this very moment.

Both sides of her head outpour with blood where hair was ripped from her scalp, her dark brown hair only flourishing in the middle of her head. To most people, this is a bold fashion choice for women who shave the two sides of their head, but to Dianna this is so much worse. Dianna knows Juliet has more in store for her scalp, which has skin removed from it due to the assault against her hair, and by the plethora of knives arraigned to the left and right for her, she knows whatever Juliet has designed is anything but pleasant.

Bruises decorate her left and right arms, small cuts distorting her skin wherever the discoloration isn’t, and the only way Dianna does not crumble is because of a single survivor in this nightmare with her. Even now, as Dianna pulsates with true agony, she searches for the young man fighting just as she is.

When she finds him, she is unsurprised to see his blue eyes staring back at her.

“What’s your favorite meal?” The man asks, his youthful face distorted by scars and a missing ear.

“Don’t remind me of how hungry I am.” Although she complains to this man, Dianna still cannot help but smile at the young man she knows as Trent.

“I don’t think that way.” He smiles at her, his crystal white teeth the only thing that is still so beautiful about this now grotesque man. “When I think about my mom’s green bean casserole and deviled egg potato salad, I picture myself eating it, and I am not so hungry anymore.”

“Trust me when I say that will only make my belly grumble more.”

“What are you talking about?” A lighthearted laugh leaves Trent. “I’m full already.”

Dianna observes the man in his mid twenties before her, taking notice in the bones clearly sticking out of his body and the sulkiness of a face Dianna presumes to be once beautiful. She has only been here for a little over twenty four hours, declaring this place unimaginable and nightmarish, but Trent has been here for over a month.

How could one survive this long with their sanity still visible?

“What helps you hold onto your sanity, Trent?” Dianna can already imagine those she is fighting for, picturing each of their smiles and comforting words each time Juliet opens the attic’s door, but she has yet to ask Trent this question. “You’ve been here for so long, longer than most here, and yet here you sit below me…strong.”

His smile somewhat falters at the question, those baby blue eyes Dianna has taken comfort with shadowing over with dismaying thoughts, and he whispers the words without once glancing up at her.

“Before all of this, I was a good man, and I believe that is precisely why she took me. I was going to become a pastor, just as my father was, and before I was taken I had spoken to her about the Lord at my church that she visited. Each time she comes in here to cause me suffering, she asks if God will still forgive her for her sins as she enacts in the most despicable of acts….but as I lay here in my own tormented pain, I think not of praying but of her own death and how glorious it will be to watch her crumble into nothing but ashes in front of me; to see her finally be taken by the Devil himself.” Trent finally looks back up at Dianna and murmurs. “Vengeance keeps me sane, Dianna, and until she’s dead I won’t stop fighting to keep my own sanity.”

Dianna stays quiet for a few moments, processing his words with beginning tears springing into her eyes. She has been fighting for her friends, for the man who no longer thinks she loves him, and not for her own vengeance. Trent has nobody, nothing but the hopes of ending his tormentor’s life to keep him strong, and the thought tears at Dianna for she can picture the pastor in training within him.

She can see the good within those baby blue eyes dwindling into malevolence.

With as much strength as she can muster, she wiggles one of her hands out of its constraint and holds it down below the table where Trent sits. With no hesitation, his hand that only has three fingers takes Dianna’s bloodied hand, their pain from this interaction no longer mattering to them. She gives his hand a light squeeze, careful not to further hurt themselves before daring to say anything at all.

“Close your eyes.”

“Dianna…” He hesitantly says, but she cuts him off.

“We’re praying, now close your eyes.”

With Dianna’s one eye, she closes it and waits a few seconds so that Trent closes his eyes as well. In those few seconds, Dianna cannot hear the moans and bellows of those around her as everybody grows silent for the words she is about to say. The pressure of what she is to say next weighs down against her chest, but instead of showing her hesitance she begins.

“Dear Lord, I am aware it has been some time since I have prayed, and for that I am sorry. I can still remember the last time I had prayed, I was in eighth grade, and my father’s abuse had escalated dramatically. Every day was a new bruise, a new curse word I had learned, and a new strained muscle from the amount of times I had been pushed down the staircase. Then, I had prayed to you that you would give me mercy, I had pleaded that if you loved me you would make him stop and that you would take the illness out of my mother.

But you never did.

Until now, I had thought you didn’t exist. What kind of divine deity would cause that much horror in a young girl’s life? But as I lay here, it all makes sense. This world we live in is a test, giving those with the largest and strongest hearts the greatest temptation to lead themselves away from you. It had worked, for only a small time, but here I am once again, asking for one last favor of you. Give us the hope to fight another day, another week, or even another month. Let us keep fighting so that when we are finally free of this awakened nightmare, we will live in your light.”

Dianna looks down at Trent, watching the tears falling down his closed eyes, but as she stays silent he slowly opens his eyes. When their eyes meet, she gives him a small smile, waiting for the last word to spill from his mouth. With a growing smile, Trent squeezes her hand and whispers the last thing needed for this prayer.

“Amen.”

For the moment, everybody is quiet, reminiscing in Dianna’s words and reminding themselves of who they were before their capture and torment. But as the attic door screeches open, and one of the less sane victims of this attic screams, everything dissipates and Dianna glares at the lean and tall figure of one Juliet Castellan.

Dianna is unsurprised to see the hazel eyed vampire strolling in her direction, a gleaming smile growing more malevolent the closer she moves towards her. While Juliet is fixated on Dianna, she looks down at Trent, seeing the blonde haired boy sitting below her still. Normally, when Juliet reappears, Trent disappears, but his hand stays intertwined with hers.

Dianna gives Trent’s hand a small squeeze before letting go and sliding it back into the constraint she barely wiggled her hand out of. Juliet doesn’t seem to notice the broken confinement she put her hand back into as her attention is solely on the bleeding sides of Dianna’s head with growing interest. Dianna lies perfectly still as Juliet skims her fingers across the rows of knives around her, a soft hum leaving the murderous vampire’s lips.

“Your friends are quite the interesting trio,” Juliet attempts to strike a nerve with Dianna, but she lies there without a single indication that she even heard her. “I wonder if they are going to be obsessed with the thought of death as I am, or if they are more interested in the quick kill as Seraphina is. One thing is for sure though, no vampires care for humans, and you are very…”

Whatever Juliet was going to say is silenced by the screech the escapes the vampire. Immediately, Dianna looks down at the sight in front of her, staring at the knife embedded in Juliet’s stomach, and Trent’s hand digging it farther in. Quickly, Dianna pulls her hand out of the broken confinement and reaches for a knife of her own, using it to try and free herself from the second chain keeping her wrist tight against the table.

Trent expects Juliet to fall, for the wound to harm her immensely as if she is a human, but while Dianna knows of this world and how to properly kill a creature of the night; Trent does not. Frantically, Dianna tries to help, but as she frees her second hand and goes to unclasp her ankles she hears his scream.

Looking up, Dianna watches as Juliet has Trent’s neck within her grasp, squeezing the windpipe mercilessly. With the one knife in her hand, Dianna throws the item with tears blurring her vision, but as the blade wedges itself in Juliet’s neck, she drops Trent for only a moment. Within those few seconds, Dianna desperately tries to free her ankles, knowing the fate of Trent’s well being.

But nobody can outrace a vampire.

It was the first thing Kamren taught her.

As soon as both legs are free, she has enough time to watch the horror before her eyes. Juliet’s fangs are unforgiving, ripping apart Trent’s neck as if it is nothing but paper, before pushing the boy who helped Dianna onto the ground. A scream, louder than one Dianna had ever heard before ricochets off of the walls and as Juliet squares off with Dianna, it is only then that she recognizes the scream.

It’s hers.

Looking down once more at Trent, his hands now clasping the giant pool of blood spewing from his neck, she vows to make sure he sees Juliet’s last moments before he is given back to the Lord. The attic door, once more, is thrown open, and as Kenna stares back at Dianna; Juliet attacks. Dianna can feel Juliet’s fangs grazing her skin, ready to end her life as she had with Trent, but instead of feeling the painful prick of the weaponry teeth; she feels blood.

Blood and ash is all that is left of Juliet Castellan as Kenna stands over her, a bloodied curved knife gripped in her best friend’s hand, while the other one is outstretched for Dianna. Quickly, Dianna takes her friend’s shaking hand and is hoisted up to her feet, but before Dianna dares to speak to Kenna she looks down at Trent. With barely a pulse left, Trent smiles at Dianna with now blood stained lips.

And without words, he thanks her before being taken to Heaven.

“Dianna!” Both Dianna and Kenna turn around, staring at the barely dressed Marie, her face flushed and her brown eyes widening at the sight of Dianna. “Oh my God…”

“I know, I’m f*****g beautiful.” Dianna sarcastically grumbles, noting the way two out of her three best friends are staring at her, and she runs to the window in the attic. “We’ll take about me later, but we need to get Elizabeth and run.”

“I tried.” Dianna takes notice of the pain visibly on her friend’s face as Marie murmurs. “She chose him…”

“Then we’ll come back for her,” Dianna tries not to think of her own pain, or that of her worry for Elizabeth, and she slams her elbow into the only window in the attic, pushing the rest of the glass out with her already injured hands before looking back at her two wide eyed friends. “We need to leave, now, or else I’m going to die and you two are going to be a part of the undead.”

“Will Elizabeth…”

“She made her choice!” Dianna interrupts Marie, but even as she says it, pain strikes her. “We will come back for her, but for now we have to run.”

“We didn’t leave you when…” Kenna begins to say, but once again Dianna cuts her off.

“You should’ve forgotten all about me because they were never after me, I was your leverage and you fell for it.” Pushing one of her legs out of the window, she glares at her two friends. “Niklas will know when one of his vampires dies, so it won’t be long until he is bringing an army into this attic. Let’s go!”

“Wait!”

She hears Marie’s plea but Dianna doesn’t listen to it, instead staring down at the three stories below her and descending onto the roof below her and jumping from balconies until she lands softly on the ground below her. Dianna looks up at the attic’s window, watching Kenna first emerge, her ties to Niklas not nearly as strong as Marie’s but Dianna sighs in relief when she sees Marie hesitantly climb out of the window.

Not as majestically as Dianna had, both girls mimic their friend’s maneuvers until they fall onto the floor in front of Dianna. Once being helped up to their feet, Dianna takes both of their hands with her throbbing ones and begins running away from the cameras surrounding this mansion and towards the one place they will all be safe.

Kamren’s.