MY FUCKING BABY????

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐒 are synonymous for where their elders crash landed. One of the only big travelling gypsy families to have grown roots and remained. They were drawn to the energy in its earth, and chasing the money they had heard on whispers could be had here. Four generations later, and they still remain, a mainstay and a respected one. Having finally made their fortune they could stand to see it crumble at the greed of one man.

None of the women take their husbands name, and until Michael Shea, women ruled the roost; men never did last long within their family.

Incredibly traditional in practice, it is thought the magicks they harness are stirring something even they can't hold down. Their family are no longer tied to the purity of their roots, corrupted and ugly, 5 siblings, all with a gift - except for the brothers. Some say this is the reason he turned, not able to harness or truly understand what it is to be powerful.

The beings behind the trees, those inexplicable, beyond nature trees at the edge of town, the boundary between stone and moor, where heat meats damp, are becoming more active. The sisters find it comforting to meet here, undisturbed by them, or their inhabitants.

Rare though it is, every born Shea woman has a gift, be it the ability to see beyond the veil of life and death, to charm dogs, read true fortunes and control the weather with emotion.

The pull in Spiriod, and the familial turmoil has forced their hand, and turned some intentions. While some sisters enjoy the thrill, others crave to pull from darkness and return to their roots. Afterall, personal gain never lead to anything good in white magic, did it?

Down, down, down. Floor after floor held it’s secrets, pregnant with the promise of a hellscape should one dare to scratch the surface. Each Locke sibling was unique, Dermot was the eldest by a minute or two, and held his father’s temperament; reckless abandon and all the charisma of a python. Handsome enough to charm anyone just long enough to strangle the light out of them. Enia had come second - the middle sibling she held the grace in the family, her mother’s daughter. She tried, she tried so very hard to be the moral compass for the three of them. Though even the hand that pointed due north had been skewed for some time. She liked to tell herself that she had gotten out, she was her own woman, not woven into the fabric her brothers had sewn… and yet. 

Down Down Down. Pipes click, floorboards creak, music and laughter flow through the halls of Locke and Co. 

The hotel and casino was their baby, but it was Philip that had nurtured it, and grown it. Philip Locke was the youngest, and had torn his way into the world kicking and screaming. Philip was different. It had been a long time since he’d allowed the light to hit his skin, to feel like he fit into places. The hardest decisions, the decisions he took to protect his family had always been his burden to bear; and so the light in him now was only saved for private moments. For moments with Blair, his Blair - for the promise of a life between the two of them that would be legitimate. Away from the blood and the violence that knitted him together.

Philip Locke. The youngest, by five minutes. The doctors said he struggled, there had been a risk to life, and yet there he was. He tried to clutch at Enia’s moral compass, but threat to family came first and it needed snuffing out. The lad was gypsy to his core, born Irish, though his father was from over the puddle, and preferred the perks that particular brand of aristocracy brought to them. His mother had taught him tongues growing up as he was the only one that had taken an interest. An old soul from the moment he took air into his lungs. The way he conducted himself was witchcraft, no doubt, but those he was unable to charm would most certainly die at his own hands. 

His make up was such that it made sense to him that Blair had been presented to him as the only woman on this earth able to harness him. Why he consulted Orla on every decision he made, and with their whiskey, and Mickey’s drugs running through the veins of most of his clientele, he was as much family to the Shea’s as the rest of them. He listened when Orla would tell him of Gypsy curses, of ghosts that whispered in his ear to warn him of trust. 

For a while now, he had been tracking a mole, an informant to one Michael Shea. Philip and his siblings had enough on with their own family affairs - nevermind that of the Shea’s. He did recognise however, that the old heart in his tin chest had a few knocks in it yet, and therefore he needed to protect all of his kin - even the extended ones. 

Orla had warned him. 

Light in the room had been snuffed out, left instead with the yellowed glow of the security lights over-head. Ruben stood at his flank, alongside Aidan - two men he would trust with his life. The tick and hiss of the boiler in the basement the accompaniment to the thuds of revellers above. Another party of his brother’s making, no doubt. Ordinarily, he preferred silence for his exploits, but they had been under his nose and so this would need to do. 

It was fitting it was in the bowels of his business - the empire they had amassed was built on bones, without a doubt. The party his brother had held was crawling with them, there were two of them sat before him. A third lay dormant on the tile. Philip sniffed, the scent of iron, sweat and wine in the air. Wrapping his hands around his knuckles, he caught sight of himself in the mirror, white shirt mottled with red, the stain spreading. 

The heel of his shoe knocked the body at his feet onto his back, just enough to hear the gurgling in his throat as the light went out in his eyes. The other two sat fidgeting, leather bound palms holding their shoulders to cracked wooden chairs. The task at hand was bloody, but of the two, it was the woman he had been balls deep in only half an hour before that seemed to hold the most resolve. Her face twisted into a smile, white teeth flashing in the dim light. 

“Ay Mr. Locke. You still owe me a hundred for helping you grieve the loss of another kid. P’haps.”

There were many things he could hold his resolve to, a stony disposition, this was not one of them. It was as if the young woman held a mirror upto his own shortcomings, and reminded him that he was still only human. “ENOUGH, eh? You didn’ even come fuckin’ close.” He had flown at her,  grasping her face in stiff palm. “Think yourself nuthin’ more than a fuckin’ recepticle.” Her eyes strained themselves to meet his, though he pushed her head to the side, lips at her ear, the feeling of disgust sticking to his skin. “Micky Shea ring any bells to you?” He sniffed, rubbing the pad of his thumb over her lip. “Think you can flash your tits and solve my problems with a shag do ya, she’s my fuckin’ WIFE, and you, diddy wee cunt, will n’er match up?”

“Coulda fooled me.” Her drawl but a whisper, and the anger in him bubbled so hot he felt her teeth crack at his knuckle. 

“Lip.” 

Aidan spat, and he turned his head. There was a softness in the man he had at his side, but to Philip, anyone that betrayed him and his was no better than a rat. He loved Blair, she had been the only one in all his years that had shown him what love was. It didn’t, however, mean the two were always honest with each other. The pain they held onto for being unable to make a life of their own meant on occasion they found solace with another when the ire of looking at each other got too much. 

“Y’alright there Aidan?” 

“Just, lets get this over and done with, shall we?”

He stood upright, the male next to the woman he held onto shivered in his chair, no doubt he had been drafted and charmed by Mr Shea just enough to think walking into the vipers den and trying to get one over on them was indeed the right thing to do. He had a knack at doing that, but he may as well be sending lambs to slaughter.

Ruben however, though younger than Aidan was made in his image. The lad idolised him, and his brother, and therefore the more he got involved with, the boyish idioms bled out of him like a haemorrhage, a puppy dog no more.

“C’mon Lip, Blair’ll be mad as hell.” 

Eyes flickered. “An’ what do you know about hell eh Ru? Might find some joy in there sometime.”

Hand slid over her clavicle, leaving a trail of red behind it, and for the first time the woman’s demeanour cracked. Not long enough for her to speak, as he wrapped his hands around her neck and snapped it. A swan, grace and beauty, fell limp in his grasp and she slithered from the chair. A ghost now like the rest of them, cursed to be trapped in the dusty pipes of this hotel forever more. 

He was an animal, the wolf in him had stretched and jaws frothed. It had become so commonplace in his life that he rarely felt the shudder of his actions between his feet. It was a strange dichotomy, to think they were capable of the things they did. Spiriod knew the people they were, they were bad people - but to them, and those that earned the protection of the Locke siblings, they were their bad people.

The man in the chair had wriggled free of Ruben’s grasp, and knocked the lad onto his back, and Philip flew, striking like a python. He and Aidan dragged him up, freeing their apprentice. 

“I’ll fuckin’ kill him.” Ruben was quick on his feet, bouncing on his toes like young men did when prepping for a fight, but this was beyond a scrap in a bar. He slowed as he watched his boss.

Philip had him flat on his back, the man reached, his hands and fingers grasping at his face. Truth be told, Philip had planned to let him go, give him a new smile to show his boss on the premise that he would never darken their doorway again. Plans change though, don’t they? Clumsy hands reached for blade, Philip wouldn’t remember this after, his heart in his throat. It had become like a blood sport for him, a frenzied attack. The man became mulch at his hands, until he, like the rest of them fell still, the black masses grew where his eyes had been.

“The sooner Michael fuckin’ Shea expires the better.” He rubbed the blood from his eyes, the taste of it on his tongue. Breathless he hoisted himself to his feet, tossing the knife at the body. He flew at Ruben, knocking the wind from him as he pinned him to a post. “Yer won’t be killin’ anyone lad - you think what we do is ALRIGHT? Look at it. Your sister would have me hung.” He let him go. 

Aidan slid out of the dark to his side, the three of them stood, surveying the damage as trickles of blood ran into one another. 

“You’ll be a Gypsy Boy forever, Lip.” Aidan noted, patting his shoulder, his voice still tremored. There was silence again, except for the clicking of pipes, the smell of iron and the rising damp.  

“P’haps - call my brother would ya? Fuckin’ lump can help me sort this, and I can have a word with him about who he invites to our events, eh?”

Philip lifted a cigarette to his mouth, running it along his lower lip, smoke replacing the taste of blood. 

—--

Philip’s brother had always been a lighter figure than he could ever be. He tried, he had his mothers wisdom, but the full weight of his father’s ferocity. Dermot was much more a free spirit, lifted by the privilege their lives gave them. 

Philip was under no illusions that perhaps Dermot was not as desensitised as he was be to scenes such as this, but figured it was best he saw, and experienced, to know why and how he stood on the privilege he did. Lip had merely made his peace with who he was, and the business he dealt in. Youngest by a fraction though he may be, he was the brains and the brutality behind the operation. It was never a playground for him to revel in, it was a desperation to hang onto all he had built, to protect his kin in ways their parents simply neglected to do for them. 

Each sibling wore that boulder around their neck like a noose, and in a way - it was. They were not untouchable, and could only bolster their lives by surrounding themselves with like minded folk. With people they could put on the payroll. It was not greed that drove Philip, but wrath. It surged throughout his extremities and propped him upright enough to function. 

He was stony faced, eyes flickering from one body to the next, the gravity of the massacre settling into the lines on his face. What were three more? He thought of Blair, he thought of his siblings and resigned to matters he always did - it had been necessary to protect them. Michael Shea was a bastard, cold and undeserving of the empire he wanted to snatch, and he looked out for his own. It also meant Blair had less death to take on of her own, he needed her to go legitimate. He needed her to start to distance herself from the lifestyle they shared, the ills they involved themselves in. She was his crutch, all he needed to lean on to say he would get out of it, this time would be the last time. 

But it was always the last time, so he needed her to be the stronger one of the pair of them. He had a wife before Blair, she was still around, Hollin, a hard faced woman who had only been made as such by her husband. Another woman he had rejected normality with and for her he wasn’t enough, the life wasn’t enough and nor were his promises. He had fought her on the divorce - no one divorced a Locke man. Only they had the say so on it, or so he thought, until one sombre afternoon, after stumbling in on him finding comfort in Blair, he signed the divorce papers. 

The sound of the doors clicking behind him broke his thought process, the movement of the other men in the room and the entrance of his brother made him turn his head. 

Dermot was cocksure, always was, so very sure of himself. To his credit, he was never afraid to get stuck elbow deep in the animalistic actions of his brother, and without a question as to why. What he didn’t understand was how to help prevent things reaching boiling point. 

Philip blinked slowly, watching him remove the cap, his suit jacket, peeling off layers of grandeur to paint himself red like the rest of them. He exhaled, slowly. 

“Who’ve we offed?” He noted, sniffing, watching the light hearted exchanges around him as his core temperature bubbled once again. “Who’ve we fuckin’ offed?”

He took a step, stopping only to wipe blood from his visage roughly with the cuff of his sleeve. “More like, Dermot threw another fuckin’ party. Another show of look who tha fuck we are. Another event where I have to clean up fuckin’ SHIT, because Micky fuckin’ Shea’s crack team o’ twats are in here tryna get ta’ us, me, YOU, our fuckin’ sister – BLAIR?”

He stopped. “Who’ve we fuckin’ offed?” Dermot repeated. The question his brother asked about the disposal of corpses hadn’t crossed his mind, but he shot Dermot the same look he had shot him, concern at the inhuman and disconnect they had towards death. “Uh, I dunno.” He turned. 

“I need ta’ speak to Orla.”

They knew better. 

Intimacy – their journey to a new recovery had revealed different layers this time, dynamics to their untraditional coupling. They had agreed to stop trying for a while, their bodies both holding evidence of too many failures. Failures of something that should come natural, but didn’t. Perhaps it was a punishment for the lives they were laced into. 

However, of late, she had noticed a small shift, a reversal of roles; nights in which she lay at his side – she the one rattled awake, paranoid for his well being. Medicine induced slumber made stony features soften and she admired, soothed with delicate fingertip trails over clammy flesh. When he did stir, she watched, moved; fluid, pressed to him, skin on skin. Blair basked in newfound vulnerability. The animal in him lay dormant, revealing soft, exposed flesh. 

The two of them were perhaps basking in the release of the pressure they had put on themselves. Too much. Her body betrayed them; and he could appreciate the weight it left on her frame. Words were never enough; gentle touches were no longer enough to soothe. He ached to give her what she so desperately wanted, They were not normal, and perhaps this was just another facet to a conclusion they could both see but wouldn’t meet.

They knew better.

Those shielded oceanic orbs, the discomfort in masculine frame began as a shudder, a nudge –  the way thick lashes attempted to pry open his eyelids, to see who haunted his mind, but his resolve remained weak, eyelids too heavy.  

“No, no….shhh. Shh.”

She would soothe, attempting to lull him back down before pain would tear through broken body – opening wounds he had thought long since healed.

“It’s alright, I’m here – it’s nothing.”

Cool knuckles brushing over set jawline, fingers tangling in his hair.

“It’s me, sweetheart, it’s Blair.”

Visage would loll into the pillow, slow, sluggish breaths marked sleep though his fingers would curl into her flesh. “I love you.” She would whisper. There was a version of them here; somewhere between night and day when they would exhibit tenderness. He’d peer at her through the blackness, reaching for her, rough thumb pad brushing over her lip.

But he’d remember.

Philip propped himself up in bed, the coldness rushed in quickly as with consciousness came memory - he remembered. It had only been a few weeks, and this time, in the aftermath, she appeared to be wearing it better than he. Blair watched as the man that had coiled to her but moments ago, now reached for a cigarette, wordless. 

To many, it was a harmless movement as any, but to her it was another knife in her barren gut. She was the woman that couldn’t sire him a child. It was a paradox, archaic and all at once coveted. She was not, and would not be a natural mother, just as he would not be a natural father. For a couple that when they wanted something they had it; it was this, the most natural of loves, that evaded them. 

The very praxis of her womanhood betrayed them. She should be able to - but she couldn’t. 

He lit the cigarette, slowly, measured. The glow in the blue light the only thing she could find to focus on as his features blurred. 

“Go back to sleep Blair.” He noted cooly.  “I’m here.” 

“Are you?”

He wasn’t.

They knew better. 

Knew better than to think they could hang onto the promise of that tiny life. This path was well trodden; they memorised the steps, knew the way. The path had been lined with flora and fauna, but now, they had walked it too many times - it was lifeless. Dark, dry cracked earth. It never stopped her though, imagining, pink plump joy, the ache in her to hear a cry, to hold tiny hand in hers.

No one told them, how time after time; her body would prepare, swell. How each time she would begin to nest; and he would watch, the ghost in her doorway. It wasn’t something he could fix, nor did he have any right to stop her. 

He knew better.

The bathroom floor had become a cold, stark companion. A reminder that perhaps this wasn’t meant for them. The white tile sullied all too quickly with the evidence of the life they were incapable of hanging onto, coming out in clots - their dirty secret and no one knew. It was never soon enough to tell, never safe enough to say. The soiled linens, mixed with sweat and tears. The hand wringing. The clinging. Then - silence. 

It was a process. Clinical features would be restored. Linens would be replaced. Begin. Again. 

They knew better. 

The last time it had happened, it was he that rose to the guttural sobbing beside him. The warm wetness in the space between them. Blonde ringlets hung matted at the nape of her neck and he reached for her but she flinched. Hands pressed to the growing mass on night gown; she hadn’t had the energy to get herself to the bathroom. To hide. To close herself off as she normally would. This time; he had time to see from the inception what it did to her. Blair was haunted; the vacant look behind glassy eyes filled with tears. 

The way hands stuck to the crimson at her gusset. The light in her was going out. 

Though - this time it had gone far enough for Orla to notice, as she had done when Rose had fallen pregnant with Tadhg’s first. The woman just knew, had predicted ten tiny fingers and toes and a baby girl with raven hair as thick as her mothers - and then all at once, their burden was no longer just theirs. It was a shame that had spilled out; ugly. Unnatural. 

A gaping scar on the knowledge that normalcy would never be there's. A reminder for him that the ring on her finger felt to her like a weight on her, pulling her under. Blair was drowning and he couldn’t stop it, he would never understand. It was not a man's place. Long, unending grief for children that would never be hers, be theirs. It was this stark, staring fact that drove the inevitable wedge between them every single time. 

Grief that twisted itself into something more monstrous. It was easier to be angry at one another for letting another fuck it away. It was easier to cover the problem with another - it was easier to argue about infidelity than to watch the forlorn gazes at other parents with children. To watch expectant mothers gush over the promise of a new start whilst they would be eternally chained to this one. 

This life of gutter crawling, squalor wrapped in diamonds. Deceit. Cheat. Lies. All dipped in nice white powder. 

This was no place for a child.

They should’ve known better.

And yet.

𝐛𝐮𝐫𝐧 𝐢𝐭 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧, 𝐚𝐧 𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐝𝐢𝐫𝐭.

Gold. Who was that guy that touched everything and, ‘ting!’ pure gold? All that money thrown at education and I don’t have the foggiest. I suppose mommy wanted me to have the best, and possibly meet some kids my own age, but honestly I’d have been better being thrown into the local high school, at least then I’d have had a chance at talking to people who are more likely to have a soul. 

I am well aware of my place, and truly, I know I could fall in shit and come out smelling of roses. Most of the time I don’t have to think at all, days upon days of blissful nothing and fuck me, I have no idea why the rest of my family make it look so fucking difficult. Forever jamming their fists into where they can make more of it; green. The thing that makes the world turn on its axis, so they say. Don’t make us any happier though, does it? I’m sure the foundations of this place are built on valium and loud sighs. 

We are, mostly, very stupid, and very far removed. It is wealth you simply cannot dream of, the gap between us and your average joe, middle class with a 401k, 2.5 kids and wife with a Louis Vuitton handbag is actually a fucking chasm. So deep and so wide it could unhinge it’s jaws, and snaffle the Grand Canyon. IT'S NOT REAL. A world of no consequence, no one need grow up, endless fucking frolicking at the bottom of Mary Poppins’ carpet bag with Peter bastard Pan and all of his merry men, or whoever the fuck Disney said. 

We just are. 

True enough, we could do more to help the needy, or…those that are on the breadline, whatever the PC term is now. But our ignorance means our own problems, usually of our own doing are usually far more important. Frivolous, but far more important than the fact you’ve shoved another kid out and can’t afford a grocery shop. The fact that those little colourful tickets designed to look like you aren't completely fucked, the ones you cash in at the foodbank, the proverbial begging bowl, is your life line. Who the fuck do we think we are?

Uncle Philip does an especially good job of knotting himself up to be the King on the funeral pyre of his making. Good businessman, fairly bad human, but so are we all I’d wager. Silly little footnotes stomping around unending halls crying at our fistfuls of cash. He hates it. Recently, he spends most of his time lurking and chain smoking, it almost appears it physically pains him to smile, which is a shame because I remember a time his lips would crack and his laughter would make his whole frame shake. He was, is…warm, he’s just forgotten in all the din of being one of the luckiest motherfuckers on planet earth. 

Our family is odd, though. I see that now, The Sheas are very much new money, it's a dirty term around people like us. This miserable nature hasn’t become engrained in them yet, they are still worker ants, bringing their wares back to the nest, stockpiling wealth for a rainy day. But fuck me, they are like sunshine, and they are just so…well, REAL Their emotions aren’t regulated by having a stick up ones ass, they've just fuckin’ grafted for the world they inhabit. There is a certain levity, to having them around, and they have so much familial turmoil and yet they are simply magic. It’s fascinating. 

I realise sometimes how tone deaf I am when I try to have conversations with them, or, well anyone outside of the Locke family prison. I am coveted, surrounded, and yet none of them fucking listen. I am nobody, not a victim, but a nobody. Just the prize pig, and I must say some of the most heinous shit, because our life is just playtime, and theirs actually means something. 

I am aware how trite I sound, rich kid wants to mean something. What’s wrong with that though? Well, I suppose the sun shines out of my ass, and therefore, I have to work harder to prove not everything of value I am capable of producing was funded entirely by the obscenity of the wealth in my estate. All at once I want to hide and I want to be seen, instead I am balls deep in a stereotype I am incapable of shaking off. How tragic.

3:00AM. THE HOUSE.

Her eyes would never adjust to nightfall, when the world fell quieter, for Orla it was deafening; raucous and torturous - faces that loomed in the dark waiting for her. It was as though a careless seamstress had picked a hole in the fabric of the earth, letting souls spill through the tear, pushing toward her through the ink.

Though tonight was different; it started as a tension headache, a cluster and filled her with a sickness she had only ever experienced once before,just after her husbands’ death - perhaps it was the universe’s way of telling her to stop poking her nose in the afterlife. 

Starting out into the blackness, she wrings her fingers around the glass and drains the amber liquid contained within, a feeble effort perhaps to reduce the mounting pressure in her skull. Lifting her palm to her face, her cheeks hot, she covered her eyes, blocking out the air that surrounded her and she pushed dry thumbs into hollow eye sockets, the dull ache behind the bone elicits a warmth to accompany the shapes that danced in front of her irises and she retreated inside. 

In instances like this, as before, her home offered little comfort for the looming shadows, hissing out of sight like hungry serpents, teeth grazing her ankles as she sat at her desk. Pen to paper, focus on the nib that scraped the paper.

JOURNAL.

My body aches. Fingers ache. It’s coming again, my skin feels as though it’s splitting, shedding to let something else in. My mouth tastes bitter, metallic and...I know I can’t stop it. My family will think Auntie O is falling off her rocker again if it sticks like it did before. Though even this time feels different, darker. It’s suffocating. The beings are louder than usual, more brash, enjoying the haunt as though they know something else is rising too. That perhaps under tonight’s veil they may be able to take what they need from me. 

She’s standing there, I see her - and she’s haunting me. It’s no longer the playful visitation, no, tonight she waltzes to my side and breathes in my ear. I can smell her, it’s seeping into me. This house is no longer looking like my own, either. It aches, as though the walls themselves are weeping and she’s still standing there, blank, tears cutting her ivory skin and I want to reach out and touch her but I can’t. I try but the cold burns my fingers. 

It’s louder now, the walls are breathing, she’s staring through me now, at whatever lurks at my shoulder, her feet rooted to the floor, it’s a slow, soft hush as if time is realigning itself to contain us here. I’ll sit and I’ll watch until it takes over, watch her pass from room to room, waiting, on loop. 

The walls are screaming now, rattling, I’m trying not to be perturbed, I just watch, eyes glazing over as the inevitable waits at the hearthside. I crave her eyes to fall on mine, instead of it, and they do every now and again, but it’s void of anything, I’m just chasing a projection and it’s holding me, I’m as trapped as she is. 

The headache is too much to bear now, pen to paper, pen to paper - it won’t do. The figure is staring at me now, aware I can’t ignore it anymore, it comes nose to nose, opening its mouth to speak though words don’t come out. Instead, she clears her throat, and smiles, a smile that seems to stretch over her jaw, contorting her features and then it sinks like ice into her flesh. 

Orla stretches, though her skin feels stretched, as though she no longer fits in her body. A stretch, she approaches the mirror and pushes manicured fingers into the lines on her face and tuts, her voice is sinking behind the one that spills from parted lips. Orla no longer embodies herself. “Easier to get under your skin nowadays, O, losing your touch. I’m gonna get you ready doll, and we’re going out.”  

Brunette curls are pulled into a low bun, the woman who always looks so small in her own frame now dominates. Heels clack now; against the pavement, having already traded a sloppy blowjob for the taxi fare into the city centre, it was about time Orla Shea went out, the poor woman deserved it, over the years she had dipped in and out of the petite battleaxe, finding her surprisingly easy to suppress. It was still mildly amusing that even after all these years, Orla Shea still exhibited an extraordinary amount of restraint. Taking simple pleasures in ravaging the Catholic guilt that would creep back over her come morning. How could she still believe in God, when the family she was head of took joy in conducting so many ills? 

Perks of the job, perhaps as devil incarnate, forcing humankind to unwind, push and pull their bodies to a limit they had previously found impossible. With Orla, it was about chipping away at that reputation, about exploiting her long buried flaws. She had made a criminal enterprise her art, and she did it under the guise of mother dear. What Orla Shea needed to remember, more than anything, is that she was a fucking shewolf. Death, murder, bloodshed wasn’t something she needed to make her commit, no, that came with the territory. The true conquest was forcing her to unwind, to revel in delicious sin. 

It didn’t take long to find what was needed, taking particular joy in exiting to watch from a distance as colour rose in her alabaster cheeks. How beautiful she looked, fingers curled around the edges of the dresser. Orla was poetic in her climax, watching the diamonds on her fingers glitter as one wrapped into the hair atop her lovers head as it sank between her thighs, the other wound around the cigarette between her lips. 

Those chocolate hues rose to mine, as it registered she was her again, chest heaving, I wave and nod. He can’t hear me, though she can, and though I no longer inhabit her, the sway will be just enough to compel her to remain. “Burn him.” Orla’s eyes narrow, struggling with clawing back her inner sanctum as the cigarette lowered, pressing into the males shoulder, he flinched, though didn’t stop. Amusement came anew as she didn’t move him away, a cackle.

“ Better leave you to it. Till next time, Auntie O.” 

It rattled out of her, knocking on every bone as it left, leaving her with the ripple between her legs and the fingertips that curled roughly around her wrist.