The Real (Prologue)

The puddle of oozing red blood beneath her dissected body grew from the wound on her chest. Her face was raked in terror as well as an odd pleasure. She never felt more alive, even when she knew her soul had been condemned to Hell after she made the deal. But he only speculated it. It wasn’t her fault, not at first. She couldn’t known that the forces were against her.
Still, Diane Rathenburg’s death was not a surprise to Tom Grayson. He saw what was going happen before it did. She was marked. He raised
Do it
the gun to the mirror. His own reflection made him sick. The door opened behind him, catching him less than a little off guard. The girl with blue hair, red eyes, and black lipstick opened her eyes wider than her gaping mouth. “Tom, don’t do this ”
“Shut the fuck up, LaLa ” The mirror made her look normal. But, was she really? He turned to see her, to make sure the reflection was accurate, that she was still, in her way, beautiful. The Real showed different.
The Real made her look dead, to no surprise. Her wrist had holes matching her feet. Her side was cut open, and her forehead had small, bloody wounds. Stigmata at its finest, striking the girl who said that she’d change. The one Tom loved. The one who-
“Tom? What do you see?” Still scared, she stepped closer to him. In his search to find the demon that haunted him, he found no answer, no solution. Only her. He didn’t want to see her go like he did so many others. He didn’t want to see her soul leave. He wanted to keep it safe.
“LaLa...” the name sounded empty from his dry lips. He felt the deep remorse of what he couldn’t bare to see. The Real had led him this far. He couldn’t go on with out LaLa. He couldn’t leave her like this.
“The mirror is the only way, LaLa. I have to shoot it. The curse needs to be lifted from my shoulders. It’s either you or it. And I sure as hell don’t want to lose you.”
LaLa raised her hand, a gun barrel poking out of the sleeve of her denim jacket, to her head. “I’ll go. I see what I am. You aren’t the cursed, Tom. We all are. That is our punishment. You’re the one who can–”
Tom kept his gun level. “LaLa?”
“Yes, Tom.” She pulled the hammer on her revolver back.
“I love you.” In the instant he said that, his life changed with the firing of a gun.