Lola breathed loudly as her fingers tightened on Drake’s skull even more. He let out another scream, more high-pitched than the first. Blood trickled down from where her claw-tipped fingers punctured his skin and were on their way to pushing past the bone of his skull. His legs kicked wildly and his hands beat at her arms. They were frantic. Filled with panic. She could smell the fear coming off him, a bitter, acrid scent that seemed to feed the beast that had taken control of her. Its hunger for killing, for blood, deepened into something almost frightening. Buried inside still, locked away in that room of flickering images, Lola could feel that bloodlust in herself. It was terrible.

It was a need, an urge, to kill.

Through those flickering images, she caught glimpses of Drake’s face. It was still a mix of human and animal but it was slowly reverted back to its human state. The canine features were disappearing and in just a few moments, he just looked like any other human. Weak. Frail. Easily killed. The blood was running down in streams on the sides of his neck and from the other places she’d cut or slashed him. The wounds were healing but his body was so exhausted they were closing slowly. Painfully slowly. His fatigue made it hard to focus too and the pain only made that worse.

Lola drank in all that pain from Drake. She felt it from the space inside herself. It was an insulated place but enough of those emotions filtered down to her. She was actually sickened by how much she reveled in his suffering.

You deserve this!

Those words boomed throughout that cavernous space. She felt herself jump slightly, startled by the sound. There was something hideous lurking in them. Something ugly and mean.

You deserve your vengeance!

Again, the words were loud. They hurt too, piercing into her skull like daggers. She wanted to fight that voice. The misery and pain Drake had caused seemed diminished in the wake of these new feelings. The sickening she felt. The ugliness and meanness growing inside her. It made her feel like before. It made her feel like she had when…

You killed Nora.

That voice again. She hated that voice, whatever the hell it was. This was the first time experiencing it and it was so…loud. It boomed all throughout her mind and body. She didn’t like that voice much either. It was strong. Powerful even. But it was also a cold and deadly thing full of some unpleasant thing she couldn't quite identify.

“L-l-let…me…,” Drake tried to say. His voice came out so quietly. It held none of the boisterousness she remembered from Gloucester. “G-go…D-don’t…k…ki…”

Despite all the terrible things flooding her like that coldly sinister presence inside with her, she still felt so good, so vindicated, in what she was doing to Drake.

You deserve this.

The words came yet again, trying to let her know that killing the man was justice. She deserved to get her justice, right?

As if in answer, her hand squeezed again. She felt her claws working their way through the skull. Creaking sounds could be heard and she wondered what those must have sounded like to Drake. They must have sounded terrible. Must have scared him deeply. She heard his heartbeat against his chest like a war drum. A massive, booming war drum. She heard his blood rushing through his veins. That acrid, bitter smell practically wafted off him in a cloud.

His flailing was getting weaker. His eyes were starting to roll up into the back of his head. Blood ran from his nose and out of the corners of his eyes. Distantly, she thought she might’ve heard someone shouting at her. She didn’t know. Her two clashing personalities were starting to merge into one, her true self and the beastly version of herself. The monster was out for nothing but revenge against the man who had taken so much from her. It was disorienting. It felt like being in two places at once. The world around her seemed to lose focus. Edges became blurred. Faces were nothing but fuzzed-out blobs of nothing. Her head spun but then stopped on a central focal point.

Drake.

Everything came back into focus and she found herself actually in control for the first time since changing. The power was still there though, as was that monster deep inside. She felt that part of herself, a cold thing at the forefront of her mind, but it was no longer separate. No longer a completely different entity.

“Pl…ple…ease,” Drake muttered.

Lola felt that rage but it was no longer a bitterly impotent rage. She could do something with her rage now. She had the power. She had enormous amounts of that. It coursed through every part of herself, filling every bit of muscle tissue, every one of her cells, and every section of her mind. This was a power so strong, she knew she could do literally anything she wanted and no one could stop her. It gave her a heady feeling of invulnerability she’d never had in her life before and it felt great.

She brought Drake closer to her face so she could glare into his eyes. She wanted to see the last bits of his life disappear. Wanted to watch as he drifted away, there one second and gone the next. It brought her actual joy, different from the joy she shared with Russel. This joy was much darker than that. It was a joy soaked in Drake’s pain and fear and suffering. It fed off the ruin of someone else. Someone who had caused her so much loss herself.

“Mercy?” she asked him. She stared as if curious to see if he was actually being serious. “You want mercy when you took everything from me? Where was your mercy, Drake, when you were butchering my people? My friends? My parents?”

The last bit of her words came out in a roar and right in his face. The acrid scent of fear only got worse and worse. Tears started to mix in with the blood coming from Drake’s eyes. Another scent wafted toward her. The scent of piss. She looked down with disgust evident on her face and found that he had wet himself. A stain was spreading across the crotch of the pants he wore.

As soon as he did, the crowded room exploded into laughter and jeering. They pointed at Drake, joking with each other that the prince had pissed himself.

“Enough!” King Finley shouted, his eyes enraged. Drake was losing the fight, and badly, but he was still his son. Some part of him still loved the boy despite everything he’d done.

Immediately, the people shut their mouths and sat back down. A hush descended across the whole pit. No one dared speak a word or even breathe.

“Lola!” King Finley said. His voice echoed across the Pit. It was full of authority and a sense of absolute power. “Finish this fight.”

Lola looked back at him, her true father. There was a pained look on his face but he didn’t turn his head either. He knew what was coming and knew that within seconds, his son would be dead. He didn’t want to watch but he owed it to his children to bear witness. Everything going on with them was, ultimately, his own fault. This fight between the two was the culmination of all his mistakes converging on each other and setting out to punish him for them.

Next to him, also watching avidly, was Russel. She remembered the story he’d told her. The one about his mother. She could see something different in his eyes. It wasn’t necessarily fear but it was unease. Would she lose his respect if she went through with killing Drake? Or would he understand? She thought that it would be more like a combination of the two. Even so, she didn’t think he would ever look at her the same way again. Did she want that? Was sacrificing his love by killing Drake and avenging her family worth that price?

She didn’t know.

She turned away from him then. Her gaze swung back around to Drake, who had gone almost completely still now. The blood from his eyes and nose, along with what came out of his head from her claws, had soaked the upper portion of his ragged, torn t-shirt. She could see his skin beneath it. It was pale and sickly looking. There was a grayish tint starting to happen but he was still alive. His thin chest sucked in air and blew it back out in a mostly regular pattern.

“Pl…plea…,” he tried to say again.

“Did my parents beg for their lives?” she asked, her voice low and menacing. “Did my friends? Did anyone else you killed ever beg?”

He didn’t answer but he didn’t really have to. She already knew. Of course they had. Maybe all of them but at the very least, most of them had.

“That’s what I thought,” she said.

Then she squeezed her hand, this time for the last time. Drake let out a final scream but it was abruptly cut off.

Lola opened her hand and watched the body drop to the ground.