Devil's Daughter

“Morrisa?” Jane asked carefully. The teenage girl lying on the bed of the small, white room stirred and turned to face the wall. “It’s Mom. Can’t we talk just for a few minutes?”
Morrisa covered her head with the blankets. She hated when her mother came to visit. She’d hated her parents since they agreed to keep her in an asylum. They thought she was crazy, or as they put it, “disturbed”.
“Please?” Jane pleaded, sitting on the edge of the bed. Morrisa threw the covers back and sat up quickly, startling Jane, but the woman remained calm.
“Why do you keep coming here?” she nearly screamed. “I hate you! I want out! When you come it makes me sick! LEAVE ME ALONE!” Jane sat there, mouth fallen open. Tears filled her eyes.
“We just wanted the best for you,” Jane murmured and got up to leave. Then she hesitated in the doorway. “It wasn’t safe to keep you at home anymore.” With that she left.
Morrisa threw her pillow at the door. It was the hardest thing she had within reach. She slammed herself down on the bed and faced the wall once more, pulling the covers up over her head. The pillow hit her back.
“You’re the reason I’m here, you know,” she said, knowing he had come again.
“It’s better this way. The world hates you because you’re special. They all know it.”
“Luke, why did you make me do it?”
“Do what?”
“All of it: the table, the wall…the girl…”
“We agreed that you wouldn’t talk about me, but you did.”
“But she didn’t deserve that. She was my friend.” She turned to face him sitting on the desk.
“Friends…that’s the crap this world fills your mind with. Next you’ll be saying you’re in love with the boy down the hall.”
“You know they’ll make me listen to this on their stupid little tapes again. It’ll just be my voice and I’ll sound like a fucking lunatic. And it’s your fault. You won’t fucking leave me alone.”
“If you turn the volume up loud enough, you’ll hear me. But they won’t let you because they know that already.”
The door opened and a nurse entered with new sheets. Morrisa sighed and got up. Luke was gone.
“Morrisa, pill time,” a man called form the hall.
“I don’t want it. I’m not depressed,” she replied.
“Just come out here.”
“Fine,” she replied and stalked into the hallway.
“Open.” She opened her mouth and he put the pill on her tongue. “Swallow. That wasn’t so bad, was it?” She rolled her eyes and went back into her room. The nurse had just finished changing the sheets and left, closing the door.
“Annoying, isn’t it?” came Luke’s voice from the desk again.
“You’ve no idea.”
“You could get out of here, you know.”
“No I couldn’t. They lock the doors at night.”
“Do they? What if there was a fire? No one would get out alive. They can’t lock the doors.”
She looked at him in surprise. He spoke the truth. It was probably illegal to lock all the doors at night. Especially manual locks like the one on her door.
“Do it tonight. After they finish bed checks. Think of all the things you could do. You’d be free.”
She smiled. “You’re right.”
“Quiet, or they’ll know. Will you do it?” She nodded. “I always knew you got my better traits.”
“What?”
“Now’s not the time. Sleep and we’ll talk after you’re free.”
Her eyelids felt heavy from the stupid pills. Before she could resist, she was asleep.
* * *
“Psssst!” someone hissed and poked the back of her head. She swiped at them groggily in annoyance. “Hey, sleepy-head, up! You’ll miss your chance.”
“Luke, I’m kinda tired at the moment,” Morrisa replied agitated. “Talk to me in the morning,” she yawned and put the pillow over her head.
“Fine, rot in here for the rest of your miserable existence for all I care…” he said in mock exasperation.
She paused, but only for a moment to let what he was saying sink in. She shot up and looked at him standing there inspecting his nails nonchalantly. Then he looked pointed from her to the door. She stood, somewhat shakily, and crossed to the door, her hand pausing an inch from the handle.
“Don’t worry, love, they’ve just been by for bed checks nearly ten minutes ago,” Luke informed her, sensing her tension. She looked at him apprehensively. “Go on; or do you think I would have suggested you escape before checking out all the schedules of every nurse and working in this jail?”
“Good point,” she breathed and twisted the handle. It clicked, allowing her to swing the door inward. Her heart rate jumped up as adrenaline now pumped through her veins. She was really doing it; she was going to be free for the first time in seven years.
Taking a step forward, she peered around the doorframe and glanced up and down the hallways. “The coast is clear, I could have told you that…” Luke said irritated.
She walked timidly out of the room and down the hall toward the emergency exit door. The only light in the dark corridor was a dim florescent at the far end. It would have seemed eerie to any other walking there late at night, what with the random screams and shouts of highly disturbed sleep-talkers, but by now Morrisa was accustomed to such things.
She reached the exit and, opening the door only enough to slip outside, she stepped into the fresh night air. Not to her surprise, Luke was already waiting for her at the bottom of the fire escape.
It was then that she realized she had no shoes. A cold wind whipped her hair in her face and gave her a chill. She heard him sigh and knew she was taking too much time. Hurrying down the metal stairs, she took off at a run and asked, “Where, exactly, am I to go?”
“Follow me,” Luke, who was running alongside her, replied and sped up to get ahead.
* * *
Suddenly, she stopped, gasping with pain and fatigue. She bent over, putting her hands on her knees to catch her breath.
“What’s wrong?” Luke asked, almost annoyed.
“My feet aren’t used to running on concrete,” Morrisa replied spitefully. She carefully lifted one of her feet and looked at the sole. It was bloody. She turned and saw, to her horror, a trail of smeared bloody footprints. “What are we going to do? I don’t have money to buy shoes.”
“We’re nearly there; I’m sure someone’ll lend you an extra pair,” Luke said, clearly eager to get moving again.
She sighed and, putting her foot back on the pavement with a splash of blood, they took off again. They ran for about five more minutes before Luke stopped in front of a door that appeared to not have been used for many years. He yanked it open effortlessly and held it ajar for her. She stepped inside and was surprised to find that it was not some abandoned old building, but it looked as though someone was living there, dark though it was.
“Who’s there?” a voice called from the shadows.
She looked at Luke worriedly. He looked expectantly back at her as though it were obvious that she should reply. “Morrisa,” she answered in a rather shaky voice.
“The Morrisa?” the voice asked.
She looked at Luke again and he nodded. “Yes.”
A short, very skinny girl stepped forward and looked at her in awe. “You have come at last…”
Several more people came forth and looked at her. “She’s just what he showed to you, Ciara,” a very tall, and rather attractive boy said.
“Morrisa, welcome to our coven. And we’ll have a proper coven, for she makes thirteen,” the Ciara said.
Morrisa looked over to Luke but he had vanished. Turning back to the girl, she asked, “Who told you I would be coming?”
“Him; the Lord of the Underworld,” the Ciara replied.
“You mean, like, the Devil?”
“If that is how you call him, but to us he is the Lord of the Underworld. He came to me in a dream during a séance. He told me a girl named Morrisa would appear in blood on a windy night, seeking aid, and then the image of you flashed before me.”
“Is there anything you would like?” a pale girl with dark purple hair asked.
“Bandages for my feet,” Morrisa replied, showing them the sole of her foot.
A few gasped as they realized her feet were bloody. Then Ciara hurriedly left the room, returning moments later with a chair and an armful of gauze, wound ointment and medical tape. Before she knew it, Ciara had taped up her feet and stood, still looking at her in awe.
“Is there any other help we may offer you?”
“Scissors,” Morrisa replied, noticing the wristband still on her arm from the asylum.