Hello again, my fiery little flower. I’m glad you’re finally home again.

I adored your last letter. While it pains me that your parents don’t understand your choices, and don’t respect your identity, please remember that I accept you whole-heartedly as you are. When you wrote that my letters are the highlight of your week, my heart jumped. Your love is everything to me, and I too can no longer imagine life without you. Truly, we are meant to be.

Everything on my side has been going great. We’re all very excited for the big trip. I have so very much loved our exchange of letters, but we’ll be able to leave this bothersome medium behind and meet each other in the flesh very soon. I cannot tell you how much I’ve been looking forward to seeing you, my beautiful lily. I hope you’re as excited as I am. Too long have we been kept apart by the cold and cruel barrier of fate.

There’s just one more small task for you to fulfill for me, and we can finally be together. The last of the temples of sin must be profaned. Take the doll, perform the usual ritual, and drop it on the crosswalk across from the bank at the corner of St. Ferdinand’s and 5th at 9:32 tomorrow morning. And this time, I’d like you to stay and watch. My friends and I will meet you there afterwards.

Then, you’ll be mine forever.

-Balthazar

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A shuddering sigh escaped Darcy’s lips as she picked up the letter and pressed it to her chest. She’d read it a dozen times that night, and it still threatened to bring tears to her eyes. Finally, she was going to meet her love. Balthazar was her everything.

They’d started exchanging letters when she was ten, and in the five years since, the exchange had become the sole bright spot in her life as the rest drowned in darkness.

Just like he’d said in his letter, her parents just didn’t get her the way he did. They thought this whole ‘goffik’ thing was just a phase, as if saying that wasn’t the most invalidating and infuriating thing she had to hear five times a day. Jesu—Satan’s ball sack, these people were dense. Would she really put all this effort into the clothes and makeup, and be so passionate about her music if she was a fucking poser, Mom?!

Her lips curled into a vindictive smile. They’d be sorry when Balthazar finally took her away from all this, and she’d finally be free. Free to be herself, and to be with the one she loved.

All year long, she’d been working towards this. He’d devised this… ritual, to prove her worth. It made sense, really. A man like Balthazar definitely had thots and hussies throwing themselves at him. She was special; they both knew it. But he had to weed out the chaff. She needed to show that her soul was as dark as they came.

Exactly why that meant she had to take the little trinkets he sent her and leave them all over town was a bit of a mystery to her, but she probably just wasn’t smart enough to figure it out. It didn’t matter anyway. She would have jumped off a bridge if that was what Balthazar needed for them to be together.

Darcy dug the tiny plush doll out of the envelope. It was a pretty thing: red silk, embroidered with a pentagram on one side and filled with some kind of down. It tugged at something deep inside of her, like some deep-seated longing turning in its slumber, and she was almost tempted to keep it. She recognized the feeling; it had grown more intense with every object he’d sent her. The previous one had been a fake dead mouse that squished like jello when squeezed, and once she’d performed the initial part of the ritual that stupid little thing had excited her so much she’d taken it and—

She blushed. Supposedly, Balthazar had ensorceled each of the items so they were attuned to one of the Seven Sins. She hoped it was true. How cool was it that her boyfriend could do witchcraft?

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Well, Darcy was something of a witch herself these days. She could only do what Balthazar had told her because she wasn’t amazing like him, but it totally counted. ‘The usual ritual’ referred to her activating whatever magic her pen pal had locked away inside of them. She opened her desk drawer, dug around to the bottom, and picked a wrapped razor blade out of a crack in the back. It was the only one she’d managed to squirrel away, after her stupid parents confiscated the rest of the box as well as her knives.

Stupid mental hospital. Stupid pills. Stupid mom going through her stuff all the time. If not for that whole mess she would have been done with Balthazar’s ritual three months ago.

But tonight was the night. The last one. Finally.

Taking a deep breath to steady herself, Darcy rolled up her left sleeve. Six thin, neat scars had been etched into the skin of her forearm.. The most recent one was still pink. She thought they looked rather fetching on her otherwise pale and unremarkable arm. These ones, anyway. Her right arm was a mess by comparison. But then, her right arm was for practice. She’d gotten quite good. Before they’d made her stop, she’d been using the blades to draw bunnies and other cute things on herself.

Hand trembling with anticipation, she unwrapped the razor. It had been a while. Would she even be able to…? Darcy shook her head. She had to. With a deep sigh, she rolled up her other sleeve, and practiced for the first time in months. One bunny turned into three. They were swiftly joined by a cat. The sting calmed her down, steadied her hands in a way nothing else could.

She dabbed at the beads of blood with a lysol wipe from the box she’d swiped from the bathroom.

It burned.

Ready for the real thing, Darcy focused back on her left arm. The six previous incisions had been made with a knife. With only a razorblade, she’d have to dig deep.

Blood ran down the length of her forearm, and she carefully dripped it onto the little doll. The red fabric darkened a few shades, and before long she felt it. An unnameable need surfaced in the pit of her being, and she grabbed the tiny thing, clutching it close to her heart.

It was hers. Balthazar had given it to her. It was hers! She deserved to have it! Had she not loved him so much her very soul ached? Had she not loved him enough?! Hadn’t she almost died for him?!

She had.

That’s why she needed him with her. Him, not this effigy.

…

There was blood all over her desk now. The floor. She’d never be able to clean it up without supplies that were out of reach, well beyond the locked door of her room. It didn’t matter. Balthazar had said he was coming for her.

***

The air was warm, even this early in the morning. Darcy opened one of the buttons on her blouse as she leaned heavily against the street lamp, then checked her watch.

9:28

Balthazar had written that she should stay and watch. That was different. She’d always been told to leave after placing the trinket somewhere. Her curiosity had been strong, but she’d always done what he’d told her. Nothing was worth upsetting her love.

9:31

It was time. With a grunt, Darcy hobbled over to the crosswalk. Her ankle was in bad shape after jumping out the second floor window to escape her room, but she wasn’t going to let that stop her.

The light turned green at 9:32 on the dot, and Darcy crossed. Halfway, she pulled out the doll and dropped it in the middle of the street. Doing her best to not look back, she limped along, not stopping until she made it to the houses on the other side. Hissing in pain, leaned against the facade. Nursing her swollen, purple ankle, she locked her eyes on the doll, watching cars and trucks whizz by.

What would happen to the doll that made it so important she drop it off right there? What even was ‘profaning the temple of sin’?

It took all of ten seconds for her to find out.

A little girl pulled away from her mother’s hand, rushing for the doll with greed in her eyes.

A tanker truck swerving to avoid her.

A bank filled with customers at the busiest time of day.

An explosion.

How…

How many had she killed?

Seven rituals.

A hand fell heavily on Darcy’s shoulder as she stared, numb.

“Hello my sweet little flower.”

Darcy turned to behold the demons she’d unleashed.

“It’s showtime~”