I am a spirit.

And I crave vengeance.

It doesn’t matter who I kill, who gets in the way. As long as I can closer to the people who have wronged me.

My next victim is quite young. Her blonde hair is curled in loose ringlets. Her skin like porcelain. She reaches on the highest shelf as I creep up behind her, my footsteps soundless in the night. My hands just touch her back when she says, “Hello there, Cory.”

I jump back. The woman grabs a small bag of grapes and turns to me, unfazed. My hands reach for the knives.

“I’m not scared. It would be pointless to pull a knife on me.” She reaches into the bag of grapes and offers me one. It’s ripe, juicy. I long for its flavor, but tasting is one of the many delicacies the dead lose. “You want one?”

I respond to her question with a question. “How do you know who I am?”

“I’m good with faces,” she answered with a shrug. “And I happen to know one of the many people you’re looking for.”

My soulless eyes widen in surprise. “Tell me, now!” I growl, baring my teeth so she knows who has power.

Again, the woman bares no reaction, shows no slip of fear. “Her name is Annabelle, correct?”

I nod. “Yes. How are you in relation to her?”

She takes a seat at the kitchen table. The moonlight slips through the window, reaches out to her features, creating the scene of a noir film. Her familiar blue eyes catch the stars, like diamonds in the sea. From her pocket, she takes out a red hair clip. A cord of Deja vu strikes within me.

“That’s—“

“Her hair clip. Well, mine.” She slides the hair lip across the table. “But you can keep it.”

I take it in my hands, press it to my chest. “My Annabelle…” This stranger, my intended victim, couldn’t be her. I would have known sooner. I would have approached her with the intent to tell her I loved her. But, the evidence is clear.

Yet the woman shakes her head. “It’s Lilly now.”

My lips fall in a frown. “But…Annabelle is such a wonderful name. It suited you well. How could you change it?”

She took her empty bag of grapes and discarded it in the disposal. “Like you, I want to get rid of all traces of my past. But instead of going on a killing spree, I learn to cope with what the nuns of the orphanage did to me, what they did to us.”

My jaw clenched. “I am stuck here until I deal with my unfinished business. I cannot move on until they are gone!”

“Cory, that’s not true! I know deep down that the warm, loving boy you are could never hurt anyone. There must be something else you have to do!”

“You are wrong!” I scream. I tower over her as my frustration crescendos, burns like the wounds on my skin. How could she not understand when she has been through worse than me? “The Cory you once knew is gone! He is angry! He wants to make sure that what he and the girl he adored went through never happens to anyone else!”

“Cory, please!” Lilly begs.

“No,” I say. “Children are hurting at the hands of monsters, and I am responsible for vanquishing them!”

I step back, my form melting into nothing. Fear etched Lilly’s face. With the hair clip held tight, I say, “No matter how much blood is spilt, how far you go, or what part of you changes, you will always be my Annabelle.”