003 · Emmaline · I

New Orleans, Louisiana. Human world

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I hate it when Veevy does that.

When she self-sacrifices herself and her well-being for me, and I can't do absolutely nothing about it because she'll be frustrated, and seeing her frustrated makes my heart ache. But seeing her breaking herself even more for me, hurts just as much.

"Don't worry about it, Emma," she purred with that fake sweetness that she put up to hide from me how she's actually hurting inside. "It's just a cut. I won't die just by giving you this amount of blood. I have a lot to spare," she winked and my chest ached.

I held her hand, pressing my lips together, "Veevy, please, stop giving me this. Stop putting your life on the line just to give me material to paint. We can find another way."

She clenched her jaw, "It won't be for long, Emma. We'll pay our debt in a year, then Benjamin won't be able to use that as a way to make you paint for him anymore. We are lucky that you are extremely talented painting, sis, with your vivid and real imagination of fantasy settings."

"Verena," I cried, "you give me your blood thrice a week. Lots of it. You are full of scars from cuts, sister. Please, don't do that. I can't bear looking at it. It makes me feel guilty."

For a second I saw her right odd golden eye glowing through the grey lens, but it faded just as fast as she sighed. "Emmaline, Benjamin made it clear that he won't buy paint for you. And since he saw the first painting you did using layers of my blood, he said you should keep doing. He said you should only use that, so we don't have another way. Besides, I'm used to it. It's just a little bit of blood, it won't kill me." Ugh, why is she so stubborn?

"Then let me use mine for once!"

She snapped on her feet, taking the knife far away from me, "Don't you even think about that, Emmaline Seraph. Are you fucking insane? You are perfect as you are sister, your skin is perfect. I'm your older sister, it's my duty to take care of you. And I would rather give you all the blood in my body than let you use yours."

There she goes again. I growled, "We are twins. You are minutes older. Besides, it hurts seeing you hurting yourself for me. How are you going to cover all those scars covering your wrists and thighs? What about the ones in your back?"

That seem to piss her off, but I didn't feel bad. I'm honestly worried. It's not just the blood she gives me to use as paint. She does all kinds of shady stuff to help filling in the money for our debt. All so I won't have to dirty my hands and would be able to stay here painting.

We were kicked out of our 9th foster house at 14 and went back to the orphanage for the 1000th time, and Benjamin, the owner, decided to use us for his own benefit. Using all our debt from living in the orphanage for years, against us. And we can't do shit because he's a criminal, and I mean a real criminal using the "owner of an orphanage" as a façade to give him some social respect.

And we learned that when he saw my drawings, which I sketched in leftover papers, with the only pencil I had from school. His greedy ass began to make me paint so he could sell it all on the black market of New Orleans, and took all the money for himself, saying that this would be my way of paying my debt. But that's the problem. Only my way.

Not Veevy's. That's why I feel so terrible for using her blood to paint so I can pay my debt. Fucking hell, how I wished she was as selfish with me as she is with everyone else. But no. She's so self-sacrificing that sometimes I wonder if she's depressed and using me as a way to kill herself.

But I know better than that. Verena loves herself as much as I do. In a way I can't love myself. Which is pretty surprising because she's more fucked up than I am, and has more confidence than I could ever manage to have.

I love that in her. She's my pillar, she's the strength I could only dream of having, both physically and mentally. Don't get me wrong, I'm strong too, but Veevy is just absurdly more strong than I am.

Not to mention the endless well of courage inside of her. And though I am courageous, she's in another level. A bad one. She's reckless. Yes, that's the word. Reckless. My twin sister is reckless as a bitch with a death wish.

To make it worse, Benja-fucking-min keeps using me to make her do all the shit he wants her to. Except sex, because he's into men. Not that she's a virgin, because she isn't. Neither am I. Although her case is slightly worse, again.

And she never, never, tells me what he makes he do for him. I know in my bones that is all shady, but she never tells me. Probably because she knows how I react. But I have my suspicions. Especially because she comes back every night smelling like alcohol, the bad kind of cigarettes, and it's not uncommon for her to comeback with bruises either.

What soothes me is that I know how good she is at fighting. She learned alone, that's how much of a prodigy she is. Nevertheless, she always puts herself into a side corner and brings the spotlight to me, praising me and my gifts, acting as if she wasn't as gifted as I am, if not more. Lifting me up and ignoring all she can do.

Let me tell you, that hurts. It hurts. It hurts like hell, because I love her more than anything in the world. She's my sister, my only family, my best and only friend, my protector, my favorite person, she's my everything.

I may complain about what she does for me, but I know in my soul that if she found herself in real danger, I would switch places with her. I would give my life for her. That's how important she is for me.

The stars now how I hate myself for being such a burden for my sister, because she feels responsible for me, she's extremely overprotective, and thanks to my stupidity, and the mistakes I commit here and there when Benjamin doesn't like one of my paintings, she's constantly putting her head (willingly) on the line.

"I'll make a tattoo," she scoffed and I felt suddenly bad for mentioning it. It's not live we've not been through this before.

"You've tried before." I spoke in her mind, using my secret gift which only she knows about. The ability to talk through her mind. We never actually talked about how I'm able to do this, maybe because we are both scared of the answer. Or because Verena is skeptical as fuck.

"I'll try again," she snapped.

"You've tried eight times already, Veevy. But you always healed from it!" We are both able to do that, but we also don't question it. And that's also why I don't understand how she doesn't heal from the cuts in skin, when she healed from the needles the tattoo artists used. "And don't say it's a problem with their material again, because we both know that's not the reason!"

Veevy clenched her teeth, "You don't need to worry about it, Emma. I'll find a way."