The voices in my head keep on telling me to pray

Ella shuffled around the room uncomfortably, trying to keep her distance from the Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin. She knew that her wariness towards the other woman was a little hypocritical- or a lot hypocritical. After all, the assassin wasn’t the only murderer in the room right now.

But she had to **** herself not to think like that. If she did…

“Thwap!”

The soothing flick of her rubber band calmed the raging storm in her chest, but only barely. She could feel Cinder pressing on the edges of her psyche. And while it wasn’t the voice of her alter screaming in her head like all the movies showed, she could recognize the triggers. The way her heart would start to race. The way her lungs would tighten, making it hard to breathe. The telltale signs of a panic attack were beginning to manifest, and she knew that if she lost control…

Things would get bad.

“Thwap! Thwap!”

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin was looking at her now. She was perched by the bed, staring her down with those haunting blue eyes.

Ella swallowed. She took a step back, towards the closet, and felt the assassin’s eyes follow after her. She could feel them even when she turned her back.

“It’s fine. It’s going to be fine,” she whispered to herself. “You don’t need to come out.”

The ache in her heart disagreed.

Ella turned and swung the door open, taking a look at the closet. While the inside may have been candified, what it held…

…

Ella sighed. She should have expected this.

A sea of orange gleamed against the creamy texture of the frosting-covered walls. What did she think was going to happen? That she’d have a sea of frilly pink dresses to choose from? Of course not. What little clothes she’d had growing up had been useless rags that she’d thrown away and burned upon her escape. So it should have been obvious that what she was left with were prison jumpsuits like the scratchy one she was wearing.

But still… a dress would have been nice.

Beside Ella’s selection of clothes were the outfits chosen for the Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin. Like Ella, the brunette only had one real outfit, but multiple copies of it. The same shiny leather jumpsuit she was wearing right now.

Maybe that was why Dakota put them together. Ease of fashion.

No way that’s the case. She did it because we’re both murderers.

Every time Ella was confronted with the horrible thing she’d done, she could feel Cinder. Her alter was there, at the cusp of her mind, just waiting for her emotions to destabilize enough that she could take control.

What would happen then…?

“Thwap!”

Ella snapped her rubber band for good measure, and then slammed the closet door closed. She turned, and then let out a shriek.

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin had moved. She was no longer perched beside the bed- While Ella had been lost in thought, the elfish girl had slipped silently across the room and hovered behind her, almost like she was waiting.

Preparing.

Preparing for what?

Ella slipped on the frosting-covered floor and fell backwards, landing with a splat. It didn’t hurt a bit thanks to the spongy texture of cake beneath her butt, but the pain wasn’t the important part. Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin was still staring at her, studying her with that curious expression of hers, her lips pinched into a slight smile.

Ella shivered. She felt like she was going to be sick.

Don’t panic! Don’t panic! Calm down! Calm down! Shaky fingers reached for the rubber band on her wrist, and she desperately snapped it, trying to **** her body’s natural rhythm back into the status quo. “Thwap! Thwap! Thwap!”

But her heart refused to obey. Her head spun as she wondered just what the other woman could want from her. She was an assassin, so didn’t that mean she planned to kill her!? Or hurt her in some way!? Why else would she talk with someone like Ella?!

Those worrying thoughts took root, and refused to leave. Like a train without brakes, Ella felt her deepest fears scream through her mind, like she was charging headfirst towards a brick wall with no way to stop.

Feeling her body sinking away from her in spite of her best resistance, she did the only thing she still had the strength to do when confronted with something that frightened her.

She surrendered to someone who could handle these things better.

Cinder awoke to a situation she couldn’t fully grasp. It wasn’t like she had access to the memories of her other self- not completely, anyway. Whenever either self took control, their immediate memories were always hovering just at the edge of consciousness, like fog on a window. She could get bits and pieces, but what really mattered- what always mattered- were the emotions.

Fear. That’s what Cinder always felt when she took over.

And judging by the fact that she awoke to the beady little eyes of the Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin, it didn’t take a genius to recognize the source of that fear. Or even a GED.

“You…” She hissed, pulling her lips up into a snarl. She rose to her feet, cricking her neck like a cat as she limbered herself up. Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin, recognizing a hostile attitude when she sensed one, tensed as well and took a defensive stance.

Neither girl need have bothered, though. Because just as Cinder was preparing to strike, her memories of earlier in the day returned to her- particularly, those of Dakota’s rules.

To make things easier on both girls and to avoid the need for repeating things at every opportunity, Dakota had slightly twisted the way Ella and Cinder received information. Something that Cinder was not consciously aware of. Whenever she explained a rule or instruction to Ella or Cinder, the other would incorporate that information into her knowledge as well. That was similar to how it worked usually (she didn’t need to relearn how to read or anything like that) it stood out starkly as Cinder recalled Dakota’s instructions about ****.

“Not happening.”

Grimacing, Cinder took a step back, giving Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin a withering glare.

“What did you do to her?” She growled, clenching her fists in an empty threat. She couldn’t hurt the assassin even if Dakota permitted it; the other woman’s skills were just too high-level for a woman who was essentially just an angry woman.

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin looked at Cinder with a questioning stare, then crossed her arms over her chest and grunted a silent, stubborn grunt.

No help there. Not that Cinder could have expected much of an answer from a woman who couldn’t talk.

But if they were going to be sharing a room together, Cinder would need to make her understand the rules.

“You don’t hurt Ella,” she threatened, approaching the at-ease assassin. “You don’t do anything to frighten Ella. You don’t lay one finger on Ella without her permission. Do you understand?”

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin blinked and tilted her head to the side. Then she shook her head.

“What’s that? Are you telling me you don’t care?” Cinder growled. “That you’ll do what you want? Because I may not be able to hurt you, but that doesn’t mean I’m someone you want as an enemy, estas pendejo.”

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin rolled her eyes and then pointed at the bed.

Cinder blinked. “…Well obviously that’s fucking different, ugh, eres un dolor en el culo… That’s not my point! Leave her alone!”

The assassin just shrugged. Which only infuriated Cinder more. She took a few deep breaths to keep from losing her temper, because she knew it wouldn’t go well if she just attacked the bitch in front of her.

“…This isn’t over,” she threatened, knowing there wasn’t much more she could do on her own at the moment. She needed to have a serious talk with whoever was in charge here, and let them know that these living arrangements were NOT acceptable.

She categorically refused to sleep in the same room as anyone who could pose even the slightest threat to Ella, even if it was only in terms of her emotional wellbeing.

With a frustrated growl, Cinder stormed out of the room, kicking one of the pastries to pieces as she did.

What she found when she entered the common area was… not an improvement.

“O-oh…” Rose looked up from the table, and went pale. “It’s that new girl… Ella…”

“Right…” Mary nodded, swallowing her anxiety. Everyone knew that something was definitely off about the girl, but nobody was aware of the specifics quite yet.

Not that that stopped Holly from dashing over to her with an eager smile on her face.

“Hello there!” Holly greeted her. “Your name’s Ella, right? You’re the one who’s going to be taking over my job of cleaning the Master’s Suite? Oh, how wonderful! It’s nice to finally get the chance to really talk to you,” she gushed. “My name’s Holly!”

Cinder’s eye twitched. “Clean the fucking Master’s Suite? You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” she growled, clenching her fists. “Like hell I’d do something like that!”

She grabbed the chain at the end of Holly’s collar and yanked it. “Listen here you little coño, I’m not cleaning anything for anybody, ever again! You got that!?”

“Is it just me, or is she completely different than she was before?” Mary asked worriedly.

“I was afraid of that,” Amelia said, standing up from the table with a concerned expression on her face. There had been a serious shift in attitude for Ella at several points that day. And while Amelia had no idea what that entailed, she knew that Dakota had stepped in the last time things had gotten this serious.

But Dakota wasn’t here. Only Amelia was.

She reached for her riding crop, but then hesitated. What if this was like what happened with Gina? Should she really be trusted to step in like this? Before, she’d convinced herself that stopping Gina from drinking was the right thing. But she’d overstepped her bounds. Maybe…

No, I can’t think like that. I need to keep that girl safe!

Amelia brandished the riding crop and approached Cinder, who was still hurling **** at Holly. But before she could raise the tool and inflict some discipline, she caught the look in Holly’s eye, and it gave her pause.

The sprite-like girl was positively gleeful! She had a big, dopey smile stretched across her face and her cheeks were flushed with desire. It was like she was absorbing the other woman’s **** like a sponge and asking for more!

That moment of hesitation was enough time for Cinder to notice Amelia’s presence, and when she did, her blood ran cold.

“Get away from me with that thing!” She snapped, letting Holly go and turning on Amelia instead. Her hair stood on end and her eyes widened, her pupils turning into pinpricks as the riding crop fully took up her vision.

It was a common assumption to believe that because Cinder was the “strong” one who appeared when Ella was being threatened, that she was immune from things like fear.

That would be incorrect.

Cinder and Ella were still, fundamentally, the same person. They might have slight differences in taste, but when it came to sources of fear and trauma, they were practically identical.

So when Cinder laid eyes on a tool designed for inflicting punishment and **** like what she had endured most of her life, she immediately became stricken with fear, just as Ella would in such a situation.

The difference was how that fear affected their behavior.

“I said get it away!” Cinder grabbed a chair, and prepared to throw it. Before she had the chance, however, Amelia was already answering her request.

“I’m putting it away,” she said quickly, and dismissed the riding crop with a thought. She didn’t even realize she could do that- it just happened so fast, when she wished it was gone. “There, see? I put it away. It’s gone.”

Without the weapon’s presence, Cinder could calm down slightly- but only slightly. She struggled to catch her breath as her body tried to **** itself out of flight or flight response. But Cinder was no better at regulating her emotions than Ella.

And unlike Ella, she really didn’t want to.

“You people… looking at me like that!” Cinder tugged at her floppy hair and clutched her chest, wishing she could just hurt something, anything she could get her hands on. Her anger was overpowering her, but her self-preservation overwrote it.

Protecting Ella was her primary purpose. And if she lashed out with ****, Dakota would punish her- and thus, punish Ella.

Cinder couldn’t let that happen. So all she could do was impotently hurl profanity at the crowd of women in front of her.

“Wheew, I guess someone woke up on the wrong side of the candy bed,” Vivian chortled.

Cinder turned to the heiress for the first time.

“You think that’s fucking funny!?” She spat. “You think this is some fucking joke!?”

“Carrington, watch yourself,” Amelia warned, rubbing her temples in frustration. She didn’t want Vivian to put herself into a position she would regret. Drawing attention to herself like this…

It was the kind of foolish move she really should have expected from the heiress at this point. But that didn’t mean she had to like it.

“Look, I get it, you’re angry,” Vivian said, walking over to Cinder with her hands spread palm-open, to show she didn’t mean any harm. “Your name’s Ella, right?”

“…No,” Cinder said coldly, narrowing her eyes.

Vivian frowned. The other girls looked at each other in confusion.

“No?” Vivian tilted her head to the side.

“I’m Cinder,” Cinder replied coldly. “Ask that prick, Nick. He’ll tell you all about it. Long story short, Ella’s not here right now. I am.”

“It’s the devil,” Mary muttered to herself, shaking her head. “From before, the devil side…”

“I think we got that, yeah,” Rose nodded grimly. “But devil… no, it’s not that.”

It couldn’t be that… right?

Amelia frowned her lips into a tight line. “Cinder… is that right?”

Cinder glared at her and nodded.

Is this… dissociative identity disorder? Amelia wondered. It sure sounded like what she’d read on the topic when she studied education and child psychology back at university. But she refrained from verbalizing her suspicions out of concern for the other woman’s mental state.

It was clear that Cinder was behaving almost feral, lashing out in response to any attempt to get close to her, like a rabid dog.

Setting her off would be the absolute worst thing Amelia could do in this situation.

So she did something else. She walked over to the table and cut out a piece of cake, then turned to Cinder and approached her with it. She hoped that the young woman would get the message that she was trying to make a peace offering.

“Seriously, Teach?” Vivian shook her head. “You think cake is going to make everything better?”

“What the hell are you trying here?” Cinder growled, staring suspiciously at the plate Amelia held out to her. “You think you can buy me off with that?!”

Even as she said that, she could feel her stomach growling. Drool piled up in her mouth in spite of herself, and she licked her lips.

She really was hungry. Spending the afternoon in that candy-filled room had built up an appetite in Ella’s body given how little food she’d been allowed to eat before now. And since Cinder and Ella shared a body, the tantalizing aroma of the heaven and hell cake was urging her to take a bite.

“Rraargh, fine!” Cinder snapped, grabbing the plate from the older woman. Without even bothering with the fork, she broke off chunks of it with her fingers and shoveled the pastry into her mouth.

It was the most delicious thing she’d ever tasted. And unlike the food in Dream Alley, this was real. It was better than she ever could have imagined, and she was so caught up in eating that she forgot how to stand.

Cinder fell over and landed on her ass, the empty plate skittering away across the carpet.

“Ow! Mierda…”

She looked up at the women staring down at her, realizing her shameful appearance. Her face was smeared with chocolate and vanilla frosting, and bits of crumbs covered her lips. Her dark skin reddened in shame as she quickly scrambled to her feet and glared defiantly at the girls.

“What are you looking at, huh!?” She demanded, pointing an accusatory finger wildly around the room. Like a cornered rat, she was lashing out in frustration. “You think it’s funny, is that it!?”

“No, not at all!” Mary gasped, shaking her head. “We just… we were worried about you, Ella!”

“I told you, it’s Cinder!” Cinder snapped. “Ella’s not here right now… and if I have my way, you lot aren’t getting anywhere near her! She deserves better than people like you!”

“So you are her alter then, is that it?” Amelia approached Cinder with a stern expression on her face.

Cinder tensed. She knew what Amelia was. She was Nick’s stepmother.

Stepmothers were the enemy.

“Just get away,” she growled. “You don’t know anything. You’re just like those doctors, right? Talking with that gentle voice, trying to make me go away, and have Ella back?”

Amelia stopped in place. “I had no such intention,” she said, shaking her head. “I was merely trying to express concern for you.”

She lowered her head apologetically. “I am not the best at that.”

“Yeah? Well, fuck you, lady,” Cinder spat. “Neither Ella nor I need any stinking concern from a bitch like you! We’re just fine on our own!”

Amelia tensed, and kept her own temper in check. She was the adult here. She couldn’t get angry at a child, especially not a damaged on like Cinder. No matter how much she despised the vulgar words coming out of the girl’s mouth.

She took a deep breath, and exhaled. “…As I said,” she tried again, “I was merely trying to help. I’m sorry if that upset you.”

Cinder scowled. She wasn’t good with apologies. Because most apologies she got were from doctors, telling her how “sorry” they were for “triggering” Ella. About how they only did it because they wanted to talk to Cinder.

How fucking dare they? What gave them the right to hurt Ella like that?!

“What steps do you think we can take, to help Ella feel comfortable without you? So she won’t have to keep relying on you?”

Didn’t they fucking get it?! The only reason Cinder came out was because Ella was in danger! If they would just stop hurting Ella, then Cinder wouldn’t need to come out! Why couldn’t they understand that, and just leave Ella alone!? She didn’t need a doctor. She just needed to be happy!

And Cinder didn’t need any of these girls, either. No matter how good that cake tasted…