Tate Langdon. Michael Langdon. Her mind was busy, stuck on a song like when one of her mother's records gets caught on the needle. Langdon. Langdon. Langdon. Her bottom lip was raw and bleeding from where she had caught it between her teeth when the last bell sounded at the end of the day.

Carrie Moore couldn't land on a single clear thought, not about Michael Langdon, not anymore. He was a Satanist that was possibly related to a teenage serial killer. Her religion told her not to judge people, and she was trying so desperately not to, as she dragged her golden cross along the chain of her necklace.

It was an overcast day, which was rare in Los Angeles, and the lack of sunshine seemed to match the doubt milling in Carrie's heart as she walked out of the school gate. She wasn't looking for Michael, hadn't expected him to be sitting under his tree, his knees pulled up against his chest and his black military boots propped up against the roots. And it was a small shock to her system, for Michael hadn't shown up to walk her home last Friday, not after the events of last Thursday afternoon.

She stopped on the pathway a few meters away, her eyes soaking him in. Thick golden strands of hair curled over his forehead and over the earphones tucked into his ears. He was drawing something in the dirt with his finger, too absorbed in his actions to see anything around him. But Carrie knew he was the most observant boy she knew; he was good at picking people apart silently, opening up their hearts and letting the secrets and the sins and the desires spill out. And one day, he'd be excellent at seeing what made people tick, pushing people to their limits, and it would be wickedly wonderful to watch. Right now, Michael Langdon just looked like a boy waiting for a girl under a tree.

Ava Gold had shown Carrie a photograph of Tate Langdon attached to an article during lunch that day. Carrie hadn't believed her friend, so Ava had found an article from 1994 detailing the boy that went on a killing spree.

The resemblance between Tate and Michael was astonishing and it caused gooseflesh to rise along Carrie's skin, prickling at the nape of her neck. She didn't want to believe it, but the evidence was strong. Michael was related to Tate Langdon somehow. One would think, regarding the uncanny resemblance, that they were father and son, but the dates didn't line up, seeing as Tate Langdon had died in 1994 and Michael didn't look older eighteen. With a troubled mind, Carrie had asked Ava why Tate Langdon had killed those teenagers but she had only shrugged, saying: 'that's the million dollar question.' To this day, Tate Langdon's motivation for massacring fifteen people was still a mystery.

Someone barged by Carrie then, ramming their shoulder into hers, knocking her out of her thought bubble. She muttered out an apology, eyes still lingering on Michael Langdon under his tree. She wondered if she could just walk right by him. He probably won't notice her, not when he was too distracted with etching something into the dirt.

A breeze made Carrie's hair blow into her face and it was then that Michael's head snapped up as the delightful and vexing infusion of honey and blood drifted on the moving air. It was too late for Carrie to avoid him now. Michael hurried to his feet, not bothering to dust off his black, ripped jeans. He stuffed his earphones and MP3 player into his pocket as he stepped forward to meet Carrie.

"I didn't expect you here today," Carrie said, her voice was cold like the artic. "You didn't show Friday." She hadn't meant her voice to be so harsh, but she suddenly saw Tate's inky black eyes instead of Michael's vibrant blue ones.

Michael bowed his head and hurt flashed across his face, but only for the briefest of moments. "I didn't think you wanted me too." It was true. Michael had fought within himself all day that Friday and he was about to step outside that afternoon when Miriam told him to let Carrie be that day, and every day after that. It had been a long and torturous weekend, and not even a Black Mass had brought up his spirits. He broke today though, throwing judgment and caution to the wind; he desperately wanted to see Carrie Moore, his friend, no matter the cost or the possible hurt it would bring him if she were to regret him.

There was a silence, one that lingered with unsaid thoughts and a heavy elephant. Michael's eyes were stuck on his feet, kicking one boot against the ground. Carrie hugged herself as the sky darkened a little more. She wanted to speak to him, but no words formed on her tongue. Another beat of silence; she bit at her lip and blood bloomed in her mouth.

"You hate me now, don't you? Because of my religion," he spoke, his words low and bruised.

"Hate you? No, I don't hate you. I don't think I could ever hate you," Carrie exclaimed. Was that what Michael thought, that she hated him? Her heat pulsed painfully with that thought alone. She stepped forward, bring herself closer to the boy with bleeding eyes. "And you have free will, so you can practice whatever religion you want to and I won't judge you. That's not my place." Michael's eyes were fervorous, his lips picking up. He couldn't bear it if one more person he cared about hated him. "But, I need to know something."

He nodded. "Anything."

Carrie licked at the blood on her lip. The question had hovered in her soul all day, yet she wasn't even sure she wanted a definite answer, but she knew she needed it. "Are you related to Tate Langdon, the boy responsible for the Westfield High Massacre?"

Michael cocked his head to the side, the intensity in his eyes sharpening, darkening. Three seconds went by. "Yes, I am."

Carrie nodded numbly, accepting this as the truth. "And is he the reason you're obsessed with the massacre?"

"Yes." His voice was deadpan but honest.

She let out the breath she didn't realise she was holding onto. "So, it's a way for you to know him, right? Because you never met him?"

"One could say that," he answered. Carrie could understand that, wanting to be close to someone that wasn't available to them anymore. Even if Michael's obsession was extreme, it was natural too. To want to find some kind of connection with your family, your past.

"You never really talk about your family," she mused out. While the pair had talked about a lot over the last couple of weeks, the topics never included his family, his past. Carrie still didn't have the fainted idea of how Michael had ended up with Miriam Mead. Michael didn't reply, just averted his eyes away from her face. "I never knew my father. My mother says he died before I was born, but sometimes I don't believe her. The way she speaks about him sometimes... I don't think he was a good man."

Carrie never spoke about her father openly like this, and Margaret would shut her down whenever she pried for more information. Carrie often dreamt up little, fictional scenarios about her father. Sometimes it was just as simple as him being around, teaching her how to drive and watching movie marathons with her. Other times he would show up on the threshold of the Moore house and save her from her mother, taking her away. The two would start fresh in a new town, in a new state and Carrie would have a normal and simple life. A good high school experience, good friends and she'd go to parties every Friday night and suck down milkshakes at the local diner with the cute boy in her class.

But it wasn't a normal and simple life Carrie Moore wanted, even if she believed it with such conviction. She had always wanted more and her appetite was forever growing and changing. Michael Langdon would be the one to awaken her true desires, to make her realise that she was bored and hungry. Michael Langdon would be the one to show her what she wanted deep down. Rust and ash and blood and chaos—him. One day, she'd ask him for it all and he would give her a kingdom of ruin, a crown of blood and darkness.

"My family wasn't good either," Michael announced, his voice ringing with empathy. "At least, not to me." The two teenagers didn't need to express anything more at that moment, because they both knew, both understood, what it was like to be abandoned and neglected by an absent father and a callous mother. Both of them were bruised children, one on the flesh and one in the soul.

—

Classical piano played softly in the background, but no words broke over dinner in the Moore house just yet. Metal cutlery scrapped against the china plates and every now and then, Carre would look up from her peas and chicken to Margaret across the table.

Michael had shared his earphones with Carrie on the walk home and the beat of his heavy rock echoed in her ears long after. But knowing her mother would be home, watching from the windows, Carrie let Michael walk down their street first, and then waited ten minutes before strolling up to her own driveway. With the safety precaution, Margaret hadn't suspected a thing and even allowed Carrie to have a glass of apple juice with dinner; that was a treat.

"The ladies at the hair salon spoke up a storm today," Margaret started, spearing a piece of chicken with her fork. Margaret wasn't really one for casual chit-chat, and especially not with her daughter. So, Carrie's shoulders tensed, knowing something was amiss. "They had some gossip about our new neighbours," she added. "Would you like to hear it?"

No, Carrie thought. "Yes, Mama?"

"Someone saw that ghastly woman buying pig hooves at the butchers," Margaret's voice turned, just as her eyes narrowed. "For their horrendous and wicked Satanic rituals." Carrie nearly choked on her peas and scurried to recover.

"Satanic rituals, Mama?" She played innocent.

"I knew something was wrong with those people the minute the first packing box arrived," Margaret spat out. "Lord, help us, we're living across from evil-doers!"

"You don't know that they're evil-doers," Carrie reflected, defence slipping into her tone.

"They're Satanists, Carrie! Plaguing our neighbourhood. The church will be very interested to know this," Margaret rattled on, slicing violently at her chicken.

"They haven't done anything wrong, Mama," she said, eyes flashing nervously to her mother's knife.

"I believe worshipping the Devil is doing something wrong. Wrong and evil," she shook her head, her long beautiful curls shifting around her face.

"Everyone has the right to practise whatever religion they want to," Carrie whispered under her breath, half-knowing she should just keep her mouth shut altogether. Margaret paused from cutting up her meat and lifted the knife.

"The Lord doesn't speak in whispers, neither should you. Speak up," Margaret ordered, pressing the flesh of her thumb to the sharp edge of the knife.

Carrie swallowed the lump in her throat. "Nothing, Mama. I said nothing."

"God will protect us from those people clutched by the Devil. He'll hear our prayers." She pressed against the knife harder, breaking the skin. Carrie's watched anxiously as a droplet the colour of carmine slid down the metal of the knife. "You're keeping away from that boy, correct?"

"Yes, Mama," she lied with a guilty heart, staring at her plate.

"Good," Margaret smiled, her lips lifting up over her pearly teeth, as she lowered the knife sleek with blood. "You bring enough sin into this house as it is." Margaret Moore didn't even know of the real sin and chaos her daughter was capable of yet.