Page 47 of Reine's Salvation

“Can a figment of your imagination do this?”

Cold fingers gripped his arm. Reine clenched his jaw. He resisted the urge to turn around and stared at the mirror. Leslie smiled at him.

“You’re not even going to fight?” She laughed, the sound cold and without the exuberance he remembered. “Useless coward.”

Reine furrowed his brow as her words triggered another memory.

I want to fight for you, Mystique. I want to fight for a future us.”

“Yes, I am,” Reine said. “I’m going to fight for your memory and for my future.”

His heartbeat thrashed in his ears as he moved closer to the mirror.

“What are you doing?”

“What I should have done a long time ago.”

Reine placed his hand on the cool glass surface. Leslie stared at him. Her blue eyes were wide in shock.

“You’re not real. You’re not the woman I fell in love with. She was a kind, forgiving woman, who loved life above all else. She would have never blamed me for what happened to her.”

“You can’t know that,” the image said.

Reine pressed his nose to the glass.

“I can and I need to stop projecting her.”

Abruptly, Leslie’s image vanished. Reine gazed at himself in the mirror.

“I hate you,” he said. He stared at his right arm. “Your loss has made me miserable. I have been in physical and mental agony since you left me, but”—Reine rolled the stiffness out of his neck. He looked at himself squarely in the eyes—“it is you I hate the most,” he told his reflection. His chest burned as anger flared inside him. Reine spat at his reflection. The saliva slid across the glass, smudging it.

“You have ruined my life. I have lost my friends and my family because of you and your hate. You have blinded me to love and passion. You have kept me locked away in a dark box because you were too afraid to move on,” Reine screamed. His skin flushed.

“I have been mean and wretched. I have bullied the people I love. I have destroyed the things I cared for.” Reine shouted, “And all for what? I have driven everyone away. I am alone and it is my own fault. I have threatened and coerced people. I have been violent physically and verbally. And I’ve had enough.”

Reine lifted his fist and smashed it against the glass. The mirror cracked, fresh blood running across the surface. The light flickered and within his own eyes he saw the demon. Reine let out a blood-curdling scream.

“I will command you, beast. You will no longer control my life.”

Again, he punched the glass. Blood flowed freely from his hand as glass shattered to the floor.

“I hate you and because I despise you, I no longer ignore you. I am aware of you and you can no longer escape.”

Reine kneeled and picked up his sword.

“You are now my prisoner. I am your lord.”

Reine thrust the sword against the mirror. For a split second, nothing happened, but then with an ear-splitting crack, the frame split down the middle. The remaining glass shattered to the floor. Amid its fragments, a figure began to form. Reine picked up his weapon. The Inferum crawled forth, blood oozing from its disfigured flesh. Reine shook his head.

“No more will you hold power over me.”

He screamed out Mystique’s name as he plunged his sword onto the creature’s back, killing it once and for all.

---