Chapter 9

                                    

                                          
Diana felt like shit. She was sure she looked like shit and smelled like shit too, but she didn't give a damn. Nothing was going to force her to change, now. 
                          
She was sitting in her dad's car, outside the house she once called home. All the lights were out, and her car was missing from the driveway. So he still had the extra set of keys. She wondered where he was. Probably a bar. 
                          
Part of her was disappointed he'd never tried to look for her. If he really wanted her back, she would be back there in that house living as her father's daughter. But no, she wasn't that girl anymore. She had failed. She had let him down. She wasn't James Drewitt's daughter anymore. She wasn't that girl anymore. She was just Diana. Or was she even that? She was a shell of whoever Diana was. 
                          
But the realistic part of her, whatever was left, was relieved that he didn't want her back. It made it easier to let go. It made it easier for her to do what she had planned to do. 
                          
Her face contorted into a grin. She felt no remorse, she didn't care if what she was going was wrong. It didn't matter, because she wouldn't be there to care. 
                          
She didn't have a solid plan in her mind. She had initially had the thought "I wish my father was dead," and then realized there wasn't really anything stopping her from making that reality. But she thought murder might slow her down from accomplishing anything else before the end. 
                          
But she knew she wouldn't be able to do it. Not even in the crazed mindset she waz in these days. No, her father had been there so long. He'd been in her life too long to do it. Hell, she almost sympathized for him. She knew it hurt him to see her cooking in the kitchen, a mirror image of the woman who left him. Only his own cold brown eyes started back at him, and not her dreamy blue ones. But still, that did not excuse how he'd molded and forced her into a puppet of a person he wished she was. 
                          
So she told herself she was doing the next best thing. If she wasn't taking down the man who had ruined and twisted her life, she was taking down his everything, which was almost as good. 
                          
She got out of the car and walked to the house, using her father's key to unlock the door. 
                          
She walked to the kitchen, where she was unsure what to do next. But she figured oil was flammable enough, maybe it could work as a fuse. Or maybe it wouldn't really have to. She poured the cooking oil onto the floors and counters, and then went into the living room to try and find books she could use the paper from. 
                          
She grabbed the first book she could find, ignoring what it was. It was going to burn anyways. She tore handfuls of pages out of the binding, and threw them onto the floor in a trail, and onto the stove. 
                          
She knew this was by far the most dangerous thing she'd ever done, including the terrifying times in gymnastics where she'd very nearly snapped her neck. 
                          
She turned on one gas burner on the stove. 
                          
Then, careful not to step in the oil, she turn and ran for the still-open door. 
                          
As the house started going up in flames behind her, her face changed from emotionless to a psychotic grin. Tears poured down her face at the same time. 
                          
She returned to her father's car, which she quickly gunned down the street and away from her masterpiece. 
                          
But she wasn't going anywhere in that car. No, she'd already taken out all of her belongings from it. This was going to be even harder than the house fire, she was going to have to exit the vehicle before it sent her crashing to her demise along with it. 
                          
How was she going to do it? She didn't know, maybe she'd just wreck it, but not by driving it. 
                          
Suddenly inspired, she drove over behind an abandoned warehouse. It was an unsafe area, but this was an unsafe pastime. She knew her father would drive past it on his way home. 
                          
She pulled the gas can out of the trunk. She also spotted a metal bar nearby, so she grabbed that as well. 
                          
Then, she started her work. She brought the metal rod down again and again on the metal exterior of the car, as well as the glass windows. She ignored the glass shards flying, leaving cuts and embedding themselves in her skin. 
                          
As her arms tired, she tossed the rod to the side. The beautiful car was already unrecognizable. She then pulled from her pocket a switchblade she'd acquired just that evening. 
                          
Ignoring how tired her arms were, she watched in satisfaction how the blade sliced through the leather of the seats. She stabbed them over and over, twisting and ripping them to shreds. 
                          
When she decided the seats were thoroughly destroyed, she moved on to the tires. She took the same blade, and aggressively stabbed and sliced at the tires until they were all completely flat. When she was satisfied with her work there, she finally grabbed the gas can. She opened it and poured its entire contents all over the obliterated leather seats. 
                          
Finally, she tossed the can into the car and pulled out one of her lighters. She stared at the flame it created for a moment. She then tossed it into the driver's seat. The car immediately burst into flames. 
                          
Diana started booking it in the opposite direction. Her heart pounded, fueled by pure adrenaline. It made her feel almost invincible, as if no one could take her down unless she let them. 
                          
Laughs, or were they screams? Ripped out of her throat as she ran off into the cold night.
                          
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