Adult-FanFiction.org : Movies

Burn my Shadow	By : Khaleesi-Of-Dragons Category: M through R > Raven, The (2012) > Raven, The (2012) Views: 938 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own anything from the Raven and I make no profit from this story

Chapter List
- 1-1
- 2-2
- 3-3
- 4-4
- 5-5
- 6-6
- 7-7
- 8-8
- 9-9
- 10-10
- 11-11
- 12-12
- 10
- 11
- 12
Racing on the thunder and rising with the heat/It's gonna take a superman to sweep me off my feet/Up where the mountains meet the heavens above/Out where the lightning splits the sea/I could swear that there's someone somewhere/Watching me
When my eyes open again, the black figure is gone and I am back on a horse, leaning against someone warm. The comforting smell that surrounds me tells me it's Edgar, so I keep my head against his shoulder, tightly gripping the arm about my waist. "We're almost to the Patriot," he tells me in a soft voice, holding my shivering body closer to him. The nightmare keeps re-playing in my head and I feel a familiar madness beginning to swirl around, a small voice telling me that a small drink would make it all go away.
When we arrive at our destination, Edgar carries me inside, which was a good thing because I didn't trust my legs to support me at the moment. Ivan smiles at us as we walk inside, but his smile vanishes once he notices that state I'm in. Quickly, he takes me from my elder brother and sets me down in a chair, bringing me a bottle of brandy and a cup to pour it in, though I don't even spare the cup a glance as I begin to take long drinks directly from the bottle. Ivan sits across from me, looking worried and uncertain, having never seen me like this. "Are you alright," he asks softly, not wanting to disturb Edgar while he was writing.
"I've been much better." I cross my arms on the table and rest my head on them, silently praying for some relief—or this deepening depression not to consume as it had numerous times before. "Cantrell has been murdered and I just froze, I couldn't do anything except stand there while he bleed out and left his children fatherless." I let out a shuddering breath, not looking up and missing the dark look that flits across Ivan's face. Sighing, I sit up and take another swig of the alcohol, ignoring the burn as it travels down my throat.
"It isn't your fault." I give him a blank look as I drink some more, failing to notice that it was beginning to affect me a lot quicker than was normal. "You're innocent, Sarah, you're still pure." I snort at that, shaking my head. I was as far from pure as one could get without committing murder. "Don't shake your head at me when you know it's true, there are other monsters out there that would kill simply because it excites them and you're nothing like that." I raise the bottle to my lips only to have Ivan snatch it away. "I think you've had enough for now." I furrow my eyebrows, stumbling over to my brother and Henry.

After a few hours' time, Edgar finally holds up the paper, finished with the story. Ivan takes it and reads some aloud. "The final desperate plea. One life offered for another's." Ivan looks up at him with a look of utter sadness. "Oh, Mister Poe, no. You can't." Edgar raises his head from the desk, obviously exhausted from writing for so long and the decision he has made. Ivan looks to me for some assistance, but I just shake my head, one hand resting on my brother's shoulder.
"Set the print," Edgar tells him
"But, sir—"
"Do it!" I wince slightly, blinking until there is no longer two Ivan's standing in front of me.
"You can take it as your fault, Mister Poe."
"Is there someone else you'd like to blame," Edgar asks in a more controlled voice, one of his hands resting on my own.
"The killer, sir."
Henry walks into the room, looking nearly as tired as Edgar and I. "Let me read that," he says, snatching the paper from poor Ivan's hands. "Poe could feel the poison already feeding on his blood as the maggots were soon to do," Henry reads aloud, looking at my brother with surprise. "Jesus, Edgar." Edgar jumps up out of his chair, hands wrapped around Henry's throat in a sudden burst of energy.
"Are you making enough money, Henry?!" I van and I begin trying to pry Edgar off Henry to keep him out of jail.
"Edgar," I shout, grasping his wrists. He continues to shout, grip tightening as Henry's face turns a light shade of red. "Edgar, please, stop this! You'll be no better than the killer if you keep this up!" He finally lets go, making Henry stumble backwards and me to fall onto the hard floor.
"You madman, I'll have you thrown in jail, you damned animal," Henry growls threateningly. Edgar continues trying to get at the other man, but Ivan holds him back and I try to stand up to no avail. Edgar pushes Ivan away from him and looks down at me.
"Just go, I'll be along later," I promise, wanting to take a break from everything and the Patriot was as good as place as any to do just that. Edgar grabs his coat and storms outside, leaving me with Ivan. He helps me up and over to the desk my brother had recently abandoned, once again handing me the near-empty bottle of brandy. I gulp the remains down without thinking; it's only when I find myself nearly asleep that I realize I'd been drugged. "W-wha?" Ivan smiles down at me, brushing some hair off my face. Then everything went black.

Letting out a nearly silently groan, I open my eyes, the world spinning for a moment before coming into sharp focus. I was tied to a chair with a gag in my mouth to keep me from speaking; infront of me Edgar and Ivan sat talking at a table. "It's time this story comes to an end," Edgar says, pointing his pistol at Ivan.
"Alright," he sighs, holding out his hand expectantly. "Give me the gun." Edgar grips the pistol tighter, shooting me worried glances. "You've come this far, Mister Poe, are you really gonna back out now?" Ivan gets a dark smile on his face. "You know what happens next, you are the one who wrote it, after all. You either pull that trigger and kill me and young Miss Emily, or you give me the gun."
"Both of them will live," Edgar asks through gritted teeth, glaring at the man across from him as if that could kill him.
"That was your solution, right?" No, it was one life for another; it said nothing about two, but I cannot remind my brother of this because of the damn gag. Ivan smirks at me, triumph shining in his eyes as Edgar reluctantly hands him the pistol. "I have to admit, I don't cry easily, but you had me bawling like a baby. I've always had a fancy for poisons," he tells us, holding up a small bottle with clear liquid in it. "That's how I done my dad." What a sick bastard! "The idea of drinking something that will kill you, yet having time to carry on a conversation is, as they say, fraught with dramatic possibilities, right?" He empties the liquid into one of the small glasses with a chuckle. "It has been a profound honor working with you, sir."
"Working with me," Edgar asks in a dry voice.
"Well, I know they're your ideas, and I'm just borrowing. Except for Valdemar's tongue, that was me." That was you, my ass, you pompous shit-head! "Quite the subtle metaphor, I thought."
"Subtle," my brother asks, growing tired and wanting this all to be over with as quickly as possible. "It made no sense at all. Even in the end, I'm confronted by plagiarists, without even the originality to invent themselves. I've concocted you."
"I couldn't agree more." Ivan's voice is no longer happy as it was a moment ago, it now held a darkness that not even Edgar had touched before. "I am you crowning achievement, your masterpiece. In whose world to we exist right now, Edgar: mine or yours? I don't really know the answer. " He pauses for a moment, face nearly hidden by shadows. "It's quite brilliant. Well, go on, sir." He slides the small glass over to Edgar with a sad sigh. "Bottoms up." Edgar picks up the glass and downs it, determined to save Emily and me even if it means adding another tragedy to my life. Ivan picks up the paper Edgar had written earlier and reads it again. "Really good stuff, sir. A poet till the end." He lays the paper down and points down at it. "I suppose this bit is for Miss Hamilton?"
"Where is she," Edgar asks, struggling to stay breathing. Ivan smiles, standing up from the table. "Where is she?"
"I tell you, Mister Poe, I used to live for your stories, just live for them." He begins to put up everything as he talks, voice gaining the happy note again, but somehow it sounds tainted. "When you stopped writing...I guess I went a little nuts." That's an understatement, I think to myself with a snort. "But I kept on believing, even when you closed me out; I still believed in your vision. In a future where people would stand in lines to see the kind of things that people like you and I can see. You sister helped me a lot, telling me some of your poems that you never even published, painting me pictures of the worlds you created. I knew you had one more in you, sir." He leans forward on the table. "No one will ever forget you."
Edgar leans forward slowly, trying to grasp him, but Ivan moves much quicker and walks away from the table over to a coat rack, pulling on his coat like nothing was happening. "Have you ever been to France," he asks randomly," there's a young writer over there, Jules Verne. You heard of him?"
"What? Paris." Edgar is having trouble keeping up, the poison beginning to really take control of him.
"He really reminds me of you, sir."
Edgar hits the desk shouting to the best of his ability," Where is she? You owe me! Where is she?!" Ivan rests his hands on my shoulders, massaging them gently.
"Anything was better than this agony. Anything was more tolerable than this derision. I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer," he quotes, untying my hands from the chair only to tie them together and helping me to stand.
"The Tell-Tale Heart." Ivan wraps a large jacket around me that covers my bound hands. A knock resounds on the outside door just as a man calls," Carriage for Mister Reynolds."
"On my way in just a moment," Ivan calls back, taking the gag out of my mouth and forcing more liquid down my throat. "Goodbye, Mister Poe."
"Let Sarah go," Edgar breathes, looking furious." I can feel the tell-tale signs of deep sleep just moments away from comsuming me once again.
"Don't worry, I'll take good care of Annabel," he promises, picking me up and carrying me out the door. "My beautiful Annabel Lee."
Weeks Later
We climb off the train, myself stumbling slightly as the laudanum has yet to fully leave my system. Ivan has kept me drugged for most of the trip, the doses large enough to keep me in a state between waking and sleeping. He pauses for a moment, taking in the veiw of Paris with a smile. I simply focus on trying to wake up some more, so that I can flee at as soon as possible. "Beautiful, isn't it, Annabel?" i nod, groggily, not wanting him to think that the drug is nearly gone. We follow a man to our carriage and Ivan thanks him before helping me in and getting in himself, not yet noticing the handsome man sitting next to me with a pistol in his hand.
The hammer is pulled back and the pistol is brought up between Ivan's eyes. "Hello, Ivan," Emmett smiles, pulling the trigger.
The song is Holding Out for a Hero by Jennifer Saunders. Am I the only one who immediately thought Ivan was the bad guy once Edgar rushed back to the paper? That guy just seemed way too happy considering what was goin' on around him! There will be one more chapter after this that will be the epilogue.
- 10
- 11
- 12
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Burn my Shadow