So it was stupid.

Juvenile.

Demented.

Insane.

Irrational.

Petty.

So it wasn't the best decision Octavian had ever made and his head wasn't the clearest it could have been. He wasn't on drugs or anything but he had been sleepless for the past three nights because if he fell asleep he might die. Again. And he so didn't want to die again. Had been bad enough the first time. Hypothermia. Blood loss. Starvation. He was technically a dead man walking and he was close to being a dead man twice. But he had to do it.

It was the worst decision he'd ever made.

He was crazy. Insane.

He had abandonment issues.

He'd grown up petty and spiteful. He had grown up crazing power, respect, acceptance and love.

Ah the power of love.

He cackled tiredly having no clue what love was or what it was supposed to do. He'd been in love once but the pretty red head probably hadn't blinked when he'd died. He knew there had been no funeral. No memorial service. No one had wept for him.

No one would ever weep for him. He would die but first he had something he needed to do.

KNOCK KNOCK

The sound was pleasing, almost happy. A bitter sort of happy that only Octavian ever felt. The kind of happiness that was like poison to your bones. Octavian didn't care if he died right there on the steps. He. Just. Had. To. See. Them. One of them, would be enough. Just see one of them. Just punch them in their faces before he died his rightful second death. He knew he didn't deserve to live didn't deserve to be happy but neither did they. The faces he intended to punch, well they were etched into his memory. They only brought him pain to think about.

They had only ever brought him pain.

Their push for success.

Their horrified looks when they found out how freakish he was.

The one thing they had given him was lost in the mud and that only made his blood boil more.

If they could have done just one thing differently maybe he wouldn't be where he was now waiting, coughing on the front steps literally dying just to punch maybe only one of them in the face.

Just one thing differently and maybe he wouldn't have been a much hated psychopath, barely living a second life.

If they hadn't done what they had to him Octavian might have had a normal life.

But no. Freaks can never be normal they had made it abundantly clear.

KNOCK KNOCK

This knock was weaker, as Octavian himself got weaker. He was barely skin and bones. His eyes looked dead but anger lay beneath the surface of them. His hair fell into his eyes but he swiped it away just as he began to hear footsteps.

His ears were very keen. Practice. Years of hearing the things people said behind his back when they thought he couldn't hear. Years of listening to every creak and wind and party he wasn't invited to as he lie awake planning to become praetor, to make his parents proud.

He couldn't care less about that now. Making them proud. Making them love him. Dead men needed no love. 15 years had given them plenty of chance to change their minds and love him. They had led him to becoming a less than decent person. He would never understand what had lead them to becoming that themselves though.

KNOCK knock

At the third attempt he could barely knock. He was growing weaker and more impatient.

The door swung open, almost hitting Octavian in the face. A woman, older now but still as cool and calm and forced fake pretty as always, stood in front of Octavian.

"You did this to me." He growled, too weak to punch as he had planned days ago when he set this very spot as his possibly final destination.

"I did nothing of the sorts, Octavian, you did this to yourself." He was surprised, stunned almost, that she knew who he was. A cough wracked his body.

"You HELPED me do this to myself you SHAPED me you ABANDONED me."

"THERE WERE REASONS."

"YOU'RE BAD AT REASONING." He yelled. She turned around, walked inside, and shut the door. No apology was offered. A tear trickled down his face. He fell, weeping. His head hit porch pavement, once, bouncing, twice.

KNOCK KNOCK.