Where Terrence's parents had been his catalyst toward his rebellious nature, so had hers. But where he hated his parents enough to wish them dead at his own hands, Ella had eventually found nothing but apathy toward her own. There were only two things in her life that remained important enough for her to care: Alek and Terrence. Alek belonged with her now, no longer under the influence of their parents. But Terrence, well, she'd always been afraid of losing him in some corner of her mind. To her, Terrence was the perfect mate for her, the one person with whom she fit perfectly without even trying. After seventeen years of constantly being told she was not, in fact, good enough in all aspects of her being, the lesson liked to stick. And, in the back of her mind, despite how good she'd become to not caring what others thought of her, only of what she thought about herself, it was always there. That was the reason her streak of jealousy was so much more prominent than most anyone else she'd encountered. In the back of her mind, no matter how much she tried to control it, a voice lingered that told her that someone so perfect for her was sure to eventually see in her what her parents had seen in her. Whether or not that voice was completely irrational, or not, didn't really matter.
The point of the matter was that she could control her environment. She could control her destiny, to a point. She could control how she felt, or lacked in feeling, about her parents. She could control other people's minds, could control the transformation of her body into another living animal, could control the breaths others took by deciding whether or not to attack. She could control the kind of life her brother received. She was very good at having control over almost everything around her. But the one thing she could not--and would never want to try to--control, was Terrence. As such, she knew she'd never be able to control whether he'd stay or go and, while he'd given her absolutely every reason to believe that they were stuck together, that wretched voice that lingered in her mind never made it easy for her to just accept it.
That was why when Ella Apparated to the designated meeting point that night, ready for the events the night had planned, time halted. Had she arrived moments before or moments later, perhaps the blow would have been less detrimental. As the cards fell, however, she'd arrived outside the pub just in time to see Terrence pin the unknown woman to the side of the building with much the same aggression the two of them used on one another. And, at that moment, all she saw was red. She'd been rooted to the ground, mouth agape with a silent protest, torn between intercepting the two with her rage and fleeing for cover from the weakness she felt consuming her. It was similar to the vulnerability she'd felt at the beginning of Terrence and Katie's friendship that had begun in her absence when she'd been in Bulgaria, only amplified in the face of what Ella perceived as a true threat. What she really wanted to do was tear the female apart, limb by limb. But, even more appealing than that, was making sure Terrence did not see how completely he could affect her, how completely his actions could influence her because Ella wanted to be the girl that could truly say she was completely and utterly unto her own devices.
And so, with her sharpened nails digging so roughly into the palms of her hands as her fingers curled into fists that blood broke through the surface of her skin, Ella cast one last blinded look at Terrence, turned on her heel and Disapparated back to her flat. Just as well that the hunt was tonight, Ella was craving blood.