Lust changed the look of the room he chose to live in while Hailie was in class. He couldn't leave the grounds of the house, so he had to do it when she was out. He thought it was furnished good enough. Lust considered that there was nothing humanlike in him yet years and years of living in this house among humans helped him get to know their nature, habits, tastes and behavior.

"What's up, Lust? You seem unhappy," said Envy, who appeared in his room. She sat on his bed and crossed her long legs. She wore a black tights with holes and a big, loose sweater.

"That girl annoys me."

Envy smirked.

"Because you're indifferent to her?"

He glanced at her with irritation. Envy always thought she might read from him like from an open book yet she was wrong.

"I couldn't care less how she feels about me," he claimed with emphasis. "I'm just starting to think that it was a stupid idea to agree on helping that pitiful human."

"No, you don't think so," she said, knowing it for sure even if he tried to deny it. "Furthermore, there was a time when you cared, when you had a right sense of who should we take to Hell and who should we spare."

"Stop there, Envy," he warned her, consciously knowing what she was planning to say. Did Pride make her talk with him?

"Have you forgotten Missy?"

„Don't you dare to mention her!" he yelled and hit a table, because memories of her made him snap every freaking time.

"Wow, so you've got emotions after all," she mocked, gazing at him attentively. "In all those hundreds of years we spent here we all had someone we cared about. It's not a reason to be ashamed."

Lust smirked. There was a bitterness in him, which grew as the years were passing by.

"We all had someone we cared about," he repeated after her. "And what good did it do them? They're dead anyway."

He wouldn't admit it to nobody, but there still was guilt inside him, even if Missy's death wasn't his fault. Some events cannot be changed or stopped.

"We've got our revenge."

"Revenge?" he seemed amused by her words. "She died. Killing the one who was responsible for it was not a revenge.

"But justice?"

He looked at her and calmed himself down. He should've known earlier what she tried to do.

"Call it whatever you like. Missy was my mistake. A weak point I shouldn't have had. I can admit it, because I see how wrong back then I was."

"Is that right? What would have Missy thought of you if she has seen you now?" Envy shook her head. "There's that one thing I never understood. Tell yourself whatever you want, but you did care for her, you might have even loved her, so you know what that means. And if you knew, why did you kill Gregory? Why have you wanted to hurt Pride so badly? Because of jealousy? Because she had what you lost?"

He came closer to her, but she didn't bother to stand up from his bed.

"Because love is a weakness. We're demons and that's all we're ever going to be. Feelings for humans? It's unnatural. It's against our nature."

"Cut the bullshit. You regret what we've done for Missy? You wish to take it back? Because then she might have died those seven years earlier, of which we were by her side, it would be the same." Envy got up from the bed and looked Lust in the eyes. "We've made a pact to help her, just like with Hailie. But back then it was you who asked us for that. Do you remember?"

"Envy, please." He didn't want to recall the past.

"Exactly. Please. I believe that was one of the words you used when you asked us. But demons don't ask for help or beg, right?"

He looked away, feeling the guilt that once again started to fill him inside. He wanted to forget that time, but he simply couldn't.

"Why are you tormenting me?"

"So that you remember that you used to be different." She tried to recall what it was that he said them when he called a group meeting. Back then even Sloth was appearing when summoned. "Let's try to help her, even if it's not what we usually do. Please, I believe she deserves it and that's what I would like to do." Envy stared at Lust, but he kept his emotions to himself. Standing still, he didn't show his reaction to her words. "Endless discussions of what we should do. Her mother was absent, her father alcoholic and stone hearted. No, we can't kill him, because an underage cannot live in a house on her own. So what now? Let's make his life miserable, let's make him pay for his sins."

"Stop it, Envy!" he burst out, anger cutting through him. "I do remember. I've made a mistake, okay? Caring about Missy... And all this for nothing. For her to eventually die because of us anyway."

She came up to the dressing table and looked at her reflection. Lust sighed. He might have tried, but he couldn't hide from himself, from the truth. There was no hiding place from the things he had done. Or the things he couldn't prevent, like Missy's death.

"She once told me something about her father. 'I hate to see this monster so I run and hide.' And yet, she never thought of us as monsters." Envy stretched out her hand and took a blue ribbon, marked by time. She longly stared at it. "If you think Missy was a mistake, your weakness you should never had... Why have you kept her ribbon?" She turned to Lust, who said nothing. The look on his face was enough. "You know, I always thought of you as a lover, a Casanova, a strong and dominant man. Until Missy, I never thought about you as a father figure."

She disappeared, leaving a blue ribbon behind. Lust came up to the dressing table and took the silk material in his hand. For a moment he forgot the ruthless and indifferent man he tried to be and let himself remember how he used to be. He closed his eyes, seeing Missy's image. A defenseless seven-year-old child, lying in the bed, so scared and lonely.

"You can't hear me, but it's going to be better soon," he said, standing at the door and gazing at the girl hiding under her quilt.

"Will you take my father away?" she asked, leaving him surprised that she heard him. Could she also see him? He was sure he didn't put down his invisible barrier. "Or will you take me away?"

He came up to her bed and kneeled. She slightly pushed aside her quilt and looked him in the eyes.

"You can see me?"

"Of course I can. And the others who live here with us."

Some children can see us indeed, thought Lust.

"We won't take away any of you, but worry not as since now you never have to be afraid of your father or anybody else. We're going to be your friends and we'll take care of you."

"But you're not real. Only I can see you."

Lust smiled. He had a feeling she was a smart seven-year-old.

"We are real. And you can see us, because you're special."

She seemed happy about her otherness. She slid her small hand out of the quilt and grabbed Lust's hand. He instantly felt weird, but calm.

"Hi then, my name is Missy and what's yours?"

"Lust," he said with a sudden certainty that he'll do whatever it takes to keep her safe and unharmed. "My name is Lust."