Sweet Blasphemy

I wake up to the feel of someone biting my ear. Foggily, still half-asleep, I moan and cuddle up to the warm body that is leaning over me. The man above me lets me snuggle up to him and laughs under his breath at the noise I make when he rubs his hands up and down my sides. Distantly, I hear someone growling at someone else, but become distracted when the man laughs again and nuzzles my neck.
“Wake up,” he purrs. I make a small noise of protest that he silences by pressing his lips against my mouth. This wakes me up on the inside; sparks immediately tingle in my gut and I lean into him, enjoying this wake up more than any wake up I’ve ever had before.
“That’s enough, Purdy, she’s up now,” I hear someone growl. “Get your tongue out of her throat before you suffocate her.”
The man bites my lip and then pulls away, much to my disappointment. I cry out in discontent, then open my eyes into dark topaz ones. I blink.
“Ashley?” I whisper.
He smirks down at me. “Who else is it gonna be, Andy?” he snorts, then leans down and whispers in my ear, “Andy wouldn’t have the balls to kiss you like that unless you asked him to.”
“Purdy, I said get off of her,” I hear Andy’s low voice snarl.
“Fuck off,” Ashley groans, but obeys. He straightens up, his legs on either side of me. He sees me looking at him and winks. I blush and look to the side.
“Um, I. I, um, I’m gonna get up now,” I mumble. Ashley hops off the mattress and holds a hand out to help me to my feet. I accept, and for some reason, this seems to put Andy over the edge.
“She can get up on her own,” he snaps, and pulls me away from Ashley. Not-so-gently, he pushes me over to my bathroom, shoving a change of clothes in my hand. “Get dressed, Sera. Unless you need Ashley to help you with that too.”
This makes my face burn, and the way Andy scowls down at me, I feel like I’ve done something wrong. “No, I’m fine,” I mutter, and then lock myself in the bathroom without meeting Andy’s blue gaze. When I see the clothes he’s picked out for me, I raise my eyebrows. The baggiest pair of black sweats I own and an oversized Pierce the Veil t-shirt. “Andy, this is gonna make me look like an elephant!” I complain. He doesn’t respond, even though I can see his shadow from under the doorway and I know he’s standing right outside. “Fine. Be that way,” I grumble. I shed my sleep shorts and Of Mice & Men tank on the bathroom floor and redress in the frumpy clothes Andy has picked out for me.
I look at myself in the mirror once I’m dressed. My small frame is entirely swallowed by fabric, and I look like a little kid wearing her mommy’s clothes. I frown. I look absolutely ridiculous. On the bright side, my hair is still straight and sleek. I run a brush through it to get rid of any stray tangles. I contemplate tying my hair up in a ponytail just to get it out of my way, but then I find a better use for my hair tie. I check myself out when I’m done. Not perfect, but loads better. Knowing that Andy will give me his trademark “I-will-eat-your-children-and-gnaw-on-their-bones-in-front-of-you” glare when I step out into the hallway and not caring, I open the door.
“Seriously?” Andy mutters when he sees me.
I look up at him innocently, blinking, and trying to seem like a confused little angel. “What’s wrong, Andy?” I bite my lip, trying not to laugh at the expression on his face. His eyes run over my body, and I can see the conflict in them. He is torn between his appreciation of the pale, slightly-muscled stomach I have exposed by tying my shirt up with a hair tie and his unwillingness to let the other guys see me. I twirl my hair around my finger, amused by the way he seems to be searching for words.
“Your stomach-” he finally manages.
“It’s nothing that you didn’t see yesterday,” I chirp brightly.
“Woah, what did he see yesterday, and why wasn’t I invited to see it as well?” Ashley pipes up, eyeing my up and down in appreciation.
“Nothing,” Andy says shortly. He squints at me, then shakes his head. “What’s gotten into you? You’ve always been oblivious to… everyone’s advances on you.”
I giggle. “Some little birdy kissed and told me, and now it’s all clear,” I wink, then skip over to my vanity, brushing past Ashley, CC, Jinxx, and Jake. The gang’s all here, much to Andy’s displeasure.
“If you didn’t want me to play, then you shouldn’t have let player boy wake me up,” I say in a singsong voice. I can feel everyone’s eyes on me as I apply my eyeliner, even Jinxx’s, and he never acknowledges my existence. Once I’m done, I apply some white foundation and powder, spritz myself with perfume, and slide fuzzy socks and black Uggs on. “See you boys later. Try not to kill each other while I’m gone.”
I go to make my way to the door, but Andy grabs me.
“You’re not going to school today, Sera,” he says.
“What, are you my mother?” I shrug his arm off of me. “I’m going to school, whether you like it or not. I’m not just gonna drop out of school just ‘cause of some pervert.”
“You’re not going to school,” Andy repeats forcefully.
“Relax, Andy,” I roll my eyes. “I can take care of myself.”
“Like how you took care of yourself yesterday?” Andy spits out, his voice like venom dripping down my spine, corroding my bones until I almost collapse from the shock of his hostile tone.
Before I can even begin to compose myself enough to form a retort, Jake cuts in.
“What happened yesterday?” he asks. I can hear the frown in his voice. Jake hardly talks, at least around me, so whenever he does, I tend to pay attention.
“Sera, would you like to tell the boys what happened yesterday, since it’s apparently no big deal?” Andy asks, his voice saccharine, like artificial sweetener laced with arsenic.
“I’d be delighted to,” I retort, turning away from him and facing the boys. I cross my arms and say, “Some boy came onto me, that’s all. Andy’s overreacting. Everything’s fine. Now, it you’ll excuse me, I have school to attend.”
Again, I try to leave my bedroom but am stopped by Andy. He stands in the doorway, leaning against the doorframe and blocking me from exiting.
“No, sweetheart, why don’t you tell them what really happened?” Andy drawls.
I glare at him. I don’t understand why he’s being such an asshole. So maybe I downplayed it a bit, but it’s not like I could do anything about Link. All I could do was suck it up and get back on the horse and go to school before the task became too daunting for me to even hope to try to surmount. But Andy is making it impossible. It’s not like I can tell anyone about what happened- first of all, none of the teachers at my school would believe me. Link, despite the fact that he likes the same music as me and wears similar clothes, is fairly popular while most of the school is convinced that I’m this close to bringing a gun in and shooting them all. Which I would absolutely never do, but no one ever believes me when I tell them that. And second of all, even if I got someone to believe me, they’d pull Link in and he’d tell them that Andy had attacked him and his friends, and suddenly people would be searching for a boy who didn’t exist, and the only person who had any link to him would be me. Countless people would question me on his whereabouts, but I wouldn’t be able to tell them the truth.
“A guy wanted to have sex with me in an alley, but everything ended up okay, so I’m leaving now!” I retry, exasperated. There was no way that I’ll be elaborating any more than that- the guys already look concerned (excluding Jinxx, who always seemed annoyed by my presence). There was no way I can tell them, it’ll only worry them even more.
“Seraphina, that is not what happened!” Andy explodes. His electric eyes burning like bright blue flames, he stepped out of the doorway and slammed the door shut. “A boy drugged her and almost raped her in an alley in Downtown Westville yesterday. She was almost naked and unable to move when I found her. I beat the shit out of the guys that did it to her and brought her here.”
CC steps forward, his eyes actually flashing with anger, an emotion I’d never seen on his friendly face before. “And you didn’t kill them?” he asks. My jaw drops. He looks completely serious, but he can’t be. This is CC, the same guy who think stuffed animals solve everything and refuses to let me kill the spiders I find in my bedroom because they’re ‘innocent little creatures that only wandered in by mistake.’
Andy shakes his head. “I had to get her home. She was a wreck.”
“I’ll kill ‘em, then, if you’re too coward to do it,” Ashley mutters. He picks up his leather jacket and shrugs it on, heading towards the door, a deadly look in his eye.
“A-Ash?” I squeak. I grab his arm, trying to stop him. “Ash, why don’t you calm down stay here a bit while I go to school? I’ll be back before you know it, okay? I-”
“I hate to agree with Andy on this, but you’re not going to school, Sera,” Ashley hisses. “It’s too dangerous. That creep is probably waiting for you, waiting for you to show up so he can drug you and rape you and kidnap you and touch your skin like he has a right to and-”
“I agree with Ash and Andy. There’s no way in hell you’re going to school,” CC cuts in.
I open my mouth to argue, but Jake cuts me off. “Shut up, Seraphina,” he says tiredly. My jaw drops again.
“Excuse me?!?!?” I demand.
“You heard me. Just shut up, you’re being ridiculous. There’s no way you’re going to school with a psychopathic pervert after you,” Jake says.
Ashley ruffles my hair. “Don’t worry, kid,” he tries to reassure me. “We won’t do anything stupid.”
Jinxx snorts. “Everything you do is stupid, Purdy,” he remarks. “All of you stay here with Sera, and I’ll handle everything. Okay?”
Everyone is silent. I want to argue with Jinxx, but even I know when to cut my losses. When Mama Jinxx steps in, it’s all over, even I know that. The guys a mumble affirmations at Jinxx, and watch as he makes his way over to the door.
“I have business to take care of. I’ll see you later,” Jinxx says shortly, then exits the room. I glare at the door as he slams it behind him and cross my arms.
“If I try to leave, you’ll all just grab me, won’t you?” I sigh.
“Yup,” all four of my boys respond.
I groan. “You suck,” I say under my breath and collapse onto my mattress. I close my eyes and try to make the best of the situation. I’m stuck at home with four hot guys that are forbidding me from attending school, and instead will most likely spend the entire day desperately vying for my attention.
And yet I’m still miserable.
All I can do is wonder what “business” Jinxx is attending to. He said that he’d take care of Link and his friends- and seeing as the boys had been convinced that murder was the way to solve the problem only minutes before, I’m a bit worried about what he’s going to do.
“Ashley, if you lay down next to her, I’ll rip your testicles off,” Andy threatens.
I hear CC burst into laughter, and I can already tell that Jake is rolling his eyes without even opening mine.
“You’re not her mom, Andy. Let the girl make her own decisions,” I hear Ashley respond.
I sit up, sick of Andy and Ashley’s bickering, and I’ve only been up for thirty minutes. I walk over to the door, but someone catches me around the waist.
“We just said that you weren’t going to school,” Ashley’s silky voice murmurs in my ear.
“Ashley, stop groping her!” Andy yells.
“I’m keeping her from leaving, you jealous bastard. If I was groping her, you would know!” Ashley snaps in response.
“Give it a rest, the both of you. I have to go to the goddamn bathroom, that’s all. It’s not a sinister plot to escape so I can get molested. I have to piss!” I explode. Everyone blinks, and Ashley lets go of me. “And don’t any of you dare say ‘go ahead.’ I don’t need your fucking permission.”
With more attitude than I think I’ve ever had before, I slam the bathroom door and lock it, furious with the boys on the other side of it. I hear them murmuring to each other, but I’m so frustrated that it all just sounds like roaring in my ears. I lean against the door, throwing my head back. I exhale slowly, trying to release my anger. I’m not really all that mad at my boys; I’m just frustrated with my situation. As if Link hadn’t made me feel powerless enough, being trapped in my bedroom and kept in the dark from everything that the guys do makes me feel like the protagonist in a cheap romance novel.
I know what I have to do to remedy this.
I’m going to follow Jinxx. Once the idea enters my mind, I don’t question it. I’m done with hiding away from the weird things in my life. I’m done with trying to ignore them. Ever since I realized that I was seeing people that didn’t exist, I’d tried to hide it. Most of the time, I hadn’t acknowledged that I could see the ghosts. The only phantom-like beings I’d acknowledged since being institutionalized were my boys. And while I love them more than I can ever say, they can be very, very controlling. And just this once, I want to be the one who makes the decisions. I want to find out the truth. I want to know the truth, and I want to know it because I found it out myself, not because someone else told me.
Before the boys start to wonder what’s taking me so long, I put my newly-generated escape plan into action. I turn on the sink so it’ll muffle any noise that I make. I put the lid down on the toilet and step onto it, grateful that I have shoes on so that I don’t have to do this barefoot. I open the window above the toilet and pop the screen out as quietly as I can. Gently, I set the screen down behind the toilet. I stick my head out the window to take inventory. Just as I thought, the rose trellis is right next to the window. I’m only about twelve feet up, but it’s still nerve-wracking as I squirm out of the window, feet-first. It takes me a second to find the ledge of the trellis and get my feet comfortably situated on it. I take a deep breath and test its strength by putting all of my weight on it, but with my arms still clutching the windowsill to catch me incase the trellis broke. It wobbles a bit, but does not falter.
I close my eyes. It’s now or never. I can either climb back inside, put the screen back in, and live in my little bubble protected by my absurd family or imaginary boys. Or, I can climb down this trellis and take charge of my life.
I let go of the windowsill and close the window as far as I possibly can. Then, with a firm resolve not to look down resonating in my mind, I start to climb down the trellis, ignoring the prick of the few roses that have managed to grow despite my parents’ complete neglect. About halfway down, I break my resolve and glance at the ground below. I squeak when I see that I’m six feet above the ground. It seems way higher up than twelve feet from inside the house. Exposed on a rose trellis, six feet seems like a fucking cliff. Fear pumping in my heart, I go to lower my foot and miss. My stomach lurches and suddenly I am falling through the sky. The ground rushes up at me and I panic. I throw my arms out beside and me, bracing for impact-no denying impact. I refuse to fall on the hard ground disgracefully.
As if my refusal has summoned magic, my fall is broken by a cushion-y sensation that keeps me from slamming into the ground and getting hurt. I open my eyes. I am hovering above the ground. I want to scream- not because I’m scared, but because for some reason, I’m excited.
Because- dude, I’m hovering! Somehow, the hover charm breaks and I am lightly lowered to the ground. My feet make contact with the ground, and I catch myself smiling.
That was new.
The smile keeps spreading across my face until I realize that I need to get my ass moving. But where to? I duck down and analyze the area, hoping that maybe Jinxx had gotten a late start and I would see him walking down the driveway. But of course not.
Well this is just great, I think. I’m crouching in a fucking bush, locked outside of my house, like I’m some fucking stalker. Just when I start contemplating climbing the rose trellis and slipping back into the house before anyone notices that I’ve left, a force propels me to my feet. Clapping a hand over my mouth to stifle the stream of profanity spewing from my lips, I fight not to fall over as my feet move of their own accord. I stop when I’m standing in the middle of my driveway. Confused, I look all around me for some sort of clue as to what had just happened, or where Jinxx had went, but saw none. I glance down at my feet and see two very Jinxx-sized footprints. I frown. I look behind me and see that they trail from the front door, and stop right in front of me, in the middle of the driveway.
My brow furrowing, I crouch down and touch my hand to them. The second my fingers make contact with the wet footprint, I feel myself getting pulled into the ground, hands first.
I squeak and try to jerk my hand away, but it seems to be slipping into the asphalt, melting into another dimension. No matter how hard I pull (or curse, for that matter) my hand is not released. My heart pounding freakishly hard in my chest, I consider screaming for help. For some reason, I just know that the boys would know how to save my hand. I’m this close to calling out for help when a voice in my head goes: ‘fuck that!’ and I find myself plunging into the asphalt.
I scream. My stomach drops out entirely and I can’t open my eyes. All I can feel is wind rushing past me. All I can taste is the fear of imminent death on my tongue. I hear myself screaming names- Andy, Ashley, Jake, CC, Jinxx, even Lavinia- and I choke out a final sob before resolving to remain silent until I hit the ground and die. I don’t want to go out sobbing like a little girl.
“But I don’t have to,” I mutter, the realization dawning on me. My eyes fly open and I see the ground rushing up at me. Suddenly reborn without any fear, I grin and throw my hands out. Just like before, I am caught by an invisible cushion that lowers me softly to the ground. Smirking like a show dog, I dust off my shoulders and take a look around me.
The world around me wipes the self-satisfied smirk right off my face. My jaw drops in horror. It’s like I’ve been transported into a horror movie. The ground is black and ashy, like charcoal. Little flames erupt in random places with no warning whatsoever, and the ceiling drips red liquid onto my face, red liquid that I can only hope is cherry juice. I look up at the ceiling and see that it is covered in stalactites, and that human skeletons hang from the ceiling by their necks, tied up with chains. Other skeletons have been speared through with stalactites, and I wince as a skull falls off of one and lands in a red puddle by my feet. I stare at it, and jump when the ground catches on fire and the red puddle hisses. The skull chars then deteriorates.
“What is this place?” I mutter to myself.
I am snapped out of my horrified reverie as a creature limps past me, bumping into my shoulder and almost knocking me down into the flaming puddle of, well, puddle of blood. I catch my balance at the last second and go to chew the person out when I see that it’s not a person at all.
It’s some sort of… wolf ogre. It’s maybe eleven feet tall, and about as wide as three of me. It has the long, furry snout and long yellow fangs of a wolf, but the slimy balding head, neck, and torso of an ogre. It’s got two humanoid legs in the back, but in its front are two wolf legs attached to gigantic wolf paws. It walks on all fours like a wolf, but has a torso and neck coming out of it like a centaur.
It sees me gaping at it and it bares its fangs and snarls.
The ripest stench wafts from its maw and green spit flies from its fangs. I leap backwards, away from the monstrous drool, which proved to be a good idea as the green spit is now melting through the charcoal ground like acid. I gulp and take off running without a second glance at the beast. I run past other terrifying creatures that shouldn’t- couldn’t- exist. Purple-skinned demons with horns and rip-away-grimaces glued to their faces like masks. Red little goblins with foot long nails, filed like needles, oozing pink liquid off the ends. Pink liquid that immediately causes explosions the second it hits the ground.
I run and run and run; I run for as long as my legs will carry me. Where the hell am I?!?!? Is this where Jinxx is, or did I just accidentally melt into Nightmare Land for no reason?
The second my mind returns to Jinxx and his whereabouts, I feel my legs become possessed by the same mysterious force that had propelled me into the center of my driveway.
“Stop- stop- hey, you fuckers, I said stop!” I shout at them, but they refuse to obey me. I try to throw myself to the side, hoping to fall over and stop their frantic race, but I don’t even lose my balance in the slightest. “What the hell?!?” I demand angrily, not entirely sure who I’m talking to. Surely the hellish creatures don’t care, and unless they’re on acid, everyone knows that their legs aren’t going to talk back to them. I give up after a few minutes of screaming and shouting and threating my own legs to no avail and just decide to go along with it. The second I stop fighting and put some effort into running along with my legs, my speed increases until the monsters, stalactites, and fire are just hell-coloured blurs whirring past me, like a super-fast slide show.
Out of nowhere, my legs stop moving and I tumble head-over-heels across the charcoal ground. Charcoal ash billows up around me, making me cough and gag, stinging my eyes and tickling my nose. I sneeze violently for a second, then realize that the ground under my right hand is getting hotter and hotter. I see the little black granules around the spot start burning orange, and I jerk back just in time to save myself from becoming Kentucky Fried Sera. The flame that erupts from where my hand had been just a second before burns a brilliant blue and singes my hair and eyebrows. I scramble backwards on my hands and knees, and then feel something hard and unforgiving slam into the back of my head. For a second, all I see is stars and KFC biscuits, then I blink and turn, and see that I just got attacked by none other than a vicious, bloodthirsty… stalagmite.
It occurs to me that if my head didn’t hurt so bad, this would actually be funny.
My body scratched and clothes torn and covered in charcoal ash, I stand up, swaying a bit as I grow lightheaded and brown spots fill my vision. It takes a second of fighting to stay upright, but in a minute, my vision is clear and I am taking in my surroundings.
I appear to be standing in the threshold of some sort of jail. Crumbling silver script is carved into the black archway above me, but it’s in a language that I don’t understand or recognize. Rows and rows of cells continue on for what seems like forever from where I’m standing. The cell bars are all crumbled and broken, like both old age and angry prisoners had beaten them into submission. No one else appears to be here. I glance behind me, and am relieved to see that there are no creepy monsters waiting to eat me.
I look at my legs. “Well, now what?” I grumble, pinching them. They are unresponsive.
Figures.
I take a deep breath. Obviously, my legs brought me here for some reason. Maybe Jinxx is somewhere in this dilapidated prison. I rub my shoulders, not because it’s cold, but because an ominous chill down my spine is whispering that I don’t belong here.
It’s not like that isn’t already obvious to me. Clearly, I’m in some alternate dimension, maybe even in the Demon World, or wherever ghosts that aren’t on Earth reside. I’ve never phased through anything or been able to levitate before, and I sure as hell haven’t been in this freak-show dimension before, but it doesn’t unsettle me as much as it should. I blame this on the fact that I’ve been seeing dead people since I was born. I’m kind of prepared for the supernatural by now. I used to freak out, but all that ever did was make the situation worse. The only thing I really could do in situations like these was to keep moving and focus on doing what I came for and then go home. I could freak out once I was safe.
My resolve to find Jinxx strengthened, I start down the prison hallway. A tight feeling in my gut that I hadn’t noticed earlier grows tighter and tighter with every step. Is that just apprehension, or some sixth sense, telling me to turn the hell around and try to go home?
I bite my lip and rub my arms again. No, I can’t go home. I’m already here, so I might as well get what I came for.
As I go to round a corner, I hear voices. Human voices. I freeze, stopping dead in my tracks.
Jinxx?
Carefully, I tiptoe over to the corner, and peek around it to get a quick look. Sure enough, I see a man with long black and a general “fuck off” aura.
Jinxx.
Jinxx is standing with his back to me, facing a perfectly intact cell. I can’t see who’s in it, but I can see that the bars are fully intact, shining a strange platinum colour. I frown at the cell. All of the other cells are completely broken down, even the other ones in that hallway. Why on Earth would just one cell in the prison be intact? And, more importantly, what was Jinxx doing here?
Where, exactly, was “here?”
I want to march up to Jinxx, tap him on the shoulder and demand answers, but I know that will be the opposite of productive. Whatever Jinxx is doing down here, I’m not supposed to know about it, that’s for sure. I can only imagine what he’d do if he found me down here, if he found out that I’d followed him into this strange realm and had spied on him.
Instead, I choose to observe. I try to catch a glimpse of the person in the cell, but Jinxx’s tall frame is blocking my view.
“Let me go,” I hear a voice hiss. I close my eyes, and try to place it in my mind. For some reason, it seems familiar, like I’ve heard it before, which makes absolutely no sense. Why would I know someone trapped in a Demon World prison?
“Shut up and eat the ambrosia,” Jinxx snaps.
“I’m not eating anything that you give me,” the familiar voice hisses. It’s definitely feminine, definitely sassy, definitely familiar.
“Suit yourself,” Jinxx sneers. He kneels down to retrieve this ‘ambrosia’ food from the floor of the cell, and for the first time, I see the person in the cell.
It’s Lavinia.
I have to shove my fist in my mouth to keep from gasping. Panic swelling in my heart, I duck back into the other hallway and press myself flat against the wall, out of Jinxx’s sight. Lavinia was covered in blood. Her black hair was matted and uneven, like she’d gotten into a fight with a knife-wielding octopus. She’s been slumped against the wall of her cell, her one arm clutching the other, like it was broken. Purple circles lined her eyes, and cuts and filth decorated her beautiful pale skin.
What the hell is going on?!?
I hear the murmur of their voices again, but I can’t make out the words. I take a deep breath. I need to poke my head into the hallway again so that I can hear what they’re saying. I steel my nerves, then take the risk and lean into the hallway again.
“If you lay one finger on her, I swear I’ll kill you,” Lavinia threatens up at Jinxx, who is standing again. Somehow, her threat sends shivers down my spine, despite the fact that she’s curled up in a pathetic ball on the floor of a jail cell and is in no position to make good on it. “You have no right, no right. She’s an innocent, you can’t just-”
Jinxx laughs. “I’ll do whatever I want, seraph. And there’s nothing a little baby like you can do about it.”
“What would your master say?” Lavinia spits out.
Jinxx leans down. “He’s the one who wants her,” he says slowly, and I see something glimmer behind him. I squint. It looks like Jinxx has… wings. I rub my eyes, sure that I’m losing my mind. When I look again, the image of the wings is sharp and clear. Long, skeletal wings extend from Jinxx’s back, about sixteen feet across. Suddenly unable to breathe, I lean forward, forgetting to be stealthy. I see little white-feathered wings attached to Lavinia, dirty and drooped across the cell floor.
I inhale in shock, then clap a hand over my mouth and press myself up against the wall in the other hallway, but it’s too late. Before I can even blink, Jinxx has grabbed me by the front of the shirt and is snarling at me.
“How the hell did you get down here?!?!?” he demands. I gape up at him, frozen in shock. He shakes me violently. “Who brought you down here?!” he repeats.
“I-I-I did!” I stammer. “What the hell did you do to Lavinia?”
“Lavinia?” Jinxx blinks, confused for a second. “Oh,” he says, his eyes flitting over to the other hallway where Lavinia is imprisoned. “You mean the seraph? I just… detained her, that’s all.”
“Detained her?!” I explode, my fear evaporating like water in the summer sun. “Detained is what happens when you bring booze into another country and customs catches you. That,” I gesture at Lavinia’s hallway, “is imprisonment, and-and, illegal, and… wrong!”
Jinxx ignores me. “I’ll deal with you later, seraph,” he calls out to Lavinia.
“No, you’re gonna deal with her now,” I say in outrage. “Let her go! What the hell is wrong with y-”
“Oh, shut up,” Jinxx growls, and he puts his hand over my mouth. I try to rip it off, but he grabs both of my wrists in one of his hands. I bite his hand, but his grip doesn’t loosen. I kick at his ankles, but suddenly I can’t move, and everything is blurry and grey.
Before I can even wonder what the fuck is going on now, the world snaps back into focus. I’m back in my bedroom, and Jinxx is shoving me to the ground and shouting things at the four very startled boys who’re gaping at us, like we just appeared out of thin air.
Shit. Did we really just appear out of thin air? Where was the prison? Where were the demons, where was Lavinia? I look at Jinxx’s back. His skeleton wings are gone.
“It’s over,” Jinxx says, and he starts gathering shit from around my room. “She’s found it, we need to do it now.”
“What?” I ask, but no one even glances at me. They’re all gaping at Jinxx.
“What do you mean, she found it? You took her with you?” Andy snarls. “How could you do that, do you have any idea how worried we were?!? It’s been like fourteen hours, and we had no idea where she went!”
“Why the fuck did you take her?" Ashley cuts in. “We have a year left, you idiot. She’s only seventeen, not eighteen.”
The other boys raise their voices, but Jinxx cuts them off.
“I didn’t take her, she took herself,” Jinxx roars over the cacophony. “She followed me through the portal somehow; I didn’t have anything to do with it. If anyone’s to blame, it’s you idiots, how hard is it to keep an eye on a little girl?!?!”
“She just went to the bathroom,” Jake says, sounding annoyed with Jinxx, which is something I’ve never witnessed before. “How were we supposed to know that she was gonna disappear until midnight?”
Midnight?
I glance over at my bedside clock, and sure enough, it’s telling me that it’s 12:01 A.M. of the next day.
“Wait, if she went to, you know, with you, how come He didn’t notice her presence?” CC cuts in.
“I don’t know how she did it,” Jinxx shakes his head. “She cloaked her spiritual energy or something, I couldn’t sense her at all. She was spying on me, but I wouldn’t have even known if I hadn’t seen her.” For the first time since my ungraceful return, all eyes turn to me.
“We can’t tell Him,” Andy says quickly. “He already thinks she’s something special, this will put Him over the edge. He’ll either try to take the ability for his own, or…” he trails off, glancing at me. “I don’t need to elaborate,” he mutters.
“Of course we can’t tell Him, that would require that we tell Him we lost His precious little girl,” Jinxx snaps. “No one tells Him anything, okay? We’ll just bring her down to Him and say that she’s eighteen. He won’t know the goddamn difference.”
“No,” Ashley says forcefully. “She has a year left. You can’t just take it from her, it’s all she has.”
“I’ll do whatever the fuck I have to do to keep Him happy!” Jinxx shouts, losing his temper. “There’s no other way to do this! She brought it on herself, His obsession, and now her early abduction. We can’t just let her stay up here now, now she knows!”
Everyone falls silent.
“Jinxx, she’s only seventeen,” Andy says, his voice soft.
Jinxx rounds on him. “Do you think I don’t know that, Sixx? I very well damn know that, but it doesn’t matter now! Read my lips: She. Knows. It’s just a matter of time before she puts two and two together, and then we’ll have a serious problem on our hands. We have to do this now, and if you’re gonna let your feelings get in the way of you doing your goddamn job, He’ll lock you up like a goddamn seraph! Is that what you want, Sixx? You wanna trade your freedom for hers?”
Andy’s blue eyes shot over and met mine. For a minute I freeze; I do not recognize the frenzy in them. I do not understand what’s going on, who the mysterious “He” they’re talking about is, and what he wants from me. All I know is the look in my Andy’s eyes. He looks like a trapped wild animal. Andy looks away from me and squeezes his eyes shut.
“No,” he says shortly, turning away from me entirely. Everyone looks to Andy.
“Anyone else want to object?” Jinxx challenges. Ashley clenches his jaw and looks at me, but does not answer Jinxx. “Great,” he says flatly.
With that, my five boys turn on me, each looking more remorseful than the one before, even Jinxx. My stomach sinks. If Jinxx feels bad about whatever they’re about to do, then it has to be terrible.
I barely have time to register the terror that bursts in my gut before it all goes black.

Notes

Soooooo. Shit's getting real, dudes XD haha, hope you like it. R&R!!!!!

*chapter title cred: "Is This the Way You Get to Hell?" by Stitched Up Heart*