Chapter Nineteen: She's Mine

Holly stared at her teacher and Quix as they waited for her in the cramped room. "Why can't the others be here?"

"Someone has to guard the building. Krim could come back in, or he could send his necromancy experiments. I'm staying by your side to get you out of here in the worst-case scenario." Quix replied.

Holly sighed. As much as she appreciated Quix being there. The more time she spent around him the more she was becoming hyper-aware of everything about him. He even had long lush eyelashes she kept sneaking peeks at.

Quix turned toward her and smirked. The smirk grew even more as she flushed and looked away from him. How could she let herself be caught like that? She had never been like this with her boyfriend.

"Holly, come here," Dagon ordered.

"Are you going to test to see the amount of magic power I have again?" she demanded with a sigh. They were never going to get anywhere if they just tread the same ground over and over.

"No," Dagon replied. "You underestimate my abilities." He walked over to her and offered his hand. Holly looked down at his hand and then back up at him. "Just take my hand," Dagon implored with a smile. "Please."

"You're just going to disappoint me like the rest." Holly sighed and placed her hand in his.

Dagon smiled and squeezed her palm. "I've missed touching you."

Holly pulled her hand back as if he was a dangerous animal and glared at him. "How many times do I have to tell you, people, to treat me like me? I'm not whoever you're talking about. I'm just me, Holly."

Dagon shook his head. "You're so much more," he whispered his hand coming up to brush her cheek with his knuckles.

Holly took another step back and he was forced to let his hand fall to his side. "Why can't you just let me rest? I've been through a lot." She didn't want to hear about how she had power but no one knew what it was. How useless was she?

"This is important, Holly." Dagon bowed to her. "I apologize for making you feel that you yourself are not important. Though you all share the same soul, you are all brilliant women that have changed the fates of their world. You will be no different. No matter what life you're in, your soul blazes and calls to me."

Quix wasn't smiling anymore. "Are you going to get around to her power or not? I'm not really comfortable with you saying all this sweet stuff without being of use to us."

Dagon sighed. "I am beyond tired of jealousy. You're going to have to share."

"I already told you, I'm not going out with multiple people," Holly responded with her hands on her hips. "It's not happening."

"Never mind, just give me your hand. I won't do anything strange, I won't talk about the time I've spent with previous incarnations of you. I'll only talk about you, Holly, deal?"

Once again Holly looked at the palm held out to her. She didn't want to touch him. She didn't want to accept any of this. Why did she have to do this anyway? If everything was fake if none of her memories were real, why should she even care?

Quix was watching them with a furrowed brow when he bent over and slumped to the floor.

Holly ignored Dagon's hand as she rushed to the reaper's side and helped him get to a sitting position. "What happened?"

Quix put a shaky head to the side of his head. "I remembered something," he whispered.

"Isn't that bad?" Holly whispered.

"Did you considering he could be lying because he doesn't want you touching me?" Dagon demanded.

Holly ignored him as she leaned closer to Quix. Her earlier embarrassment was forgotten. "You're not going to vanish, are you?" she whispered.

Quix shook his head. "No, I'm not going to leave you. Just when I saw the way you were looking at his hand. I remembered a friend of mine in the past."

"Quix?" Holly whispered as she grabbed his hand and squeezed.

His eyes focused on her and he smiled. "I'm not trying to remember, don't worry." The paleness of his skin vanished bit by bit and his smile became more natural. "You're worth sticking in this world for. No memory I might have it worth risking that. Besides, I haven't taken us on a date yet."

Holly chuckled. "I'm not sure what Ruby would like, she'd probably hate any place you picked just on principle."

Quix rubbed the back of his neck as he glanced away. "I think for our first date, maybe it should just be us."

Once more Holly's skin turned a dusky rose and she looked away. She couldn't begin to keep his gaze at this point. Why did her heart beat so much faster when she was near him? This was all too fast.

Dagon had been frowning at the two of them with his arms crossed over his chest when his body tensed and he stood to his full height. "Seriously?" he groaned. "Quix, take her back to Eros and protect her with your life. I swear if she sheds one tear while I'm dealing with this, I'll shatter every bone in your body, and then force those to zip through your internal organs."

"Do you always have to be so violent?" Holly demanded with a glare his way.

Dagon snorted. "Considering that I'm about to face Death? Yes. Just stay with him."

Quix grabbed Holly's hand once more. "Let's hurry to the others. They're just a few rooms away. How much time do we have?" he questioned Dagon.

Dagon glared at him. "You're the one that's his creation, shouldn't you know that?"

Holly shivered. The chill froze her blood. Thinking about the reapers as creations of the one that hurt her so much was hard to accept. But then again when she looked at Quix and into those eyes of his, she realized she trusted him.

What if all of this was some elaborate scheme and she would suffer from this? He'd saved her, but did that mean he deserved her trust? She wished she could turn it off, but she couldn't. If he really did betray her, she wouldn't be able to stop it.

"Just go," Dagon demanded as he flickered out of their view.

Quix glared at the spot the man had been before turning back to Holly. "I won't fail this time. Let's go with the others."

"Funny how easy it is to manipulate him. He still thinks he can beat me, my cute little brother."

Holly swallowed. Nothing in her body worked anymore. She would have collapsed to the ground if Quix hadn't grabbed her from behind and helped her stay standing. Was this the betrayal?

Death cocked his head and stared at Quix. "You, give her to me, now. I still have to ferret out her source of power, so I can use it for my own means."

"No," Quix replied holding her against him. "Holly isn't for you. I'm not going to let you hurt her anymore."

"What'd you do to Dagon?" Holly demanded though it came out in squeaks.

"I love that you're afraid of me. Fear is a good reaction. But the one behind you will have to endure a far higher level of pain than you have to. No one defies me. As for my little brother, I sent him on a bit of a goose chase. By the time he realizes that he's not chasing me, this will be over. Last chance, Quix. I'll make your suffering endless, and when you can't take anymore, I'll tell you how you came to take a reaper's mantle."

Holly got her sense of balance back and stepped forward toward an amused Death and away from a horrified Quix. "Leave Quix out of this. He's done nothing to you."

"Besides betray me. He was given the same mission as the others. The only one that carried it out was Krim, who has now been promoted. He and Ruby however will suffer for such a long time." He smiled as the tears trailed down her cheeks. "Or you can agree to come with me right now. I'll look over their disobedience this one time, and if you tell me about your magic, I'll even forego punishing them."

"Holly, don't you dare," Quix demanded. "We're not worth it, don't do it."

Holly wasn't listening to him. Her eyes were locked firmly on Death as he held out his hand to her. Dagon's had been so much warmer so much softer. Why hadn't she appreciated it? "You promise if I go you won't hurt them? You won't make them remember anything?" she added. If she suggested just hurt he could easily use that as a loophole to kill them outright. She couldn't allow that.

"Easy, you're worth more than all of my reapers together. Now, come."

Holly forced her legs to take one step and then another in a straight line until she made it in front of the smirking man. How much would it hurt this time? Would she even come out of it alive? "Can I say goodbye?" she whispered.

"You just did," Death announced as he reached for her hand.

Another hand interjected and smacked it away and a white cabbit jumped off a shoulder to cuddle against Holly's cheek. Dagon glanced back over his shoulder at her. "You guys didn't get far, did you even more at all, really?"

"You're blaming them when you're the one that was fooled?" Death demanded as he rubbed his hand. "You can't deny me, little brother. What can you do against me? You're the weakest of us all."

Dagon snorted. "That's because you never knew me, big brother. You never know what it is to hunger for more and to push yourself to the very limits. Maybe I wasn't born with as much power as you from the start, but now, I have more than enough to protect what's mine. And Holly is mine. I won't let you lay a finger on her ever again."