70: Smells Like Bacon

Nonononono. This can’t be happening. I try to keep my breathing even as I refuse to turn around. A scratchy, clawing tingle runs down my back as I’m watched. Prey for the taking.

“Well well well.” His voice makes my blood go cold.

My fingers reach across my chest to touch my still scarred arm from where he burned me. “Felix.” I say his name on a hushed whisper.

“I had hoped to find you stumbling around, but I never thought that my wishes would come true so easily. That you would walk right into my hands...through a door that doesn’t exist no less. And no vampire or werewolf to save you.” He takes a step forward, his feet purposely shuffling against the blacktop, the heat off his skin intensifies. “So scared. I’m not ashamed to admit that it turns me on.” His fingers trail down the same arm he searred before.

With a mutter of my lips, the lid to one of the garbage cans that’s behind us flies off. It smacks into the back of his head with a loud crack. He mutters a few curse words before he slams his arm into me sending me reeling into the brick wall that I stepped out of. My forehead grazes a few of them. I can feel the warm ooze of blood before I feel the pain.

He’s quickly on me prying me off the wall, spinning me around and slamming me back into it taking my breath away. I start to get out another incantation, but he cuts my words off as his hand encircles my throat. My eyes widen in surprise. I can feel his fingers squeeze tighter and tighter, but there’s no burn.

“You noticed that, ugh.” He squeezes harder. “We try to keep it a secret, our softer side. But this occasion is something completely opposite, little witch. I want to draw this out.” He leans in and touches his lips to mine and I cringe underneath him. “You’ll be with a mutt and a blood sucker, but not a demon. Shame on you.”

The longer his hand is on my throat the harder it gets to breath. Minute by minute it seems he squeezes one fraction tighter. A fog starts to cloud my vision, dizziness from lack of oxygen has the alleyway spinning. I miss the twitch in his hand, the shuffle of his feet until it’s too late.

I’m sent soaring across the small alleywat and crash into the garbage cans. The metal rim bites into my ribs, what little breath I have left is roughly expelled through my clenched teeth. Before I dig myself out of the trash, Felix has a fistful of my hair yanking me to my feet. He pulls a little higher than my height and I’m barely standing on my tippy toes.

“At first, I wanted to steal you because you were Gabriel’s, then I wanted to kill you because I know you know where Evangeline is, but now I want to break you because you screwed us demons. You would be dead either way, but at least now I can enjoy it a little more.”

His fingers let go and I fall to my knees, head barely up before a swift backhand cracks against my cheek pushing me back down. Blood fills my mouth from my split lip. He laughs at my feeble attempt of getting up. My legs shake uncontrollably and I sway from side to side.

“Bi-” All the syllables are unable to get out before his hand is back around my throat, forcing me to my feet.

“Naughty, naughty. No magic tonight or I’ll burn you. Do you want to get burned again?” He asks. He squeezes my throat a little tighter when I don’t respond. “When I ask you a question, you answer. Do you want to be burned again?”

I shake my head as best as I can.

“Good. You hold back, I hold back. You don't know how much I enjoy the aroma of burning flesh. Smells like bacon. So if I can turn down bacon you can cut it with the magic.” He stares me dead in the eye and I’m taken back at how dark his are, they're almost black. “How is my constant reminder by the way?” In the blink of an eye, he tears my shirt open to expose my scarred arm.

His fingers trail over the tender, still red skin. He bears his teeth in a twisted smile clearly pleased with his work. Then his eyes lower and that smile gets even darker.
His eyes light up as his palm rests flat against my stomach. “Did I discover a secret?” He asks seconds before his hand burns with demon fire.

A scream rips from my mouth. It gets lost within all the other screams throughout the city proving there’s no one to help.

Felix keeps his hold on me tightly as he speaks making sure not even an inch of his hand peels away from my torso. Does he think I’ll be able to listen to him through the pain? “Gabriel’s,” he coos. “And here I thought you two weren’t together.” He lets go of me and I collapse at his feet. “I didn’t realise that you were so important to him or not. He left you out here all alone to fend for yourself or did you do that all by yourself?”

My eyes are on the ground when his foot slams into my face, blood seeps from my nose. Gasping for air, on my hands and knees, spitting blood, he delivers another kick, this one to my stomach. I cry out, tears running down my face. My arms are too weak to hold myself up, my legs too numb to stand, so I try to crouch into a ball, but his foot comes at me again and again and again, keeping me on my hands and knees.

“If I kill the kid, I’ll finally get a blow at Gabriel that nobody has been able to give.” He kicks me again, this one makes contact with my shoulder and I crumple to concrete. “If I kill you, it’s double the misery. He’ll be begging me to end his life.” That malicious smile back on his face. “Not as fulfilling when your opponent doesn’t fight back, but I’ll enjoy it either way.”

There’s a shuffle at the end of the alley. Vamps? Gabriel? It draws Felix’s attention and his feet twist around turning his back to me.

“Ah, the wolf.” Felix chimes. “I was hoping for the other one, but I’ll take what I can get.” A wave of heat fills the air as he switches his demon fire back on. “It does surprise me that you’re still stupidly faithful to the witch.”

“Hazel.”

Caleb. I say his name in my head, the words unable to be said as my throat constricts. I try again and a small barely audible mutter comes out. “Caleb.”

“Good news, I didn’t kill her...yet and you don’t know how glad I am that you’re here to witness it. Bad news, that little blood sucker of hers she’s carrying might not make it....but then again is that bad news?” The lightheartedness in Felix’s voice as he says it makes me sick. “I would say I’m sorry, but…”

“You’re unable to feel sorry?” Caleb taunts. Felix chuckles at Caleb’s dry humor for only a second or two before Caleb cuts it off with venomous words. “How about a fair fight?”

The scuffle is loud and destructive. There’s the sound of their rageful grunts mixed with crumbling brick from the surrounding buildings. A few pebbles shower down around me. The thwap of arms and legs making contact with each other make me flinch. Some sound so close. Is Felix trying to reach for me? Is Caleb? There’s times when I can feel the scorch of heat so close to my skin.

I can’t just lay here on the ground, useless. I can cast a few spells, I just need to, as I lift myself up the alley spins underneath me and I fall back down onto the pavement. It’s a struggle to keep my eyes open. Everything hurts. My head, my throat, my chest, my knees, my stomach...the baby. Maybe I just need to sleep the pain away. Sleeping heals all, right?

My eyelids fall closed for I don’t know how long before Caleb’s voice screams into my face. “Hazel, wake up.” He jostles me into his lap. He lightly taps my cheek. “No going to sleep. Wake up.” He taps a little harder, but I don’t feel it. “Damn it, Hazel. Wake up, you gotta wake up.”

My eyes flutter open, but I can’t keep them open. “Did you win?” My words are slurred as my lips are still unable to move, my throat raw from being crushed and my head is filled with thick sludge.

He laughs. I feel it, the small puff of air that bursts from his mouth. Is that a yes? My legs twitch as I try to move them, but I don’t go anywhere as sharp, stabbing pain rips through my body from the sudden movement.

He places his hands under my arms and starts to lift me up when a voice echoes loudly down the alley. It freezes both of us.

“Hand her over, Caleb.” There’s a pause as Caleb stares down the alleyway. Gabriel surely staring back. “Do you want her to die? Because she will if you don’t give her to me.” Another peaceful pause as Gabriel lets Caleb think about that. “I can save her, both of them.” Gabriel says.

“Gretchen can help her too.” Caleb replies, finally finding his voice.

“I hoped you weren’t going to fight me on this. We both want what’s best for her.”

“Except, my option doesn’t result in ingesting vampire blood or possibly becoming something she’ll despise.” Caleb argues back, each word vibrates through my body. “She will despise it and you.”

“Look at you, so big and mighty, talking for her.” Gabriel’s voice gets closer with each word. “But she’s apart of me and you need to understand that. She will never be more than some fling with you, because once you find your mate, she’ll become nothing.”

I catch the disappointment on Caleb’s face. It’s true, Gabriel said the truth, but that doesn’t make him right.

“I beat you before, I can do it again.” Gabriel taunts.

“Only because you had your deadbeat friends go after Avery and you took me off guard.” The ground begins to slide out from under me as Caleb sets me back down on the ground, “Stay back,” he whispers in my ear. After taking a few steps away from me he says loud and clear, “So let’s play fair. May the best demizen win.”

It’s only seconds later that running footsteps skid across the pavement, a crash of bodies. It doesn’t take too long before an inhuman growl fills the street. It’s followed by a chuckle from Gabriel and then a canine whimper. Caleb.

This is my fault. I have to be the one to stop it. It’s a struggle to get to my knees, which are skinned up and have bleed through my jeans. “Bind.” I whisper, but they hold no merit. I’m too weak.

Lost in concentration to get my beat up body to corporate, I don’t notice the silence at first. Then that dead silence attacks me from the inside out. I frantically scan the alley and spot Gabriel struting toward me and a shadowy blob on the ground. “Caleb.” It’s nothing more than a whimper.

Gabriel blocks my view as he kneels in front of me. “What did he do to you?” He asks and I’m not sure he even knows that it was Felix that attacked me. Although, I’m sure his body has to be somewhere around here. Maybe that’s the body shaped blob I saw, Felix. But then, where is Caleb?

The harder I think about it the more my skull feels as if it’s splitting apart. He cradles my head in his hands and I tense up from the sudden movement. “Just relax.” Gabriel’s voice soothes me when it shouldn’t.

At first, I have no real idea what he’s planning until the inside of his wrist is pushed against my mouth and the warm bitter tang of blood touches my tongue. With whatever strength I have left, I try to get away, but Gabriel is stronger and Caleb...Caleb is gone.

“Shh. It’s okay. You’re okay.” He presses his arm harder against my mouth.

My teeth dig into the wound he tore open himself. Just as quickly his arm is at my mouth, it disappears. “I...hate...you.” I whisper fighting back the roughness that thickens my throat.

But there’s no time for arguing, because it hits me like a freight train, knocking me off my feet...if I were on my feet. The sleepiness, the blood coma. My head lulls to the side, eyes heavy.

He scoops me up off the ground and I whimper. Each step he takes jostles my whole body. I only relax once he comes to a stop.

Gabriel speaks to someone. “Her heartbeat is stronger, but I don’t…” He pauses and I can hear the faint smack of his lips as he thinks about something. “Keep the others busy, but do not harm them,” he says, but deep down in the pit of my stomach I know that’s not what he was thinking about saying.

He takes a couple steps forward before I’m shoved into a car, my head resting on Gabriel’s lap as we speed away. He strokes my hair urging me to go to sleep. And I can’t resist. My eyes slowly close. The scornful words that fill my head go silent.