81: Promise Me

After Gabriel leaves, work seems tiresome. Nothing compares to him and everything is pointless without him. What the hell is wrong with me? He just confessed to being a half breed. Monsters skillfully created for a reason.

Monty quickly fills the empty space. She asks for another reading due to proclaiming boredom, but I know better. She’s curious and ’ve learned not to become her guinea pig when curiosity strikes her. I counter with offering her a reading of my own, but she’s just as quick to reject the offer.

As she walks away, rejected, I call out to her. “Hey, Monty.” She stops, shuffling her cards in hand. “Do you know anything about the underneath?”

She becomes a little too stiff at the mention of the underneath. “Where did you hear about that?” It scares her, but why?

“Jezmin...she mentioned it one day,”slight lie, “and I’ve been thinking about it. I was just curious.” Not entirely a lie.

Her eyes don’t meet mine as she answers. “A dark place. Promise me you won’t go messing with it. Digging into the underneath is worse than meddling with time. Promise me, Hazel.”

“What if Jezmin were to get stuck down there?”

She eyeballs me, trying to decipher my words. “We would leave her down there. Ghosts belong in the underneath. It’s other things that don’t belong getting trapped is the problem. No messing with it, got it.”

“Got it.” My voice quivers just the tiniest bit. If it scares Monty than it’s bad. Really bad.

Several hours go by in extreme boredom before I’m relieved of duty. Monty and Gretchen both bid me farewell with promises of seeing them tomorrow. Monty gives me an extra narrowed glare to make sure that I’m going to keep my word and not dabble in the underneath...whatever it is.

The streets are busy with humans eating, shopping, mingling. But the shadows hold plenty of demizens. One of which starts to follow me. The pace of their feet match my own, but I can feel them creep up on me as their long legs take larger steps.

The whisper feels as if it physically grazes the back of my neck. “Little witch, little witch.” He’s closer than I’m comfortable with. “All. Alone.” He continues to taunt me.

The voice is familiar. It sends a shiver down my spine. The heat from his body, the fire in his eyes. A demon run in is the last thing I need right now. I keep walking unsure of where to go. Going home would lead him to my supposed safe place that I would have to extensively ward afterwards, going back to work would mean backtracking or making a huge circle to get back to Mystic Moon. Can I handle walking three blocks all lined with alleyways...dark...empty...traps or turning right around and walking right into him. Felix.

My feet stumble on the uneven sidewalk and he uses my clumsiness to his advantage. His scolding hand wraps around my arm and I nearly drop to my knees. I would fall to the ground if it isn’t for his strong grip keeping me up.

“You’re not happy to see me?” His nose grazes my ear as he whispers, “Because I’m happy to see you.” He tightens his grip on me and I hiss from the pain that soaks through my shirt.

I had the protection of my jacket last time. Tonight, not so much.

He starts taking slow steps down the sidewalk and I’m forced to follow. “I want to offer you an opportunity. You're a smart little witch, right? Stupid enough to socialize with vampires, but maybe smart enough to strike a deal with demons.”

“Sorry to break it to you, but I’m not one to make a deal with the devil. So, if you don’t mind,” I try to jerk my arm out of his grasp, but his reflexes are quick and he tightens his fingers just in time to keep me trapped.

“That’s too bad, because if I can’t offer you business then I guess I’m offering pleasure.” He sharply turns down a dark, vacant alleyway.

I’m slammed against the brick wall of the lining building nearly breathless, arm searing so badly that it’s hard to concentrate. “Gonna have to decline that too.” I stutter through the pain.

He sways on his feet not far away from me, teasing me. “Oh, the pleasure is all mine.” The killer in him rises to the surface and he stalks forward. My mind is blank, unable to comprehend anything other than fear as he places his hands flat against the wall behind me to either side of my head.

The incantation rattles around inside my head, but as I try to speak the first word, it gets stuck. It’s gonna have to be something simpler, something easy. “Bind.”

Felix’s legs buckle as they bind together and he topples over, landing face first onto the pavement. It worked. Thank God. I scramble out of the alley cradling my arm as I nearly run home. Strangers stare at me as I pass and whispers are made behind hand covered mouths, but I keep going until I’m safely inside my apartement.

My phone rings loudly in my purse, but I ignore it. No one can be as important as my burned, limp arm. Completely terrified to look at it or not, I slide my uninjured arm out first, then my head leaving only my messed up arm left. I start to pull my injured arm out of the sleeve, but I can’t. A loud whimper rips through my mouth as the fabric is stuck to the wound.

Biting my lip and to the point of drawing blood, I peel the t-shirt material off, revealing a nasty blistered, bloody splotch. My head sways with a dizziness and I have a hard time fighting off. It’s a lightheadedness that I can’t push through. A knock sounds on my door seconds before my legs give out from under me and I collapse into darkness.

*I find myself back in the alley, Felix standing over my crumpled body. The city is dark, but illuminated with a blue and red glow. The smell of blood fills my nostrils. What the hell is happening. A burn so intense has me stuck on my hands and knees, unable to move.

Felix babbles about something, but a ringing in my ears deafens me. His mouth moves in a vicious snarl, but one single word is loud and clear. Gabriel.

His foot soars through the air and connects with my ribcage soon after my flash of recognition. It’s so forceful that it lifts me up off the ground and harshly crash back down. His anger is real, but why?

Before I have a chance to suck in a breath to replace the one that was ripped from lungs, another blow comes and another and another. Panting for breath, bruised and bloody, I collapse to the ground, broken.

“Stay with me little witch. I’m not done with you yet.” His scolding fingers grab a fistful of my hair pulling me to my feet. “Your vampire did something he wasn’t supposed to. Killing you is as if I were to kill him. Maybe even more painful.” He taunts.

I’m a toy to him, a ragdoll. As he tosses me into some trash cans, I’m left hanging in a freefall.*

My body twitches as I fight that falling feeling until it’s replaced with something else. Violently shaken, my name being screamed into my face. I fully come to my senses, still on the floor, my head in Gabriel’s lap. When my eyes open, he nearly gasps with relief.

“Oh, thank God.” He huffs. “I thought...I thought that…”

“I’m fine.” My lips feel numb and my vision is still blurred, but I refuse to play victim. Trying to prove it, I struggle to sit up, but his hands still paw at me, keeping me close, ready to catch me if I fall. Except, I don’t make it far before I fall back into his arms.

Not because I’m weak still, but because I’m freshly reminded that I’m shirtless. Instinctively my arms go to cover my chest. At least I’m wearing one of my better bras. “It’s worse than it seems. He attacked me in an alley and I removed my own shirt.” I don’t know why I feel the need to state that.

Gabriel quickly scrambles to take off his jacket and drapes it over me. Before he grumbles, “I’m going to kill him.”

“You don’t even know who did it.” I try to sit up again, but this time around I fall back into his lap because I am indeed weak. “Can you help me get off the floor? It’s embarrassing.”

“Embarrassing? You were attacked and that soulless asshole is going to go back to Hell where he came from.” His hands slide under my neck and knees before he stands up effortlessly. “Felix won’t live another day once I find him.”

Okay, so he does know who did it. “Don’t.” His eyes snap up from my mangled arm to my face. “Don’t go looking for him. That’s what he wants. To get a rise out of you. Promise me.”

“I can’t do that.” He doesn’t meet my eyes as he says it. But I can feel his fists clench underneath me as he lays me down in bed. Not exactly where I thought he would take me.

I had been expecting the couch. And suddenly my barely clothed body takes over all other thoughts, even the ones that want to cry over the searing pain that still attacks my arm.

I shuffle underneath the blanket and shimmy his jacket out from underneath it. “Here.” I say unable to meet his eyes.

He reaches to take the jacket out of my hands, “I should go, but…” He slides his hand through his hair, “...I can’t...not with you being injured. That wouldn’t be very gentleman like of me.”

“And seeing me nearly naked on the floor was very gentleman like?”

“That was unintentional. I had been coming over to visit you when I heard you collapse. I can’t say that I wasn’t taken at the sight of you, but it quickly turned to concern.” He speaks through clenched teeth and his fists continue to ball up and release several times. “You need to rest.” He turns his back to ready to leave.

“Don’t go.” The words are soft and feeble as I’m embarrassed to say them.

“I’m not going anywhere.

When he says it, everything seems to stand still. It sounds like the most perfect promise I’ve ever heard. And I hope he keeps true to his word.