Chapter 12 Are You Scared?

I skipped down the steps of the large room with the floor to ceiling, the big bright sun behind us. Since the waters glistened like glitter. The clouds a sunflower yellow, it looked peaceful. Even this smell was nice and flowery.
                       But as I looked to the right I seen a desk with a minibar. Demons worked there, cleaning glasses and wiping the surface. They all stopped and just looked up at me, I felt my own blood chill and skin crawl.
                       I stopped and stayed on the step, looking back at them. The hairs on the back of my neck and I couldn't help but have an urge.
                       "What?" I spoke upm but they kept staring. "Want my soul?" I snorted and wish I could just fall and die right there. But they just went back to work. Yet their faces looked stunned, scared. They were rushing their work and talking hush hush.
                       "What are you doing, you stupid moron?" I heard a harsh chuckle behind me, words like honey. I knew that voice, the girl. I turned on my heels and my wet hair smacked in my face when I was staring up at her.
                       It was the girl who'd slapped me when I'd first slept at the matress. The horrible attitude towards me. Her long black hair now a fishtail plait down her back, her blue eyes surrounded by coal coloured eye liner and smokey eye shadow. Her skin a light brown, I didn't notice it last time since we were in semi darkness. But I never knew she was so beautiful, like an Arabian princess, it was Michelle.
                       Today, she had on heeled black boots and lilac leggins with a zipped up black leather jacket. I could smell something, though. A sickly perfume that lingered off of her. I even thought it was the beaker liquid from the room earlier. But that was more stronger and concentrated.
                        "What?" I wobbled on my words, my throat closing as much as my confidence. She seemed to wipe away my words within secoonds of her presence like a black hole.
                        "Your hair." She laughed, not a sweet and innocent laugh. But a mean laugh. Even though she was so pretty, her inside was just as ugly. "It's a bloody tip." She laughed some more. She came down a few steps and was on the one higher than me. The smell was stronger and I had to hold my breath. She smelt like sweet strawberries, yet a tinge of a vegetable patch.
                        Maybe this is why the workers below are so scared of her. She's so bossy and evil.
"What about it?" I seemed unfazed, but it was still dripping water drops. "It's wet." It was even making a puddle at my feet, just a small one. But she made me feel about two foot tall when she hovered over me. She even looked down at me like an insect.
                         "Do you want a cold on your wedding day?" She gave  me a serious look, arching her perfect dark eyebrows. I believed she was being totally lovely now, but her eyes gave it away. They were icey and narrowed right at me. "'Cause you look ridiculous now."
                         Michelle began walking again, her heels clopping the wooden stairs, silenced when she stepped on the carpet in the middle. The thing is, she shoved past me.
                         I knew I was going. I seen the darling, huge and glittering chandelier. My wet hair in front of me and my stomach doing flips...And not in a good way. I felt light as a feather. And everything seemed to go slow. It seemed fake. And before I felt the first corner of the stair hit my spine, I seen the demon girl's evil smirk, she lifted her shoulder higher.
                        Then I was hitting every step on the way down, pain in every corner of my body.
I heard shouts and gasps. But all I could concentrate on was trying not to be sick. My head finally bounced on the marble floor, I wanted to sleep. My eyelids heavy as boats and limbs dead. I didn't want to move, I felt too comfortable lying on the cold floor. Yet, I seen  blood form through my soaken ringlets of brown hair.
                        I felt sticky fingers touch my shoulders, I felt a shudder, but I couldn't stay awake anymore. I couldn't keep my eyes open, and my mind kept whirring away without me. It was hard to stay awake...Awake...
 
                      

We were standing outside the old shop, the smell of urine and grit was all around us. The moon resting high above me and Clair. I kept breathing in and out, my chest tight and heavy.
                        The demon girl had given answers, but not as I many as I would've liked, and I don't know if she was lying.
                        "With our Lord." She'd whispered. Her eyes big and blue and frightened. I felt powerful over her, more in control withthis one.
                        "What Lord?" I asked, feeling my gut twist in numberous ways since Ammie is with someone that could be so powerful.
                        "He lives around here," She looked around then back at me, her lip quivered. "He's makiing his own little group, like a cult or something and making potions to make demons more adaptable with humans. To make them blend in with the world-"
                         "Okay, but where is he hiding?" I had gritted my teeth and she started to breath fast, her pulse quickening. She clawed at my hands and searched all of my Clan's faces, her fear and anger growing within her.
                         "I don't know!" She squeeked and panted and tried to get away.
"Liar." Alyson remarked, giving her a dirty look. "You'd know all this if you were there-"
                         "I really don't know-" The demon girl was cut off when Alyson gripped her demon boyfriend's hair and held him by his hair, skin and throat exposed.
                         "Are you really lying?" Alyson narrowed her eyes, they were stealy and hurtful. I knew this wasn't her thing, but I think she was just doing this to impress me or think she can handle this situation.
                         "I really have no idea where this dude is!" She yelped, her voice going squeeky, tears formed in her eyes, but her pupil was becoming thin. "I heard about it from a guy we met the other day!" She was crying, her iris's turning sickly yellow.
                         Finally, I let her go and asked her one more question.
"What's this Lord called?" I asked normally but a little sadly. My hair falling in my eyes as I just stared at the floor since I couldn't let my friends see my depressing state.
                         "Byron-" She was about to finish, but I guess the dirty and evil demon girl's senses came and she looked up at me from her half crouch, half sitting position. Her eyes fully yellow with unrecognisable black slits, so thin I could barely see them. Her stench was incredible, like a cat litter box uncleaned for quite sometime. She stared at me within seconds and pounced like a tiger, but I wasn't fast enough for her.
                         "Nathan!" Alyson screamed, and all I could hear was the laughter of her demon friends. But just when I felt a jolt of anger and fear curse through me, a shot exploded and the demon girl fell on me lifelessly. Her eyes rolling back in her head and blood pouring from her mouth. Her smell just giving way a little, but she was so heavy.
                         I slugged her dead body to the floor and seen Danny stand to the side, pointing the gun in my direction. A grim line on his face and his plaited hair wavering behind him like some sort of action movie heroin.
                         I cracked a smile and felt gratitude fill me like a drink. 
                         "Thanks mate." I chilled and felt my muscles relax.
But now, standing in the alley by the shop, I still didn't know whereabouts Ammie was. And time is ticking, it's almost been three whole days. The rest of the demons said they'd 'Rather serve Gods than tell us anything,' so we had to let them go.
                         All I got out of this petty mission was getting a name and half a plot of this Lord Byron. But I still don't know where he's based or what kind of thing he's running, except a perfume factory.
                         "Thinking about Ammie?" Clair sighed by my side, her shoulders slump and gun attached to her holster at her back. She looked at the sky with great brown eyes. She still isn't the same without Ammie around. I know what it's like to be her, weirdly.
                         "Yeah." I leaned against the wall, not bothered by the slime and bugs that crawled there. My hand kept curling into fists everytime Ammie roamed my mind like a song. "It's been so long." I sighed.
                         "I know." Clair knocked the back of her head against the grubby wall purposely. "I wish I could track her down like a Bloodhound." She looked down at her hands. "And break this Byron guys neck when I find him!" She used his name in such disgust that I had to do a double take on her.
                         She did look miserable. Bags under her perfect brown eyes, hands looking a little rough and all she did was sigh after sigh after sigh. It was remarkable to know how much Ammie and Clair have in common, it's like they're sisters. But this is scary, like a split personality. Maybe if Clair knew Ammie was safe and unharmed, she'd be a little lighter...Maybe.
                          I looked around and seen the one side of the wall strech until it hit the sidewalk and a road, beyond that a row of dark and sleeping shops. The other side was just a dead end with a half burnt down wheely bin. I could smell the remains of burning plastic, but the taste of blood from the demon girl still sticked between my teeth that I wanted to be sick. I heard a flutter of birds wings and a shuffle from the door of the shop that me and Clair were a few away from. I was about to peek inside but Clair said something that totally shocked me.
                          "You do know Ammie loves you, right?" Clair said it so seriously that I couldn't even believe her. I looked at her, no, stared at her. My jaw slightly open and eyes popping out of my skull.
                          My heart picked up and blood gushed through my veins like rockets. I could barely breathe or concentrate. I wanted to smile so madly, so widly. But didn't give Clair the benefit of the doubt.
                          "What do you mean?" I said nonchalantly, resting and gazing at the stars that seemed to cry shooting stars.
                          "You can't be serious, right?" Clair laughed, actually laughed! It seemed impossible, but I guess the talk of Ammie had that effect on her. "I seen that time when our picture was taken in the nurses room," Clair looked at me directly that I had to look away incase I Clair seen my face flush, even though it'd be hard to spot since we were in the dark. "How close you were to her, and I remember her face lighting up." Clair's smile was sad, even her eyes went from glittery to gloomy.
                           "I even confronted her when we were in detention," Clair looked somewhere far from here, possibly in her own littlw world. "I think she's been in love with you for quite some time now, thinking her annoyance and hatred towards you was just that. But I cracked her." Clair's smile was back, a spur-of-the-moment gesture. "When I did, I think it was like a bombshell to her."
                           I seen Clair's eye's go sparkly, her cheeks rising in a bit of happiness.
"You really think highly of her, don't you?" I asked her, and she had never seemed so bewildered. I mean, I have, but that's times when she's with Ammie. But giving me the look was amazing.
                          "What?" She asked sheepishly, looking back at her curled fists covered in dried blood and dirt.
                          "She's literally like family to you." My eyes wondered up to the stars again, and the moon was flying in the middle of them like dancers. It was perfect night. I felt my skin bump from talking about Ammie, even butterflies rose in my stomach. But she always had that effect on me, I just didn't realise what it was till now. "Everytime you speak of Ammie, your eyes go big and glittery like the stars. It really amazing knowing that girl had that kind of spin on us. Everyone has their opinions, but only her friends know how truly amazing she is." I chuckled quietly.
                           "She's like PVA glue that keeps us together, that makes all of us laugh and keep on task." I sighed and my eyes drooped, I could feel the stare of Clair on my face. "She's truly an amazing person."
                           "Well," Clair sounded smug, and I only knew two things about that if not more. Either she found out something juicy like gossip first hand, or that she has made a recent goal. Or there could be more explanations... "You're one to talk, Nathan."
                           "Huh?" I was confused now.
"You say I speak highly of her?" Clair smiled cheekily and tapped her cheek while closing her lips together and blowing air, looking like a puffer fish. "You should see your face when you do." Clair closed her eyes tight and hopped back inside the shop, closing the door behind her.
                           I just stood there and banged my head off of the wall.
I speak too highly of Ammie, and Clair just seen it in the front row seat. I should be more careful, I normally keep things to myself, but Clair was beginning to knock a few of my walls down, a few that are making me realize my true, raw feelings for Ammie. Could I really love that girl?
                          Yes, I could.

              

I felt people prod me at the temple and in the side, I couldn't really hear anything, but felt my body. And it felt like a house fell on it. Every inch of me was sore to the touch and I couldn't even move, to be perfectly honest, I wanted to remain a vegetable until I was better. But someone opened my eye lid with rubber hands. And with great hesitation, I opened them.
                          "She's awake." I heard a male voice drum in my ears, but when I seen his bearded face with cool brown eyes behind black rimmed glasses, he wasn't even close to my ears.
                          "Really?" I heard a scared yet pushed back voice, and knew it instantly and tensed up. Even though it hurt, I didn't want Byron to see me so weak and powerless, it was humiliating to myself and my family.
                          I seen his ashy blonde hair fall into my view from the piercing white light above me. His blue eyes searching mine, her face flushed and I could see a mole under his chin that I'd never noticed before. I wanted to crack a joke, but I couldn't feel my own throat.
                          "I died, didn't I?" I croaked, almost choking from talking. I shuffled on this metal table I was on. I hope it's not where they disect animals or human bodies.
                          Byron closed his eyes briefly, chuckling under his breath. But when he opened his eyes again, they looked angry and furious.
                          "Who did this to you, Amelia?" He asked seriously, and the bearded man knew his cue to leave. Which he did, and I wish he didn't, because I know he was human. Since he didn't smell of decay, but of sweet potato and antiseptic.
                          "Do you mind?" I said calmly. "But I'm kinda in pain here, and I would like to go to bed and have some food." I was starving. I hadn't had anything to eat for two whole days being here. I guess it was because of the smell of rotting garbage and sewage that put me off my appetite. My stomach now growled like a hurricane.
                          "Oh," Byron backed away and justed stared at me and chuckled. "I forgot about that." Funny, since when did you forget to feed your guests, or more importantly, your bride-to-be.
                          "Ouch!" I stifled a painful groan in the back of my throat from moving my arm. My eyes lingered on the thick white bandage covering my wrist to my elbow. The pain an unbelievable shooting firework from my elbow to the flesh in my fingertips. "Why am I bandaged up?"
                          "You sprained your wrist, idiot." He said mellow, as if it were a little graze from a two year old child.
                          I looked at the doctor who was at a table and glimpsed at me and nodded, a sweet, polite smile on his face. I wondered how they jumbled his mind to keep him here and under control, since he wasa clearly human. There must be and object like a brain wave or something. "Why is he here?" I asked Byron with a curious flicker to him.
                          "What do you mean?" He leaned on the foot of the metal table, the shine blinding me. "He's here to treat the ill and injured." He gave me a suspicious glare and seen the muscle in his jaw tense when his hair fell over his eyes.
                          He was avoiding my stare. The nerve.
"Don't act like a fool," I made a sweet smile. "Even though you always do." His eyes flashed at mine like a razor would cut through paper. The blue looking like a gas hob on high.
                          "Can you please leave, Dr Jenkins?" Byron said kindly, but his eyes said otherwise. They looked mean and pensive.
                          In my head, mI was nervous. I didn't wanna be the only human in here with this nut job, but when I seen Dr Jenkins nod at Byron, I pleaded silently in my thought don't go!
                          When I seen the white back of the coat, and the soft click of the door, I began to panic quietly. I figeted with my thumbs, even though one was covered in a plaster.
                          The hairs on my arms picked up, as did the aroma of sweet vegetables as Byron loomed closer. His eyes to the floor and arms behind his back...I didn't like that. It made me all the more scared of him. If I had a metal object handy, I could probably knock him down and flee. Yet, I had no idea which part of this stinking cathedral I was in.
                           Eventually, Byron stood to my side of my bad arm. His head slowly lifting like my panic. I had to bite my tongue to keep from hyperventilating. His closeness wasn't scary, but his silence. Normally, he's talking and telling me off from back chatting him. But having him this scary made my gut twirl.
                           Suddenly, a seen a blur of black from his thin jumper and a stinging pain that soared across my cheek.
                           In a burst of panic, I squeeked and jumped off the table.
I could see flashes of white and grey in my mind as pain vaulted through my entire body. Gee, it felt like I'd been hit by a truck then a palne landed on me.
                            "What was that?" I gasped, clutching my cheek while Byron stood motionless by the metal shiny table. His expression passive and stern. It made me sick that this guy was the one I was forced to marry. I'd rather marry the boogeyman that used to haunt my nightmares of when I was a kid.
                           "You," He used a hand to lean on the metal table and the other to point a finger at me nastily. "You never disrespect me when people are around, you ungrateful moron!" He spat, jaw set and eyes burning a evil steel of meaness.
                            I snorted in amazement, the shock running through me. Since I degraded him when the human was here, he took it a bit too far.
                            I let my hand fall and stared at him obliviously,mouth hanging open to prove my point.
                            "What on earth are you going to do?" With that, I scarcely scanned the room. White cabnits and cupboards, the walls a magnetic grey and eggshell white. The floor a crisp light blue marble flooring, I could even see my own reflection in it. I seen on my side of the metal table was a large metal trolley with medical objects on the surface. Many I didn't know the names of, but one got my attention. A scary, but thankful large scalpel lay untouched by itself.
                            "You wanna know what I'll do?" He staretd to make his way around the foot of the metal table. And all at once, I felt my breathing pick up. My nerves becoming shaky just as my muscles. I was scared, I was being circled by a soul-eating predator. And it scared me, since he was a guy and ten times bigger, but knowing all too well ten times stronger.
                             When he made it to the foot of the table, I had enough courage and energy to leap for the metal trolly.
                              Grasping the cool metal scalpel, I held it in front of me to protect me. Byron was quick. He was on the table and had my bad wrist behind my back in a click of his fingers. Pain roared through my veins and I couldn't help but contain my screams, not trying to show him that I'm vulnerable.
                              And with his other hand, he made sure his hand was twisted to lock his fingers over mine to keep the scalpel from falling from my fingers. And with that, he forced it to my own throat, his breath by my ear and my heart beating like a birds wings.
                             "This scaring you?" He whispered, but it sounded playful. Like this was all a game.
                             "Byron, there's one thing I know for certain about you." I gritted between my teeth, trying with all my strength that I had left from no energy from making myself pierce my own skin with this darn scalpel.
                             "Oh really," I could feel the smirk tighten on his lips. "And what's that?" He smell like roses from his throne and dirt compost. It was sickly yet calming, but right now, I couldn't be calm when he was going to make me kill myself.
                             I smirked myself, though.
"That you are a creepy, conniving, self centered, mean and stupid demon." I said quietly, daring him to lean closer...Which he did. And I felt my own eyes light up. I know my voice was laced with hatred and disgust, but that's all I felt for this...Thing!
                             "That describes me well," He said proudly. "But, I am in no shape or form stupid." He mocked, fingers tightening on my badly sprained wrist. I squeezed my lips together, not letting myself lose.
                             "Oh yes you are." I said menacingly.
Within seconds, I had pulled my head forward and swallowed the air backwards, the back of my skull connecting with his face. I felt the hard and hollow cracik rattle through me, and felt victorious yet dizzy when his latch on my wrist was loose. I took the chance and ducked to the floor, my flats skidding the tiles while I twirled in a crouch. I now did a full 360 degrees turn, and his hand was twisted on my good hand that held the scalpel. I yanked free quickly and hopped in front of him and standing tall, not even difficulty breathing. If Mr. Lockwood were here right now, he'd be crying with proudness.
                              "Well," Byron rubbed the bridge of his nose, wincing in a bit of pain. "You had me fooled there. I didn't think you were a good demon assassin for a while since you didn't kick my arse." He smiled sadly and leaned backwards on the metal table, facing me. "But you proved me wrong."
                              I stood rooted to the spot with the scalpel turned outwards in my good hand and aiming right towards him, as if I wer holding a gun.
                              I hadn't thought I could make that possible, running it through my head, I thought I'd cut my own hand off. But I managed it. I had beaten Byron from a firm grip even Nathan's eyes would glimmer with hope.
                             Nathan...
And all too soon, my ain lowered. As did my once angry and evil glare towards Byron. With one thought, one single reminder, one sound of his name, going through my thoughts made me lose all concentration it was like a deadly disease. I was hopeless without him.
                             "Wow." Byron mused, coming away from the table and nearing me. I felt the acidy bile rising in my throat, I ignored it since the beating in my chest blazed brighter than the sun. "Looks like little Amelia doesn't look so happy." He laughed, the scent of sickening veggies fogging up my mind.
                             "Get lost, Byron." I moved quicker and right past him.
With a whif of more fresher air, I opened the doctor's door and was in a sort of waiting room. A brown, wooden dest in the corner where a woman sat reading a book, ugly red chairs lining the pale brown walls and a few low coffee tables holding out of date magazines. I seen another door, yet to mention the sweet smell of vanilla air freshener that was most welcome up my nose.
                             I dropped the scalpel and stalked along the laminated wood flooring, passing a smiling Dr Jenkins on a seat clostest to his room. I ignored Byron who was walking behind me, and headed straight for the door.
                             As I opened it, Lil stood there with a grim look on her face.
                             

Author's Note

ignore mistakes! I will get to them :)