Chapter 15 White Light

We had stopped a demon at the neck of a homeless woman in an alley of Little Tree. The dawn quickly coming and time ticking like a timebomb in my chest. Me and the rest of our clan (minus Clair) had been resting in Danny's car for about five hours while changing shift from Danny, Sarah, Mike and me to drive.
                         Now the baby blue sky was over head and the smell of piss in the air as well as damp pavement and mouldy food as we perched over the crippled woman of the demons latest victim. Sarah had managed to kill, but not in time to arrive in on the homeless woman, the sick demon lass that was way to young to make out if he were a teenage girl. The homeless woman's once brown eyes became yellow with piercing black slits.
                         Then, Mike had shot her in the middle of her head, the smell of rich blood thick in the air and gun powder up our noses. I shuddered at the sound when it was fired, even made me jump. I had been very jumpy since Clair left the group, for her selfish reasons.
                         "C'mon." Alyson tugged at my sleeve, leading me away from the alley and into the shop streets. Litter among the pavement and roads, little cars running. I sighed heavily before hiding my gun in my holster.
                         My anger of Clair leaving had subsided for now until we crossed paths again. but everyone seemed pretty much annoyed at her recent exit on us, but we all know she did it for eveyone's sake. And it showed in good results, there hadn't been any more arguments or hassle among any of us. But I did miss Clair a heck of a lot.
                         "Where to now?" Amy asked sadly, her head hanging low and her hand in Mike's. "We have no leads except for a demon Lord." She looked around the streets before walking with the rest of us.
                         "Ain't it easy?" Sarah sighed, looking hopefully into Danny's eyes before hugging him. They hung onto eachother. "We have to find more leads. Collect more demons and make them tell us where this freakin' hideout is." She stomped her foot as if we were trying to find treasure.
                         "It'll take ages." Amy sputtered and whined like a little child.
"Not really." An idea came free to mind, and I stared at Amy who looked awkwardly back. "D-nip!"
                        Amy looked puzzled for a moment, but I seen in her eyes as my idea reached her mind. "Yeah!" Amy took it out of her sleeve and ran to another alley where there was no homeless people. "Just leave it out like rat poison and they'll come running!"
                         "Right, that's what I wanted." I said. "Sprinkle it."
Within minutes, it was covering the ground like flour. The dampness of the floor however had soaken some of it up. The smell blending and making me a little dizzy.
                         We waited on the roof of the shops between the alley. On my side was Alyson and Mike, opposite me and a little higher was Amy, Sarah and Danny. Our guns at the ready and peering down over the rail toward the alley.
                          It ran through my mind if this plan would actually work.  
                          It's been four days since Ammie had been kidnapped and scarily, it felt like she was never missing. Like there wasn't a hole in our group, like there was no Ammie at all. And it was haunting my every thought. And yet I knew, that everyone didn't feel that way. They knew she was missing and it left a huge void in our space.
                          Clair still hadn't shown and we were now worried about both Ammie and Clair, as if Ammie weren't enough.
                          But Ammie has been missing for four days and I don't know if she's still alive... But I can't think like that, especially for Ammie's sake, and the rest of the gang's.
                          Suddenly, there was a rush of blurry crowds gathering around the entrance of the alley and the back of it where demons peeked around the corner. I heard snarls and clinking of teeth as they slavered over eachother.
                          Then demon after demon licked the floor, grabbing handfuls of the stuff and licking their fingers as if it were candy. It was sickening to watch, like drug addicts to their helping. The worst bit was the smell of rotting bodies and death lingered upwards very very fast, our noses clogged with the smell that it made me tighten my grip on my gun and grit my teeth like there was no tomorrow.
                          The gang looked at me, knowing that we didn't expect this many demons to have come. To be truthful, I din't know how strong D-nip actually was.
                          I looked down and at everyone, holding my gun and pointing down with my finger. Telling them to shoot but not to kill. To just injure and not ruin our chances of more information.
                          And with that, we all jumped down on wheelie bins, our thick and heavy thuds of our weight just dropping to the groun, like a scene from a vampire movie where heros dropped from the sky. I had plopped on the floor, gun at the ready. The rest to the side of the walls, clear of the licking mass of demons.
                           Colours blurred together, even yellow coming to vision.
Then, we all shooted. I just seen colours mixing like candy floss. Splashes of yellow and blinding white from our guns and cherry red from blood splattering from the bodies that still ignored us. The sound of so many guns going off deafened me and I could only hear screams and screeches of demons being hit, never minding the sound the bullet that goes straight through me. My whole body vibrated from the shooting, but I controlled it and just kept on going, the smell of burning rubber and gunpowder rifling up my nose it made me squint.
                            In the end, the sun was on the horizon and most of the demons were on the ground. Blood among the walls in the alley and pools of it on the ground, mingling with the last of the D-nip. Plently of demons had survived, some had actually been killed. There was at least fifteen to twenty bodies on the ground, and ten that had survived.
                           "Right, we're too close to the road for people to see." I looked at the sun beginning to rise above houses, the sky turning orange from blue. I heard more car whir past and birds chirping away. "So, Danny and Sarah, find an empty or abandoned place ready for interrogation. Amy, Mike and Alyson, help me by checking and clearing up the dead demons. Then help me bind the alive ones."
                          "Right." Everyong chorused together as if we were in boot camp.

                          

I heard birds singing a melody that sounded so familiar, sunlight glinted through white, whispy veils. My body shrouded in white, my hair pulled away from my face. A sweet smell of roses and salt fell over me, making me feel at ease.
                        As I pried my eyes open, a natural source of white light blinded me, making me squint and sputter. I tried to move my hands, but the intense aftermath of my bruised knuckles quickly came to me.
                         I sat up steadily and draped my eyes with my arm, the light managing to steer into my pupils. My neck hurt and bones cracked happily.
                         I was on a cloud. Well, it felt like it. The softness beneath me made me inhale deeply and all I could taste was rose, jasmin and salt. It was so relaxing that I didn't want to move at all. The feel of nothing negative or bad made me feel light as a feather.
                         I looked around and my eyes widened at what I seen.
I was on a roof terrace. White decking with sliding glass doosr at the back. But it seemed like the decking went up a step, and that's why I was so high up. Trees thick as boulders and high as sky scrapers towered above me from behind. There was a small but cute railing by this bed I was on, lining all the way around to the sliding glass doors attached to a little block of a white building.
                         This bed I was on had a wooden base, yet the thing I was on was luxurious white cusions. And stuck to the corners of the wooden base was bamboo poles stretching high to form a princess bed. The white veils fluttering around me like fairies dancing around in circles.
                        As I strained to listen, I heard soft crashing. Like waves against the shore, or against rocks.
                         I parted the fluffy veils and stepped off the bed. I stood on wobbly legs and had to cover my eyes again as the sun burnt my eyes. I guess it was because I hadn't seen the sun from outside in like three days. Or is it four, now?
                         But I tried to run my sore fingers through my hair, but it was stuck because my hair was in knots. I touched the back of my head, and realised they weren't in knots, but in plaits. Like a mermaid plait, wide with lots of twists and turns and loops.
                          Also I seen I was wearing white. I glimpsed down to see myself in a clinging white dress that crumpled at the bottom. I felt my body in shock and felt I still wore my bra and knickers and thanked whom ever that no one actually seen me naked.
                          Then I ventured off a step of warm wood decking and to the rails where the crashing got louder.
                          There, my eyes took in the steep drop to the running water that crashed at the sides of the woods on both sides. The different shades of green came to life as they rustled when birds flew from trees, squawking and cauing a fuss.
                         If I were silent, I could distinctively hear the sound of the water running at full pelt, washing down the pebbles along with it as much as the fish. The trees were very high from where I stood that I could almost see all the branches.
                         The smell of green, mud and life bloomed within my nose that I couldn't even breathe properly. I had to just breathe from my mouth and glare at the beauty that ran below this disgusting place.
                        Above these beautiful wood, there lay a sweet blue sky. Flurry coulds of cotton wads floated like bubbles in the sky, drifting like twigs in the river below.
                        The beauty of this woods and river made me rest my chin on the cute rail and sit down. My legs unable to keep me up from witnessing something so beautiful. I sighed and smiled to myself. Even though I'm in this horrid dream, there is highlights.
                         Which is this moment. This beauty that takes my breath away that makes my knees buckle. The sound of singing birds and crashing water and rustles of trees that quake in my bones. I actually wonder if I see beauty this great to make me feel like this again?
                        "Mesmerizing, isn't it?" Lil's voice trickled into my little fantasy world as she approched me. I turned in complete shock and disturbance.
                        Lil came from the sliding glass doors and I couldn't hear since I was so caught up in powerful life.
                        She wore a black button down shirt and slashed jeans with flip flops. She had her blonde hair down her shoulders in waves that brung out her head, and her intense blue eyes. Her eyes looked more full and the bags under her eyes had seemed to slowly heal as well as her smile.
                         She looked more like Lil now.
"Totally unexpected from this place." I turned back to the running water, the heat from the sun beat down on me and warmed my bare arms. "Are we on the roof of the cathedral?"
                         "Mhmm." Lil came by my side and sat on the railing, looking back at the water.
"Be careful!" I grabbed her knee and she looked down on me with a 'oh my...' expression on her face, and smiled.
                         "Ammie, your wedding is in three days, we need your dress fitting and altered." With the mention of a wedding I really, desperately didn't want, I felt the blackness of my heart seep out like a can of soup. Lil felt it in the air and looked glum, actually looked uncomfortable. "I know you don't want this Ammie, and I know you want out of this whole thing-"
                         "Then get me outta here!" I pleaded and Lil's eyes looked haunted. "Bring me Nathan! Bring him to me!" Suddenly, my eyes burned like the sun and my nose began to irritate me. Then tears flooded from my eyes and I tried and failed at trying to stop.
                         My body shook as I tried to contain my misery, but it felt like everything was being rushed at me with spikes and horns and it felt like I deserved it. The harsh reality of me being here as a puppet, as a trophy, to be wed to someone so wretched and uncaring made me all the more angry.
                         "Hush, Ammie." Lil bent down and took me in her arms. She felt so familiar, like a pillow to hold when you're confused or broken. "This isn't your fault, it's Byron's." It felt good to know he's to blame. "I wish I could help, but if I do, both our lives would be in danger. If he can hit you, he won't be afraid to kill you, believe me." Lil smoothed my back while rocking me on the edge of the step.
                        Sobs started to ricochet my rib cage and felt extremely painfult to swallow them down, so I let them take over my own body. As they rocked my lungs and burned my eyes, Lil held me.
                         I know why Lil felt so familiar. So warm, so gentle...
Ever since my mother passed away, she'd been like a rock to me. When I was issued to see the counsellor, I couldn't pour my heart out like they wanted me to. But I did to Lil, like I'd known her forever. She had been there when no one was, she was like a step in for my mother. And that's why I found it so disbelieving when I found out she'd betratyed me. Betrayed my friends, the academy.
                        But no matter how much she's hurt me, I had came to forgive her. I just couldn't hate her, it wasn't in me to. It was like a virus, attacking the things bad in me, but it wouldn't attack the thoughts of Lil when she was beside Byron.
                        "C'mon, I need you to try your dress on." Lil tilted my chin up and smiled sadly at me, her eyes seeming hollow.
                        I stared back at her, my eyes boring into hers. I know I had no hope of Nathan coming to find me in the time of four days here, he'd had no leads and no where to start. How could he be here before the stupid wedding?
                       "Listen," Lil stood and dragged me up with her, I almost tripped on this silly white dress. "I know you have no hope left in Byron's palace of suck," That got a smile out of me. "But I believe help will come." Lil looked behind me and around then leaned in, and I smelt strawberries. "I believe Nathan will be here soon."
                        Even though I didn't want to (I couldn't!)  be filled with false hope, Lil's words acted like a single white light in a dark room. Somehow vanquishing the blackness that lurked in my everyday thoughts, in my hollow and empty mind.
                        "I miss him," I whispered to myself more than to Lil. "I need him. I need everyone." I rested my head on Lil's collarbone, she, again, rocked me til I was quiet. My eyes had stopped watering like a waterfall as I swept the last threads of tears from my face.
                        "Can you wait a little while longer?" Lil asked me, with high hopes in her voice.
I nodded my head. Knowing I had believed her words, I had came to trust her. I hope she was right, damn right, I begged she was right. 
                        Before we started to walk, embarrassment and doubt riddled through me in this dress.
"Byron didn't change me into this, did he?" I said with strain in my voice, my hand in Lil's.
                       She looked at me and bent over laughing, her eyes literally watering. It was quite annoying, but it brung a smile to my lips from hearing Lil's ridiculous laughter. "No, I wouldn't let him touch you, Ammie. Don't worry, I changed you 'cause he wanted you to wake up like that." Lil smiled at me, then her eyes appeared rough. "But he did carry you up here and wanted sat with you through the night. He is actually asleep now." The sick images I got in my head of Byron touching my braided hair in the night while watching me squirm and twist in the bed through the while veil was bug crawling, but at least I wasn't alone. But I wouldn't mind if it was Nathan that watched over me.