"And actually, it is legal. A man breaks into my house…eh," he shrugged nonchalantly, as if we were discussing whether or not we should squash a bug. "I can do whatever I want to him."
"I don't think it works quite that way," I said, but I didn't push it anymore. I knew he wouldn't instigate conflict upon anyone, both because of his angel status and the fact that Ree didn't believe in acting so juvenile. I realized then that he may have been trying to scare Ethan into talking.
I was 'good cop' without even knowing what was going on. Damn, I was good.
"Who sent you to break in?" the bad cop asked.
Ethan looked at Ree in surprise.
Ree took a step closer to him. "That's right. I know you couldn't have done this by yourself. You barely make eye contact with us, and you're afraid of your own shadow."
"Adim sent you, didn't he?" Dess chimed in, having just come home from visiting—and quitting—work. She was inhaling a slice of pizza in a manner so casual it was disturbing. You'd have thought we were at a kid's birthday party instead of a bloody, sweaty interrogation.
Shocked, I whirled my body around to face her. "What do you mean, Dess?"
"Morgue, your bastard ex-boyfriend is keeping tabs on you. That's what I came home to tell you. He sent that hot-but-stupid nurse, the one who looked after you at the hospital, to spy on you. On all of us. She was in the parking lot at work, and I followed her where she had some cheesy status update meeting with Adim. Oh, that reminds me. Your check." She went into her purse and gave me an envelope.
I took it from her and walked over to my purse that was sitting on the kitchen counter, stuffing it inside. "Erica? Adim knows Erica?" I never saw that coming. I was also confused. How did all this make sense?
"Morgue, they're Melted. Both of them. For all we know, this dude"—she motioned her head toward Ethan—"is part of their little jamboree, their little Evildoers Alliance role-playing game." Dess guffawed at her own joke and opened the pizza box to get another slice. How she maintained her trim figure with all that she consumed was beyond me.
Ree and I turned to face Ethan at the same time. "Melted," Ree said in an amused tone. "Let me guess. You're Melted too, right?"
Ethan said nothing, looking down on the floor. He looked up and met my eyes briefly, then looked down again.
"Baby, do you mind going to our bedroom and sitting there for a moment?" Ree approached me and spoke quietly. "It has nothing to do with us being equal. Just for a moment. Please, trust me."
I looked at Ree full in the face, trying to read the meaning in his eyes. I knew somehow that Ree had a good reason for asking me to leave, although I had no idea what that reason was. I nodded and went to our bedroom, but left the door open a little. I sat on our mattress and listened carefully.
I heard Ethan's voice. "No. I'm not Melted. I'm a Choop."
"What is that?"
"That's the God Generation's word for someone like me, an ordinary person whose life is under contract with a demon, angel, or god."
"Choop. Interesting," Ree said in a tone that made me think he couldn't care less.
But it made me jump to my feet and walk back out there. Ethan wasn't cowering anymore, but he was still cornered by Ree, who still took on an alert stance. Dess leaned over the kitchen counter, lazily pushing a breadstick in her mouth. Everyone turned to look at me when I walked in, Ree giving me an exasperated I-can't-intimidate-this-guy-when-you-keep-interrupting look.
"What do you mean, your life is under contract, Ethan?" I asked, looking at him straight in the eye.
He flinched a little under my stare. "It's a deal an ordinary human can make with someone of the God Generation. I agree to do things for him, and in exchange, when I die, I become one of them."
"Which means that you're going to be a demon when you die," Ree reasoned.
"Why would you want to do that, Ethan?" I asked him, concerned. Why would someone want to make the switch from being human to being a force of evil?
"I'm bored with my life," he said simply, shrugging as if the fate of his soul didn't matter one way or another.
"Then why didn't you just go to the movies, dumbfuck?" Dess shouted. I looked over at her as she spoke, and so help me, she was eyeing the pizza box again.
Ethan didn't answer. He just stood there on the floor and rubbed his eyes.
I looked at Ree, who motioned that he wanted to talk to me alone. I nodded.
He looked at Dess and motioned to Ethan with his head, silently indicating that she should look after our 'prisoner' while he and I talked. She nodded and, taking the third slice of pizza which we all knew she would, walked over to Ethan slowly.
"Sit," she commanded. He did, sitting on the floor in the corner. Dess pulled up her ottoman with her left hand, placing it right in front of him and, as she ate the pizza, pushed on the very center of his chest with her right foot, which still wore that thin, pointed high heel. He sat back, fear completely immobilizing him.
I looked over my shoulder, watching this as Ree and I walked into our bedroom and closed the door behind us. "Dess scares me sometimes."
Ree smiled a bit and gave an appreciative chuckle. "She scares everyone. That's part of what makes her so exceptional." He regarded my face and searched my eyes. "I know a little bit about Choops, but pretended I didn't to see what Ethan had to say about it. Dess knows about it too, of course. It was one of the few things I was allowed to discuss with her growing up."
"Okay, I'll accept that explanation. So, please, explain what you know."
He recited the definition as if he'd memorized it for homework.
Which, in a sense, I suppose he had.
"A Choop is an ordinary human with no special spiritual background. On Earth they can be legally bound to a greater being by mutual contract, usually exchanging services for the promise that said Choop will join the ranks of his master upon death."
The doorbell rang.
Without further discussion, we left the room and were just in time to see Dess walking over to the front door. She leaned over to take a look through the peep hole and shouted, "Are you kidding me?"
Ree seemed to materialize right next to her. "Who is that?"
"The other dumbfuck. Adim," Dess replied, looking straight at me.
Not knowing what to do with this information, I sat at the kitchen table, watching Ethan bury his face in his hands.
Seeing Adim again? I didn't know if I was ready for this.
"He probably wants his minion back," Ree said, interrupting my thoughts. He unbolted the door.
"You're opening the door for him? He's completely nuts," Dess told him.
"He rang the doorbell. He's indicating that he wants to be civil."
"You obviously haven't met him."
"All right," Ree conceded, sighing. "I've watched enough of his actions from Morgan's point of view to know enough about his behavior. I'll see what he has to say, and we'll go from there."
He opened the door just enough to poke his head through. "Can I help you?"
"Let him go," I could hear Adim growl.
Ree glanced at me, moving his body so he stood between Adim and me. He opened the door all the way to give Adim a good view of Ethan.
"Leave us alone, both of you," Ree told Adim.
"You wanna fight with me, fucker?!" Before any of us could react, Adim jumped on Ree.
In one swift move, Ree had Adim by his throat and threw him against the wall, breaking a couple frames that had been innocently hanging there. Then he picked him up again and literally threw him out of the house, right back to where he had been standing outside.
"There's no need for this to get violent. Your friend here breaks in, and I stop him. You jump on me, barging in my house uninvited, spouting obscenities, and I throw you out. Now, are you going to continue to look ridiculous, or are you going to speak like a human being?"
Adim spit on the ground and said nothing, his eyes cold and focused on Ree.
"Oh, I get it,"
Dess chimed in. "You're one of those Melted pieces of crap that thinks he's a badass. A ruffian, as it were."
A laugh escaped my lips unexpectedly as I got to my feet and stood in the middle of the room. "But you're not," Dess went on. "Do you want to know what I know about you?" Dess took out her phone and pressed a couple buttons.
"Why don't you spend the night with me? I got some real good stuff from Trent. We'll have so much fucking fun, you'll never want to go home…"
Adim's recorded voice.
"Wait, Morgan!" he shouted from outside the door. He tried to run inside the house—right to me, I guess—but Ree stood firmly in his way. "I can explain."
I looked at Adim, sickened, shaking my head in disgust.
The recording was still playing, and I tuned in.
"I'm not interested, not in drugs and definitely not in you."
That last one was Erica's voice.
I looked at him quizzically, not because I felt betrayed, obviously, but because I started to wonder if he knew how pathetic he was. Did he always act like a sleazy snake? Was he like this when we were together? How well did I really know him?
Adim stood there, face red, trembling with anger and humiliation. "That's it, fuckers!"
He charged inside the house again, catching Ree off-guard and knocking him over. He aimed for Dess with his hands propped in front of him, as if he wanted to choke her. Ree recovered quickly and blocked him in a flash, throwing himself in front of his sister, forcing Adim's hands to end up around Ree's neck instead.
I had to do a double-take with what I saw next. Adim's hands began to glow red as if they were made of glass and someone slipped a lighted red candle inside of them. A wave of heat covered all of us like a blanket, making me feel like I've been thrown into the middle of a sauna. Ree shouted in pain and covered Adim's hands with his own, and soon his hands glowed as well, but his were lit up with an inner white glow instead of red. An avalanche of invisible frost spread throughout the room, neutralizing the temperature.
Adim screamed. The sizzling sound of a fire being quenched by water filled the room briefly, but Adim continued to try to choke Ree.
Dess dropped her phone and went over to them. "Stop!" she shouted, and I could hear the fear in her voice. I, on the other hand, seemed to have my feet cemented to the ground—I couldn't move, think, or breathe. My ex-boyfriend was trying to kill my current boyfriend. He couldn't kill Ree. He just couldn't. I wanted him alive, happy, and in my life.
Suddenly, Adim flew back by an unseen force and hit the kitchen wall violently, where he remained plastered against it. Confused, I looked at Dess, her forearm up above her head, as if she had swatted a giant fly. A fine white mist seemed to be flowing from Adim's heart to Dess's hands. She put her arm down, and the moment she did, he fell to the ground, nearly unconscious.
She was doing this to Adim. How?
I ran to Ree, who was still lying on the ground. He was breathing, but wounded, with a small red ring around his neck. "I'll get you some ice," I managed to say, kissing his forehead quickly and scrambling towards the kitchen.
I screamed in shock as a chunk of ice wrapped itself around my ankle.
I looked down, noticing that it wasn't a block of ice after all. It was Ree's hand, and although it wasn't glowing as bright as it was a moment ago, it still had an unreal shine to it.
"Sorry," he murmured, hastily removing his hand from my ankle. "Don't get me anything," he continued, his voice sounding scratchy and strained. "I have a built-in ice maker." He attempted a laugh and put his own hands around his neck, and I watched in awe as they shone bright white, that avalanche feeling enveloping us. I actually had to grab Ree's jacket that was hanging on a chair in the kitchen and put it on.
Kneeling next to Ree with my arms around him protectively, I tuned back into what was happening with Dess and Adim. Even though they were only a few feet away, I had almost forgotten about them. Dess was standing over Adim, watching him closely. He was screaming, but it was a very weak scream, almost as if he didn't have the strength for it. The mist I had seen earlier had disappeared.
"What happened? What did you do, Dess?" I asked her, thoroughly confused.
Adim remained on the ground, delirious and still not awake. Dess looked at me but still faced Adim's body warily. "I'm Lachesis, remember?" she asked with a dazzling smile. "I can shorten or lengthen life spans. Moving and stopping a body while I'm doing it is just part of the perks. Here's a fun guessing game. Which one do you think I chose to do with this prick—shorten or lengthen his life?"
"You've finished your unveiling! How—when –"
"Dunno, Morgue. I suppose when I saw Rios in danger, I got scared, and I just did it."
"Because you had to protect your brother."
"Ugh." She rolled her eyes. "Don't say it like that, Morgue. Then he'll walk around thinking I love him, or something."
I smiled at her embarrassment and walked over to Adim. "Is he alive? You didn't kill him, did you?"
She shook her head. "Nah. Took a couple weeks of his life."
"All that, and you only took two weeks?"
"Yeah," she replied with a wicked grin. "Just imagine how much it'd hurt if I took years away."
"Relax, Decima," I heard a sexy voice say.
Relieved, I walked over to an upright, perfectly healthy Ree and gave him a giant hug, holding onto him longer than I had to. "I was worried about you," I told him in a near-whisper.
"Never be worried about me. I'm a superhero, remember?"
"My former Living Guardian Angel, a Worthy angel," I corrected.
"I'm actually a superhero and an angel rolled into one. It enables me to do things no other mortal or immortal could possibly even try." I laughed a little and punched his arm. So much for modesty. "The line around your neck is gone. You fixed it!"
"Ice Touch. It's our defense against the demons' Fire Claws power."
"Fire Claws." I looked at Adim's and his hands, pondering. It was incredible to imagine that all this time I'd known Adim, he'd had this power. He never gave me the slightest clue that he was anything but human. Ethan obviously thought the demon lifestyle was the way to go. If Adim was so intent on looking macho all the time, why didn't he ever tell me about this, or show off for me?
It was so strange. Now that I've entered the world of the God Generation, there were members everywhere I looked. I just couldn't get away.
"Morgan," Ree said gently. "Did you ever consider it odd that he hit you with a frying pan, and it left that scar on your arm?" He motioned with his head to the patch of abnormal, discolored skin.
It was the first time anyone mentioned my scar without me feeling defensive about it. "He'd left the oven on. I was afraid to correct him at the time," I explained, grateful for the first time that I'd had that memory dream at the hospital.
"I know, Baby. I have your memories right here, and then some." He tapped the side of his head. "I had the benefit of observing some behind-the-scenes shots that you didn't see the first time around. When you left the kitchen to go to his sock drawer, Adim turned the oven off."
"What?" My heart stopped for a moment and my breath caught. Suddenly understanding, I slumped forward, shaking my head. "He heated up the pan with his hands," I said in defeat, recalling the wave of heat I experienced when I ran back in his apartment. "He'd probably known I was going to come back for my keys."
"Fucking coward," Dess muttered. "I should take the rest of his life away."
"Let him go, sis," Ree said, his voice still gentle, his hand somewhat over hers to ensure she didn't raise it in anger. "You don't know what kinds of thoughts I'm having, too. But I think we made our point today. We're not going to behave like demons. Besides, after this, he wouldn't dare try anything like this again. He probably won't even send his minions out after us, either."
Oh yeah. Ethan.
All three of us turned around simultaneously to where he had been sitting in the corner.
He was still ther
e, his back pressed against the wall as if he thought he might be able to break through it and escape.
"I had no idea he did that to you, Morgan," he uttered, his voice cracking. "I— I didn't know. I'm so sorry. I wish I could take it back so that he never hurt you." His eyes moistened as he shook his head to himself.
"How in the world did you get involved with a fuckwad like that?" Dess asked, her voice screeching.
"I didn't know," he repeated. "He showed me a great contract, and I agreed to it. I didn't know what type of person he was."
"Oh, but you knew he was a demon, and you thought that was okay, didja?"
"Dess," Ree said gently, rolling his eyes toward her and probably willing her to calm down.
"I never saw any of you guys use your powers," Ethan continued.
"Never? Not even Adim?" I asked, finding that hard to believe.
He scoffed a little. "Of course not. He tried to keep me out of the loop as much as possible."
"He's the king of assholes," Dess commented. She was now sitting on the kitchen countertop, her legs swinging like an 8-year-old and stuffing another breadstick in her mouth. How Dess found the appetite to eat after all that had happened was beyond me. "Why don't you take him and get out of here?" Ree suggested to Ethan in a calm manner.
Without another word, Ethan got up and picked Adim up, struggling a bit but finally managing to get him to walk. He put an arm around him and helped him walk out. "Someone else wanted me to watch you too, Morgan, but it has nothing to do with the God Generation."
What?
I looked up but didn't say anything. Ethan didn't say anything more as he helped the bewildered Adim to his car.
Ree stood at the door, watching them carefully. "Choose your battles wisely next time. Think of the people involved who could get hurt."
"I'm sorry," Ethan said simply.
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