When, one day, the world just suddenly ends, Em stumbles into the nothing, an empty void that lies beneath the surface of reality, the sole occupants of which are malevolent shadow beings called glowdarks.
Only a select number of individuals possess...
"A little late for that, don't you think?" asks Mya, crossing her arms.
"Still." Ace shakes his head. "Get inside. Then we'll talk."
I wait for Topher to tell us what to do. It feels like it's been ages since I've taken orders from him. He seems unsure of himself. Hesitant. I'll bet he's gotten used to Comma and Em bossing us around.
Topher nods and ducks beneath the tarp, which makes a rippling crunch as it seemingly swallows him up. Not the most assuring sort of imagery. We just can't ever catch a break can we? "After you," I say, holding the tarp aside for Mya like a chivalrous dunce. Gail/Miu-sama shoves past me instead.
We don't sit inside the subway car, which looks just like the ones back home. Rows of thinly-cushioned seats on either end. Germ-infested metal poles in the middle. I could barely put up with a thirty-minute commute downtown without wanting to gouge my eyes out with a pencil; how do they expect us to live here? Well, if Jewel meant what she said, I suppose we won't be doing much living, here or anywhere else for that matter.
"Well?" Topher looks about as mean as a catfish taking a nap. "Is it true? Do you plan on killing us? Because I'll tell you right now: that's not going to end well. For you, I mean."
"We're kind of a force to be reckoned with," I say, flexing my muscles.
"You saw the kravlar demons back at the toll booth," says Ace.
We nod.
"They run this place. Barbaric, bloodthirsty fiends. Always at war with one another. Territory issues—your standard gang warfare. Two rival kravlar cliques start going at it, and you don't want to be anywhere within a ten-mile radius. But if there's one thing they all agree on, it's that humans are beneath them. Figuratively..." he waves his arms around, "and literally."
Mya snorts. "They didn't seem so tough."
Gail's eyes go white. "I calculated their collective combat potential to be exactly thirty-six point forty-eight units." That'd be Miu-sama then. "Units of what?" Back to Gail. "Units of combat potential. Weren't you listening?" This is getting confusing now. I think I liked it better when Miu-sama was an origami doll.
"Believe me; they're tough." The veins in Ace's forehead pulse as he says this. "Goons like Kag and Tuk... they're small-time. Their commander Rex, though? Whole 'nother matter." Ace sits down on one of those thinly-cushioned subway seats. "Rex and his goons answer to a demon named Dante. He's the boss of this district. And he's as mean as they come." He stumbles over his words a little. "He demands a tax."
"A tax?" Mya chuckles. "So he's a bureaucrat."
"This isn't your ordinary income tax," says Ace, getting a little snappy with his tone. "They claim one out of every five humans that migrate to this dimension as their personal property. And by claim, I mean maim, or worse."
Topher clenches his fists. "And you brought us here knowing that fact?"
"I had no choice," Ace utters, standing his ground. "There's a monthly quota. If we don't hand over at least two humans in taxes every month, they evict us. From our bodies, if you catch my drift. So Liluye and I make regular trips to the nothing to pick up new recruits."
"So you brought us here to die in order to save your own ass, is that it?"
"You're damn right I did. And I'd do it again. Actually, I'm going to, come next month." He sighs. "Look. We play by their rules. For now. But only until we gather enough force to overpower them. Then we'll fight back."
"Well you've got it," says Gail, leaning against the pole.
"What?"
"You need enough force to overpower the demons. Well we're it."
At this, Ace just starts laughing. I guess I would too, if I hadn't witnessed firsthand what Comma is capable of. "You're delusional. Again, if you think your friend with the scimitar stands a chance against—"
"I ain't talkin' about Comma." Gail narrows her eyes. "She ain't the only one in this group who can hold her own."
"That's news to me," I mutter.
Gail clears her throat. "Remind me, who was it that beat that psycho-elf into submission?"
"Point taken." I stick my chin up. "Come to think of it, I did teach that were-tiger a thing or two. He won't be messing with us again anytime soon."
"You let him escape," Topher points out.
"More like he ran with his tail between his legs."
"Damn straight!" Mya gives me a high-five—oh, lucky day!
"Enough!" Ace punches a hole right through the wall. "You think this is a joke?"
"Not at all." Gail/Miu-sama walks right over to him and elbows him in the chin. When he drops to his knees, she kicks him right in the gut. He nearly vomits. "As a matter of fact, we take threats very seriously."
Ace dabs at the blood on his busted lip. He growls. "You best get this through those thick skulls of yours; I'm not the one threatening you."
"Correct," I say, holding my glass shank up against his throat. "We're the ones threatening you." It's about damn time I got to say something cool. About damn time.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Author's Note:
Crawford has been promoted to a POV character! Did he not learn his lesson from what happened to Tahj? But let's be honest; his POV is the most fun, isn't it?
If you liked what you read, don't forget to support the story by clicking that star or leaving a comment below! Don't want to miss an update? Make sure to follow my profile or add Epilogue to one of your reading lists.
