The Worst In Me

2 - Sang

A/N: as you can probably imagine, there will be a very explicit scene in this chapter. I'm talkin' real explicit. I'll have a warning marker up saying when it starts and when it ends if you decide not to read it (you'll know when you see this: ***) and you can expect the same thing from now on when there are to be more smutty scenes. There aren't going to be any more author notes at the top warning you.

Just thought I should let you know because I really don't want comments saying it's gross or making any judgemental remarks about it when I very intentionally marked the story as mature.

Anyway, that's all. Enjoy!

❤

I have to hold back the nervous shakes that want to break free and take over my body, scared that I could make a mistake and screw up this whole assignment. Possibly even get myself hurt, which isn't an abnormal occurence for me anyways.

Earlier, Phil had asked me to be careful so that I don't come back with bruises and cuts, which tends to happen on occasion. What he doesn't know is that I don't get all of them from my assignments. I actually get most of them from my stepmother. Sometimes I could be doing nothing and she'd just attack me.

Sometimes I'll wash a dish wrong and she'll go off the wall. I've never known why she hates me. She used to be happy, for a time. But then she fell sick, and once my little brother Noah was born, everything went to shit.

She hates that he loves me more than he loves her—that he sees me as more of a mother to him than she is. But I honestly don't know what else she'd expect; she never spends any time with him, always ignores the love he tries to show her, never bothers hanging up his finger-paintings, never gets him dressed in the morning for his babysitter, never even feeds him.

I've taken care of him for the three short years he's been alive, since I was fourteen. Right now, he's at his friend's house, spending the night. I make sure he's never home alone with that monster, and I knew that I'd be gone tonight so I asked Gina, his friend Rylen's mom, if he could stay over for the night. She happens to be Academy, so she never hesitates to say yes. She doesn't know the entirety of my household situation, but she knows enough.

I only volunteered to come tonight because—yes, I may love the excitement that comes with danger, but I also love favors. Favors are what's going to make it possible for me to leave my house as soon as I turn eighteen—which is only a month away; Noah's is in two weeks—and adopt Noah as my own. Technically, since I'm a ghost, I can't legally do that and it doesn't matter if I wait until I'm eighteen. But through the Academy, anything is possible. And everything I do is for him.

Thinking about Noah, the only person I've ever truly loved besides Phil, gives me the strength to see this assignment through. So, with his beautiful, big green eyes, chubby little cheeks, and always-messy, feathery-brown hair in mind, I will myself to sit straighter and more confident as we pull up to the very luxurious-looking apartment complex.

Before I have a chance to step out of the super nice limo, Corey, Raven, and I all in the backseat--with them in the seat across from me--Corey steps out and opens the door for me, offering me his hand that I take without hesitation.

The whole ride here, which couldn't have been more than five minutes, felt simultaneously like a year and a second all at once. There was a little small talk, with them mostly just wanting to know about me. (I didn't miss that detail.) And there were many, many heated stares passed around between, I'll admit, the three of us.

I know this is just an assignment, but part of me is actually excited for what's about to transpire—the most selfish, wicked part of me. But I don't let myself dwell on the thought, for it'll just get me in my head and this whole thing will be over before it's even started.