The Unknown // Colby Brock

~~ Chapter Eleven ~~

Next thing I knew, he had flashed out of my room and Xepher was walking in. She gave me a smile like nothing was different, so I gave her a similar smile back.

"Hey, so I was wondering if you wanted to be bad with me today."

"Bad?" I questioned in amusement. She nodded with a big grin on her face and took my hand. She led me out of my room and down the hall to Kevin's, where I found Griffin, Kevin, Tara, and Cassie waiting inside.

"Okay, maybe not just me but hear us out," she explained, shutting the door behind us.

"As you know, there isn't really much we can do down here, and we've held off long enough without telling you that we can actually go to heaven without anybody - even Colby - knowing," Kevin said excitedly, eyes shimmering.

"There's more to do there and sometimes we play little pranks," Griffin agreed.

"And we've all been given the day off, so wanna come?" Tara finished.

I wanted to go with them, but something about their explanation threw me off. Colby wouldn't know about it, which probably meant he wasn't okay with it... but they still did it? I thought Colby's army was loyal but clearly not.

"I don't know. Why doesn't Colby know about it?" I asked lightly, pretending my true feelings didn't exist. Kevin and Griffin exchanged a nervous look.

"Colby forbids us to do anything heaven-related because of the whole drama. Assuming you still don't know, we won't tell you about that. But that means he would throw us in the prison for about a month if he found out," Cassie explained for me, motioning vaguely towards the prison's location.

I frowned to myself. As much as I wanted to experience what those who had actually gone to heaven had experienced, I didn't want to throw Colby and I's... fling off-track. So I bit the bullet and shook my head. "I'm not going to come with, sorry. But I won't say anything about it so you don't have to worry."

"Are you sure, Ari? I really want you to come," Xepher pouted. I just nodded my head and quickly left, jogging down the hallway. I had to check left and right before I dared to walk into Colby's room. It took me by surprise to see him in the middle of it shirtless only just pulling on a pair of pants. I almost squealed, but he flashed right beside me and held a hand over my mouth.

"Nothing you haven't seen before, calm," he assured giving me a stern look.

I slowly nodded so he let go of my mouth and flashed right back over to where he was next to his shirt. I walked over to him and took a seat on his bed.

"What did Xepher want?" he asked.

"She wanted to hang out but I just didn't feel like it." Lying felt wrong; really wrong. Even if I was lying for Xepher to keep her out of prison for a month, I still felt like I was doing something wrong. I was sinning in hell, how fitting.

"So you decided to come and spend time with me instead?"

"Yeah, I guess I did." I smiled at him kind of shyly as I brushed a strand of hair behind my ear. There was no shortage of those.

"Then how about we do something else instead of sitting in silence while I work?" he suggested, pulling me up to my feet. I raised a single brow at him in questioning, which made him grin and nod outside. "Let's go for a walk... and I want to show you something."

"Oh?"

"But I'm not saying anything yet. Come on." He seemed a little excited when he grabbed my hand and pulled me out of his room. I followed along behind him, ignoring Xepher walking out from Kevin's room already. Despite the fact that in almost every room somebody was around, Colby didn't let go of my hand. In fact, when he spotted Jake at the bottom of the stairs, I felt his fingers intertwining with mine.