When I tripped, I landed flat on my stomach. The impact of the cold on my nice hot skin, was tremendous.
I think I screamed louder than when I saw Mercury getting undressed.
It was a AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH -breath- AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH -breath- AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! Sort of scream.
Mercury on the other hand, froze, a comical look of shock on his face. If I wasn't so shocked myself, I would be laughing.
He stood, staring at my face -thankfully- his Adams Apple bobbed and I scrambled up and slammed the shower door shut. The clear spot on the door I had made before was still there so I stayed away from that area.
"Mercury," I shrieked, my heart pumping like Ussain Bolt's legs at the Olympics. "What are you doing in here? Get out!"
He muttered something and then began walking towards the shower, an angry step in his stride.
I grabbed the shower door and pulled against it, hoping he wouldn't try and open it.
He stood outside the door for a few seconds, his danger zone awfully close to the clear part of the shower screen.
"I said I was in the shower," my hands were starting to perspire from holding the door so tightly. " That means IM NAKED!"
Mercury regained himself and smirked, I could see it even through the fog that was starting to fade.
"You owe me a shower," he said, putting his hand on the door knob. " We haven't had one together in ages."
I choked on a laugh, not believing that he actually said that.
Oh, this bastard thought he was so sly.
"The last time we bathed together was when we were kids," he began pulling on the door so I made sure it stayed shut. " And we stopped showering together when we were like six."
He began tugging on the door. " So, I want to shower with you," oh, why did he have to say that? I almost let him come in. " Now."
No, I couldn't let him win. He was trying to drive me nuts and I couldn't let him. Strength. Resilience. I would resist this ridiculous attraction to an imaginary boy, that really doesn't seem all that imaginary.
D'oh. Why couldn't he be see-through, at least then it would be easier to remember he wasn't real, especially when he had beads of sweat running down his stomach...
Wait. His stomach. I could see it.
Mercury smiled down wolfishly at me and my eyes widened.
"No..."
He flung the door open and stepped inside.
Screaming I pushed on his chest but it didn't do anything but raise the temperature in the room.
He laughed, grabbing my arms, to stop me from punching him and I didn't dare kick his legs for fear of him trapping mine with his of I kicked his shins.
So, I did the one thing I could think of.
Yes. You guessed right.
I did what any other female character being cornered by an attractive not-really-a-love-interest would do.
No, it wasn't kicking him in the balls. Sadly, he was immune to that.
If you guessed right, you would know that I accidentally sent out a cry for help which was responded to almost immediately.
Birds flew in from the broken window, squirrels ran in and a whole array of woodland animals made themselves at chaos in my bathroom.
There were squeaks and squawks as animals clashed with animals in an attempt to hurt Mercury.
The squirrels began scratching his feet while the birds pecked him all over. Being in the corner of the shower, pressed up against the cold tiles, I was greeted with a mouth full of feathers, but I was too amazed by what was happening to care.
Mercury danced out of the shower in pain, trying to avoid the animals pecking at him. It probably didn't hurt him but it would have been annoying and disorienting in the least.
Along with Mercury's cries of alarm, the bathroom sounded like a mad house. I could only watch in amazement, covering myself with my hands, as the animals overpowered him.
A squirrel began digging on his head and he pulled it off and threw it at the wall.
"Hey!" I cried out, as it hit the wall with a crack.
This injuring of a fellow friend enraged the animals further and soon I could hardly see Mercury under all the animals.
With one last, dark look at me, Mercury disappeared, but not before grabbing and squashing a bird that had been pecking at his cheek.
As soon as he was gone, the animals, except the two injured ones, dispersed.
I remained frozen, still shocked from the speed with which the attack occurred. Feathers were littered all over the bathroom and I was pretty sure there were some stuck to my body.
There was a squeak of pain and I walked over to where the squirrel lay, it's leg twisted at a bad angle. Picking it up gently, I laid it in a bunch of towels, wincing at the squeaks.
"Don't worry," I reassured it. " Ill fix you."
Turning, I saw the animal that had been the last straw for Mercury. The bird lay on the floor, it's body crushed and mangled, from a single squeeze of Mercury's hands.
I don't know how he did it, but apparently he could touch animals.
This revelation frightened me.
Taking a plastic bag, I wrapped the bird up and thanked it for getting rid of Mercury, despite it being dead.
The ironic part was that the bird had been a pigeon.
***
Changing faster than I had before, I rushed to search up the local vet to take the squirrel to.
It could have been easier to just kill it with a rock and put it out of its misery but I didn't really want to kill something that had risked its life to answer my call for help. Mercury wasn't the big bad wolf but it had definitely helped my state of mind to get rid of him. There were several reasons for it.
Gently placing the squirrel in my bag, I closed the apartment and began to head for the vet.
The small amount of money I had made, working with Batty, had its uses, like an instance like this. They were still trying to get into Miguel, convinced he was a drug dealer, I wasn't actually sure if he was, so I planted fake evidence that said he had nothing to do with the drug industry because I didn't want to get caught hanging around a possible drug Lord. Miguel, well, mostly Amber, had insisted I head around for lessons on how to develop my powers but other than lights, talking to animals, and enhanced physical abilities, not much had happened.
There had been one training session, two days ago, after Mercury came back, when Miguel had tried to shock me into developing my powers. He also directed arrows of light at me which were mighty uncomfortable to deal with, I told him as much, but his only response was to appear behind me (he ran but it was too fast for me to see since I was sort of day dreaming) and slap my head.
The natural shadow walker abilities enhanced his slap to the point where I actually face planted into a puddle of mud.
"You've got to be kidding me!" I exclaimed, wiping mud out of my eyes and mouth. "I'm not going to develop abilities if you keep trying to scare me."
He looked thoughtful than nodded. "You're right," he began walking inside the house, totally oblivious to the fact that I was now Brown from the mud. "Come on, we'll have a break."
We walked through his unnecessarily large mansion and past the bathroom where I had had my first shadow world trip.
Miguel and Amber had continued trying to explain the shadow world to me. There were several things they couldn't tell me, no matter what way I thought to get around the rules that had apparently been set in place since Pandora, the smart ditz, opened her magic box.
" So, what happens when the angel that is hunting me finds me?" I asked during one of my sessions. Usually twice a week, I would go to Miguel's mansion for advice or practice or something else. There was one thing in common with all those times, we didn't do anything.
Turns out Miguel and I had one extra thing in common.
We didn't like helping people we find annoying and a nuisance, turn out, that was exactly what we were to each other.
"I don't know" Miguel said, crossing his arms. "It's not like I've been caught, right?"
"So, If you're hiding from them," I directed my question at Amber. Miguel was a pain to talk to. "You must know something in order to avoid them."
Amber had gotten a pained expression on her face. "I can't tell you more than the very basics," looking at me apologetically, her orange eyes were sad and her white hair framed her face like ice. "It's against the rules."
Sitting in Miguel's bathroom, we were on stools, watching as he gave himself a haircut. He was doing pretty well, but he was several hundreds of years old, so he would have had heaaps of practice.
" What rules?" Putting my face in my hands, my mind drifted off to my family. I missed them but was concentrated on the current conversation. 'It's not like rules can't be broken. Rules are made to be broken in the first place!"
"The rules of the Game," Miguel said, as he shaved the stubble off his neck in the mirror. "You have to abide by them, as a player. It's impossible to break them and if you manage to break them...well, it wouldn't be worth breaking them, unless you had some extreme motive."
The reason why were seated in a bathroom, as Miguel got ready for some sort of meeting, talking about the supernatural?
Because Miguel didn't want to make it a formal thing, since I was 'more of a bother than a guest'.
A set of annoyed orange eyes had stuck to him after that.
What I wouldn't do to have one of the twins glaring at me now. Either Dante's arrogant glare or George's stern glare it would mean that I still had a family and that was honestly the worst part of all of this.
"Well, I'm not a part of the game," I said, directing my thoughts away from the depressing thoughts of my family. " So I don't see why it matters."
"Of course you're a part of the game," Miguel snorted. "Everyone is. Some people aren't as involved but the majority of people are and some, like you and I, are very involved. Those are the repercussions of falling in love with an angel."
Amber nodded at what Miguel was saying, a tinge of desperation, regret and sadness on their faces.
Rubbing my forehead viciously, I groaned. " What have I told you?" I growled. "I didn't fall in love with an angel!"
Miguel abruptly stopped shaving and spun around to Amber. "Do you think she would believe us better if we cut he head off?" Amber gave him a disapproving look. "We would save her hunter some time. Seriously, Miss Valance, there is a reason you are here and have your abilities, it is because you are a shadow walker. You may not remember but somewhere out there, an angel is pining after you. You better believe it or you'll die."
"But I'm just so different from you," I listed off some of the sommon capabilities shadow walkers were supposed to have that I didn't. "I mean, I can't even remember anything, for God's sake. Maybe there's another reason I'm here."
"Like what?" Amber asked. "I didn't tell you this but every time an Angel falls, there is a shift in the cosmos. Before you appeared, there was a pretty significant shift. You are a shadow walker, Eveny. The sooner you accept it the more time you'll have to prepare "
That got me going. If some angel had fallen in love with me, why was I taking the blame for his actions?
"Wait until what? My hunter finally kills me?" I looked at Amber in disgust. "I don't want to live a life running all the time. I've said it before and I still believe it, I would much rather die than keep running. Or at least face and fight."
"Once you die, there is no reincarnation."
"Ill be killed either way!" I exploded. "At least if I die resisting I'll know that I'd done something in my life. How many other shadow walkers are there out there? hundreds? If we all banded together we could probably take down our hunters."
Amber shook her head. " It doesn't work like that," she said gravely. "You can't kill Angels. Especially not ones in His kingdom."
"Well there has to be a way. All games have a way to win and you said that we were players in the game," Miguel and Amber eyed me warily. " Ill figure out a way to beat the game."
"You can't," Amber moaned dreadfully. "Your chance to win was not falling in love with an angel, mine was not falling in love with a human.
I had almost forgotten she was fallen.
" We lost out right to win when we fell in love," she said. "That's something we can't change. We can only run and hope to see our lives one last time but even then, we won't."
Miguel had finished dressing himself and now stood behind Amber, looking at me in annoyance.
" Your stupidity will kill you," he said, doing his cufflinks. "It's time to run, you've out stayed your welcome. Your angel is probably onto us now."
I laughed in disbelief. "Really?" My voice was high and strained. "You don't want to find a way to live? Haven't you heard of hope? Either way, like you said, you won't see your lived one's so you might as well fight back."
Miguel moved closer to me and snarled. He actually pulled his lips back and snarled.
"I've lived as long as I have because I know not to trust something as stupid as hope," he spat. "Too many people have died, relying on it and I've lived this long because I was smart enough to do the one thing that we can do. Run. Or we'll die."
"Are you not hearing yourself?" I near screamed in disbelief. "we'll die anyway, and its not like you'll see your loved ones again. You might as well make the most of your miserable life until you die!"
My face had gone red and my finger was in the middle of Miguel's chest. Ambers mouth had dropped open in horror and she was staring at my, the insult was clear in her eyes. If ibhadnt been so angry, I would have felt bad but the stubborn look in Miguel's eyes said that he wouldn't even consider anything I had said, which truly broke my heart.
A draft of cool air drifted through the bathroom, too strong to be random, as it managed to blow Amber's hair across her face. Her eyes were locked on me, frozen in an emotion I couldnt name.
"You little bitch!" Miguel screamed at me. "Don't lecture me on how to survive. You were turned, what, months ago? You have no idea of what's in store and we won't be staying around to help. Your impulse will be your downfall and one day when you're staring down the tip of angel sword, you'll remember your stupidity and in that moment you'll be wishing you hadn't been so foolish to run to the arms of an angel!"
Amber flinched at the last word and went back to being a statue. Heat rushed through me and my eyes began tearing up without reason, falling from my eyes, the tears were like a tap, no break in the water.
"Perhaps you've been a shadow walker too long, Miguel," the heat in my chest flared. "You've forgotten what it is like to truly live and that will be your downfall. One day, you'll be be dying and when your life flashes before your eyes you will see nothing, just days of endless nothing!"
My voice had risen to a shout and the temperature in the bathroom had dropped even further, blowing Miguel's immaculate hair into the slightly messy up do that Mercury usually wore.
Amber's stare was non-stop but I wasn't paying attention to her. Miguel and I were glaring at each other so hard that my head was starting to hurt. I felt put of control and edgy but I couldn't stop.
The heat began spreading to my stomach and up my neck. There was a pressure behind my forehead that was slightly blocking my vision.
"I offered you help," snarled Miguel. "And you not only threw it back in my face but also had the nerve to insult me in my own home. You insolent puta. Your death will be no surprise, I hope when you die you will be all alone, no one to love or be loved by, tormented by the fact that no one will notice or remember your existence."
The heat became a rush of lava and a piercing pain hurt between my eyes.
My feet tripped forward and I couldn't control my body, it felt like some fiery monster had taken over my body and mind, leaving me in a small corner, trying to take back control.
It was like seeing myself from a third person point of view, the air around me on fire, crackling and burning.
No, not the air. It was the lights. They lit up around me like fire, twisting and snapping, reaching out to Miguel's face like longer fingers.
My hands grabbed Miguel's lapels and pulled him forward. His face was up against mine and I felt only an uncontrollable rage as I stared at him.
Then the pressure behind my head snapped and I began screaming. "I already died!" I heard my screams from another out-of-body perspective. "I know what to live for, whereas you have no purpose!"
The pain began to take over like one of those movie fade outs. The light got brighter and darker at the same time and I had the distinct feeling of leaving. The threads of reality began knitting itself around me, and vaguely, I acknowledged that I was melting into the shadow world, despite my terrible past experiences in it.
They watched me leave, the rage and lights starting to die down as the dirty shadow world enveloped me. It was only when the shadow world had almost closed around me that Amber's face transformed and she leapt up, running towards me.
" Wait " she shrieked. "I know what happened with your ange-"