Sixteen
She watched Oliver's body with tears in her eyes, a scream bubbling at the base of her throat but lodged there. Just moments ago, Abraxas had been inside her head, taunting and berating her and making her say the words she regretted in a heartbeat.
...And then the next Oliver's neck had snapped and he pitched forward. Someone shouted, though whether it was her, the weird man in the duster, or the woman with the bloody mouth screaming, Lilith wasn't quite sure.
"You should be gone"... why did I say that?
It didn't matter now. She had said it – or maybe Abraxas had made her. Did she even have autonomy over her own body anymore?
Her thought was cut short as Abraxas's body dissolved into dust and Oliver hit the floor with a solid thud. For several moments there was only the gasps of the over-exerted and the thunder in Lilith's ears as she stared at her brother's body. Or would it be considered a corpse now? Still?
She watched as the tip of a spade-head tail reared from Oliver's backside and flicked at the air.
Definitely not a corpse, she decided. Oliver never had a tail. So then...She looked around her and at once her stomach flipped. The man behind her had winged hands coming out of his back, for God's sake!
I'm surrounded by monsters.
The moment Oliver's entire body twitched, someone grabbed her from behind and yanked her backwards. Panic – and heat – surged through her body and she reeled back to lash out – until another hand stopped her fist short. She stopped. Looked over.
The woman with blood on her mouth stared at her, pupils slitted and elongated fangs poking past her lips.
"You don't want to hit Magi Raphael," she said, a faint lisp to her words. Her fingers curled and she dug deeper into the fresh wounds Abraxas had made. "Trust me; you don't want to mess with any of us."
Even the winged man – Magi Raphael, was it? - ignored the woman's words. He pulled at Lilith again.
"We need to leave," he said in an icy voice. "Right now, or you're going to get killed."
Oliver's body jerked once more and Lilith's heart skipped to match his pace.
Even in death, we're connected, is that it? She turned her head and stared the man full in the face – though it was difficult with his off-white hair catching the light and burning her eyes.
"We can't leave Oliver," she said, though her voice was weaker than she'd intended it to be. "We..." She looked back to Oliver and the words caught in her throat.
He was fully upright, long and jagged claws erupted from the tips of his fingers. Embers burst into the air and drifted, turning from red to orange to grey in the blink of an eye. Lilith had never seen anything quite as enchanting – or batshit terrifying – in her entire life.
Another yank backwards broke her reverie. Magi Raphael must have given up on arguing with her, because with a single nod of his head, he let Lilith go and let the woman have her instead. Faster than Lilith's legs – or the rest of her – could process, they were bolting for the door and then outside. Cold wind hit Lilith full in the face, contrasted by the heat in her forearm.
"Come back, Little Dove!"
Lilith's stomach dropped. She glanced to the woman dragging her along and sighed.
Either I die in there or I die out here with her... And I can't go back in there.
Leafless trees framed the path. Lilith's feet pounded against the asphalt louder than her blood did in her ears. The back of her calves burned, but there was a prickling sensation in her that told her if she stopped, she would die.
As resigned as she was to her fate, she knew it couldn't end there. And so she kept running.
By the time the woman stopped her, Lilith felt as though her lungs were filled with icicles. Each breath stung as the air surged down her throat. Lilith wrenched her arm free of the woman's grasp and planted her hands on her knees, gasping again and again until she could breathe again.
The world spun on its axis once, twice... Three full times before all was still once more.
After a pregnant pause, the woman rubbed Lilith's back, her touch light against Lilith's shirt. "...Do you feel better?" she asked.
"That is quite a broad question," Lilith replied between faint coughs, "don't you think?"
"No, I don't think so."
A laugh escaped Lilith's lips before she could stop it, but it ended up as more of a dry cackle. "Really?" she replied. "My brother – my dead brother, mind you – is suddenly alive again, right around the time that some paranormal shitface starts messing with my thoughts. Between the sadistic fuckery in my brain and the literal fuckery that I'm witnessing, I would say that no, I am absolutely not okay by any means."
"He really is dead," the woman replied. "Just like I am. And physically, you seem in one piece."
Lilith rose from her hunched position and glared at the woman. "You completely skirted over... basically all of what I just said."
The woman's eyebrows rose. "What was I supposed to say?"
Another cold gust of wind hit Lilith's sweat-soaked body and turned her skin clammy and moist. She dropped her gaze.
"I mean... yes. Is it shitty that all of this is happening to you? Sure." The woman paused here and cocked her hip to the side. "But do you know what supernaturals are? What we come from?"
Lilith shook her head, skin crawling.
"Bad circumstances. Sometimes things we brought on ourselves and sometimes not." She paused again and blew a stray strand of hair away from her mouth. The frame of her glasses gleamed as she tilted her head and gave Lilith a once-over.
"You know," she said after a moment, "he talks about you a lot."
Lilith's stomach flipped. "He-he has?"
The woman nodded before biting her lip and folding her arms. She averted her gaze "Yeah... Perhaps more than he should."
"But he's..."
"Never come to see you? That's what you're worried about?"
"I..." Lilith's head drooped.
"He's been trying to protect you, you know."
"I never asked him to--"
The woman looked back, eyebrows arched. The ends of her hair seemed to bristle as she wrapped her fingers around her forearms. "You're right, you didn't," she replied in a sharp voice. "But maybe having a shred of decency, and a sense of sympathy for your own brother, would help matters."
"I--"
She held up a finger. "I mean, he just risked his life for you."
"I thought he was already dea--"
"And for another thing, he's been lamenting over you this whole time! And all he gets in response is this?"
Lilith's cheeks grew warm. Before she could stop herself, a laugh escaped her lips, slow at first, and rapidly bubbled, until Lilith was hunched over as she cackled into the grass. Tears pooled in the corners of her eyes and leaked down her face.
What am I even laughing for?
Oliver's voice filled her head. You know, you might be going crazy. He had told her that once, she thought as her laughter began to die. The back of her throat tickled. Her tears dripped onto the backs of her hands and dried before her eyes as she rose once more and regarded her skin.
Oh, Oliver. Maybe I'm going crazy after all? She let out one last cackle and turned back to the woman. It would be fitting, wouldn't it?
"I..." The woman blinked and dropped her hands. "That was harsh of me. I'm sorry."
Lilith nodded, any response she had dying before it could make it past her lips. Finally, after several moments to think, she looked back down again. A pit formed in her stomach.
"Why did you come? To my house, I mean? And how did you know...?"
"I happen to know Oliver, personally. And our boss called, telling me to get him. Guess he was as unsure of Johnson's return as I was. And then I saw the shadows massed outside your house and I came into the room and I saw..." The woman exhaled. "It's worse than I thought." She turned. "That's the one we've been looking for."
"'The one' what?"
"The Scourge."
"A-Abraxas?" Lilith's voice caught and she swallowed before continuing. "The guy in my house?"
"More like a monster." When she looked back to Lilith again, her pupils were slitted. "I suppose we're not much different from each other, though our similarities are sparse."
Lilith shrugged. "From what I've seen, you and my brother are much different than Abraxas, whatever he is."
"I appreciate that." Then the woman came forward and took Lilith by the shoulders. Though Lilith had expected her touch to be chilled, she wasn't prepared for the unrelenting heat that radiated from the woman's fingertips. Nor was she ready when the woman grabbed her by the jaw.
"What're you --"
"Do you have somewhere safe to hide?" she asked as she turned Lilith's head this way and that. "You're pretty, and your mind is especially tough, but not even we can handle the Scourge by ourselves."
"M-my friend's house, I guess?" Lilith reached to swat her away. "Why are you touching me?"
"I want you to go to your friend's, and I want you to do it now. Don't go back to your house. It's not safe for you."
"But my dad --"
"We will find a way to get your dad and his girlfriend out of there as well. For now" -- her eyes gleamed as she let Lilith's face go -- "you need to trust us. Do you trust me?"
"Not in the slightest."
"Good." The woman chuckled before a frown took over her face. "I would be wary if you didn't. Go to Jack's house, anyway."
Lilith's breath caught. "How did--"
"Don't question me." Her fangs slid past the rest of her teeth and pricked her bottom lip. "You'll know what you need to in good time."
With a shaky inhale, Lilith traced her own face and the spots of heat the woman's hand had left. "Can you... take care of my brother for me?"
The woman chuckled again. "It's what I've been doing this whole time."
Silence descended between them. A cold blast of wind lifted Lilith's hair off her shoulders and swirled it around her, obscuring her vision.
"It was very nice to meet you, Lilith."
When the wind stilled and Lilith could see again, the woman was gone.
"Who the hell was that?" she thought with a shiver. The spasm surged to the ends of her fingers and stayed there. While she dug around in her pockets for her phone, her hands continued to shake.
Like her best friend was wont to do, Jack answered on the first ring. "Lilith? What's wrong? We're almost to your house!"
"Uh..." Lilith sighed. "Change in plans. Don't come over."
"Why? Did something happen?"
She turned on her heel and glanced around. "Yeah, you could say that."
"What?"
"It sounds completely crazy." She grabbed her elbow with her free hand. "I would rather not tell you on the phone."
"Are you at your house right now?"
"No, I'm --" she paused. Where am I?
While Jack kept yammering in her ear, Lilith stopped and did a slow circle in place, eyes scanning for anything that might've been familiar to her. A few feet away, she saw a wooden bench. A tall lampost sprung from the ground beside it, painted flowers wreathing all the way up to the bulb.
At once, recognition flashed through Lilith's brain.
"--if we were already on our way to your --"
Lilith made a noise in her throat, cutting Jack off. "I ended up at the park."
"The park? Why there?"
'Why' indeed. "That is also a long story. Can you just come and get me? Please?"
"Yeah, sure. Fine." An audible exhale. "We'll be right there. Don't move this time."
#
She was laying on the grass when a shadow stepped in the way of the sun. Her fingers tingled from where she was laying on them with her head.
"Lil."
She cracked open one eye and stared at the silhouette standing over her. Though their form was mostly lost to the shadows, Lilith caught the tell-tale streaks of hair. Her stomach flipped.
"Jack."
"Good," Jack said as she squatted down. "You're not hurt. I was fearing the worst." Then she flicked Lilith in the nose. "Why'd you leave your house?"
At this point, Lilith's stomach had settled. Now it dropped like a stone. "I..." And another stone formed at the base of her throat. "Oh God..." Tears formed at the corners of her eyes, no matter how hard she tried to blink them away.
"Lil?" Jack frowned and leaned in closer. "What happened? You look like your dog got killed."
"I don't have a dog."
Jack reached out, but Lilith flinched back and she frowned in response. "Lil," she said again. "It's just me."
This time Lilith let her put a hand on her shoulder, though the gesture did nothing to relieve the weight on Lilith's body.
"Jack..." She hated the way her voice cracked, but she swallowed and continued on. "Bad th-things have h-h-happened today."
Jack's frown deepened in an instant. "What sort of bad things?"
"Jack... Oh God..." The lump grew until Lilith thought she would choke on it. Anything else she could have said got buried beneath the lump in her throat. The tears continued to form, until they overflowed and streamed down her cheeks.
"Oh no..." Jack clucked her tongue and pulled Lilith into her chest. "You don't sound okay at all, Lil... What happened?"
"It's..." Lilith stopped, took a deep breath, and tried again. "It's Oliver." And just like that, the dam broke. She clung to the sleeve of Jack's shirt and cried.
#
Hey guess what I entered the Wattys.