A/N: Sorry for the wait! And sorry that this is so short-multiple chapters today instead of one long one! Happy holidays, by the way.
"Are you sure? It'll be fun." Robin asks me. I sigh. "I don't do fun."
"Okay, then." He turns to the others. "What movie are we going to, again?"
"It's a debate. Wicked Scary-Doomsday or Tiger Claws 2." Cyborg tells him.
Once they decide, they take off, heading first to pick up Flash and Jinx, then to go to the movie. They leave behind Beast Boy on his Gamestation and me in my room reading. I flip the page as they yowl goodbye.
Ten minutes later, they've momentarily retreated. Sparrow's pulling Wolf up onto his horse. He mounts another, and Tadpole tells him, "Take Wolf back to the others. Tell them what happened. We can hold on until. . ."
I tell the pixies it's going to be okay, but my voice trails away like my boyfriend's did. They gallop away, and I look at him as they leave. "What do we do?"
"I don't know." His voice is just as quiet and whimpery as mine is.
I see an imp sneaking up behind Tadpole, but before I can warn him, someone much stronger than me binds my hands together. A white cloth covers my mouth, and one panicked thought rings through my head before I pass out. This handkerchief is soaked in some of that sleep-gas stuff!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
I wake up to a dark cave. My mind is foggy for a minute until I notice what I'm wearing. Names flash through my head along with memories. Lily. Misty. Tadpole.
A moaning noise beside me causes me to turn my head. Groggily, Tadpole is waking beside me. "Tadpole! You're hurt!"
I see one side of his face is scratched up where it had hit the floor. Blood is oozing between the pieces of metal on the armor he's wearing. "It's nothing, Shadow."
Even talking hurts him. "Oh, ooh. . . ."
"Hey, Rae," Beast Boy says from outside of my closed door. "You wanna come play?"
"No." I tell him in my usual monotone. I hear him ask, "Oh, come on. I picked this game special for you!"
"Fine." I walk out into the living room with him and he hands me one of the flat silver controllers. "It's called Quantium Blades. All you do is attack me, and I'll try to attack you."
"So all I do is kill you? Okay." I'm alone with BB! It's just us, being friends, oh. . . . Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos. Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos. Azarath. . . Metrion. . . . Zinthos.
"Yeah, that's right!" The game comes up, and we create our characters. Mine wears dark blue, and Beast Boy's has the greenest of eyes. We each have five lives and are armed with swords. Hours later, I've lost two lives and just taken BB's third. "Oh, give me a chance, Raven!"
"I am!" The sound of metal upon metal rings out from the TV. I slash at him, and when Robin calls us on our communicators to check up on us, we answer, "Fine. Having fun."
"We're going to a midnight showing, if that's okay with you two." He says. We nod. "Yeah, you go on and have fun."
Beast Boy manages to win, and we head to the kitchen for a game-break snack. "Ugh! Why is there never any food in this fridge?"
"Do you want to order a veggie pizza or something?" I ask. He whirls around, shocked.
"I thought you hated pizza."
"I do, but I'm starving. I'll eat anything." He nods and picks up the phone to call for delivery.
It's twenty minutes until the pizza arrives, which means we didn't have to pay for it. That's good, because we realized neither of us have money. After we eat, I head down the hall to my room. Beast Boy having been on a bathroom break, he runs into me on my way. I fall and slam my head on the floor, he tumbles down beside me. "Oh, Rae, I'm so sorry."
He gets up and pulls me to my feet. I grab my head, which hurts badly. "You're bleeding. Let's go get that cleaned up."
When he bandages my wound up, which is a deep cut, his eyes meet mine. For a breathless second, we're still. He whispers, "Raven."
He moves closer to me, silently, and our lips touch. Unsure of how to act, I freeze. Then I kiss him back, with a fire I haven't felt since I loved Malchior. I shiver as we pull apart. The silence of the tower is all that happens in the next moment. We're so close, my hands are in his hair now, his are on my back.
Whoo. . . whoo. . . The intruder alert rings out. I race to the computer. Scanning the tower, I can't spot anything-until I turn around and see them. BB is suddenly beside me, my hands glowing black and him morphing into a tiger.
Malchoir and Adonis are attacking us.
A/N: The excerpt from the book Raven is reading is from my story "Shadow Hunters," which is actually a real book. You can check it out on my website(link is on my profile).
As always, reviews are appreciated.