Chapter 12

I was sleeping when something small and plastic smacked into my chest. It shouldn't have awoken me, but layers of taffeta was making me warm. I stirred, feeling around until I felt the familiar dipped indentations on a hanger's curve. Against my will, I shifted into a sitting position and slowly opened my eyes.

Opal was waiting on her side of the room, a white pleated boating dress hugging her breasts and threatening to show off more than even she would be comfortable with. I looked down at the fabric in my hands, intent on questioning her sanity when I paused. My eyes flashed up to her. "Oh my god, Opie...where did you get this?"

"That loser Shane decided he was going to try to win my love with presents and you're my size. Happy birthday."
I didn't even bother asking what loser Shane she was talking about, because it was gorgeous. It was a little much with her already shiny skin tone, but it was gorgeous nonetheless. It was like a prom dress with a little, clear halter strap; it might've been more teenage-suited if there was more than just the little amber stone between the breasts. My face went red; there were soft, padded cups covered by the interior slip. It was backless. The silky fabric was a tawny neutral covered in a gently shimmering silver patterned top layer. The patterning increased as it went lower, ending in a spurt of white taffeta from a built-in dual layer petticoat. I got up and held it up against my sweats; it came down just above my ankles. My eyes flashed up to Opal's. She smirked and gestured to our mutual bathroom.

"I can't take this," I replied.

"Oh my god. I'm not saying wear it out tomorrow, I'm just saying. It's not my color." If that was a pun on her sparkling, it missed me completely. I took it immediately into the closet and put it up on a hanger. She was flitting around the room in her white pleather flats with the sewn-on fabric bows, transferring things to a little silver clutch purse. I rose a brow. She smiled slightly, "I did keep this."

I shook my head. "Again?"

"I have a busy social life," she teased. I was tempted to ask if that loser Shane was getting a date, but knowing her, she'd pawned him off on Aaron. She turned to me with a teasing look as she clasped the front of her bag shut. "Don't have too much fun without me."

"I'm exhausted," I laughed. She rolled her eyes and grabbed the handle of the door, "Honestly, it wouldn't kill you to invite your boy toy over for a play date-"

I pulled it open for her and pushed her out, directly into the arms of a rather Satanic looking guy waiting on the other side. His hand had been raised to knock, but he caught her instead. Her face went red. I guessed this was Shane? He looked at me with the same questioning and reached out to pull the door shut. I waited on the other side, listening to the murmured voices with my lips pursed. Eventually, their footsteps faded away and I was left alone again. I had completely intended to make myself at home in my bed, but there was a sharp slam, like a car had come crashing through the wall, in the hallway. It might not have been shocking if we hadn't been on the third floor.

I ran to the door and threw it open only to have my best friend slam her body into it. My hair was strewn across my face very suddenly; call it paranoia, but my first thought was that a plane had hit the building.

"Opie!" I shouted, attempting to wrench it from her.

"No, no, no! Stay there! Do you hear me?! Stay there!"

I was waiting for some kind of roaring. Some kind of storm or a signal, but instead there was only silence. Ear-piercing, utterly vacuous silence. I opened my mouth to scream for Opal again when something very strange happened very quickly. As if something had exploded, I felt heat. It was slow at first, building, and then a rush. A slam. The door flew open. Opal fell in. I fell backward. She threw herself on top of me and pressed the flat side of her purse over my face to block me from the heat. I clung to her in return. If that was going to be it, we'd at least get to go together.

Her entire body went rigid and it was pulled, forcefully, away from mine. I threw her purse aside, letting it skitter across the floor under my bed, and launched myself upward. Not even all the poison and fangs in the world could make the guy holding her up bat an eye. He had her by the neck, white-blue eyes locked with mine like a yeti's ice crystal. He looked like a spirit. With the tattoos on his face, the deep surgical slices over his chest, I imagined he was scary on a good day. Opal looked at me, but I wasn't faltering because of his looks or the fact that he probably could've had me by the neck quickly too; I knew his jacket. Granite had one just like that.

"Girls," he said in a voice toned with practiced patience. "Let's have ourselves a nice little talk."

My eyes flicked back to the male behind him, the one who looked even more Satanic than he did. He looked at me, quirked a brow and unleashed a breath of fire. Judging by the frayed electrical cord peeking out from the elevator shaft behind him, they had been the ones making the noise. The spirit boy threw my best friend seemingly with all of his force into the room. She flew like a rag doll, slamming shoulders first into the wall hard enough to leave a hole. I ran to her. He swaggered in like he owned our room and everything in it, the both of us included. His friend shut the door behind him and waited outside. Did anyone even do that outside of really arrogant superhero movie villains anymore?

Opal blinked. I caught her face to try to bring her back to attention, but he caught my hands. I hissed in defensive shock. He dragged me away from her like I weighed absolutely nothing. "Shh. No one has to get hurt if you just talk with me."

"Big mistake." My teeth clamped down on his hand as my foot slammed into the instep of his. I turned to slam my palm into his face, but he hadn't flinched. He looked at my teeth embedded in his hand and raised the other. I regained sensory control on the floor. He had heavy boots that sat on either side of me, and very promptly, so did he. He weighed more than Granite. I slammed myself upward; he trapped my wrists in his hands. A scream of pain burst out of my mouth before I fully registered I had made the sound. Sharp, agonizing pain ripped through my lower body. He shifted. Something snapped. I gave, opening my hands and curling my toes in my socks.

"Are you through fighting?" he asked. I was being crushed. I wanted to scream and kick and cry, but it wouldn't get me anywhere. He got up suddenly. With the momentum of his hold, he tossed me with the same amount of rag-doll gentility onto my bed. At the very least, my hip cracked, and it was singing. He grabbed my chin, forcing me to meet his eyes. "I've spent a very long time looking for someone you seem to care about quite a bit. How about you just make it easy on me and tell me where to find him?"

I spit in his face. It was laced with the poison dripping from my fangs. He seemed to notice and turned his face so the spit hit his cheek and rolled off. He opened his eyes, looked me straight in mine, and slammed his closed fist down on my hip. If it wasn't broken before, it shattered. I screamed.

"If your fangs weren't useless outside your head, I'd rip them off!" he shouted. My sides felt like they were splitting. I wanted to fold into myself, but my body didn't want to move anymore. He slammed his stone fist into the wall a few times, punching holes like a stapler. He withdrew then, crossing the room and slamming Opal back into the wall. She cried out. I forced myself to move again, ignoring the brutal pain to scramble up and over to her bed to fling myself against his back and rip at the jacket on his shoulders. "Stop! STOP! I'll tell you whatever you want!"

His eyes flicked to me as if asking me really. Challenging me, threatening me. He slammed his closed fist into her mouth anyway. She blacked out instantly. Her hands dropped off his arms and I saw the blood pour from her nose. He dropped her without looking. When she hit the floor, crumpled like forgotten notes, something splattered from her mouth. It took me a second to realize it was blood and teeth. My lips trembled. He didn't have to touch me to get me to talk, he knew that. He met my level anyway and guided my face toward his with a finger on my chin.

"Where is Granite?"

"I don't know the address," I whispered, "I just know the house. It's a few blocks from here, at the edge of the city. The fountain i-in Sunstone Plaza...it's right off the main road. Right across the street from the house with the purple roses."

He withdrew his hand and I fell off the bed. Pain shot through my side, but my hands went through the blood to clean her airways. Shakily, I touched her neck, feeling for a pulse. Soft and erratic, I found it. My eyes blurred with tears; there was too much blood for something important to not have broken. I cradled her face, intending to hold her head in my lap until she woke up or until someone came to help us, but he grabbed my shoulder and dragged me away. I screamed, partially in defiance and partially in pain. Hauling me to my feet, he dragged me under his arm. I screamed and kicked with my good foot, trying to free myself. His arm came down on my opposite side like a vice, cutting off my breath and probably my circulation with that hit. My line of sight cleared when the tears fell. He hauled me out of my room and toward the service stairs.

"Don't leave her," I whispered, "Please. Please, she'll die, please."

His partner didn't follow. He went into the dorm. The spirit-looking boy chuckled and it sounded like the devil's himself. "Don't worry, she won't be alone. Keeping her alive is quite the incentive for you, isn't it?"

My jaw dropped. I struggled, earning a tighter squeeze. My fangs were dripping venom and I didn't want to run, I wanted to fight. Pain or no pain, my feet scraped the ground and I grabbed the opposite railing. He might've been strong, but I could be too. Searing, ripping, internal-bleeding-is-likely pain slammed up my body as I slammed myself forward and lurched him back. He pushed on my stomach and sent me flying. I hit the concrete wall hard enough to see stars before I fell, head first, down the last flight to the ground floor. My head snapped up instantly and I hissed, teeth bared with the promise of violence.

"That's a shame," he muttered. "Shetani liked her."

The pit of my aching stomach told me that he would've liked her either way. I hissed, venom dripping from my fangs while I heard the sharp, sudden scream. He waited patiently, his hands folded together behind his back, listening to her scream. I didn't want to know. To know would've made me cry, and I had to be strong.
It was when she stopped and he smiled that I broke.