Hi everyone. I'm posting two chapters tonight, and it's partly because this chapter is a bit of a shock at the end. Nobody dies.
Hopefully you'll move quickly onto the next when you get to it. Hopefully you'll continue with the story. There is light ahead.
With small, uncertain steps, Trixie walked through the halls of her school, past broken lockers - the contents hanging haphazardly and spilled out on the floor - past broken doors, and shining puddles of broken glass.
Her small body was shaking.
"Hello?" she called, one arm cross over her chest to grasp the other tight, her hand curled into a fist by her side.
Her voice flattened in the space.
She scanned each room she passed with a wide-eyed gaze.
Every single one was empty, littered with overturned chairs, shattered shelves and broken desks.
The entire school was broken.
How had this happened?
Where was everybody?
She stopped to listen for a moment, hoping to catch the sound of kids somewhere, or a teacher's voice going off in a monotone that made her want to sleep.
But the only thing she could hear was her own breathing.
A little fast.
A little scared.
She didn't want to be scared.
Her mom wouldn't be scared. Her mom would walk through here with her gun up and yell, and anybody who was up to something would stop and come out, their arms raised.
"Yeah," she whispered, sounding small.
She wished her mom was here.
Trixie frowned.
Wasn't she about to tell her mom something? Something important?
She couldn't really remember what that was anymore.
It couldn't have been too important.
She reached for the strap of her backpack, so she could get her phone out and call her mom.
But, she didn't have a bag.
Frowning, Trixie stared at her hand, as if by waiting and wanting, the phone might appear. It didn't, of course.
Because you couldn't just make things happen by thinking about them!
And now she couldn't call anybody!
Unless...
Clasping her hands in front of her face, she sent a little prayer.
Lucifer, I'm stuck in school! Can you come get me out?
She waited.
And waited.
Twisting her mouth thoughtfully, she closed her eyes tight and added to it.
Lucifer, I know you said never to do this again because the last time you flew me out of school mom was really upset and wouldn't do something important with you that you really liked, and I think I know what that was even though you wouldn't tell me, because I'm not five anymore you know, and, um, anyway, I need a lift out of school because everything's broken and I can't find anybody. Please help?
And she waited again.
And frowning, waiting longer still.
But he didn't come.
Punching her fists to her hips, Trixie glared down the littered hallway.
Fine. She didn't need him. She was going to find a phone, and she'd call her mom, and maybe she'd do a little detective work while she was waiting.
A flashlight, and a gun was all she'd need.
Scrunching her eyebrows, she realized she had no idea where to get either of those things.
But!
Trixie grinned.
She had the next best thing!
Moving quickly, she started down a side corridor, passing the stairwell and a trophy case, and finally reached the bank of lockers for 6th graders. They were just as broken as everything else, and she gasped as she saw her own stuff littering the floor - her pictures and books, the makeup she'd been trying out and hiding from her mom, the goofy stuffed unicorn with the plush rainbow fart her friend gave her, and the valentines day card from Mark covered in turtle stickers.
Gathering it all up again, she shoved it back in, caught the baseball that fell out and put it back, before reconsidering and pulling it out.
Then smiling, she stood on the shelf inside, and another adjacent, climbed on top of the lockers, and groped behind them.
With a shout of victory in Lilim, she plucked the Hell blade from its duct tape sheath behind her locker, and hopped back down again.
Adopting a stance of readiness, she clutched the baseball, twirled the blade into her palm, and stalked back down the hall.
Her eventual goal? The teacher's offices.
They'd have phones.
She'd certainly been in the principal's office enough to know that it had a phone!
The burst of bravery she'd felt holding the blade began to fade the deeper she went, until finally she was crouching from shadow to shadow and turning the steel doorknob that led to the principal's office, her heart thundering in her chest.
The office was untouched - nothing broken at all.
But somebody else was sitting in the chair. They were turned away from her, but she didn't recognize that hair. A big mess of dark brown.
Held up by a pink butterfly clip?
"Who are you?" she asked, without really thinking.
She realized very quickly afterwards that if she had been thinking, she would have just backed out of the door and run away.
The chair turned, slowly.
And a young man swung into view, grinning wickedly, his fingers steepled before his face.
His burning eyes left trails of black smoke.
"Hello, Second."
And he laughed.
"That was fun," he said, sinking back into the chair. "Do you know how many movies Lucifer watched where somebody did that? The whole chair reveal thing?"
Trixie shook her head slowly. Her grip closed tightly on the Hell blade, held just out of view.
"Are you a friend of Lucifer's?" she asked.
Because if he was, that was okay. Maybe he could help her get out of here?
He smirked, and spun on the chair a few times.
"I'm physically his son," he said, spinning away and back again. "Do you know how long I've been waiting here to do this? You took your time."
Trixie's mouth fell open.
"You're his SON?! He never told me that!" She burst into the room, smiling. "If they get married, we'll be brother and sister!"
The young man stopped spinning and stared at her.
He looked confused.
"Oh my GOD, we could have so much fun!" she squealed. "You like movies? I like movies too! My favorite movie is Wonder Woman. She's so cool. She's like pe-chaw! Pe-ching!"
Trixie danced around, pretending to deflect bullets with non-existent arm guards, then she whipped the air with a non-existent lasso, and followed it up with a slice from the Hell blade.
The young man watched her, smirking, then he pointed at the weapon.
"Hey, can I see that?"
Smiling, she walked up to him, and presented the blade so he could see it.
A brother! She'd always wanted a brother! This was awesome! They'd be able to play baseball together!
She needed to practice her pitching, and honestly, her mom was crap with a bat.
"Do you like baseball?" she asked, tossing up the ball she was still clutching, as the man took the blade from her hand.
"No, it's boring," he said bluntly, and snatching her wrist, he slapped her hand on the desk, and stabbed the blade down through the meat of her palm.
For one moment, Trixie stared at her bleeding hand, impaled and fixed to the desk, her eyes growing ever wider, her mouth stretching open.
Then the pain hit, and Trixie screamed.