Chapter Six

The next few days I was up there more often than not. Maxwell seemed determined to die, just to spite me. I was determined to make him live, to avenge Brian. And to spite him.

I started to wish I had kept the collar with me instead of throwing it. Because I then had to find some other way to keep Maxwell from killing me whenever I went up to make sure he wasn't dead, but I couldn't think of a damn thing. I shouldn't have thrown that collar. It had been my only bargaining chip.

In the end,when no other brilliant ideas came to mind,I had another one made, the same as the last, and went upstairs again, taking food (leftover pizza… I figured if he was hungry enough he would eat it; I wasn't spending any more money on him) and bandages with me.

Maxwell was lying on the couch, eyes half-closed, still heaving and rasping like he was barely able to breathe. Almost worse, in fact. And no wonder.

I could see a bruise around his neck the size and shape the collar had been. That wasn't the bad part, though. Where the garnets had touched his skin it was swollen, almost burnt-looking. Infected.

The gash in his shoulder, though, had disappeared entirely.

He looked up as I came towards him, growling softly and thrashing his tail around, but he doesn't get up, just went back to panting. I guessed he was too tired to try and fight me off.

I put the pizza down on the table in front of him. He twitched a wing, then rolled over and turned the row of spines along his back to me.

"Maxwell, stop being a bitch. You'd be dead by now if I hadn't come back."

No movement.

"Fine."

I left. Later on I would come back up to find the pizza I'd left was gone, but the Demon was lying the same way, breathing the same way, pretending not to notice me until I accidentally brushed up against him in going to retrieve the empty pizza box. Then I got bitten again.

It went on like that for weeks, with me, obviously not welcome but bringing the food and making sure the damn creature was still alive, and Maxwell either ignoring me completely or snarling and biting and slashing if I so much as touched him. I used more antiseptic shit in those two weeks than I had in the rest of my life put together.

Maxwell got better, though. So it was somewhat worth it. Maybe. The marks around his neck started to fade, and he could breathe again. He started sitting up and moving around rather than lying on the couch all day. He'd go to bed at night, have a bath during the day, whatever.

He got better but I felt like I had been gypped. Brian had taken himself from me and forced me to live with this inhuman mockery of him that did nothing but sneer at me. I felt more and more like I had become his slave, shittier and shittier. I became increasingly dependent on heroin again. I just had fix after fix to get me through.

It got me in trouble. One of the days, I had been high from morning to evening. As a result, I'd skipped two meals. Maxwell had missed three. Since he'd been a bitch at lunch the day before, I hadn't brought up dinner that night.

He was furious. I had made the mistake of creating a routine with him, which I later found out that Brian had never done. He'd kept him at bay with mind games, where I was being run all over.

He watched me with silent disgust, crouched on the back of the couch, as I came in with whatever I'd had to eat that night. His eyes followed me as I went and set it at the table like usual, but when I turned to leave, he lunged.

I heard the invisible sound of wings behind me as he jumped, then his claws raked down my back, sunk in, holding on there as he bit my shoulder. I panicked and bolted out, and he dropped back to the floor, snarling after me.

I slammed the door, but in my quick retreat, forgot to lock it…