Even Better than That

(Day 42: Saturday Morning)

"Hey. What's up?"

Evie looks from the red dress up to Carlos, "What? You don't knock?"

"Sorry," he slowly answers as he walks into the room. "Mal is off exploring the kingdom with Jay. I didn't think you would be doing anything."

"That's besides the point," she furrows her eyebrows at him, before she lets out a calming breath and shakes her head. "What are you doing here anyway?"

"I'm bored," he complains.

"And you can't entertain yourself with homework and videogames?" Carlos doesn't respond, and she looks over at him again. "Look. I didn't mean it like that. It's just that I need to finish this dress before this afternoon, and the final details are just so hard to get when she isn't here to model it."

"I'm sorry." He turns around, "I'll just go, then."

Evie eyes him over, "Hold on." before she stands up and he turns back around. "How tall are you?"

He gives her a questioning look, "Five feet, six inches."

"Perfect," Evie smiles. "You should come over here and model this for me."

His jaw drops, "Uh-nah. No way."

"Come on, Carlos," Evie pleads. "My business is already tanking, since… well, since what happened." She smiles hopefully, "It would mean the world to me."

"No. Absolutely not," he insists, and then Evie frowns, eyeing the floor for a second. "I look enough like a girl the way it is. I don't need to be wearing some stupid dress too."

She looks back up at him sadly, "You think my dress is stupid?"

"No," Carlos sighs. "It's beautiful… I just don't want to wear it."

It's quiet for a moment, until Evie asks, "What if I pay you ten dollars?"

Carlos hesitates, "How long would I be doing this, exactly?"

Evie shrugs, "Anywhere between fifteen and forty-five minutes."

He lets out an irritable breath, "Make it fifteen dollars and we have a deal."

"Chad. What are you doing?"

"What I should have done in the first place," he answers as he turns to his girlfriend. "Defending you."

"Chad. I'm fine," Audrey insists, but he just keeps walking down the hallway. "You don't have to do this." She grabs hold of his arm, "Please. They have magic. You can't possibly fight them."

He widens his eyes in question, "You doubt me?"

"No," she softly lets out. "Of course, not. I just don't want to see you get hurt."

He shakes his head and continues forward, "I'm not the one that's going to get hurt."

Carlos grumbles as he looks down over the ruffles of the mini-dress, "I look like a rose."

"Yeah," Evie smiles as she stitches the clear and white glass beads onto the smooth fabric. "You even have the thorns."

He glances down at his hairy legs, "How much longer is this going to take?"

"I only have two more layers to do. Be patient."

"I don't want to be patient," Carlos complains as he goes to itch his arm, but the fishnet sleeve prevents him from doing so. "I can't believe you talked me into this."

"What can I say?" Evie slightly laughs. "I'm very persuasive."

Carlos shakes his head in response, before the door opens wide to reveal Chad and Audrey. Evie stands from her knees and yells, "Doesn't anyone know how to knock?" but then she sees who it is. "What are you doing here?"

It takes a minute for Chad to answer, "I'm here to defend my girlfriend from the evil, dragon hybrid Mal." He glances around the room. "Where is she?"

Evie rolls her eyes, "She's out with Jay." and she narrows her eyes at him. "And the fact that you chose to record your girlfriend getting attacked instead of attempting to defend her isn't going to change. You should have done that when you had the chance."

"Wait," Audrey steps in. "Did you just say that Mal is out with Jay right now?"

"Uh, yeah." Evie raises a hand, "And?"

"And she's dating Ben," Audrey debates. "She shouldn't be going off around with some other guy."

Evie laughs, "Wow. That's rich coming from you." and then Audrey frowns. "That's right. I know all about how you betrayed Ben. You should be ashamed of yourself."

"Well, in that case, so should Mal," she retorts.

"Mal and Jay are just friends."

"A guy and a girl can never be 'just friends'," Audrey strongly denies.

Evie inwardly laughs as a grin appears on her face, and she places a hand on her friend's shoulder, "You hear that, Carlos? A guy and a girl can never be just friends." before she leans over and kisses his cheek.

"Ewe. Don't do that," Carlos comments in disgust as he wipes at the spot with his hand. "I think you got lip-gloss on my face."

Evie turns back to the two intruders, and Audrey silences; however, Chad scrunches his face at the situation, "What's up with the dress?"

"I paid him to model it for me," Evie immediately answers. "He needed the money."

Chad starts to smile, "This is too perfect." before he takes out his phone.

Audrey lets out an irritable breath, "I thought you wanted to come here to make them pay, not to take pictures."

"Oh," Chad mischievously replies. "This will make them pay."

Carlos brings his left hand to his face, both in embarrassment and in a terrible attempt to hide himself from the camera, before Evie yells at them, "Stop that and get out of here." He doesn't stop, and she steps out in front of Carlos, "I said leave."

Audrey reaches for Chad's arm, "Maybe we should go."

"Why would we do that?" he laughs. "She's just a witch. She can't do magic." His smile falters, as he looks back at the blue haired girl, "Can you?"

"No," Evie answers, as she spots the magic mirror trying to get her attention. "I have something even better than that." She walks over to the glowing object and picks it up off of the bedside table, before she centers herself in front of the door. "This."

"What? Your mirror?" Chad tries to play it off. "You said all it did was find things."

"Oh," Evie maliciously grins. "It does so much more than that. It can find people too, and it can show me your darkest secrets." She sees the horror on their faces, "For now, though…" She holds the mirror up towards them, and then a bright light is released. The two intruders try to block it out with their arms, but eventually they have no other choice but to leave and shut the door behind them. Evie looks down at the mirror, "Thank you, very much."

"That's super weird," Carlos slowly comments.

Evie turns around and sees his expression, "What is?"

"Well. First off," Carlos slightly laughs with unease. "Aren't you supposed to have to rhyme or something for it to work?"

Evie laughs back, "Oh. No. Not at all. The mirror just likes it when I do that."

"The mirror likes it?" Carlos repeats.

"Yeah," she answers, her smile fading. "What's wrong with that?"

"Mirrors are inanimate objects," Carlos frustrates. "They don't have likes or dislikes. They don't have feelings."

Evie sees the red smoke appear inside the mirror and glances down at it, before she stares back up at Carlos, "You happy now? You upset it." She watches him eye the mirror. "It did us a great favor by getting that jerk and his skank out of here. I think you need to apologize."

When Evie holds the mirror up in front of him Carlos stares at it for a minute, before he takes a deep breath and calmly says, "I'm sorry." The smoke doesn't disappear. "I didn't mean to call you inanimate or to imply that you don't have feelings." This is ridiculous. The smoke fades and Carlos's mouth slightly drops, surprised that it actually worked.

Evie smiles, "Good. Now everyone is happy."

"Ah, no. Not me," Carlos denies. "I want to get out of this dress." Evie bends her head down as she laughs. "It's not funny. Chad posts literally everything. The entire school is going to see me in this thing."

She smiles at him, "Then ten more minutes won't hurt, will it?" He grumbles. "Come on. I'll give you an extra five dollars for your trouble."

- Nice chapter, huh? It's a little different than I normally do in regards to the breaks and going back-and-forth between characters/scenes, but I almost think that it makes it a little more dramatic. What do you think?