TWO BIG WARNINGS: ONE - PLEASE NOTE RATING CHANGE! TWO - MAY BE TRIGGERING BECAUSE OF ATTEMPTED RAPE!
That's it. See end for rest of author's note.
Chapter Seventeen: Haunted House
Annie
I'm considered weird by 1970's standards for a multitude of reasons. Feminist? You betcha. Straight A student? No shit. Flaming lesbian with a sex drive through the roof? Hell yes. I count that as two, for the record.
My other weird thing? I can't stand drugs. Weed is fine – hell I've been doped to my eyeballs on that shit before – but the hard stuff I am not okay with. I see acid, or fairy dust, or whatever the fuck it is, and I flip my shit. I know I do. I don't care either; as far as I'm concerned that is lethal and you can leave. Period.
Which is why as soon as I see a syringe with an icky black substance in Elliot's pocket, I try to throw him out of the car while driving.
"Dude, no." I glare at the little glass tube I see sticking out of Elliot's pocket. I shove his shoulder so he smacks into the window. He whines and bats at my hands. "Like fuck you are doing that hardcore shit in my car." I swerve hard to the right trying to get him to hand it over. Elliot huffs at me, scowling hard.
"It's no big, Annie! One of the teachers gave it to me!" His face is bright red with anger. We've been arguing about this for the past ten minutes now on the way to Anya's house. We were supposed to hang out at the Haunted House. Now I just want to drop kick Elliot until he gets some common sense knocked into his tiny brain.
"Oh I guess that makes it okay then. Get your head out of your dick Elliot I know it was a female teacher!"
"So what's your point?" Elliot juts his chin out and glares at me. God I love him but he's a fucking moron where his penis is concerned. Seriously, what is it with guys and penises anyway? Not like they're all that great. I certainly don't think I'm missing out on anything.
"My point is just because you're so eager to get your brains fucked out doesn't mean you should do whatever some hot babe says you should do!" I make another swipe for the syringe, which he just holds out of my grasp. "Elliot!"
"Just drive, Annie. Not like I'm giving it to you too." He leans away from me, scowling hard. "Besides she said it wasn't that hard; I'm still going to be me when I'm on it."
…So not the problem I have with this.
"Right now I'd prefer you not be you and get a goddamn brain," I hiss venomously, purposefully slamming on the brakes so he smacks forward into the dashboard. While he's distracted I lurch out of the car, running up to the door of the mansion – still can't believe Anya's a rich girl by the way, she never acts like it – and knock frantically.
The door opens to a skinny white guy with bright red hair and freckles across his nose. He blinks at me, squinting a little. "Um… hi…"
"Anya here?" I ask impatiently. He brightens a little, a smile crooking the edge of his thin lips. With a careful nod he calls back into the house for my best friend. Glancing over my shoulder and tapping my foot, I see the tell-tale glint of sunlight on glass. "Oh you fucking ELLIOT!" I shout. The guy in the doorway looks startled. I ignore him and run back to the car.
The damn thing is empty when I get there and Elliot is smirking smugly. I smack the back of his head. Wonderful. Just wonderful. "STOP HITTING ME!" he screams. It startles m for a moment, the rage in his voice. The three of us are always smacking each other around – it's part of our wonderful-yet-fucked-up friendship. But Elliot is seething, nostrils flaring and eyes glaring out of thin slits. He looks like, I don't know, an animal in his anger.
"What the hell is going on?" Anya asks in bewilderment from behind me. Elliot shrinks before her voice and the momentarily terrifying thought dissipates. I turn to her in frustration, jabbing at the ignorant ass sitting dejectedly in my car.
"He just shot himself up with something! He doesn't even know what it was he just –"
"Annie, cool it." The pretty redhead brushes past me and kneels before Elliot with a frown. "Elle that was pretty stupid." His face is still red, and his nostrils flared, when he snarls at her.
"Fuck off bitch," he spits at her. Anya doesn't recoil though even as I bristle, raising a single dark brow in shock and tightening her mouth into a thin line. Which is somehow scarier on the tall redhead than my verbal bashing. When Anya's annoyed, she yells. When she goes quiet…
Luckily – for Elliot, Anya's knuckles, and my car (because cleaning blood off the seats is a bitch) – Elliot blinks in surprise. "I-I… Sorry Ahn, I don't…"
"It's okay," she says, face softening at the apology. Mine only hardens. Pushover. "Let's get you home so you can –"
"No!" Elliot cries, eyes widening in panic. "No I can't let my parents see me high again!" I snort.
"Probably should've thought of that before –"
"Annie not helping," Anya says sharply. She puffs a breath out from between her lips and shakes her head. Her eyes are still slightly angry and more than a little disappointed. Even I wince at that. She has this expression where you feel like you just let down the whole fucking world when she looks at you like that. She mentioned once that she gets it from her dad. I had to bite my tongue to keep asking which one? The way she glared after that let me know she knew I was thinking it. "C'mon. My dad's going to flip if we keep you here, he hates narcotics."
"I thought your brother smokes a pound of weed a day."
"That's not a narcotic, that's a necessary medication so Sean doesn't annoy us all to hell." She wrestles Elliot into the backseat, forcing him to lie down while I laugh at her pun and the ridiculousness of the overbearing too-tall nursemaid. "Let's go."
"Seriously? We're taking Mr. I'll-Shoot-Myself-Up-With-Anything-If-It-Gets-Me-Laid to a haunted house?" I ask incredulously, eyebrows raised. "What if he actually sees a ghost or something?"
"Meh. Stick his head outside, it's cold enough to sober him up enough that he stops hallucinating," Anya shrugs. Elliot makes a noise that has us turning our heads, frowning at each other in confusion. It sounded like… no, no it couldn't have been.
Elliot might think with his dick but he's not misogynistic about it. Or at least doesn't act like it. I shake my head and start the car. I'm tempted to leave him out over night until he freezes – damn Anya for being the nice one. And whoa that says way too much bad about me.
The ride is quiet. Too quiet. I try to force chatter, and Anya fakes a laugh at my pathetic jokes, but over time Elliot becomes quieter and quieter. I can see him shift into a sitting position at one point, back taught and hands folded in his lap, ankles crossed. It looks so odd on him that I choke on a giggle. He looks almost confident. Harsh yeah but this is Elliot. I've known him since grade school, and trust me, the kid's as confident as the wilted weeds he smokes. He stiffens in my vision when I turn to flash him a grin, eyes fixed to the scene out of the window. "Jeez Elliot, maybe you should take that more often. Now I don't have whack your ass with a ruler to get you to stand straight," I tease. One corner of his lips lifts in a smirk, and my smile falters.
That's not his smile. Not one I've seen at any rate.
"Shame," he remarks quietly. "Though I'd prefer if it was reversed." He goes quiet again, and Anya's stunned eyes meet mine. My skin is crawling over the muscles and blood beneath, hair rising on my arms. Anya turns bodily in her seat to rake her piercing green eyes over Elliot, narrowing them when he refuses to meet her gaze.
"Elliot you okay?" she asks in a concerned tone. I see his mouth lift into the smirk again.
"Wonderful, actually. Never felt so much like myself before," he answers. We fall into an uneasy silence after that.
I almost miss the turn to the house on purpose. Being confined to a car with him right now is bad enough. Being stuck with him in a creepy house? Not my cup of tea. But Anya shakes her head, grabbing my arm when the turn approaches. She opens her mouth, then shuts it with a wary glance behind her. Is it just me or do her curls stick straight up when she's agitated?
But no, I've seen her agitated plenty of times… But I've never seen her scared before.
I swallow and nod, getting her message anyway. We're still pretty close to her family's mansion; never really thought about it but this section of the woods borders her dad's property. Granted, it's a big fucking property, but still. Easy enough to get back to especially since Anya grew up in these woods. Somehow though as her eyes go out of focus I know she's not thinking of trees and getting lost if we need to get back to safety quickly.
I pause, that thought leaving me cold. Am I really afraid of Elliot? So afraid I'd run through the woods to get away from him? We've been friends since we still thought picking up spiders and throwing them at each other was funny as hell. Okay we still do that but the point is he's been my friend for as long as I remember. He would never hurt me.
Looking in the rear-view mirror though I know I am. Because usually I know without a doubt Elliot would never hurt me. And for that to remain true, despite his claims of feeling more like himself than he ever has, he'd still need to be Elliot.
He's the last out of the car when we arrive, his stride easy and measured and full of something that makes my teeth click together with a snap, even though his head remains down with that new smirk on his face. Anya glances back behind her with a furrowed brow, lips slightly parted. "What's wrong?" she murmurs. I shake my head, mute.
I know that walk. Saw it a hundred times when my step-dad came back from a hunt with his buddies. Not the honorable kind of course, the kind where you shoot as much as possible as fast as possible and came swaggering back like you're big and bad and no one can fucking touch you. A predator that just had a kill and is smugly wiping the blood from his teeth on a paw.
The only difference is he's got stealth of the hunter in that gait. Which is so not good.
I grip Anya's arm tightly as his smirk widens, visible even as he faces the ground. "Elliot? You okay?" Anya calls. He pauses, head cocking to the side as he regards his shoes. "Do you…. Do you want to go to the hospital or something?" she asks with uncertainty. Her hand closes around my own and squeezes tightly.
Elliot raises his head. I notice before she does, but she acts faster, a choked off gasp echoing in her throat for the two seconds it takes me to start talking.
"Elliot what's wrong with your –"
"ANNIE GET IN THE HOUSE!" Anya screams at the top of her lungs. She's running before the sentence is out of her mouth, pulling me along behind her viciously. My arm snaps taught with a painful stab and I let out a yelp. But she doesn't slow down, doesn't hesitate, powerful legs pumping as she drags us inside and slams the door shut, bolting it closed instantly.
"Jesus Anya!" I snap. "What the fu– Hey!" She's yanking again, charging up the stairs like a madwoman, throwing herself up them so fast I stumble and would have hit the floor if she hadn't caught my arm and thrown it around her neck without breaking stride. "Anya what the FUCK?" I snap but she shushes me, eyes wild and panicked.
"I-it's not him," she pants. "It's n-not oh fuck not again –" Her green eyes glitter with terrified tears and her hair, long as it is, is literally lifting around her face in flustered curls as it tries to stand straight on end. "H-how?!"
"Anya you're not – would you slow down?!" I hiss. She shakes her head and shoves my shoulder so hard I hit the ground. I whine and she shoves some more. It's only then that I realize she's trying to –
"Like fuck I'm getting under a goddamn bed!" I growl. She glares right back and punches me in the stomach so hard that I let out a wheeze, doubling over in the pain. Anya uses the opportunity to roll me under the bed and scuffle her feet over the evidence in the dust. My palms slam up as soon as I can draw breath, fighting it, fingers clawing into the intricate metalwork of the bed. No no no I want to know, what is going on, why is she freaking and his eyes black -
There's a sound like a canon downstairs, and I feel my eyes widen, my hands no longer resisting as she nudges me beneath the bed. Splinters of something that echoes with a waxy undertone ricochet below our feet. Anya's eye appears, wide and terrified. "Listen to me," she urges, the sound of feet slowly creaking up the stairs getting closer. "Think Charles help, okay? Think it as loud as you can. And for god's sake stay quiet –"
"Anya I don't –"
"Anya? Annie? Where'd you guys go?" Elliot asks, voice mildly pleasant and curious. Anya's eye disappears and the door opens silently inward, her converse-clad feet behind it. My breathe freezes in my throat as I watch. What is she doing? "Guys?" Elliot's voice picks up, closer now. "I didn't mean to scare you, is there something wrong with my eyes?" I suck in a lungful of air and hold my breath. She wants quiet I can do quiet. Even though it's Elliot and this is ridiculous –
His feet appear in the doorway, braced apart. Anya's shift minutely, secondly, against the floor, tilting at an angle towards the door. I go so very still, watching as he shuffles in an inch, two…
Anya slams the door into his body; I see the wood connect so hard he is propelled backwards, slamming into the frame before rolling to her feet. I lap a hand over my mouth to keep from crying out as she proceeds to kick at him, letting nothing back as she slams her foot into him repeatedly.
Oh God oh God OH GOD Charles HELP she's gonna KILL HIM -!
No sooner than I thought this then Elliot's hand blurred and an audible snap reaches me. A second later Anya's cry of pain does, and she stumbles, her ankle pulsing a deep, so-not-good-for-you red. He's fluid like water as he stands, not acting like he is at all effected by the beating he just took from a fucking track-runner. I'm transfixed for the ten seconds it takes him to stand without even a spasm of pain in his legs.
And then Anya's feet are gone and she's crashing into the closet with more force than even a football player can throw a damn ball. Glitter falls in an explosion, a mini big-bang, followed by two solid thumps. She rolls in the remains of the glass door, deep red seeping between the shards of glass on the floor. I bite back a sob, suddenly realizing what the stupid girl was doing.
Protecting. Always fucking protecting.
I should move. I should move and help her but she rolls until she faces me, slices across her face and blood oozing down the pale skin. I can't, I can't looking at her, my entire body frozen. Pain is etched into every surface of her face, but she still gives a tiny smirk. Still fighting. While I'm helpless. I'm fucking frozen, fucking useless –
She lunges, catching Elliot's leg and bringing him down with her clinging onto his legs. Eyes that were once dark but now engulfed by black glare up at her as she raises her fist and delivers blow after blow. The fierce smile she gave me becomes a smirk unlike any I've seen before. Practically a snarl, it rips across her face with all the fury of a wolf about to bite the head off of her cubs' assailant. Victorious in battle and ready to tear her teeth into the latest kill. Her knuckles quickly become purple with the force of her punches, blood running down Elliot's face and between her knuckles. Bang bang bang bang –
The best fighter in school.
Not enough.
I don't see him move. Don't see his leg shift, don't see the tell-tale tilt of his hips. But she's under him before I can blink, wrists locked in a grip that barely shows bone, yet she barely can wiggle her fingers. Still she struggles, kicking frantically and biting what she can reach. Elliot chuckles.
He chuckles.
"You know," he murmurs, blood dripping into Anya's eyes from his nose. "You're pretty good. Very strong." He sounds like he's talking about the weather. Anya gnashes her teeth at him and reels up from the waist, biting at his face. He smiles in an almost kindly manner, moving just slightly out of her reach. "I love to watch you fight," he says, conversationally. "I like how strong you are." His black eyes glitter. The whites are gone, I can see the black stretching from one corner to the other. Elliot's smile is still sweet.
The sound of grinding bone is not one you forget.
"But I'm stronger now," he continues, Anya's face contorting as she bites back a scream. His hands push so hard the pop of the bone shattering is nearly hidden beneath the creaking pressure. My hand flies up and I curl into myself. NO no no help her Charles HELP CHARLES! CHARLES HELP!
Warmth tugs at my mind, and I blink. What the -? Focus Annie. CHARLES HELP! The warmth morphs, becomes cold… shock? Yeah okay not mine so weird what-the-FUCK-ever HELP US HE'S GONE FUCKING NUTS! The cold sharpens and I gasp with the pain of it, a searing hatred blistering with icy shards through my mind. Okay so maybe mine but not entirely.
Elliot's hand moves and Anya's scream lets loose at whatever he's doing. It's not pain though, it's rage. Rage and the kind of fear every woman knows, deep down where some don't admit it exists. "GET OFF OF ME!" she shrieks, using her free hand to box him on the ear. I know when she hits something because all of a sudden super strong Elliot is screaming too.
He yanks her to her feet in a blur.
She kicks, her legs scrabbling for purchase.
I strain near the edge of the bed, trying to see better from under the mattress.
"Not worth it," Elliot says darkly.
A crack, like a gunshot.
The bit of her legs I see stay still. Utterly still. Elliot steps back and the left slides involuntarily, the right following, ending up in a heap of limbs. Torso next. Then head and arms. Fiery curls splay around in a dark halo around her face. Blood splattered white skin seems ghostly in the shadows of the room. She's supposed to get up, shakily, but still fighting.
She's supposed to.
Come on Anya…
She doesn't move.
Elliot snorts derisively and aims a kick at her head. I almost – almost – scream when Anya's head lolls back, bones popping against the skin of her rapidly purpling neck. I can't see much of her face. Parted lips. Eyelids up. Dark lashes. Green eye. Cut over her eyebrow dripping blood. No blinking.
I fight the urge to vomit.
No blinking.
No…
I know I've accidentally said it out loud. Or sucked in a breath. Or something. But for a moment I don't care; self-hatred and pain and grief clutching at my heart so hard it stutters in my chest. I deserve it. I let her hide me. Let her… Oh god…
No… Not Anya…
"Annie?" Elliot calls, his tone suddenly falsetto and shrieking. "Annie Anya went nuts! She attacked me!" His feet rove around, crunching on the glass on the floor. Agitated. He knows I'm around but not where. I feel the tears build and fall, dripping from my eyes and pooling on the floor. Anya still doesn't move.
Please please please…
She still doesn't move.
"Annie PLEASE!" Elliot screams. "I can't see I hurt she squished my fucking eye –"
Go Anya, I think with bitter hatred. The pressure in my mind recoils, and I bite back a whimper.
Then: We're coming. Stay still. In a rich British accent.
A male one so it's definitely not mine.
The feet move and I obey the voice, lying still. The presence withdraws and I tense. Now it's just me. Nothing else. Because I got Anya –
Don't finish that. Don't.
Don't make it worth noth- "AH!" A hand closes around my ankle, yanking me out from under the bed. Glass scrapes across my back and arms, snagging in my hair and slicing at my scalp. The wire frame of the bed rips a chunk of hair out. I feel blood soaking through my hair, warm and wet and sticky.
I don't scream until I see Elliot.
He's a fucking monster. Anya's broke his nose so it's practically concave in his face, and squished his right eye so it's nothing but a bloody pulp. The lid has sealed around the mess but blood and white puss still ooze from the socket. A few of his teeth are bloody stumps, more are chipped. He grins through a black eye and a myriad of bruises.
Somehow that's terrifying. Either he felt the beating and didn't care or he didn't feel it at all. Neither option is above bleak.
I don't think he likes that too much.
His hand is smacking across my cheek so hard I cry out. It throbs, something pulsing in warning against the skin. Elliot's other hand comes up and snaps my face back to his, own eye glaring down at me with black malice. He hits me again, and again, and again, one of my hands pinned to the floor and the other trying to grab at anything to make it stop. When he does, the relief of it makes my head spin. I don't notice where his other hand has gone to until too late.
"NO!" I scream, desperately grabbing at my pants and trying to yank them back up. That earns me a punch to the jaw. But this is a whole new level of instinct, one centuries of repression haven't bred out of us just quite yet. One that makes my hand connect with his other eye and push. It doesn't sink in – he snaps his eye shut before it can – but his head follows the movement anyway. Whatever the fuck he's on that is making him do this doesn't stop basic physics. Where his nose goes his head follows, and I scramble out from beneath him. He collapses back with a growl, hand already snaking for my pant leg. He tugs it down far enough that it gets twisted around my knees and my forearm crunches on glass. I kick and I kick hard, other hand scrambling out over the too-tiny shards, searching for anything…
My hand closes around a metal pole at the same time Elliot's rips my jeans.
Panic makes me swing, the rod heavier than I thought it would be. I think it's a curtain rod that broke off from when Anya – oh God oh God don't think about her – hit the door. So I'm just as surprised as Elliot when the head of an ax slices into his shoulder. We both blink. We both stare at where the blade protrudes from the juncture of his head and neck.
I'm out of the room and falling down the stairs after that.
Elliot roars, the sound unlike anything I've ever heard before. I whimper and stagger to my feet, stumble through the shattered front door.
Right back into male hands.
I scream and start swinging, connecting with a what feels like a nose and tripping over my own feet after that. There's a masculine yelp and then more hands, oh God too many pushing at me. "LET ME GO!" I scream.
"Hey hey Andrea. It's okay," a voice soothes. I glance around frantically and meet milky white eyes. Two palms are held up, slits across them.
Are those… lashes on his palms?
"It's okay," Milky-Eyes repeats. "You're safe. He went out the back when he heard us. He's gone." Shuffling. Too close. I hastily step back. "Hey," he says. My eyes snap to his. A small smile graces his face. "She's fine," he murmurs. "She's perfect actually."
"What?" a voice snaps, and I spin too quickly, the world rocking unpleasantly. When it refocuses it's centered on a man with ashy dark hair and a hard face, green eyes cut from emeralds. When his head turns the shadows dip into the stark hollows of his cheeks. His cheekbones are that same cut-a-piece-of-paper Anya has –
Oh.
Another voice responds, deeply concerned and pitched low. British. "Erik, please." Desperate. "Sh-she is probably…" His voice trails off. I squint, trying to focus. A man in a wheelchair, with dark hair, pale skin, and blue eyes that can melt the coldest heart. With Anya's worried frown.
Her parents. Fuck, her parents.
And hey her dad's in a wheelchair? Didn't know that.
"I-I-I-I." God my mouth isn't working. Those kind blue eyes alight on me, and I shudder in shame. I just sat there. I just… They widen and he shakes his head minutely.
"Don't," he says sharply. "This is not your fault." Like he knew.
"Check the river," Milky-Eyes says suddenly. "She's chasing him through the woods, you might be able to catch her. She's fine, Professor," he adds to the man in the wheelchair. The one standing takes off like someone lit a fire under his ass.
Just as well, because I'm pretty sure he would have killed me when I say, "But she's not. She's upstairs." My throat goes dry suddenly and I can't talk, the tears beginning to flow.
"Jesse could you –" the man in the wheelchair gestures at me. Milky-Eyes – Jesse – nods. I get it. I do. I'm second. Not a priority. I'm with them. Supposedly safe. Anya is –
"I –"
"Come along Andrea," Jesse says softly. "I'll take you back to our home." He reaches out, then hesitates when I flinch. The man in the wheelchair's eyes narrow as he takes in my ripped jeans and bloody face.
"Get her into the shower as soon as you get back," he orders. My eyes blink without permission.
Guess Anya got that from him too.
Jesse doesn't touch me, just jerks his head at the line of cars. I feel numb. Empty. He takes me to my own, practically invisible in the darkening sky. I slide into the passenger seat without comment and he gets into the driver's side. I should say something – probably a lot of things – about a blind man driving my car. But I don't.
I stare out the window and hope he crashes so the burning guilt goes away.
He doesn't.
Instead he drives in the dark for a long time, not speaking. Without warning he shuts off the headlights. I look up from the window, the sudden darkness jarring. He reaches a hand towards me and I recoil with a whimper. "Easy," he murmurs. "I'm not going to touch you." His sightless eyes are sympathetic and kind. "You're in shock," he continues. "There's a candy bar in the glove compartment; you need the sugar."
Elliot left it there. I don't take it. He sighs but nods, like he knows.
"You lied," I say instead to the window. I grit my teeth but force the words out anyway. "Anya's not chasing Elliot. She's dead." God I think I'm gonna throw up.
Jesse just cocks his head. "I know. But I didn't fully lie." I stare at him, seeing for the first time that one palm is facing the window while he drives with the other hand. Weirdo.
"She's dead," I say, more tightly, pissed off. "You know, a corpse? He snapped her fucking neck!"
"I'm aware," Jesse says calmly. "But you're wrong. She's fine. Pissed off but fine." He slows the car down to a creep, driving through the night like a shadow among shadows. When it stops, I grip the dashboard so tightly a nail breaks.
I absolutely do not panic.
"WHERE THE FUCK ARE WE?!"
Okay maybe a little.
"Sweetheart…" his voice trails away His palm still faces the windshield. My breath comes faster, beginning to saw through my chest with angry strokes. "Look."
His face doesn't leave the window. Suddenly it's illuminated by moonlight, every feature highlighted in silver.
Including the fucking eye on his palm.
Weirdly that's the one thing that calms me down. I mean, I'm not stupid, and Anya's not – wasn't – subtle. I knew she was living with or knew mutants. Seeing the actual proof is just a conclusion that is lost with the rest of the shock.
With a head shake I turn my face t the window too. The street is deserted and eerily lit by the moonlight. I'm too exhausted to give a real fuck about it. I lean my head back and stare anyway, because this is what you do when confronted with a weirdo mutant in the middle of the night after nearly being raped and watching you best friend get murdered. It's oddly comforting.
Watching two figures streak out of the woods at impossible speeds is not.
"JESUS FUCK!" I screech. Jesse laughs, the bullheaded cow-ass. The moonlight doesn't slow them down, but it does show the bright red hair flashing behind a stick figure. Hair I'd know anywhere. "Is that –"
"Yes." Jesse smiles slightly. "I told you she was chasing him."
My mouth is near my knees, but I pick it up to glare at him. He simply raises an eyebrow. "She wasn't okay. She was dead." And strong but not super humanly so last time I checked. Cause that wasn't normal running.
"Are you sure?" he smirks. I'm gonna kill him.
"Yes I saw it," I hissed. His smirk widens.
"You were under the bed." My heart and lungs stop.
He knew.
"And you're going to die for not warning us about that!" I scream, ramming my fist into his face. Or try to. He catches it with a deft hand and throws it carelessly away from him.
"I did," he said calmly. "I told Anya to bring an ax, just in case. Thought that was enough warning."
The reason I got away. So now I owe him my life. Great… Guess it means I can't kill him.
"That was… that was you?" I squeak out. He nods and slowly starts the car moving again.
"Yes. Now how about we get you cleaned up," he says, gentle again. I sag into the chair, boneless with relief.
"She was still dead," I say bluntly. Jesse just smiles.
"Not everything is as black or white as you think it is Andrea Pryde."
"You're psychic aren't you?" I huff out. "Only psychics are this infuriating."
"Thank you."
"Also, if you hurt my best friend ever again, I will hang your balls underneath my car and drag them back and forth to Pennsylvania before stapling them back to your dick and sanitizing the whole thing with hydrochloric acid." I pause as he splutters a laugh, letting the moment fade. "Will she… Will she be okay? Should we go after her?" I ask. He shakes his head, all laughter gone.
"No on both accounts."
Admit it; you thought the ax was for Anya.
And you thought I forgot the weirdos who attacked Anya as a kid. Shame on you guys! (Just teasing ;))
Okay so you know the drill! Let me know what you think!