Chapter 5
A/N: All right, chapter 5 up. I wished I was getting more reviews, but I appreciate all the ones that have become regulars on here. (hugs). Anyway, here we see our favorite demon getting a little more social (although that's totally against his will). Have fun.
Sunday was the only day that the coffee shop was closed. Blackheart was grateful that there was at least one day of the week when he didn't have to be around so many people. Minimum wage didn't pay a whole lot, but it was at least more than he'd had. Now, he needed to work on getting out of Pam's place. He was grateful for her letting him stay there, but he didn't like having to depend on other people. Today, he was trying to find a place to live where he wasn't likely to get shot, stabbed, robbed, or go into debt. So far, the apartments were either too expensive or he had to worry about being killed in his sleep. His search took him through the park.
"Squishie! Hey! We're playing fetch, remember?"
Blackheart suppressed a curse as the familiar little wheat-colored dog went tearing across the grass, a bright red ball clutched in her mouth. Dawn was a few paces away, shaking her head.
"You goofy dog! Get back here!"
It took her a minute to wrestle the ball out of the dog's mouth. Squishie scratched at her legs, hardly containing her excitement over the chewed-up ball. Dawn threw it again and off she went. The wind blew her short, curly hair back from her face. With her well-worn black T-shirt and beat-up old jeans and bare feet, she looked like a child. Her black ballet flats had been discarded a few feet away. She looked up to see Blackheart, who was inwardly cursing his luck.
"Oh, look, it's the resident demon," she laughed.
Blackheart felt his adrenaline glands kick and he stared at her hard, trying to figure out just how much she knew. Cold fear iced over his veins and the anger wasn't intense enough to thaw it out.
"I'm only kidding," she laughed, seeing his face, "are you still living at Pam's?"
"Unfortunately," he mumbled.
"Oh, she's not that bad. She's just never had kids of her own to mother on," Dawn explained, "I take it you're trying to find a place of your own?"
How does she do that?
"You can always go down Blossom Street to Castlewood," she said as Squishie came back, "they're fairly cheap and they actually have locks that work."
It was difficult as Hell, but he choked out "thank you" before taking off. When he'd gotten far enough, he turned to look back at Dawn. She was shrieking with laughter at Squishie, who was now chasing another dog around. He shook his head and went the other way. That girl was much too easily amused.
It took a little while to get there. He decided that some form of transportation was going to be the next thing on the list. The summer heat was still baking hot and sweat was trickling down his forehead by the time he reached the place Dawn had been talking about.
Castlewood was three stories high. It was a plain brown brick building, but the owner had attempted to spruce it up with flowerbeds overflowing with brightly colored pansies. There were several children's toys outside some of the doors.
I hope I don't get one next to a bunch of kids.
From what he'd seen, human children were loud, unruly, and annoying. He had no desire to be around them.
The manager was a middle-aged woman with red hair and glasses. She wore a blue outfit and seemed tired beyond belief. She also looked down her nose as though she thought Blackheart wasn't good enough for this place.
"Well, this seems to be your lucky day," she sniffed, "we've had a client evicted about a month ago and he never came to retrieve his things, so you can have his place and whatever's there that you want. Rent is due at the first of the month, no excuses."
She tossed the key onto the counter and went chasing after a kid that was throwing water balloons at people who were coming in.
Blackheart took the key and wandered off.
The first thing he noticed was that the door seemed to stick. He pressed his shoulder against it and managed to get it open. Then, he could only stare.
It looked as though the last occupant of this place had just had a wild party. There were beer cans and bottles everywhere. The place reeked of alcohol and old food. Furniture had been tipped over in places. The barrier that had made the door hard to open was an overturned recliner. The only thing in here that didn't look like it had been touched was a shelf full of books.
The kitchen was by far the worst room in terms of cleanliness. Blackheart was no neat freak by far, but the smell would kill him if he had to deal with it too much more. It made his breakfast rise in his throat a little bit.
Then, a familiar scent caught his nose. The smell of sin was thick around the bedroom. He opened that door.
Immediately, he could tell why. The covers on the bed were twisted and half-off the bed. He could detect the scent of the former occupant and four or five different women. He smirked as he wondered if they had all been here in the same night.
It took all day to get the disgusting stuff out. There were about five or six trash-bags full of beer bottles and cans and bad food. He left the windows open while he was working so that the place would air out. He was tired by the time he decided to spend one more night at Pam's and knew this wouldn't help with work in the morning. Luckily, Pam was too busy to see him come in and he didn't have to talk to her.
Morning, as always, came too soon. He groaned slightly when the alarm on his cell phone, but forced himself to get up anyway. At least he had his new place to look forward to when work was over. It would be nice to have a place to go where he could have some privacy.
He got there just as "rush hour" as Dawn had affectionately named it started. Waves of zombie-like people who were just as tired as he was came forward. He couldn't fill the cups fast enough although he was getting better. Linda was working the grill today, so Dawn was running around like crazy taking orders to people. She didn't seem to feel very good, but she pushed herself anyway. He noticed that she was pale in the face.
Then, a familiar scent caught his trained nose. Wafting through the crowds, the scent of sin came to him. When she passed him again, he inhaled deeply and an image came to his mind.
He was kneeling to pet Squishie. He realized that he was seeing the world through Dawn's eyes instead of his own. It felt strange to be in a female body.
Then, the two thugs closed in. The familiar fear and recognition of them flooded him. He tried to run, but they captured him. One of them held a knife to her throat, the other one raped her. He was pinned helplessly against the wall as the assailant slammed into him over and over, causing his womb to scream in pain. Tears fell thickly, but he said nothing. It had happened before and it would happen again, he knew. Then, through his own eyes, he saw himself approaching the alley after Squishie had ran off. He saw himself smacking first one in the jaw, then the other just before he blacked out.
It wasn't Dawn's sin he was smelling. It was her attacker's. Apparently, they knew each other. And now, she was pregnant and she didn't know.
That made him cringe for some strange reason. It hadn't been her fault, but he wondered why on earth she hadn't gone to the hospital to take care of it. He'd heard of women having abortions before and they weren't condemned for it if they had a good reason, such as health problems. The laws on that had been unclear as well.
He noticed that she was disappearing a lot. She was probably having morning sickness. He didn't know why, but he started taking the orders out to the customers while she was gone. When Dawn returned, she was surprised to find that most of the customers had already been served. Despite the strange tension that always existed between them, she gave him a grateful smile and he found himself returning it for some odd reason.
Right then, a note appeared on the counter. He recognized his father's scratchy writing immediately.
Congratulations, kid. You thought of someone else before yourself. I'm impressed.
P.S. Watch out for Blaze. Here he comes.
His expression darkened slightly as Blaze came in the door. He hoped that Dawn would take Blaze's order.
Blaze sat down at one of the tables. Dawn went over to him with the little notepad in her hand. Blaze looked up and smiled. Blackheart scowled when Dawn's face flushed slightly. He wondered what the Ghost Rider had said to make Dawn beam so much. She wrote down his order and laughed at something else he said. Squishie also seemed to take to Blaze and he was now scratching behind her ears.
Dawn came back towards the kitchen. Blackheart couldn't suppress a smirk as she filled one cup with jelly beans.
What kind of a pansy eats jelly beans out of a martini glass, anyway? He's not that tough, Blackheart thought, remembering Blaze's old habit. The other cup was coffee laced with a variety of flavorings. Blaze seemed determined to become a diabetic.
She went back over to Blaze and gave him his coffee and jelly beans. He gestured to the chair beside him, but Dawn shook her head. Judging by her movements, she was telling him that she had work to do. Blaze seemed to be asking her another question. Dawn seemed uncertain as to the answer of that one. She seemed to be saying "I'll think about it".
Catching Blackheart's soured gaze, she looked up at him on her way back to get the other drinks.
"What?" she asked, genuinely confused.
He said nothing.
A grin slowly began creeping across Dawn's features and for some reason, it really, really annoyed him.
"Daemon, are you jealous?"
"No," he said a little too abruptly.
Dawn got the other tray of drinks and took them to table seven. Blaze was munching away at his candy and had his nose buried in some book. Squishie was laying in his lap as though the world was complete there. As much as Blackheart didn't care for Squishie, he wondered why she seemed to like Blaze better.
He got preoccupied with dealing with an irate bratty teenager who insisted that she had to have everything low fat and sugar free. He wanted to tell her that she looked like Hell anyway because all of her ribs were sticking out and what was she so worried about? The world had better problems to deal with than her issues. But, he couldn't. Yorke was watching. After finally giving her the drink she wanted and feeling his blood pressure boil, he was putting the lid on when Blaze appeared at the counter. He passed the girl her cup and she walked off in a huff.
Turquoise eyes hardened by loss and time met icy steel-blue eyes. Blackheart could have sworn that time absolutely stopped in that moment. He could have also sworn that his heart stopped beating for a moment.
"You look familiar," Blaze commented, "do I know you?"
Blackheart shook his head. Ordinarily, he would have hurled a load of insults at Blaze, but he was a little terrified at the thought of fighting him with no powers. He struggled to think of a nice white lie that would throw Blaze off of his trail, but he didn't have to. Blaze merely dropped the money on the counter and left.
Blackheart let out a breath that he hadn't even realized that he'd been holding. Sweat had popped out on his forehead and his legs suddenly felt like water.
"What's going on?"
He jumped. Dawn was right beside him, having seemingly come out of nowhere.
"Don't do that," he snapped as he put the money in the drawer, "it's never a good idea to sneak up on me."
Dawn's impish grin got on his nerves.
"Don't you have some tables to clear?" he asked irritably.
"Touchy," Dawn mumbled, walking away.
He watched her. After that encounter with Blaze, she was walking differently. Her back was straighter and her head wasn't drooping so much. It made him want to throw up.
Closing time cannot possibly come fast enough, he thought.