I don't own anything

Chapter 8

Jace grinned as he and Marshall got together all their guys.

"Don't we have anymore guns?" Jace demanded as he looked at his own pistol and the two shotguns in the group, including the one Marshall carried. Crissy came out with a pistol tucked in her pants. The other boys and the odd girl or two that came with them were armed with knives and a mix of bats, two-by-fours, and pipes.

There was ten people total, counting Jace, Marshall, and Crissy. Not everyone wanted to go up against a bullet proof freak and a well armed group.

Crissy had found a black vest that looked like a bullet proof vest from a cop. "Yeah, we have plenty of guns, but not enough bullets, care to get us some?"

Jace snorted and ignored Marshall's glare. "Yeah where did you want me to pull those out from?"

"Shut it, Ace," Marshall said and shoved him.

Jace just smirked. "You should be the one shutting it. Boss man sir, who do people go after when they get attacked if they're smart?" He laughed at the red head's dumb look. "The boss, be smart boss man."

Jace's cold grin stayed in place as he sauntered over with the rest of the guards. "Be ready guys, the girl we're going after, my pal Dwight shot her right in the chest."

"What d'ya mean?" Asked one of the younger guys. "Like, she's dead or what?"

Jace shook his head. "She's a freak and bullet proof. Can't feel anything. She's like a crocodile covered in scales."

"But, Ace,… how can we do anything with her?"

"Hopefully we catch her before they come out." Jace shrugged and turned as Marshall and Crissy came over. "Well looks like it's time to go."

Crissy grabbed him and pulled him closer. "You shut up and quit messing with their heads, I'm only taking you to put you at the front in case they decide to shoot."

"Let's go," Marshall called, and true to Crissy's word. Jace was pushed at the front.

A sweat started to break out over Jace's brow. He dealt with the Jacks before and had to deal with Crissy's friend shoving a gun in his back. He didn't think they would stop this time around, he wouldn't.

"Where are we going?" asked one of the bouncers.

Jace glanced over his shoulder. "Up above the highway."

"Do you think, you should get Jean to come too?" Marshall asked and looked over a at house.

Crissy shook her. "No. I don't need everyone knowing we're friends. That wouldn't help her be useful to me."

Jace sighed, Crissy was a smart one. As mad her as he was, he had to admire that. That didn't change that he still wanted to snap her neck after today if everything didn't go how he hoped. Jace's cold blue eyes saw someone up ahead, and his mouth turned up at the corners.

"Crissy," he hissed. "You have the chance to get a great playing card."

Crissy's eyes glanced up and she saw the hulking girl. "All of you; get her. Tie her up with the belt. Go."

The boys took off running.

Jace was at the lead and slowed his pace so some of the overly anxious ones would get there first. The boys yelled, or called out names but, Jace was ready for what was coming.

"Get back!" Athene yelled. She ran her hands up her arms as scales ripped out, covering up to her neck and the hand that was wrapping around her pistol. "I'll shoot." She started to level the pistol into the throng of running guys.

A shot was fired and the boys scattered, losing their focus. Jace had been ready. He fired a round back, aiming at her chest.

Athene stumbled back as the breath was knocked from her lungs.

"Grab her!" Jace yelled.

Athene rose to her knees and smacked in the back with a bat. "Get off me!" she screamed.

"Watch her scales!" Jace called as one boy was slashed across the legs.

"Get away!" Athene thrashed as a couple of the bigger guys with leather gloves pulled her arms down and back and started to take leather straps to tie her arms back behind her.

The boys were overcome by the adrenaline. Fists, bats, shoes rained down on the freak, and Jace didn't do anything.

Athene let out a scream as scales exploded from her body. Thick broad slabs grew from the base of her neck building a hood over her head and up her face, covering everything but her eyes. Rips in her pants appeared as scales rippled through them.

"Get back!" Crissy yelled as she approached. "Let me look at her.

The scaled mass on the ground was breathing heavily and mumbling, almost sobbing. Jace could barely understand her.

"Look at me!" Crissy yelled.

Athene's head slowly tipped up. Jace's mouth twitched into a smirk as he saw just the slightest hesitation in Crissy's eyes looking down at the beaten girl.

Jace's own cold glare looked down at the girl that had played a hand in humiliating him. He smirked as he saw thick tears running down her eyes and over the scales.

Murmuring from the guys started to rise.

"Eww."

"Is she like Orc?"

"That's gross, dude."

The comments kept coming.

"Worthless freaks." Crissy shook her head as she watched the girl. "It's disgusting watching those things come out of you, you know that right?"

Athene's head fell and tears dripped down into a puddle at her feet.

Jace had done it. Out of Will, Nikki, Aerik, and Dwight, this was the strongest out of all of them. Athene was the reason and the control. Aerik was the inspiration to all of them. Will was the unsure one. Nikki was cunning and unpredictable. Dwight was loyal and defensive. Will was defeated with his brother dead. Without Athene though, the others would come crumbling down. The girl that had torn through his guys like they were made of butter was battered and broken, and looked like an animal. One down, only four more to go.

Today was his lucky day.

~x~X~x~

Will scrambled through the broken window and fell to the floor with a thump. His eye sight was bleary and his nose hurt, but he could make all that better. He cupped his hand over the end of the spray pain he kept on hand.

Paint smeared across his face but he didn't care. He looked through the house, looking for anything. He found a little packet of some type of pills under a couch cushion and some wood staining liquid. He took deep breaths out of the bottle of stain and swallowed a couple of the pills dry.

This was his life. He did everything he could to just forget. Let all the worries wash away like they never existed.

He couldn't get them all to go away though. As his head cleared, that stabbing memory came back to him. His brother's body being beaten by its own coughing kept sounding in his ears. The little boy's cries for his mom and his bunny bit at his neck.

It caused his stomach to twist and threaten to come up, his eyes to hurt and his nose to run.

Then he would take a long draw out of the paint can and forget most of it. Some of the pain at least.

He took another deep breath out of the stain.

It was just a temporary fix, though. The pain of the dying boy was haunting him in the waking nightmares he lived.

His fifteenth birthday was too far, he didn't think he could handle it all up until then. There had to be better way.

There was.

He looked down at the rest of the pills he had. Maybe if he swallowed all of them, that should be quick and painless.

Without thinking too long on it he swallowed them all down, too many for his fuzzy head to count.

He sat there on the floor, waiting for it. Waiting for his one way ticket out of pain.

He would be with the dead boy soon enough. He would be with…with…Demi.

Just thinking the name sent him into another flurry of fits as tears started to poor out of his eyes, onto his cheeks sending diluted yellow rivers streaming onto his clothes.

He didn't deserve a quick and painless death. He didn't deserve it after he let his little brother suffer for days and die alone. He could do it. But he had. And now...now...it was all going to be over when he should have been the one sweating and gasping and calling out for help that would never come.

He couldn't die when he didn't deserve to.

He shoved himself to his knees and shoved his hand as far down his throat as he could, hoping it was too late and at the same time hoping he wasn't.

Everything in his stomach came rushing up onto the tile floor. It splashed onto his clothes and hands, making the room smell bad and his throat burn. He did it again, and again, until he knew his stomach was empty.

He didn't deserve a quick death, or an easy one. He deserved all the pain in the world and he shouldn't be allowed to die.

No matter how bad he wanted to.

~x~X~x~

"Are you sure?" Kris helped Jean along as they ran across town.

"I heard he was out here, if he's not I don't know where Riley could be." Jean's eyes scanned the entire street.

Kris's lips pursed together as he thought. Jean wanted to run out and stop Jace and Crissy when they saw them beating Athene up. They both wanted to go, but Kris had stopped her. He knew they wouldn't be able to do anything and saying anything would just cause them promblems that they didn't need. The best thing they could do is find the guy that was the key player in all this so this Riley could tell everyone who had told him to do it.

Kris stumbled for a second but picked up the pace. "We have to hurry."

"I think he lives over there," she told him and pointed at a little blue house on the corner of a street.

Kris wasted no time and pounded on the door. "Riley!" he called. "Riley open up."

"Who is it?" A voice from inside wavered.

"My name's Kris, and this is Jean, we need to talk to you."

"Not if you're from the casino!"

"No!" Jean called back. "We just need to ask you something."

The door opened just a crack and a brown eye peered out from indoors. "What?"

Jean looked at Kris and braced herself. "We need to know who it was that sent you to stab Crissy."

"He told me he would kill me if I told anyone." Riley went to shut the door but Kris caught it with his foot.

Jean nodded and started to push on the door. "So you were sent to stab Crissy, specifically Crissy?"

Riley nodded.

"Did Aerik jack threaten you with a gun or a freak?" Jean watched the boy for any sudden flinches.

"Who?" Riley was confused.

"What about Dwight Baer?"

Riley flinched and looked at the floor. "Maybe, I dunno."

"This would be a lot easier if you just told us, Riley,
Kris added. "If you help us, we can have the guy that made you do it taken care of."

Riley looked up. "Really?"

Jean looked at Kris and he nodded. "Crissy herself or the Jacks probably will," he said.

"We have to hurry though, so you can explain on the way there," Jean told him.

"Where are we going?" Riley asked as Kris pulled him out of the house.

Kris ran and drug Riley along with him. "To tell the truth and stop a lot of people from getting hurt."

~x~X~x~

Athene was shaking when they dropped her to her knees in front of her own house. The scales had retreated back just far enough that they didn't cover her face more. Everything else was numb. She couldn't feel anything; the scales were too thick and too abundant. That should have been nice considering they protected her when they pulled her knees across the ground and hit her. It didn't take the pain away when they called her a freak though.

In fact, the scales just made that part worse.

She was afraid of what Jace and Crissy were going to do with her, but that was nothing compared the fear she had when the guys compared her to Orc. This could be the time that they didn't go away. She would have to run away to the woods so she wasn't treated like Orc. She cried as they drug her along the asphalt and her scales protected her. She wanted to feel their kicks spreading bruises across her when they kicked her. Anything would be better than the gruesome scales that were just darker than her skin color.

"Aerik! Dwight!" Jace yelled up at the house. "You better look out here and see who we've got."

Athene hung her head. She didn't want them to see her like this; afraid and beaten and red eyes from crying. Her brother didn't want to talk to her, he wouldn't help. Dwight would even recognize her covered as she was. Nikki wouldn't even bother glancing at her now.

"You better come out here or I'll shoot her right in the face and see how far those scales go!"

"No!" Athene screamed. Not the thought of being shot, she was pretty sure that her scales would protect her, but the idea of being so completely covered that she couldn't even see and never getting out of it that scared her worse than death.

The front door opened. "What do you want, Ace?" Aerik demanded.

"It's what you want that I would be concerned about." Jace was cool and comfortable in all of this.

"Athene!" Dwight called as he came out of the garage starting to run.

"Stop!" Crissy yelled. A shot rang out and a splash of dirt scattered across Dwight as one of the kids shot at his feet. "No one moves until I say so or I shoot her."

"Get on the ground, on your knees, hands behind your head, Dwight. You too Aerik." Jace smirked.

Dwight started to raise his hands. Aerik didn't move.

"Dwight, don't!"Athene called out. "Go back inside, they just want to capture us. Aerik's the only they're gonna let live."

"Shut up!" Jace yelled and his foot slammed into the back of Athene's head making her hit the pavement.

When Athene fell, Dwight obeyed and ran back into the house with Aerik. Soon two gun barrels were sticking out of two windows.

"Let her go!" Dwight yelled.

"Or I'll start picking you all off, starting with you Ace," Aerik said.

"Try it," replied Jace and he hoisted Athene back up to her knees and pointed the pistol at her. "I'll still blast her."

"Don't do it man, I'll make you regret it." Dwight's voice was sharp and in the eerie silence stretching out between them, everyone could hear a gun cock.

Athene's hands shook, she knew they did. She couldn't let them face this though. She couldn't make Dwight shoot his old friend, or her brother be facing this down.

She started twisting her hands. She was covered in scales, and if she was going to be covered in them forever she might as well use them. She twisted her wrists as much as she could without being noticed. Hopefully the tie would break loose.

"Storm it? A boy asked Jace.

"I'm in charge here," snapped Crissy. "Stay where you are." The girl put her fingers in her mouth and let out a high pitched whistle.

A few moments later, Athene watched as her brother retreated into the house. Was he going to give up?

She twisted more and she could feel the leather loosening around her wrists. She was close.

"Aerik?" Dwight called from inside the house. "What the-"

"Dwight? Aerik?" Athene called. She forgot about one other person living in her house. "What did she do?! Nikki!"

The front door opened all the way. Dwight came out first his hands on the back of his head. Aerik had a hold of his elbow, and Nikki followed with the gun Dwight used earlier.

"There's Dwight. Take him so we can be done." Nikki stood defensively next to Aerik.

"What's going on?"

Crissy shot a glare at Nikki before turning to look at Aerik. "Your sister and Dwight here tried to have me killed. I warned Nikki that I was coming after Dwight, we caught Athene because I knew she would get in the way."

"So let my sister go now," Demanded the tall boy. "She didn't do anything."

Crissy shook her head. "Nikki used the leverage she had to stop suspicion from getting to you. Your sister will be fine, don't worry."

"Take Dwight, I don't care, but you leave her here." Aerik's fists were curling.

Athene worked furiously, every word they said made her angrier. "Dwight didn't try to kill anybody," she yelled.

"You let her go right now." Aerik jabbed a finger into Crissy's shoulder. "Or I swear you'll all pay."

"You don't touch her," snarled Marshall, he flipped his shotgun around so he could use the butt as a club. "Back off."

Aerik locked in on him. "Let her go."

"Back down!"

"Make me!"

Marshal swung and the butt of the shotgun slammed into his mouth knocking him to the ground.

"Aerik," shrieked Nikki as she fell to ground, forgetting Dwight and her gun. "You said you wouldn't hurt him!"

"Get him!" Jace snapped and jerking his head at Dwight.

Dwight dove for the dropped gun and came up pointing it at his would be attackers.

The leather belt holding Athene snapped. She jumped and tackled Jace's legs, dragging him to the ground. Athene roared as she brought both fists down together into the side of Jace's face, where right where she had hit him last time. His head rolled to the side and the skin across his cheek tore open.

The guys that came with them turned to get Athene and ignored Dwight for just a moment, he slammed his gun into the back of two guys, knocking them down before the others attacked him.

Marshall stood his ground protecting Crissy.

The guys fighting Dwight didn't even try to stop Athene, with all her scales she was like a tank as she leveled them all out, including the ones who got back up. One tried to shoot at them, but Athene took it right in the shoulder.

"Hey stop!" a girl cried. "Stop! Please Stop!"

"Listen, this is Riley!" Kris called out to everyone.

"Hold it everyone!" Crissy yelled and walked over to the boy.

Riley was gasping for breath, like he had run a marathon, Jean and Kris looked the same. "He...he... made me. Said he would…kill me if I didn't. I didn't want to stab you, Crissy."

"Who, Riley? Who wanted you to stab me," Crissy asked looking the boy.

Riley took a deep breath. "Him, Ace," the boy breathed and pointed at the blond who was just starting to rise.

"Marshall, grab him." Crissy's eyes went cold.

"Hmm…what?" Jace mumbled as he was pulled to his feet, his hands swiftly being tied behind his back. "You?!" he snarled at Riley.

"Take him to the casino where we'll teach him a lesson." Crissy waved her hand. "Sorry about the misunderstanding. Nikki I will see you around the market. Nice job Jean, Kris." She walked off at a quick pace to catch up with her guards.

"Did she seriously just say sorry and leave?" Jean asked.

Aerik moaned in pain from the ground.

"That's Crissy, the only thing that matters is her," Nikki answered.

Athene moved to stand between Dwight and her brother, checking on both before glancing at Kris. "Demi's alive. I was coming to tell you."

"That's great!" Kris grinned. "Will'll be better if he hears that, we've got to go tell him."

"Wait," Athene stopped him as she sat down rubbing the scales on her arms. "Tell will he's still not all the way better, but he's getting there. I'm taking him with me out of town, it will be better than living around here. When he's better I'll send a message into town for him and either he can come stay with us too, or take Demi. We'll be leaving later today, be sure he gets here if he wants to see Demi before we go."

"That would be best I think," Jean admitted. "Let's go Kris, we've got to tell Will."

Kris grabbed Jean's hand and they walked off in a quick pace. Riley following closely.

Athene looked at Nikki. The other girl didn't even look at her. "I told you Aerik, she was still hanging around Crissy."

"That doesn't really matter though does it?" Her brother shot back.

"Athene?" Dwight looked down at her carefully. "You alright?"

Athene gave a faint smile about how Dwight didn't even question the scales. "Yeah." Her scales started to slip off of her head, retracting down her neck; she could feel the ones on her legs shrinking too. She gave a sigh of relief.

"Well, Dwight, I think it's time we get out of here." Athene let him help her to her feet and dropped his hand as soon as she was upright. "I'm sorry, Aerik. I'm not staying around here, I just got tied up, beaten, and basically kidnapped and held for ransom. I refuse to stay here any longer."

Aerik nodded, suddenly quiet as he looked at his feet. Then his brown eyes met his sister's and he wrapped his arms around her. "I'm sorry too. Just be safe out there?"

"Always," Athene mumbled into his ear. "You be safe here."

He chuckled. "I'll try." He pulled away and offered a hand to Dwight. "I didn't mean for any of that Dwight. Sorry, man."

Dwight nodded his head and accepted the handshake. "Just don't make a habit of it, unless it's for her, alright?"

The guys chuckled as they started to walk into the house.

"Nikki," Athene began.

Nikki flinched. "Stay away from me, freak." The girl was trembling.

Athene jerked away, nervously rubbing at the scales that were slowly retreating away from her head and back to where they came from. "Still? After all this, I was shot twice, beaten up by your friends, and you still call me a freak? Just don't screw up my brother while I'm not around to fix him." Athene shook her head and left the girl standing outside.