Seven.
And Seth was at home by now.
Suddenly she was in front of me, flesh and blood. Her long, wild, golden brown hair whipped around her face and back in the wind. Her golden brown eyes held no light or warmth, they were just…. dead. She was so beautiful, but at the same time not. She was like a rabid animal, there was beauty there, but there was also danger, impulsiveness…. There was no way to predict how she would behave or what she would do.
Except, I did know what she wanted to do- she wanted to kill me.
And she would do whatever she could to accomplish that.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. It wasn’t my most inspired question, but there was this soul-deep fear robbed me of my smarter instincts. For some reason she terrified more than anything else- more than Aliah, or my future, or anything.
“Just stopped by to chat,” she grinned. My back was pressed up against the brick of the school building and she was standing next to the shed. Her hands were clasped in front of her demurely but her black and white striped maxi dress flowed out around her legs in a wild dance with her hair.
“How sweet,” I intoned dryly.
Two Fallen thugs stepped around the shed to join her. I recognized them from Aliah’s gang. One’s name was Saul, but I didn’t know what the other’s one’s name. They were big, muscular and completely dark- as if they sucked all the light around them into their black hole of evil.
“Did we catch you alone?” Seven asked mocking innocence so well that I wanted to give her an Oscar. “Where’s my adorable, little brother?”
“Where you can’t touch him,” I bit out. I was terrified to be alone here, with the pure, raw evil that was Seven and her henchmen. I didn’t even have a weapon on me, not even a dagger or any kind of sharp object. I was completely vulnerable with only shin guards and cleats to protect myself. But I was happy Seth wasn’t here. I would gladly save him this trauma.
Seven’s eyes narrowed and a flicker of impatience flashed across her face. “Tell me, Stella, is Seth still having his bad dreams?” I pressed my lips together and narrowed my eyes at her, wondering if she had anything to do with dreams. “He used to have them when we were children too. Only then, I was the one to comfort him, hold him while he slept, kiss the boo boos better. I was the one that he counted on.”
I just stared at her, knowing she wanted a reaction from me, knowing I could not give her one.
She walked closer to me like a tigress stalking her prey. Stopping just inches in front of me, I realized we were the same height. At different times I’d imagined her a tiny, petite little girl, weeping for help and then I pictured her towering over me, alive with all her dark power. She was neither- she was my size and destructible just like me.
Up close I could see black veins spread out from under her eyes and down her cheeks like the thinnest kind of tree roots. Her chapped lips displayed a cut in the center of her fuller bottom one. And there was a prominent bruise on the underside of her jaw. What was happening to this girl?
We didn’t exactly bruise easily.
The closer she stood to me, the temperature continued to drop, and I felt her malevolent evil all the way to my spine. But at the same time she still radiated this healthy glow of Light. She did not make sense and it only made my head swim, trying to understand her.
“You look tired,” I commented. “Do you also have bad dreams?”
Before I could protect myself, her hand had lifted and slapped me soundly across the face. Her sharp fingernails caught my skin as they dragged down in painful slices. I gasped at the sudden sting and felt the trickle of blood as it dripped down my chin and onto my t-shirt.
She lifted her hand but only to catch my pony tail. Her hand grabbed fistfuls of my hair and yanked it hard so I was forced to look up at her, “What do you think, little Star?” Her voice rasped aggression. I was tougher than a hair pull, but her grip was so firm that I couldn’t extricate my head from her hands without losing handfuls of hair in the process. “Of course, I have bad dreams. Not quite evil… not quite good…. Seth and I have that in common, you know? There’s no coming back from either though. It’s only a matter of time before Seth sees the…. light.” She laughed at her own joke- an airy, tinkling sound, that under any other circumstances would have sounded pleasant. Then she trailed a long, bloodied fingernail over my exposed throat.
“Seth is not like you,” I croaked out. “He will never be like you!”
Her expression immediately softened- the exact opposite reaction I expected. Her scraping touch became light and gentle; she lowered her face even closer to mine. It was this side of her that terrified me more than anything else.
“I just love that you care so much about my brother,” she cooed in my face. I could feel her hot breath wash over me; I could smell the mint of her toothpaste. “He needs people in his life to take care of him, to scare all the bad monsters away.” Her voice was a singsong of sweetness. I shuddered as I felt the bile rise in my throat. “It’s so sad that you don’t get to stay around. You’re probably the only person that could save him.”
“Save him from what?” I gasped as her grip became tighter and her fingernail started to dig my jugular. My arms fell limp at my side. I could fight back- I would fight back. But first, I wanted her to talk as much as possible.
“From himself,” she growled, her voice dropping low and somehow shrieking at the same time.
“There you are, my pet,” Aliah’s deep voice called from nearby. “I’d started to worry about you.”
Seven’s expression immediately softened but not before her nail cut the skin at my throat; I felt more blood as it dropped down to the collar of my shirt.
“Hello, Aliah,” she called in a perfectly normal sounding voice.
“Hello, Darling,” His voice was lightly accented and as I looked past Seven I could see he looked perfectly normal too. In a sharp navy-blue suit with crisp white oxford underneath and yellow tie, he actually looked more than normal- he looked amazing. Bastard. “Having some fun?” he asked, clearly sounding amused.
“So much,” she grinned without taking her eyes off me.
“Well, I hate to interrupt you, but why don’t you let the boys do the dirty work. We don’t want you losing that luminescent Light of yours, now do we?”
As if in a trance, Seven’s eyes went vacant again; she shook her head carefully. My stomach churned with a violent nausea, and tears pricked at my eyes for her. I felt sorry for Seven! How messed up was that?
She dropped me immediately and skipped to Aliah’s side- with a childlike quality returning at his presence. She latched onto one of his arms and laid her head against his shoulder, while I stood up and ran my hand against my throat, wiping the blood away. It smeared across my palm, and I had to assume, the skin on my neck too. My face still trickled blood from her scratches as well, and dripped into the corner of my mouth, coating my tongue with metal and salt.
“Stella,” Aliah greeted me casually. “How lovely to see you again.”
I didn’t say anything. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
Seven rocked back and forth next to him, clinging to his arm, but her eyes still remained trained on me. She looked so much like Seth, but so different at the same time. And there was something more to her than even her bipolar personalities let on. She was childlike and out of her mind crazy, but she was also evil and twisted. Still, there was something beyond even that.
I just didn’t know what.
Aliah picked up on my interest in her. “She’s special, Stella. Surely you’ve noticed that already.”