Chapter 6 Melanie
CHAPTER SIX
MELANIE
The cold winter air bites at my cheeks, but I barely feel it over the heat of my own fear. My head is fucking spinning.
Fucking Cerberus. Fucking demons KINGS! Bruh…
The three-headed beast that guards the gates of hell, oh, my bad, I mean one of the hells. They got me out here like the screaming Black woman meme.
I’m not even mad that they’re Cerberus… I… I m-might be able to handle that kinda… but HELL?! Mannnnnn…. Hell and demons and shit? I don’t know no Black person that would willingly be like, “yeah, that’s some cool ass shit.”
Even if I’m not overly religious, I’m like NLE Choppa, I don’t fuck with that guy.
When I reach a small, quiet park, I sit on a frozen bench, staring at my shaking hands, my heart still pounding, wondering if I really saw what I saw.
I close my eyes, placing my hands on my head, shaking my leg, and still having to pee.
Not to mention my dumb ass ran out with no shoes on and now it’s starting to lightly snow. Snow in Cali? What the fuck is this?!
“Hey, you alone, pretty girl?” I look up to see an attractive white man in a suit who would definitely be my type if I didn’t have Sye, but…
“I—” Before I can even finish half a sentence, he’s lifted, his feet dangling in the air, shaking, his throat squeezed as he gurgles, and my heart skips a beat, but I immediately know who it is. I grit my jaw, fisting my hands.
“Put. Him. Down. Sye!” I grit out, and to my dismay, the man goes flying in the air, landing with a hard ass mother fucking thud that has me shooting out of my seat so I can go to check on him, but I can’t even make it a step before all three pairs of their arms are around me.
God, what the fuck is my life right now?!
“Love.”
“Sweetheart.”
“Baby.”
They call me, their voices vibrating straight through into my spine, making me weak in the knees.
“Let me go,” I say, though my voice lacks any real bite.
“You know we’re not going to do that, baby,” Enzo speaks, and I sigh, wondering when I started being able to tell them apart.
“So what now?” I mumble, and a hand cups my chin.
I lift my head to see it’s Yamir, and I see they are watching me with anguish clear as damn day on their faces that I can clearly read even in the shadows of the winter trees.
Their ears are down, twitching at every distant siren, and their tails are hanging low.
Just seeing that makes my heart ache despite my fear.
They look miserable… They look like three men who just realized they lost the only thing that matters.
“We’re going to take you home,” Enzo whines, burying his face in my neck as he picks me up, and Yamir drops to his knees right there in the dirt and wipes off my feet, using his hands to warm them before puts warm socks and slippers on me.
“And we beg you not to leave us.” His voice cracks, still on his knees as Slater takes my hands and warms them, placing gloves on.
“And plead with you to continue to love us,” Slater whimpers.
I don’t even know what to say. I’m scared shitless and I should run for the fucking hills, but being in their arms has me melting and not thinking clearly, so I just let them walk back to the penthouse, my head resting on Enzo’s chest while Slater and Yamir hold my hands, getting us a shit ton of looks, but that doesn’t faze them at all, nor does it make them drop my hand.
If anything, it just makes them hold me tighter.
Once we get to our place, the doorman immediately opens the door for us, and the staff bows as we go up the elevator. The second the door clicks shut behind us, the air in the room changes, and I’m shocked to see that the house is back in order and the stains on my couch are gone.
When I’m set down, they all go to their knees and rest their heads on my lap, looking up at me with those dark, intense eyes.
“We smell fear on you,” Slater growls.
“Are you scared of us, sweetheart?” Yamir whines.
“I…” I don’t know what to say to them because I’d be lying if I said I’m not.
“It’s okay to be scared… we understand, love. It’s one of the reasons we kept it from you. Be scared if you have to, but don’t run from us,” Enzo howls. “Please know we will never hurt you.”
“I’m not worried about you hurting me,” I tell them, pulling away. “I’m worried about whatever the fuck that thing was.” I shake, and they all stand and surround me, hugging me tight.
“We will protect you, Mama. We will do any and everything it takes to keep you safe,” Yamir grits out, and I snort his words.
“You say that b-but that thing… that thing said it would come back and find you and make you go b-back to hell and…” I don’t even want to say what it implied while staring at me. Just the memory makes me shudder in fear.
“We will make this work.” Enzo nuzzles my shoulder.
“Yes, we have ways to hide our presence,” Slater lets me know.
“And what does that even mean?” I ask, and they pull away, staring down at me.
“It means we’re going to run away.” Yamir levels me with a look and I balk at that.
“Excuse me? R-run away?” I stammer. “As in run away from hell?!” I raise my voice, and they shrug.
“It might be a bit difficult for us because we feed on hellfire, and with the gates closing…” Slater trails off for a second. “But there are ways to substitute what we get from hellfire. We can simply feed on Miasma… there’s a low amount on Earth, but we have ways to get more.”
The shit they are saying makes no sense to me, but they look confident, and I can’t help but wonder.
“And there is no way for you to just go there, do the job, and just come back?” I ask even though the mere thought is like a punch in the gut, but they vehemently shake their heads.
“It’s impossible for more than one reason.
One, locking any of the Kings of Hell down is a death sentence…
I don’t know why or who would come up with such a shitty plan, but even more than that, if they are locking the gates, it means we won’t be able to see you.
While we were able to rotate out weekly and have a fraction of our power here on Earth, for this job in particular, we would all need to be there.
And that’s where things would be unbearable.
We are Cerberus, we can feel each other and link as one, so when one of us was here, it was as if we were near you, even though the time away from you was fucking hellish,” Slater grunts.
“It’s only one week. You’re being dramatic,” I groan, and they shake their heads.
“No, to you it was one week, but in Hell, time moves differently. For every one day here is one week in Hell,” Yamir states with a sneer.
“Wait.” I reel back… “S-so you were away from me for…”
“Yes, nearly two months every time,” Enzo grits out.
“And remember that was on purpose. When those gates close, we have no idea when they will be unlocked or if we will survive… each reincarnation of Sin is always stronger and more vile than the last. We have no idea what we’re up against. They could wait days, weeks, years, or centuries to reopen the gates.
You might not even be alive, and we cannot risk that.
We’d rather die,” Enzo finishes, and my stomach drops.
Yes, I ran out of fear, but the thought of not being with them… the thought of something happening to them… I sink to the couch, tears welling in my eyes, because what the fuck do I do? How can I even fix this? I’m up against mythical and biblical beings!
But my tears don’t even get a chance to fall because they are on their knees pulling me to them, kissing them away.
“Don’t cry, sweetness. We will protect you, and we won’t be leaving,” Slater hums. “We can promise you that.”
“Please believe us,” Yamir whispers, and though I’m scared, I want to be strong for them and this relationship.
“Do you mean that?” I sigh.
“From the bottom of our hearts,” Enzo whispers, and I groan because this is definitely going to fuck me over later.
“F-fine,” I mutter and stand, peeling off my cold sticky robe and throwing it on their faces, wanting to shower and honestly get put through the mattress to de-fucking-stress.
The moment they see me naked, they sit up alert, and I click my tongue twice.
I crook my finger, and they try to stand, but I cock my head to the side, and they all fall back down to their knees.
“What can we do for you, Mama?” they say in unison, and suddenly my fear flickers and dies, replaced by a heat that starts in my chest and pools low in my belly.
“Stay.” I give them a pointed look and walk away, ass jiggling and slamming the door in their face, smiling when I hear them howl like dogs in pain.
I take my ass to the tub and run myself a hot bath, using all the bells and whistles before I sink in, sighing, wanting to clear my head, but that’s the last thing that I end up doing.
All I can think about is Sye, how I got with him, and how I let all of this shit fly under my nose.
These last few days have been just one thing after another.
Most people would assume that I was just some insecure fat bitch who was goo-goo-eyed over a sexy man with money who was checking for me, but I was never that girl who was ashamed of being a little bigger than the next bitch.
I have always been painfully aware that to some guys, I was only the pretty fat friend, especially standing next to some straight fye looking women like Constance, Pyper, and some of my other home girls. I was always overlooked.
I tried to not let it bother me. I knew I was beautiful.
Body confidence was all around, and while I teetered more towards fat than thick, I kept myself a man, and I stayed with a dick to hop or rotated niggas when they weren’t acting right.
So confident was I until I dropped all my men to be with one.