Chapter 16 #2
Iris and Meph returned with two armfuls of drinks and sat beside Skye.
Meph grinned evilly at Skye, and Bel groaned internally.
Sunshine looked thrilled by the music, and she dragged Raum into the crowd to be closer to the stage, smiling up at the musicians like they were heavenly angels come to Earth.
Bel looked over and caught Skye watching him. Her gaze darted shyly away.
He picked up a shot glass from the table without asking who it was for and tossed it back. There were two more, so he drank those too. When he set the third glass down, he glanced up and found Skye now giving him a concerned frown.
Great. She probably thought he had a drinking problem. He was never going to get through this night with his pride intact.
Surprisingly, after some time, Bel found himself relaxing.
He remembered what it was like when he’d first escaped Hell and he’d gone out to party with his brothers every night.
While he wasn’t up for that level of revelry now, he was starting to hope that maybe Sunshine really was right, and he hadn’t given himself enough credit.
Maybe he could be around humans.
Whenever Eva and Asmodeus went up to play, the rest of them crowded the stage rowdily. It was fun to mess with Ash and watch him shoot glares at them out of the corner of his eye while keeping up with the band. Multitasker extraordinaire.
During their second set, Bel decided he needed a break.
He slapped Meph and Raum on the shoulders hard enough that they stumbled, and then went back to the table.
There was only so long he could stand having people pressed against him in a crowd before he started imagining tossing them through the air like sacks of grain.
He sat warily back on the wooden bench, and it groaned but held. There was another full shot glass on the table that he was pretty sure Iris had brought for him. He glanced up and saw her looking, so he raised the glass to her before tipping it back. She gave him a thumbs up.
Iris turned back to the stage just as Skye appeared beside him. She’d been with them in the crowd most of the night, but he hadn’t gotten another chance to speak to her.
The look she gave him now told him she wanted to change that. “I’m hungry, so I’m gonna go grab something to eat,” she said with a smile. Her gaze was direct. “You wanna come?”
He knew he should say no. Eva didn’t want him hanging around her friend, and he should back off out of respect for her.
But Sunshine’s encouragement and the memory of his first meeting with Skye made him want to take a risk.
Plus, the little human was the opposite of Naiamah in every way, and that was appealing enough on its own.
“Sure,” he replied. Getting some fresh air and a break from the noise was probably a good idea too.
See? He could be smart about this.
“I’ll text Eva and tell her where we’ve gone,” Skye said, donning her coat.
Eva was currently on stage, so she couldn’t find a way to intervene, which suited Bel just fine.
He stood, meeting Raum’s gaze across the crowd.
He was behind Sunshine with his arms around her and his chin resting on her head.
Raum cocked a brow in question, glancing pointedly at Skye. Bel rolled his eyes. Raum unwrapped his arms from Sunshine and pulled his phone out of his pocket. A moment later Bel’s phone buzzed, so he checked it.
Raum’s text said, You got things under control?
Bite me, Bel texted back.
Raum read the message but gave no outward reaction. He replied, Eva will be pissed if you incinerate her friend.
Bel shook his head. Not fucking funny.
No one’s laughing.
He shot his brother a glare and pocketed his phone.
“Let’s go!” Skye said. Pushing through the crowd, she ducked and weaved between bodies. Bel walked in a straight line behind her, and people moved out of his way.
Down on the street, he took deep breaths of fresh air and shoved his hands into his hoodie pocket.
Meph had gotten him hooked on wearing them and he hated it, but damn it, they were comfortable.
He had to order at least a 5XL which made his choices limited, but he let his clothing-addicted brother pick them out for him, so minimal effort was required.
He walked next to Skye, ducking under low-hanging signs and dodging crowds coming from other venues on the street.
“You’re the tallest person I’ve ever seen,” she said with a laugh when he was almost clotheslined by a string of fairy lights. “What are you, like, six-eight?”
“Seven foot,” he mumbled.
“Damn.” Her flirtatious grin was somewhat diminished by how far back she had to crane her neck for him to see it. “That’s really tall.”
“Yep.” He cleared his throat and then inwardly cringed. Apparently, he’d lost all his game since becoming a recluse. The woman was trying to hit on him, and he was acting like an idiot.
“There’s a taco place on the next block that I love,” Skye said, mercifully changing the subject.
Bel mentally grimaced. Fast food. There was nothing he loathed more.
She flashed him a worried look. “Unless there’s somewhere else you’d rather go?”
There was nothing on this entire street he would eat unless under threat of torture. “It’s all right. I’m not hungry.”
“Oh.” She stuffed her hands into her coat pockets. “Is it weird for me to eat then?”
“Why would that be weird?”
“I dunno.”
“It’s not weird.”
“Okay. Good.” She coughed.
Shit, he was making this awkward, wasn’t he? Truth be told, he was a bit nervous. He didn’t want to fuck up. Not just because “fucking up” could result in Skye’s untimely death, but because he actually enjoyed her company.
He wasn’t even close to ready to go there, but he couldn’t help thinking about his brothers and the happiness they’d found with their girlfriends.
And maybe … though he’d never tell a soul …
it would be nice to have that for himself.
Maybe it would help him calm the rage somehow, the same way Iris had helped Meph make peace with his demon.
“So, what did you get up to during your six months of celibacy?” Skye asked, trying again to spark conversation. “How did you survive?”
“I cooked a lot. That’s pretty much all I did.” Besides the near constant drama of trying to keep my brothers from ending up back in Hell, being stalked by angels, and trying not to burn my house down and kill people. Damn, it was hard to be friendly when there was so much he couldn’t say.
“Honestly, that sounds perfect because I swear I was starving the entire time.”
He breathed a laugh. That, he could relate to. He was never actually hungry because he didn’t need to eat to survive, yet somehow, he was always ravenous. Not necessarily for food, but just for … something. Food was just a distraction. But it was the best distraction there was.
“What about you?” he asked. “How did you get through it?”
“I focused on school. It was boring, but I’ve almost finished my degree now, so it paid off. I like your hair, by the way,” she blurted before he could reply. “Long suits you.”
“Oh. Thanks.”
“You look like an ancient warrior or something. It’s awesome.”
He winced. Maybe he should get it cut after all.
“It’s just across the street,” Skye said, pointing. “Let’s cross here.”
When the pedestrian sign lit up, they stepped off the curb onto the crosswalk.
“It’s kinda embarrassing,” Skye said, “but I thought about you a lot after we last saw each other. I’m really glad I ran into you tonight because I wanted to ask you so many times how—”
It happened in the blink of an eye.
A car pulled out of a parking space, and the driver stepped on the gas, oblivious to the red light glaring in his face. Skye was slightly behind Bel, and he was looking over his shoulder at her while she spoke. Which was how he was able to see that she was directly in the car’s path.
He acted without thinking. He spun, took a step toward her, and shoved her hard toward the sidewalk. She went flying. He braced just in time for the car to hit him.
If he’d been human, his legs would have crumpled, crushed at the knees by the bumper, and he would have flown onto the hood. He wasn’t human, however.
The car came to a dead stop, the bumper dented so deeply, it looked like they’d driven into a streetlamp.
Distantly, he heard shouts and gasps from onlookers. He saw Skye on the ground all the way back on the sidewalk where he’d thrown her. The humans in the car that hit him sprang from the vehicle and rushed toward him, and so did some of the onlookers from the sidewalk.
But that was all distant. Because there was a roaring in his ears and a throbbing at the base of his skull that obliterated almost everything.
A fucking human had driven a car into him. And now the idiot was hovering around, making excuses and apologies when Bel could smell the alcohol on his breath.
Fucking humans were like filthy leeches, crawling around their precious planet, tainting everything they touched under the false illusion that they were the masters of the universe. They needed to be put in their place. They all needed to be put in their place.
“I’m so sorry!” the human was saying.
“Oh my god, the car—”
“How is that even possible?”
“Are you okay?”
“I saw the car hit him—”
“What were you thinking! The light was red!”
“I didn’t see! I swear I thought it was green—”
The switch flipped. Bel snapped.
His vision became awash with red, and he knew his eyes had changed. And then he felt himself gaining height. With an ungodly roar, he turned and smashed both his fists down on the hood of the car.
The metal crumpled beneath his hands as if hit by two boulders dropped from a height. And then he grabbed the car underneath the folded bumper and threw it back several feet.
Instant, dead silence fell over the street.
He straightened, head hanging, hair in his face, fighting back the rage igniting his blood. He wanted to fucking kill everyone here gawking at him. He wanted to tear the heart out of that drunk driver’s chest and make him eat it.
“Holy shit …” someone breathed.
Bel turned and stared down the driver until he blanched whiter than a sheet and stumbled, falling to the ground and holding his hands up. The preternatural fury in Bel’s eyes told the human he was facing the kind of monster that was supposed to be imaginary.
Bel prowled toward him. The driver scuttled back. Tears collected in his eyes. “Don’t hurt me, man. Please, I swear—”
Bel looked up. Skye was standing in the crowd of people who had gathered. Her features were stark. Full of terror. Just like everyone else.
She looked into his flaming eyes and stumbled back just like the other human had. And then she turned and sprinted down the street like it was the fucking zombie apocalypse and she was the last person alive.
The sight of her fleeing was the metaphorical equivalent to a bucket of cold water to the face. The red haze faded. The street returned to his sight. The sounds bled back in. Slowly, he fought to get his breathing under control and felt himself return to normal height.
Humans without the Sight could see the catastrophe he’d caused because there was nothing supernatural about denting a car hood.
As for the hellfire in his eyes and his height increase, they may not recognize exactly what they’d seen, but their fear instincts were very real.
They knew they were in the presence of something dangerous that shouldn’t exist on Earth, and they were terrified.
Just like Skye.
He backed away from the stunned faces staring at him. If he didn’t get out of this crowd, he was going to snap again. And this time he might actually kill someone. Probably that fucking drunk driver still cowering on the ground.
Bel stepped onto the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street. The people gathered there parted for him to pass, all staring at him like he was a green alien who’d just dropped out of the sky.
He strode down the block until he’d left the crowd behind. No one followed him. Crossing the street again, he stopped outside the door to Bootleg and weighed his options. There was no way he was going back up there.
Looking around, he saw no sign of Skye. He’d probably scared her so bad, she was sprinting all the way home. She probably wouldn’t come out for days. Eva was going to be pissed.
Screw the stupid feeling of elation he’d been chasing. Screw his stupid hopes of finding a pretty little girlfriend like his brothers. He wanted nothing to do with humans. He never wanted to make a woman look at him with that much fear again. It made him feel sick.
He’d come a long way from the evil, flaming bastard he’d once been. That fucker would have laughed with joy at the sight of mortals pissing themselves. Sunshine would say it was a good thing, but he wasn’t so sure anymore.
Fuck this. He started walking in the direction of home. It was going to take him nearly an hour to get there at a normal pace, but he was still on a razor’s edge, and there was no way he was trusting himself in a cab with a human driver right now.
He didn’t want to talk to anyone. He didn’t want anyone to talk to him.
So much for his control. So much for blending in. He’d done some Hulk shit on a random idiot’s car and then given Eva’s best friend nightmares for life. He supposed he should be glad he hadn’t burst into flames, but damn, it had been close. Way too close.