Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
I feel sick saying that out loud. I’ve never admitted it before, but now I wish I could take the words back, stuff them back in my box of secrets, and try to forget about it.
“You killed someone? Your own sister?” Blaine asks in disbelief.
If only they knew the rest, if only they knew the true extent of what I have done. They would hate me. I hate me. So many lives were ruined all because of me, all because I couldn’t get my shit together.
I don’t answer. I can tell they weren’t expecting that for an answer, yet Latham doesn’t let me go.
I shift uncomfortably. I just blurted out the one thing I can’t afford anyone to know.
They are going to report me. They will hand me in, and everyone will learn I am a fraud, that this persona is a front.
People will know what I did, and my brother will hunt me down when he realizes I am not Isobella but the sister he helped sell, the one he blamed for everything.
I was the monster in our story. The one nobody wanted and was going to toss away like I meant nothing.
And now they know how terrible I truly am.
They would toss me away, too. Arabella was always the toss-away, while Isobella was the good child, the sane one, the one everyone loved. They would be no different.
I swallow. My mouth feels so dry. My heart is beating like a drum against my ribs painfully. Moving, I unwrap Latham’s arms from around me, trying to get to my feet.
Please be a nightmare.
“Bella?” Latham asks as I stumble toward the bedroom door.
“It’s fine, I understand. This is why I never told anyone,” I tell him.
“What are you talking about? Where are you going?”
“Home, do what you gotta do. I should never have let you get involved,” I tell them, and they look at each other.
“You aren’t leaving,” Xavier says.
“I am going home. I swear if you call the cops, I won’t run. I will be right next door. Just let me get better clothes on before they haul me away,” I tell them, walking to the door when Blaine appears in front of me, blocking my exit.
“You think we would report you to authorities?” he asks.
What does he mean? I just told him I killed my sister, and that isn’t even half of what I did. Why wouldn't they report me to the authorities?
“If you are going home we are coming with you,” Latham says, his chest pressing against my back.
The heat of him seeps into my bones, and I want to melt against him, breathing in his smoky scent.
“I told you I won’t run. I have nowhere to go, anyway.”
“She seriously thinks we would report her?” Blaine chuckles, and I let out a breath.
Maybe if I hand myself in, it would be better?
“We just told you we are demons, and you think we would hand you over to the police for killing one person? We eat souls, Bella. Souls. Do you think people live after that? They don’t live.
They die, as in dead. You killed one person in twenty-three years?
Shit, I killed more people than your age the day before. We aren’t judging you,” Blaine says.
“So you won’t tell, and you won’t tell my brother?” I ask, looking over my shoulder at Latham.
His hand moves to my hip, and he pulls me back against him.
“Your secret is safe with us, Bella. I will take it back to hell with me,” he laughs.
“So there really is a hell. What about heaven? Is that real too?” I ask, horrified.
I am definitely going to hell. I am going to burn. Should I repent? That’s the word isn’t it? I should have gone to church and listened.
My brain is rambling. Too much stress for one day. Now I have so many random questions like, does the devil really shove pineapples up Hitler’s ass? I saw that in a movie once. Who even comes up with that stuff? I don’t want a pineapple up my ass. And which end do they shove in first?
“Ah, yes. I am demon. Where else would we come from?” Latham says.
“So there really are pineapples.”
“Huh?”
I feel my surroundings spinning. The room tilts, or maybe I am falling, but I no longer care.
I can’t take it anymore. This is too much.
First demons, then hell, and everything else.
My entire life is falling apart, and now I have to worry about pineapples.
My heart is in my throat, and I can hear it in my ears as it drowns out all sound around me, then I see nothing but darkness.
* * *
Xavier
“She said pineapples, right? Did I hear that right?” I ask as Latham catches Bella before she hits the floor.
Blaine looks thoughtful for a second. “Why pineapples?” he asks before shaking his head.
Latham scoops Bella up and places her on the bed.
“We should take bets on who can overwhelm the human first. Latham is a point ahead now. Hell, she faints, I point to Latham.”
“I don’t think that is why she fainted,” Latham says, and I have to agree.
We all know she barely slept, and after today, it is only a matter of time before she burns out. This is just the icing on the cake.
“She fainted earlier,” Blaine says.
“No, she knocked herself out, tripping over her own feet while hyperventilating.”
“We should make her wear a helmet. So accident-prone,” Blaine says, and by the look on his face, he seems serious.
“Want to bubble-wrap her too?” Latham spits sarcastically.
“Yeah, I could go to the hardware store and get some?” Blaine says.
Latham pinches the bridge of his nose. “I am not saying anything. You can deal with that?” he says to me.
“Huh? I said I would go. I am not forcing you to go to the store,” Blaine says.
“No one is going to buy a helmet and bubble-wrap, Blaine. He wasn’t serious,” I sigh.
Blaine looks confused.
“Damn, if he wasn’t so good-looking and sucked dick like a hoover, I wouldn’t put up with this stupidity.”
“Who are you calling stupid?” Blaine demands.
“Xavier, Blaine. Xavier is the stupid one,” Latham lies, and Blaine smirks.
“He was joking. You sure you didn’t take the knock to the head?” I ask Blaine before turning to Latham.
“So, now what?” I ask as I watch him tuck her in.
“Now nothing. We wait for her to wake up,” Latham answers.
“Well, since she is asleep for now, maybe we should discuss the issue about her conjuring or awakening a goddamn demon. How the heck did she get rid of it?”
“What if she didn’t?” Blaine asks.
“We would sense one if they were still around. Only thing I could think of is it had to be by chance. No one entraps demons unless they want to be trapped, but where did it go if what she says is true?” Latham says.
“You think she imagined it?” I ask.
“No. Whatever she saw she thought was real, but—”
“You don’t believe her?” I ask incredulously.
“Well, I don’t see you hanging out at cemeteries. I sure as hell don’t. There has to be another reason. Destroying a headstone doesn’t conjure up demons,” Latham explains, and I have to agree.
We roam the earth just like humans and can be conjured by thought, but not randomly. Bella could conjure us to her location if she really wanted us to find her, but only if we connect with her subconsciously, like dream-walking or us marking her soul as ours.
“Latham is right. It is too random. It doesn’t even sound right. Demons don’t go hunting thirteen-year-old girls in cemeteries,” Blaine says.
“So what now?”
They both shrug, and Bella remains asleep.
We don’t want to disturb her, knowing how fragile humans are when in shock, plus she really needs sleep.
Hours pass as we try to figure out what or who it might have been or if it happened at all.
We go over every file we have on her, but it is pointless now that we know she is in witness protection.
“Go grab that box from her place,” Latham tells me, and I groan.
I hate snooping through her stuff, but maybe I might find her panties. I quickly mist, only to reappear in her living room.
Grabbing the old box, I open it, grabbing a few newspaper clippings out.
I hesitate when I am about to leave, looking at her open bedroom door.
Curiosity is getting the better of me. It always amazes me what you can find in a woman's panties drawer. Like a true creep, I can’t help myself.
Glancing over my shoulder, expecting to be caught, I tug the top drawer open.
I pull out a handful of lacy undergarments.
“Bloody sick bastard,” Blaine says, making me jump as he appears behind me, catching me red-handed.
“Ooh, what are these? I bet you could take that,” he says, holding up a huge rubber dildo.
“Put that down,” I tell him.
He tosses it on the bed before rummaging again and making something start vibrating. Both of us rummage through the drawer, trying to find it, tossing underwear over my shoulder when I snatch up the vibrator.
“Now we're talking,” says Blaine.
“What do you think you're doing?” comes Latham’s voice.
I turn on my heel to see Latham standing behind us, a lacy pink G-string hanging off his shoulder.
“Let me just take that,” Blaine says, removing the scrap of fabric and holding it up. “I call dibs on these ones.” Blaine then pockets her panties.
I elbow him in the ribs, and he grunts.
“Stop fooling around and get back home,” Latham says, misting back out.
Blaine then punches me in the gut.
“Did you have to elbow me so hard?” he snaps while I gasp for breath.
That fucker. I start tossing her underwear back into her drawer. Were they folded? I can’t remember, but I toss them in, anyway, and the vibrator.
“Don’t forget that one,” Blaine says, pointing to the rubber dildo on the bed.
I roll my eyes at him, grabbing it, only for him to burst out laughing when it falls to the side, all floppy in my hand.
“Ha, always so limp you are,” Blaine laughs, and I mock laugh at his stupid joke.
He wipes tears from his eyes, and I smile at him before jamming it in his open mouth, making him choke on his laugh and Bella’s rubber dick. He coughs and sputters while gagging, and I laugh, misting out there before he tries to murder me.
I am still laughing when I appear back in my living room, making Latham raise an eyebrow at me. Blaine tackles me with the dildo in hand the moment he appears and pins me down.
“Fucking take it. Take it, you pussy ass bitch,” Blaine says, trying to jam the rubber cock in my mouth.
“I live with morons,” Latham mutters beside me as he sits on the couch, looking down at us.
Blaine pinches my nose, trying to force me to open my mouth. “He jammed it down my throat!”
“Fucking children,” Latham huffs, snatching it from Blaine's grip and smacking him in the head with it.
“Is that my dildo?” Bella’s voice reaches our ears, making our heads whip to the bedroom door.
Latham is standing there with her dildo in his hands. If looks could kill, we would be dead a million times over.
“You went through my drawers?”
“He did it!” I point at Blaine, and he points at Latham, still holding the rubber cock.
She blinks at us, shocked.
“They stole it and were brandishing it as a weapon,” Latham says.
“So, why have you got it then?” she asks, folding her arms across her chest and raising an eyebrow at him.
“He wanted to try it out. Said it was bigger than Xavier,” Blaine snorts, and I punch him in the ribs.
“Fucking isn’t,” I spit at him.
“Yeah? Get it out then,” Blaine taunts.
That motherfucker. Just because he is hung like a fucking horse on dick steroids.
“I will have you know, Bella, my penis is well above average. Blaine’s is just as freakishly big. Now, get off me!” I snap at Blaine.
“I love getting off on you,” Blaine retorts, and Bella laughs at our banter while I try to wrestle the idiot off me.
“Coffee while those morons compare dicks?” I hear Latham ask her before stepping over us.
He shoots us both an angry look to say we are in for it later. Blaine, the masochist, smiles, batting his thick lashes at him.