Chapter 13

Alice

Agiggle burst out of me when the dude standing by the window started laughing. His joy was contagious and soon I was l chortling along with him with tears streaming down my face. If I stopped for a moment and thought about it, I would've apologized to the girl whose jaw continued to sweep the floor.

It was mean, what I said to her.

She started it first though. It was childish to laugh triumphantly, but for the moment it made me forget about the emptiness, pain and numbness I had felt for a long time. Just because I had no idea how much time had passed since the night Brooklyn attacked me, it made no difference to the fear clinging to every fiber of my being. Not that it was her fault, or that I would ever blame her for it. All I could remember was one second, I was just standing there, and the next Brooklyn was too close, and her teeth were pressing on my neck.

And the cold.

A brain-numbing chill that penetrates the bone marrow.

There was so much blood; I had no idea I had that much liquid inside of me. We all hear how much a human body can hold, but it's a lot different to see it with your very own eyes. Especially, if it's spraying and pumping from your throat.

Oh, God, I was so cold.

The adrenaline was pumping through me while we were executing our plan, but the moment my life trickled down the front of me, the chill spread from my toes up toward the crown of my head like frost forming on windows in the middle of winter. I could still feel it biting at me from the inside, but for the sake of my friend I kept the smile stretching my face while looking at her.

"She is not a demon." Brooklyn narrowed her eyes at the girl sitting on the floor with us, ready as always to start ripping heads off to protect me. "Alice, this is Echo and Chester." My friend did the introductions and I nodded at the two people. "They are the demons."

Smiling still, my gaze jumped from the guy to the girl a few more times before Brooklyn's last words penetrated my brain. When they finally did, I was on my feet and running for the door.

"Let's go, Girl." Shouting and glancing over my shoulder to make sure Brooklyn is right behind me, I almost headbutted the wall when I saw her holding her forehead like I was giving her a headache. Thanks to my faster than ever reflexes, I didn't touch anywhere near the red glow on and around the door. Whatever they did to heal me worked wonders. I felt great and had a lot more strength than I remembered. "Don't look at their eyes! Let's go, let's go. The door is compromised. We can use the window, or just bust through a wall. I'm sure you'll be fine."

"Why are you not supposed to look at our eyes?" Echo was gazing up at me from where she was folded on the floor in puzzlement, and I jerked my eyes away from her when I realized I was not following my own advice.

"You've been looking at our eyes since you woke up." Chester pointed out dryly at the same time.

"I asked them to come here, Alice." Brooklyn told me on a sigh. "They won't hurt you."

"That's exactly what you'd say if you were possessed. Or blackmailed." I shook my head at her. Couldn't she see what was going on? "Hello. Use your brain."

"We are not ghosts." I was shocked dust was not coming out of the strange woman's mouth from how dry her tone was. Stubbornly, I kept my eyes glued on Brooklyn and ignored her existence while trying hard not to hyperventilate. "We can't possess humans."

"Right, and I'm a blonde bombshell that just signed a contract with Victoria's Secret." Snorting, I inched closer to the opposite wall, pushing my glasses up my nose since they annoyingly continued to slip down, my eyes darting around the room in case more of them pop up out of nowhere. I've seen enough movies to know demons can just appear out of nowhere. They must've drugged Brooklyn or blackmailed her to stay docile while these two were roaming around our place, I was sure of it.

"Where are Dominic, Samir and Rowen?" looking pointedly at my friend, I let her see my eyebrows crawling all the way up to my hairline silently telling her ‘Wake up girl, they are prepping us like freshly made shish-kebabs ready to be roasted.'. "Where is my dog?"

"He's a wolf, Alice, not a dog and I'm sure Samir locked him up in one of the rooms because it annoyed him. Otherwise, the males are outside the door." In a smooth move, Brooklyn was on her feet dusting off the herbs from her pants with a look of distaste. "I messed up things with Dominic, but he still does anything I ask of him. I will need your help to fix that. Anyway, we needed time for you to heal without interference and I asked him to keep the witch and Samir out."

"The demons are doctors?" My heartbeat just started to slow down because that would make sense why she wasn't worried about them while the Syndicate, plus everyone and their brothers, were trying to kill us.

"What?" Brooklyn barked out a laugh and glanced at me sideways. "No. They're not doctors. A funny story really. They are my kidnapers actually…"

"I knew it!" frantically spinning in a circle, I snatched the first thing I could see that could be used as a weapon.

The elaborately painted vase full of wildflowers was heavier than I anticipated, and water sloshed all over my hand, long t-shirt someone dressed me in as well as the floor when it tilted harshly, and I came dangerously close to dropping it but managed to grab it and hug it to my chest. "Step away from them Brooklyn. Like hell I will let them do something to you after everything we went through to get you back." Without thinking how wise it was, I rushed back to my friend, stepped in front of her, and jabbed the vase at the still sitting on the floor demon.

"Stay back, or I'll cut you." Snarling at her would've been more intimidating if my glasses didn't drop to one side and hang sideways on my face, but I didn't care. Also, a pool of water was forming at my feet, too, and flowers were dropping one by one in it. That totally rained on my parade, too.

"Fascinating." The woman demon craned her neck to look at the dude who was watching us with an unnaturally wide grin on his face from next to the window." The human is trying to protect one of us. It's beautiful to watch."

"Actually, I'm not protecting anything when it comes to the rest of you. I will gut you. I'm protecting my friend. Get out!" The vase was much lighter without the water and blooms, so I brandished it in the demon's face like a baseball bat. "Dear Father in Heaven, protect us in these times."

"Alice? What are you doing?" Brooklyn tried to walk around me, but I reached back and made sure she stayed there. Maybe she was still vulnerable to things after dealing with the tainted blood in her system. I didn't know if she could stand being around demons. Better safe than sorry, I continued praying.

"I know I'm not always the most faithful, but I'll do better, I promise. For now, I love you and I pray that you will smite these demons and burn their soulless corpses and cast them to the armpits of hell." My prayer was getting louder as I spoke, the strength of my need to save my best friend from these creatures giving it more passion than anything else in my life. "Amen."

Silence charged with expectation stretched around us so thick you could cut it with a knife. It reminded me of the time the Guardians attacked us in my father's safe house and the magic glued the breadknife to my hand. How I wished I had it now so that if the two demons attacked, I could slice them up.

Gathering as much strength as I could, I made myself lock eyes with the woman still sitting on the floor. Silver, like lightning, shimmers over her irises and goosebumps popped up all over my arms. It really made me angry that she smiled sweetly when I couldn't resist it and had to fix the glasses so they're not dangling from the side of my face.

"Were you praying to your God to kill us?" the dude by the window asked incredulously.

"If he doesn't succeed, I'm pretty sure I can get the shifter and the vamp who live in this house to do it." Baring my teeth at his shocked face, I waved the vase at the woman with silver eyes. "Open the door so we can leave."

"Alice."

"Don't Alice me, Brooklyn, I got this don't worry. No one is going to be kidnaping you or me." Narrowing my eyes at both demons, I repeated myself. "Remove whatever magic you placed on that door right now. I won't ask you again."

"We will, of course." The female demon slowly and carefully rose to her feet, which placed her roughly around my height. "We only placed it because Brooklyn asked. But out of curiosity." Cocking her head to the side she seemed intrigued by the situation. Her braid swung like a rope over her shoulder and dangled backward and forward innocently for a long moment. "What do you think you can do if we don't do what you demand?"

"Me?" I laughed humorlessly at her. Fatigue started to creep up and I found it difficult to hold the vase between us, but I had to hold on for just a bit longer. "I won't do anything." My smile was probably more a grimace than an expression of happiness. "But he will."

"Who?" the woman frowned at me.

"My friends, of course." Adrenaline shot through me as I opened my mouth and screamed from the top of my lungs making Brooklyn grab her ears and duck her head from the high- pitched sound. "Dominic! Samir! Help!"

The magic around the door was glowing red undisturbed when the walls came crashing down around it and a pissed off shifter and vamp stood shoulder to shoulder panting with rage in the middle of the dust cloud.

My lips twitched when I head Brooklyn whisper from behind me. "Oh, shit."

I was so totally going to save her this time, again.