Surreal Ecstasy (25 page)

Ree glanced at me, moving his body
so he stood between Adim and me. He opened the door all the way to give Adim a
good view of Ethan.

"Leave us alone, both of you,"
Ree told Adim.

"You wanna fight with me,
fucker?!" Before any of us could react, Adim jumped on Ree.

In one swift move, Ree had Adim by
his throat and threw him against the wall, breaking a couple frames that had
been innocently hanging there. Then he picked him up again and literally threw
him out of the house, right back to where he had been standing outside.

"There's no need for this to
get violent. Your friend here breaks in, and I stop him. You jump on me,
barging in my house uninvited, spouting obscenities, and I throw you out. Now,
are you going to continue to look ridiculous, or are you going to speak like a
human being?"

Adim spit on the ground and said
nothing, his eyes cold and focused on Ree.

"Oh, I get it," Dess
chimed in. "You're one of those Melted pieces of crap that thinks he's a
badass. A ruffian, as it were."

A laugh escaped my lips
unexpectedly as I got to my feet and stood in the middle of the room. "But
you're not," Dess went on. "Do you want to know what
I
know
about you?" Dess took out her phone and pressed a couple buttons.

"Why don't you spend the
night with me? I got some real good stuff from Trent. We'll have so much
fucking fun, you'll never want to go home…"

Adim's recorded voice.

"Wait, Morgan!" he
shouted from outside the door. He tried to run inside the house—right to me, I
guess—but Ree stood firmly in his way. "I can explain."

I looked at Adim, sickened, shaking
my head in disgust.

The recording was still playing,
and I tuned in.

"I'm not interested, not in
drugs and definitely not in you."

That last one was Erica's voice.

I looked at him quizzically, not
because I felt betrayed, obviously, but because I started to wonder if he knew
how pathetic he was. Did he always act like a sleazy snake? Was he like this
when we were together? How well did I really know him?

Adim stood there, face red,
trembling with anger and humiliation. "That's it, fuckers!"

He charged inside the house again,
catching Ree off-guard and knocking him over. He aimed for Dess with his hands
propped in front of him, as if he wanted to choke her. Ree recovered quickly
and blocked him in a flash, throwing himself in front of his sister, forcing
Adim's hands to end up around Ree's neck instead.

I had to do a double-take with what
I saw next. Adim's hands began to glow red as if they were made of glass and
someone slipped a lighted red candle inside of them. A wave of heat covered all
of us like a blanket, making me feel like I've been thrown into the middle of a
sauna. Ree shouted in pain and covered Adim's hands with his own, and soon his
hands glowed as well, but his were lit up with an inner white glow instead of
red. An avalanche of invisible frost spread throughout the room, neutralizing
the temperature.

Adim screamed. The sizzling sound
of a fire being quenched by water filled the room briefly, but Adim continued
to try to choke Ree.

Dess dropped her phone and went
over to them. "Stop!" she shouted, and I could hear the fear in her
voice. I, on the other hand, seemed to have my feet cemented to the ground—I
couldn't move, think, or breathe. My ex-boyfriend was trying to kill my current
boyfriend. He couldn't kill Ree. He just couldn't. I wanted him alive, happy,
and in my life.

Suddenly, Adim flew back by an
unseen force and hit the kitchen wall violently, where he remained plastered
against it. Confused, I looked at Dess, her forearm up above her head, as if
she had swatted a giant fly. A fine white mist seemed to be flowing from Adim's
heart to Dess's hands. She put her arm down, and the moment she did, he fell to
the ground, nearly unconscious.

She
was doing this to Adim.
How?

I ran to Ree, who was still lying
on the ground. He was breathing, but wounded, with a small red ring around his
neck. "I'll get you some ice," I managed to say, kissing his forehead
quickly and scrambling towards the kitchen.

I screamed in shock as a chunk of
ice wrapped itself around my ankle.

I looked down, noticing that it
wasn't a block of ice after all. It was Ree's hand, and although it wasn't
glowing as bright as it was a moment ago, it still had an unreal shine to it.

"Sorry," he murmured,
hastily removing his hand from my ankle. "Don't get me anything," he
continued, his voice sounding scratchy and strained. "I have a built-in
ice maker." He attempted a laugh and put his own hands around his neck,
and I watched in awe as they shone bright white, that avalanche feeling
enveloping us. I actually had to grab Ree's jacket that was hanging on a chair
in the kitchen and put it on.

Kneeling next to Ree with my arms
around him protectively, I tuned back into what was happening with Dess and
Adim. Even though they were only a few feet away, I had almost forgotten about
them. Dess was standing over Adim, watching him closely. He was screaming, but
it was a very weak scream, almost as if he didn't have the strength for it. The
mist I had seen earlier had disappeared.

"What happened? What did you
do, Dess?" I asked her, thoroughly confused.

Adim remained on the ground,
delirious and still not awake. Dess looked at me but still faced Adim's body
warily. "I'm Lachesis, remember?" she asked with a dazzling smile. "I
can shorten or lengthen life spans. Moving and stopping a body while I'm doing
it is just part of the perks. Here's a fun guessing game. Which one do you
think I chose to do with this prick—shorten or lengthen his life?"

"You've finished your
unveiling! How—when –"

"Dunno, Morgue. I suppose when
I saw Rios in danger, I got scared, and I just did it."

"Because you had to protect
your brother."

"Ugh." She rolled her
eyes. "Don't say it like that, Morgue. Then he'll walk around thinking I
love him, or something."

I smiled at her embarrassment and
walked over to Adim. "Is he alive? You didn't kill him, did you?"

She shook her head. "Nah. Took
a couple weeks of his life."

"All that, and you only took
two weeks?"

"Yeah," she replied with
a wicked grin. "Just imagine how much it'd hurt if I took
years
away."

"Relax, Decima," I heard
a sexy voice say.

Relieved, I walked over to an upright,
perfectly healthy Ree and gave him a giant hug, holding onto him longer than I
had to. "I was worried about you," I told him in a near-whisper.

"Never be worried about me. I'm
a superhero, remember?"

"My former Living Guardian
Angel, a Worthy angel," I corrected.

"I'm actually a superhero and
an angel rolled into one. It enables me to do things no other mortal or
immortal could possibly even try." I laughed a little and punched his arm.
So much for modesty. "The line around your neck is gone. You fixed it!"

"Ice Touch. It's our defense
against the demons' Fire Claws power."

"Fire Claws." I looked at
Adim's and his hands, pondering. It was incredible to imagine that all this
time I'd known Adim, he'd had this power. He never gave me the slightest clue
that he was anything but human. Ethan obviously thought the demon lifestyle was
the way to go. If Adim was so intent on looking macho all the time, why didn't
he ever tell me about this, or show off for me?

It was so strange. Now that I've
entered the world of the God Generation, there were members everywhere I
looked. I just couldn't get away.

"Morgan," Ree said
gently. "Did you ever consider it odd that he hit you with a frying pan,
and it left
that
scar on your arm?" He motioned with his head to
the patch of abnormal, discolored skin.

It was the first time anyone
mentioned my scar without me feeling defensive about it. "He'd left the
oven on. I was afraid to correct him at the time," I explained, grateful
for the first time that I'd had that memory dream at the hospital.

"I know, Baby. I have your
memories right here, and then some." He tapped the side of his head. "I
had the benefit of observing some behind-the-scenes shots that you didn't see
the first time around. When you left the kitchen to go to his sock drawer, Adim
turned the oven off."

"What?" My heart stopped
for a moment and my breath caught. Suddenly understanding, I slumped forward,
shaking my head. "He heated up the pan with his hands," I said in
defeat, recalling the wave of heat I experienced when I ran back in his
apartment. "He'd probably known I was going to come back for my keys."

"Fucking coward," Dess
muttered. "I should take the rest of his life away."

"Let him go, sis," Ree
said, his voice still gentle, his hand somewhat over hers to ensure she didn't
raise it in anger. "You don't know what kinds of thoughts I'm having, too.
But I think we made our point today. We're not going to behave like demons.
Besides, after this, he wouldn't dare try anything like this again. He probably
won't even send his minions out after us, either."

Oh yeah. Ethan.

All three of us turned around
simultaneously to where he had been sitting in the corner.

He was still there, his back
pressed against the wall as if he thought he might be able to break through it
and escape.

"I had no idea he did that to
you, Morgan," he uttered, his voice cracking. "I— I didn't know. I'm
so sorry. I wish I could take it back so that he never hurt you." His eyes
moistened as he shook his head to himself.

"How in the world did you get
involved with a fuckwad like that?" Dess asked, her voice screeching.

"I didn't know," he
repeated. "He showed me a great contract, and I agreed to it. I didn't
know what type of person he was."

"Oh, but you knew he was a
demon, and you thought
that
was okay, didja?"

"Dess," Ree said gently,
rolling his eyes toward her and probably willing her to calm down.

"I never saw any of you guys
use your powers," Ethan continued.

"Never? Not even Adim?" I
asked, finding that hard to believe.

He scoffed a little. "Of
course not. He tried to keep me out of the loop as much as possible."

"He's the king of assholes,"
Dess commented. She was now sitting on the kitchen countertop, her legs
swinging like an 8-year-old and stuffing another breadstick in her mouth. How
Dess found the appetite to eat after all that had happened was beyond me. "Why
don't you take him and get out of here?" Ree suggested to Ethan in a calm
manner.

Without another word, Ethan got up
and picked Adim up, struggling a bit but finally managing to get him to walk.
He put an arm around him and helped him walk out. "Someone else wanted me
to watch you too, Morgan, but it has nothing to do with the God Generation."

What?

I looked up but didn't say
anything. Ethan didn't say anything more as he helped the bewildered Adim to
his car.

Ree stood at the door, watching
them carefully. "Choose your battles wisely next time. Think of the people
involved who could get hurt."

"I'm sorry," Ethan said
simply.

Ree closed the door without another
word.

"He's attracted to you, you
know," Ree said after he hugged me and made sure I was okay.

"Who, Ethan?" That was a
weird thought.

"My god, Morgue, you're sweet,
but you can sure be blind," Dess commented, guzzling down a can of diet
soda. Maybe that was her secret—she used diet products. Nah. That couldn't be
all there was to it. She leaned over where Ree stood with me, telling him, "She
used to think you and I were married."

Ree looked at me in shock. "Really,
Baby?" he asked me, laughing quietly in a way that made me realize he
thought my innocence was cute.

"Well, I thought-"

"You didn't notice how much
she and I look alike, or even that Dess is gay?"

"Uh, no."

He smiled and kissed my forehead.
It was my turn to have a red face, but it helped ease the tension of all the
insanity I'd just witnessed.

"Anyway," Ree continued, "Ethan
is very much attracted to you. I could tell when I first met him. I think that's
why he didn't want to say very much at first. He was embarrassed to discuss
this in front of you."

"
He
spies on
me
and
he then is embarrassed to talk in front of me?" I asked incredulously.
Ethan wasn't exactly an impressive man, so it was easy to overlook him.

"Men think a little
differently from women," Ree explained patiently. "Even though you
are not returning his affections, in his mind, you're the closest thing to a
girlfriend that he has, and he didn't want to be stripped of his masculinity by
responding to any of my forceful questions."

"Can the psycho-babble."
Dess gave him a dirty look. "Not a day goes by that I don't regret you
taking that crap in college." To me she said, "So who else could
possibly be making Ethan watch you and report back to them?"

Ree and I looked at each other. We
both knew. 

My parents.

How else could my mother
immediately know that I got fired from work or that I was in the hospital
because I slit my wrists? She had Ethan following my every move. He probably
hung out at the craft store often. Realistically, I wouldn't have always known
if he'd been there, because my usual post had been at the table in the middle
of the store where I cut fabric and ribbons for the customers. He could very
well hang out constantly inside the store and I'd never know. Maybe he was
there the day Anny called me and he overheard it all. That must have been how
the news got to my mother so fast.