Black Angel (BoyXBoy)

Chapter 16: Fight Me

"You don't think he's going to tell, you know, the whole story," Melody whispers in a quivering voice. "Do you?"

"It's gonna be fine, Mel," Shawn says soothingly, moving to put a hand on her shoulder. She gives him a smile and moves to make room for him on the tree stump. The poor kid practically stumbles over himself in attempt to sit down.

I shove my hands deep into my pockets and stare up into the night sky. For a moment it seems that if I just reach my hand out, I can grab a handful of stars, make a dozen wishes for some better life, some better time. A time where I never had to worry about Krusnik, or murder, or family fueds, or whatever the hell have you. A life where my father loved me, where he was always home to spend time with me and my mother, and to actually be a father.

But it seems those wishes are exactly that: wishes. Fairy tales, the stuff of dreams. This is the cold, hard, brutal reality. My father is planning to murder two Krusnik. And who says he'll stop there? For all I know he'll hunt them all down, to the ends of the earth if he has to. My father never held me as a child. He only held grudges. And he continues to hold them centuries later.

"Gabriel." Melody's voice sends me spiralling downward from the smoky clouds above, far below the millions of twinkling stars. I glance over at her. Her deep red eyes gaze back at me with fear, the darkness of her makeup running like black tears down her alabaster skin. She seems so small, so frail and weak, like a lost child in need of comfort.

"He won't." I look up at the sky again. "He won't...because I won't let him."

"You're not gonna...do anything to him, are you?" Melody recoils a bit when I glare at her and lowers her eyes to the ground. Her hands are tightly laced in her lap, her knuckles shining like pearls through her already pale skin.

"What do you think I'm going to do, beat him up?" I roll my eyes. "I'm not going to let my father drag my mom and your parents down with him, not if I can help it. We're going to keep them out of the whole thing, when we do decide to tell."

Melody draws in a shaky breath. "They could kill our parents, Gabriel," she whispers. "Six and Five Hundred. They could kill all of them, and what then? Where's the honor, the glory, when no one is left alive to obtain it?"

"Shut up!" I whirl around on her. "Don't say that. No one is going to die. Not them, not the Krusnik. We're going to figure this out, so just calm down and get a grip!"

I can tell I've hurt her feelings, but I'm much too angry to care. My shoulders shake with it, tendons tightening down my arms, breath rattling as I try to regain my composure. I can feel Shawn's eyes burning holes in the back of my skull, and suddenly I want nothing more than to punch him sqaure in his golden boy face.

Melody clears her throat after a tense silence. "You have no right to talk to me like this. And you had no right to talk to Luca that way either. Whatever's gotten into you, Gabriel, it better go away fast." She stands up, brushing some dirt off the rear of her pale blue dress. "If they do end up killing Six and Five Hundred, there's going to be a full-scale fucking war. So you calm down. You get a grip." She tosses her hair over her shoulder and turns to Shawn, who watches the whole scene like a lost puppy. "Let's go."

"Sure, I'll drive you home." Shawn places a hand on the small of her back as she struggles to walk through the dirt, tottering on her three-inch heels. The rage bubbling in my stomach feels like murder.

An apology begins to push its way forward, but I dispell the urge and instead turn away, and I don't move again until the sounds of their footsteps fade off into the night.

***

I wake to darkness. A quick glance at my clock reveals the time: 4:27 in the morning. With a groan I roll over, burying my face into the soft, silk-covered pillows littering my bed. My eyes begin to drift shut once more when I notice the familiar green blinking of my phone: a text message unread.

Struggling to shake off the veil of grogginess, I reach for the phone and navigate to the message. The sender is a phone number rather than a name; my brow furrows as I stare at the single-worded text, a hollow sensation seeping into my stomach.

Gabriel?

I type back a quick response. Who is this?

The answer is immediate, alarmingly so. Even Melody doesn't text me that quickly. We haven't met. But rest assured I'm not some pervert. I'm a friend. Well, I'd like to be.

For some reason I'm not assured, I reply. How did you get this number? Who are you?

I wait a minute, then five, then ten. Finally half an hour passes before I realize I'm getting no response.

"The hell," I mutter. I toss the phone aside and roll over in an attempt to return to sleep. But all I can picture in my mind's eye is Luca's wounded face, Melody's eyes streaming with tears, the toss of her hair as she walked away from me with Shawn.

Man, I seriously don't need this.

A heavy sigh escapes me. My insides feel like they're weighed down with stones, a jumbled mess of tension. My fingertips find their way to my lips, pressing them softly; I realize what I'm doing seconds later and throw my pillow as hard as I can against the wall.