Grim Or Grin

Chapter 10: Alter

A/N: (DISCLAIMER) Longer-than-usual-chapter ahead.

Please take a moment to guess what Lyla would say (the name that is). Please leave a few lines in that box below if you got it right or wrong. And click that star on the right hand side if you will. Make the world a happier place. ;)

Hope you like the chapter. :)

- Amanda

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Chapter 10: Alter

"Daemon!" I shouted but the name was foreign on my tongue so there was a slight tinge of uncertainty to it. Not that it mattered because it worked. Cole...or Cole's alter...or Daemon, I really was not sure how to address him now, had stopped and he had even turned to face me. And I was beginning to question if this move of mine had been too impulsive becuase with every step he took towards me, panic was gripping me. I was frozen in place and all the determination I had earlier was replaced by fear and only fear. Any questions I had disappeared as my mind blanked out.

"What?" he asked as he removed something from his ear. It was a piece of plastic that was connected to a wire - an earpiece. 'He couldn't hear me because he was listening to music?' I thought dumbfoundedly. 'Why hadn't I entertained that possibility?' The thought made me feel a little idiotic at that moment. "You know if you keep your mouth open long enough, you might just catch a buggy prize."

Realising that my mouth was hanging open, I snapped it shut when the thought of an unwanted fly landing in it entered my mind. "It's Lyla, right?" he asked, my name sounding very weird as if he had not said it before. I nodded. "How did you figure out my name?"

'I got his name right,' I celebrated inwardly, not caring that it sounded 'fangirlish'. It was a proper achievement by my standards. "Cole would have named you...so I assumed he would name you along the lines of the description of 'demon'...due to your," I paused for a while, not quite sure how to word his attacks," habit."

"Cole mentioned his 'un-creativity' with names?" he laughed at that. "Well, you most certainly got the assumption right but not so much the reason."

"Erm... What's the reason?"

He kept quiet for a while, which was when I realised that we had resumed walking. I also noticed that he was carrying a transparent bag. I could not get a see the contents as he had held it by his right arm, which did not face me. "Before I became Cole's so called alter, we were one and the same. Our parents had let us stay at our Uncle Baron's and Aunt Kaitlyn's place along with our sister. We had a habit of predicting actions so the one time Uncle Baron had tried to reprimand us, we said that we knew what he was going to say. It was as Uncle Baron had said, 'unsettlingly accurate'. He thought we were possessed by a demon and even got an exorcist. It was quite funny when the exorcist reacted to our acting. He seriously thought "It's a powerful demon." ", he described in a theatrical manner, possibly mimicking the exorcist. "I appeared shortly after and Cole had decided to name me Daemon because of it. The name simply stuck."

I could not help but laugh at the theatricality and Daemon seemed rather pleased with his acting skills. "But on a serious note, is that really the reason?"

"It is," he replied, sounding sure and slightly offended that I had mistaken it for a lie.

"Why are you simply admitting this? I could simply report this to the police."

"It's simple. You don't have concrete evidence. Even if you do report this successfully, you are doing a disservice to Cole. We can get a lighter sentence but our lives will be affected since this is a psychological problem. We'd be under surveillance and a lot of other implications," he replied with a much softer tone, not wanting people to overhear. He was right that my hands were tied. On one hand it was not right that he got away for what he had done but on the other, Cole should not have to be adversely affected by what Daemon had done.