Another gorgeous piece of fanart that I've found over the past couple of days :)
SOTC: Devils — Amelia Curran
• you listen to your devils in the minor key •
April couldn't barely contain herself. She loved Carl's display of such bravado, finding it cute, in the way that a puppy jumps into an alligator-infested lake just to fetch a tennis ball.
But she had to admit, it took guts to accept near-certain death so willingly. And in the moment as he stepped out behind his father, she felt a coy smile creep across her face.
This boy was so much stronger than her other playthings. Even Oliver, who was...
April twitched, clearing her mind. She knew she had chosen well this time.
Her father kicked the door closed. A second of stale, knowing silence passed between them, before his eyes narrowed sullenly at the RV wall.
"Sweetheart," her father started, the jumble of words evident on his face. "Don't get too attached this time."
April's smile remained perfectly steady on her face, but her eyebrows drew together slightly. "Why? I can protect myself, Dad." Despite the defensiveness in her voice, she also partially agreed with what her father was saying.
"His group is fucking annoying," he laughed, sending a small chuckle up April's throat. "I have to return the kid eventually, or his damn dad will be nipping at our heels."
She nodded understandably. While coarse, blackened thoughts slugged through her head, she knew it was necessary to preserve this group's obedience. "Fine," she huffed, eyes twinkling. "But I get him for a couple months."
His smile ticked up three notches, revealing the crazed glint of his teeth, yellowed by the flickering RV light. "Sure, hun," he leered. "You can do whatever you want."
Suddenly, a quiet whump on the roof caused the RV to list slightly. Another pair of heavy, rushed footsteps soon followed. April exchanged a knowing glance with her father, excitement rising like hot air in her chest.
Yes, she had chosen a strong one. Overly so, perhaps, but that would be something she would discover too late for it to matter.
♛ ♛ ♛ ♛ ♛
His father was surrounded. A gathering cloud of haze-hung walkers stumbling into a thick ring around him. For a moment, Carl dwelled on the possibility that he was too late, but then he caught the darting glimpse of his father's hands as he pushed at the walkers.
Carl grit his teeth, heart clenching in his chest. "Hey asshole!!" He yelled, waving his arms around, attempting to draw on the nimbus of ambling bodies. A few curious heads swiveled his way.
"Hey shitface!!" He bellowed even louder, and several detached from the pack, growls burbling in their throats. As a large bundle of walkers peeled away from his father, Carl felt panic begin to rise in his chest. How could he have been so stupid? He was dead meat. He was—
"CORALL!!!!" His father yanked him out of his flurry of terror just as a walker stumbled into where he had just stood. Chills shuddered his arms and his lower back. He had never let them get so close, he had never—
His breaths came quicker. He could barely move, but his feet were numbly pounding ahead, and soon he was climbing the back of the RV, but it felt like his heart would fly out of his chest.
Tremors pulsed through him like firecrackers, and he was curled into a ball, because everything hurt, everything swam around him and erupted into a raging fire and curling fingertips and—
And he opened his eye. His heartbeats thundered through his entire body. Tears glazed his cheeks. Steam curled from his open mouth. His breaths were irregular, but soon corrected themselves to match his heartbeat. One twoone two onetwoone two onetwo. Stumbling over each other like landslides.
He squeezed his knees to his chest and exhaled, then unfurled into a sitting position. Dragging the backs of his hands over his cheeks to help the sticky residue of panicked tears.
His father's eyes were trained on the axe, slowly turning it around in his fists. Suddenly, he looked up at Carl, eyes cracked like geodes. "I—I need to get you out of this," he breathed, as if that was the most important part of their whole ordeal. "I can't imagine what those psychopaths might do to you... I—"
"I'll be f-fine," Carl stuttered, attempting to keep his voice steady and quiet. "I can get information. Try to get it to the group."
His father shook his head weakly. "I can't let you do that. I... that's..." His gaze wandered to the sea of walkers clawing at the side of the RV, attempting to reach the two of them. "I don't want you to be in danger—"
"—and neither do I," Carl finished, breaths still uneven and choppy in his throat. He wiped a hand across his forehead in exhaustion. "But we live in a dangerous world, right? This is just a new form of it."
His father closed his eyes. The rasping growls of walkers consumed the space between words. Cicada song echoed through the woods and danced along the RV windows. Carl squeezed his fists tight. "I don't have any choice," he whispered, and even though it was enveloped by the multitude of noise, he could see his father's shoulders slump like falling mountains. They both knew it was true.
When Carl looked at the thin-tipped crescent moon, he thought it looked like April's smile: cold, slick and coy, edges sharp against the thick, early morning darkness.
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A/N: WOW, THAT CHAPTER SHOT STRAIGHT OUT OF MY BRAIN AT THE SPEED OF FRICKIN' SOUND
Good God that was like an hour and a half like wtf how did I do that
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Word Count: 997
Created (& edited) 1-16-17
Edited 1-18-17
Edited 4-22-17
Edited 8-17-17
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DEVILS ♛ C. G. 〖 #wattys2018 〗
Fanfiction[ c o m p l e t e d ] "She looked like a goddess. The kind that sends cities to their knees in fear. The kind that is never in picture books. The kind that twists people." - - - - - April is a devil. A demon. And above all, she is a...
