The Flames that Engulfed Us

Chapter 55: This Is Looking Like a Horror Movie

My Gran started to shift before my eyes, her white hair growing and turning brown, the same shade as mine. She had bangs and her skin started to thicken and get a shine to it. She changed so she looked the same age as C.C. as he moved next to her.

Death moved. He was in between me and Gran, but he only seemed interested in me. Lincoln tried to shove himself in between us, but Death got his hand around my wrist. He pulled me towards him, away from Lincoln. Lincoln moved towards us, but Death spoke, and he froze in place.

"Motus cessat!"

"If you didn't notice," my Gran snapped, "None of the humans speak Latin."

"Fine," My uncle hissed, dropping my wrist. He moved towards Lincoln.

Lincoln collapsed when my Death was a few feet away, and I ran forwards and fell on my butt between the two of them. My uncle pulled me up roughly.

"You two get back to your room and don't leave until someone comes to get you."

"Don't move," Gran snapped.

"And you," Death said, turning towards C.C. "Hide behind my sister if you want. It doesn't change the fact that you're dead. I'd hate to be you."

Lincoln stood up behind me. "We're not going anywhere."

Death turned. "Yes, you are."

He turned back around, and I watched as the room started to move of its own accord. Vases started to float.

"Run," I yelped, me and Lincoln both running for the door as furniture started to fling itself at us. The furniture started to box us in, so the only place we could go was back to the room we'd come from.

The door banged shut, locking. Lincoln twisted the doorknob as I banged on the wood, but we were locked in. I went to the end table and picked up a bobby pin. My boyfriend was good at all things that helped a hoodlum, including lock picking. I handed them to him, and he bent down to start picking the lock, but the metal started to cave in, sucking the pins into itself and closing the entire knob.

We were trapped. It doesn't stop you from trying everything you can to get out, knowing that you can't. In fact, it just kind of spurs it on. I eventually gave up, collapsing on the bed.

I heard banging from the other room as Lincoln was messing with something else, but he walked towards me eventually, laying down next to me.

"There's a ventilation system. I think if we have any time to spend here, I might be able to get us out."

"What's the point?" I muttered, not really meaning for him to hear. "Because we have nowhere to go."

"You want to know what the point is? If we stay here, we don't have control of anything, but if we get out, we at least control where we go."

"We're entirely at the mercy of my family."

"That monster is not your family. I don't think he's the same thing that offered to help us. It's like a split personality or something."

"Do you really think that or are you trying to make me feel better?"

"Both." He replied simply.

"I'm sorry about that conversation with my Gran."

"I'm not. She cares about you, Sky. So do I."

"My family doesn't give you an easy time."

"I deserve your dad not liking me."

"No, you don't. My dad should let it be enough that you make me feel—feel like I do."

He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, smiling at me as he did. "Your dad's reasonable. I'm not the best person in the world, Sky. I'm not anywhere close. I think he knows that, and I can respect that he doesn't want me near you, but I've also never been much for rules. I need you. I mean, you heard him explain. I physically need you."