In his sixth class, Riley was still ignoring him. It wasn’t too surprising, since he had really hurt her feelings by inadvertently admitting he would have dumped her for Miriam. It had not been his intention to reject her like that, but he couldn’t deny that it was the truth.
Once he was done with his last class, he met up with his sister and they headed home. She was quiet for the better half of the ride, before tentatively speaking what was on her mind.
“Umm, Michael?”
“Yes?” He asked weakly. Driving was requiring most of his focus, and thinking about his bed had become especially inviting in the last couple of hours.
“Is Miriam coming over again tonight?”
He glanced at her, surprised by her question. He had forgotten that she had figured out that Miriam had been in his room the previous evening. He wasn’t sure what to tell her, because he didn’t want his sister trying to listen in on them. Should he be honest or try to lie about it?
“Possibly…” He began cautiously. “Why do you ask?”
His sister looked down at her lap and began fidgeting with the ring on her pinky finger. “Well, I was just wondering if you could ask her if I could talk to her for a little while…just to have a little girl time.” His sister then looked up at him. “I just want to get to know her better.”
“Oh, umm…” His initial reaction was an absolute no, forgetting for a moment that Miriam could disguise her appearance. However, even if she could look human, he was fairly certain her non-human features could be still be felt, which meant one wrong move and his sister would know something was up. Hesitantly, he continued. “I’ll…ask her, I guess…but no promises.”
Amelia nodded in response, looking away again.
Suddenly a disturbing thought occurred to him. “You’re not going to try to barge in on us, right?”
Her cheeks immediately flushed bright red at the question. “N-No! Of course not!” She looked out the window, holding up her hand to shield her face from him. “B-But, you shouldn’t be doing anything indecent anyway! What if dad walks in on you? He doesn’t knock if it’s really late and he’s checking in on us.”
Michael realize he hadn’t thought about that, largely because Miriam could disappear and reappear in the blink of an eye. Granted, after last night, he knew Miriam wouldn’t do anything indecent with him even if he wanted to. She had been too upset by the fact she had hurt him.
Amelia glanced at him from the corner of her eye and then abruptly looked away again. She must have interpreted his silence as confirmation that they had done indecent things, because she put two and two together very rapidly. “Michael…” Her voice started shaking, and he could tell that her face was almost turning purple. Even her neck was red now. “Is that how she…accidentally…hurt you?” Her voice had turned into almost a whisper as she barely managed to finish her sentence.
“Uh, no!” He lied immediately. “Of course not! Why would you think that?” He realized his defensiveness was probably a red flag confirming that he wasn’t being honest, but he didn’t care. Deny, deny, deny was suddenly the only thing on his mind.
They both fell silent and didn’t even look at each other for the rest of the drive home. The moment they pulled into the driveway, Amelia got out and rushed inside. Her face was still a dark shade of pink. Sighing, Michael got out and headed inside himself. He remembered to take some fever medicine this time, without prompt from his sister, and then headed to his room to allow his bed to claim him for a few hours.
It seemed that he was becoming more fatigued by the second. He wondered if his tiredness was from his body working overtime trying to recover from all the physical damage it had sustained recently. As he made it to his room, he made sure to open his window before crawling into bed. Then, within seconds, his mind lost consciousness and he drifted into a dreamless sleep.
❖ ❖ ❖
Michael woke up startled, feeling like something was off. Forgetting briefly where he had just been, he allowed his eyes to register that he was in his bed at home. It was already dark outside. He glanced at his clock shocked to see that it was already past 1:00 AM! He quickly looked around the room to discover what was wrong – Miriam wasn’t there yet.
He immediately got up and looked out his window, but there was no sign of her. Recalling that his sister had wanted to speak with her, he snuck out of his room to make sure they weren’t doing just that.
However, to his surprise, he found Amelia sound asleep by the stairs. She was curled up in her dark purple pajamas with her head resting on her knees. There was a book lying next to her, indicating she had been camping out there reading.
Michael looked back towards his room, feeling fairly certain that his sister wouldn’t be able to hear anything from this vantage point. So then, why is she here? He wondered. The fact that she was still there at this hour told him that his dad must have come home at a normal time. Otherwise, their father would have already woken her up and had her go to bed.
Michael thought about waking her up himself, and helping her to bed, but his first priority was trying to find Miriam. Would she be in the woods? Why wouldn’t she have come to his room like last night? Had something gone wrong with her brother? Had her plans failed? Would he ever see her again?
He quickly found his thoughts escalating into a panic. He needed to find her and staying inside waiting would only make his anxiety worse. At least if he went looking for her then he’d feel like he was doing something productive, despite the fact that he knew deep down he would never find her if she had decided to leave him. The idea made his chest physically hurt again. He pushed the thought aside as best he could, deciding to leave his sister where she was for now.
Michael quietly snuck out of the house from the backdoor and headed into the woods to make sure she wasn’t waiting for him where they had first met. He knew she probably wouldn’t be there, but it was better than wondering all night.
As he walked along, following his familiar path to the hill with the fallen tree, he was too focused on his internal turmoil to notice the eerie absence of sounds. There were no crickets chirping or frogs croaking like normal. In fact, other than the occasional breeze rustling the leaves, it was completely silent. Instead, it was the sudden break in that silence that caught his attention.
A deep growl ricocheted off the trees, coming from his right. He stopped immediately, suddenly finding his heartbeat pounding in his ears as he noticed a pair of glowing yellow eyes watching him. Michael knew animal eyes didn’t glow – they also typically weren’t seven feet above the ground, unless it were a grizzly bear. However, he had never seen a bear with horns.
Michael was finally reacting the way he should have reacted when he first saw Miriam – the way she had expected for him to react. Whatever spell had fallen over him when he had first seen her, it was certainly gone now. He was literally paralyzed with terror. Never in his entire life had he ever known a sense of impending doom like this. He knew beyond a doubt that he was about to die, and he was completely helpless to stop it.
His life flashed before his eyes, and he found that only one image appeared in his mind – one of Miriam that first night he had seen her leaning over her terminally ill victim. She was his life now, and she deserved better than this. She deserved better than a weakling who would give up on her so easily by allowing himself to go down without a fight.
Ironically, he had been fine with allowing her to take his life, but that was because he was hers now. If he really loved her, then he should defend what was hers to the death, even himself, as messed up as that was.
Michael knew without a doubt that he didn’t stand a chance of surviving this encounter, but his overwhelming fear quickly sparked into a burning blaze of anger and hostility. All his nerves tensed, and he found himself in a fighting stance ready to defend himself.
The pair of glowing amber eyes appeared cruelly amused by his futile reaction. Then, immediately, Michael felt a pressure in his head much like he ha
d experienced when Miriam had tried to see into his mind, except this time his anger gave him the strength to push back. The disoriented pressure he had felt from Miriam had been like a temporary migraine. However, this time it was more like a weak headache he wouldn’t even consider taking pain medicine for.
The amusement quickly faded in those cruel eyes, and then they abruptly vanished in complete silence. Shocked by the sudden disappearance, he quickly began searching for the monster. But the seven-foot-tall demon was nowhere to be seen.
After a few long seconds, he relaxed a little, feeling that he might live another day after all. He took a step back, ready to try to make his escape, when he suddenly hit a tree that hadn’t been there before. Michael immediately whirled around to see those murderous yellow eyes staring down at him.
Being this close, he was able to see the details of his killer. The monster had white hair – a stark contrast to the pitch-black horns rising from its head. It also had tan skin, as well as extremely large hand-like wings that had already caged him in much like Miriam had done the previous night – except this time he was trapped with a serpent ready to devour its prey.
Michael tried to back away, to put some space between himself and death, but instantly he found his left armed trapped in an absolute grip on his wrist. The monster’s hand was so large that it covered half his forearm. He felt like his bones might snap under the sudden pressure, as the headache reappeared in his head.
Failing again to see into his mind, the demon unexpectedly released his grip, folding back his wings, and allowed Michael to put some space between them. Knowing he had no chance of outrunning his executioner, he stood his ground positioned to defend himself.
Unexpectedly, the amusement returned to those cruel eyes and the demon’s deep sinister chuckle broke the silence. “I’m going to enjoy it when my sister kills you. I’d do it myself, but I don’t want to steal all her fun.”
Shocked, Michael dropped his guard just briefly, unable to believe that this behemoth was Miriam’s brother. For one, he looked nothing like her – not just his coloring, but his actual appearance. They were both breathtakingly good-looking, but Michael would have never guessed they were related. He tried to recover, unsure of what this demon’s goal was if it wasn’t to kill him.
The monster seemed to interpret his expression as disbelief, because he quickly resumed to taunting him. “Oh? You think she really loves you, don’t you? Ha! That’s her favorite part – seeing the betrayal in your eyes when you realize she’s been playing with you this entire time. What story did she use this time to make you think you were special to her? She always comes up with some of the craziest ideas to prove to me just how stupid humans can be. She once told some idiot that she had ‘felt him come into existence’ or some nonsense, and he believe it! My sister said she had never enjoyed such a look of betrayal as when she sucked the life out of that one.” The monster paused to chuckle again to himself, his yellow gaze as harsh as ever. “But I can’t let her have all the fun. I want to see a hint of that betrayal – supposedly it’s different than what I do to my victims.”
Michael didn’t want to give the monster what it wanted, but he couldn’t hide it. He did feel betrayed, because what this demon was saying made more sense than the alternative – that the goddess Miriam actually cared for him…a regular, weak human. It was true that he had irrevocably given himself to her, so he hadn’t expected it to hurt so much to believe that she had done the same, only to find out it was all a lie.
Seeing the reaction he wanted, the demon resumed his taunting. “Yes! That’s right! I can see why she puts so much effort into it now. Too bad I may have stolen some of her fun, but she’ll kill you tonight and move on either way. There are plenty of more idiots for her to torment. I just had to see it for myself for once.” Then, with one last sadistic smile, the monster vanished without a trace.
Michael immediately slumped down to his knees, feeling extremely weak from the encounter. All the energy that had appeared from his fear was now painfully absent. He felt like he had been sucked dry again, barely mustering the strength to keep from falling the rest of the way down.
It was a lie. It was all a lie. Miriam had cleverly convinced him that she loved him too, readying him for a betrayal that would crush his spirit before she crushed his body.
Fighting back the tears, he decided to force himself to stand and head back to the house. He wanted to see his sister one last time before he left her forever. He felt empty inside, knowing that Miriam had been extra cleaver this time by initially pretending like it couldn’t work out…only to give him hope that she would find a way to make it work. He imagined that when she returned tonight she would bring good news about how she had mysteriously solved the problem. He would have been so happy – the perfect moment to crush his spirit.
When he got back inside, he found his sister in the same spot as where he had left her not long ago. Michael desperately wanted to wake her up, to hold her and tell her that he loved her, but he knew she would know something was horribly wrong with him. He couldn’t involve her, especially not now, since his only hope that Miriam might leave his sister alone is if she remains oblivious to what Miriam really is. He couldn’t endure the grief of her dying too.
Silently wishing his sister goodbye, he headed back to his room to await his death. He laid down on his bed and stared at the ceiling. Part of him wanted to get up and close the window, which was still open, but he knew it wouldn’t prevent Miriam from finding her way in.
Sighing heavily, he rested his now bruising forearm on his forehead and fought back the tears that threatened to plunge him into a sea of despair.
Chapter 8: Fate
Michael stared at the ceiling for over an hour, expecting Miriam to show up at any moment, but she didn’t. He looked at his clock to see that it was nearly 3 AM. Part of him was thankful that she hadn’t shown up yet. But, even despite the sense of betrayal, he couldn’t stop wishing she would come already.
As horrible as he felt, he still missed her desperately and knew that seeing her would bring him both relief and pain at the same time…but at least it was better than the multitude of agony he was experiencing presently.
Just when he was beginning to wonder if she would come tonight, a heavy weight abruptly settled on top of him and a pair of glowing red eyes filled his vision. It took him a second to refocus to see Miriam’s face just inches away from his. Her beauty was overwhelming, causing him to experience both a breathtaking awe and painful torment at the same time, like he had expected. He did his best to keep his expression neutral.
“Hi love!” She said in a cheerful tone. “Did you miss me?”
Michael couldn’t bring himself to respond, afraid his voice would give away the pain in his heart. However, she didn’t wait for a reply as her eyes quickly shifted from his own to the rapidly forming bruise on his arm resting on his forehead. Her brow immediately furrowed in concern as she questioned him. “Where did that come from?”
“It’s nothing.” He said immediately in flat tone, not wanting her to know her brother had stolen the fun out of all her hard work in deceiving him.
Miriam glared at him, knowing instantly that something had happened while she was gone. No longer being able to meet her gaze, he looked away, the aching finally breaking through his expression. Her tone was much harsher than he expected. “Did a human do this to you? Or…a demon?” She demanded.
He glanced back at her, feeling bitter about the situation. He hadn’t wanted to reveal to her that he knew about her deception, but his agony took a life of its own as it pushed the words out of his mouth in a bitter disdain. “I think you can imagine who – someone that might want to steal your fun in breaking me before you have a chance to.”
Hatred filled Miriam’s eyes as she seemed to realize her brother had ruined that perfect moment of betrayal she had been hoping for. “My brother did this?” She asked harshly in almost a whisper. Michael didn’t respond, but just cont
inued to stare at the wall.
Miriam didn’t let up. She appeared to want to know exactly how much of her work had been undone. “What did he say to you?” Her tone was even harsher than before.
“Just the truth,” he explained weakly. “That you’ve been toying with me this entire time. Sorry if that ruins it for you.”
Miriam’s face immediately turned stone cold as she did her best to hide her anger. Not wanting her to think the truth changed anything, he quickly continued, his expression softening. “But I’m still yours! I know it probably doesn’t matter now, but my feelings for you haven’t changed.”
Her eyes widened in surprise, breaking through her fury briefly. With a tender voice she replied. “And I’m still yours. Yours alone. I haven’t been toying with you, I promise.” She then bent down to gently press her lips against his.
Michael couldn’t hide the pain he felt from hearing what he desperately wanted to hear, but knowing it was a lie. He immediately turned his face away to try to hide his agonized expression.
She pulled away, pleading with him. “Love, please believe me.” Then, when he didn’t show any signs of his pain lessening, she asked. “Why won’t you believe me?”
Sighing, Michael answered her honestly. “Because it never made sense anyway. Why would you love someone like me? You’re…amazing in every way, and I’m not. I’m just a stupid weak human like you said.”
From the corner of his eye, he saw that Miriam appeared hurt by his statement, but it was difficult to tell because her face quickly became pensive. After a few seconds of thought, she spoke again more confidently. “Last night should be more than enough proof that I love you.”
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