"Please calm down." Lillian tried from Lex's side too afraid of accidentally (or purposely in Kaerons case), catching a stray fist if this were to go any further sideways.
"What did I tell you, Lillian. Stay out of it!" Lillian sucked in a breath and took a step back. "Get out of my way, Lexie. Now." Kaeron demanded, the chill in his voice froze Lillians' next breath in her lungs, making her cough.
She quickly covered her mouth with a hand.
"Not until you talk to me." Lex ground out, standing her ground, hands poised at her side as if keeping them ready to throw a punch. Lex's act might have fooled somebody who didn't know her, but the almost imperceptible shake in her hands and the uneven rise and fall of her chest that was even tougher to spot proved that even she was not unaffected by the way her brother was acting, which made breathing basically impossible for Lillian. If not, even Lex could be certain about how Kaeron would react... Lillian's stomach churned, it felt as if she were being devoured by a million flesh eating butterflies from the inside.
"Are you ok?" Those three foolish words had been the cause of this mess, right after Lex's freak out in the lobby. Kaeron had quickly secured our room and rushed us over to it, where he asked the perfectly reasonable question.
***
"Are you ok?" Kaeron asked.
Lillian was stretched out on one of the most uncomfortable beds that she had ever laid her head upon, playing with strands of her half braided hair, trying and failing, to forget about the reaper they had seen this morning, but she knew that the question hadn't been directed towards her so she kept quiet, and continued fiddling with her hair.
"No!" Lex barked in response. "But I'm not the one who could have stopped a pregnant woman from getting brutally assaulted and instead just drove by."
Lillian shot up, feeling the mood in the small room plummet like a rock.
"Lex, that isn't fair.."
"Stay out of it!" Kaeron snapped.
Lillian jumped, moving deeper onto the bed.
"What the fuck Kaeron!" Lex rushed to sit on the bed beside her. Lillian felt Lex's arm drape around her and a soft but firm hand as it guided her head out from in between her knees (a move that she hadn't even realized she had done).
"It's ok. You're ok." Lex's reassurance gave Lillian's lungs the strength to expand once more.
Kaeron scoffed. "Go ahead and coddle the delicate flower, I'm going out."
Lex shot him a look, and Lillian knew the look in those endless black depths meant trouble. She was about to say something that she'd regret later.
"Lex.."
"You're acting like a jealous little school girl, Pea."
Kaeron went so still that Lillian could've sworn he was a statue before narrowing his eyes into slits and stared daggers at Lex. "Who the hell do you think you're talking to."
Lex stood and stomped over to her brother, putting her back to the door, matching her his energy.
"Am I wrong? Tell me that you don't hate how close me and Lillian are?"
Kaeron laughed, but there was no warmth in it. Only a chill that made Lillian shiver. Thankfully, it ended as quickly as it had begun, but then he admitted dryly. "I hate how close you and Lillian are."
"See..." Lex started.
"I hate it because she's going to get you killed." He interrupted. "Don't act like only a few days ago you didn't trust her just as much. The only difference is I didn't forget about my distrust in the girl just because she got high at a nightclub."
Lillian's heart cracked at the thought that not even Lex really trusted her, but she pushed down the heartache. Now was not the time, and besides, she was right not to.
Lillian gingerly got up from off the bed and made her way over to stand at Lex's side.
"Please calm down."
******
"I won't say it again, Lexie..." Lex flinched at the way her asshole of a brother used her full name, something that he never did. "Move." He demanded. His low menacing tone may have been enough to scare anybody else into submission, but not her. It just pissed her off more.
Lex had never been afraid of her brother. Not by his ice cold stare that promised death. Not the way his fangs came out whenever he got mad, not even the way that the air around him became as hot as magma. None of it ever scared her because he would never hurt her. Piss her off, sure, but he would never hurt her.
She lifted her chin. She'd admit that she hadn't been the best sister these last couple of weeks, but that stopped today. He'd have to make her move.
He clenched his jaw and shut his eyes so tight that it had to hurt, and ran his hand through his hair before grabbing it as if trying to rip it out.
"Care.."
His eyes suddenly shot open, and then he screamed. Screamed like he was in agony. Screamed in a way she had never heard from him. Shock had her pulling back, all of the confidence from earlier melting into a mixture of confusion, horror, shock, panic and a few more emotions that were too difficult to put a name to, but he grabbed her arms holding her in place as he screamed bloody murder.
She could have sworn that she heard Lillian's cry of terror, or maybe it was her own shriek she was hearing. She wasn't sure. Her brain had short circuited, and nothing made since anymore.
Seconds felt like hours, as he continued to scream for what felt like an eternity until, just as sudden as he had begun, he stopped.
Nobody spoke. They just stood stunned there in the silence.
"Hello?" A woman knocked on the door. "Is everything alright? Nobody's being murdered or like... raped in there, right?"
"Lex." She slowly met his gaze, and maybe it was the soft plea in the word, or the desperate look in his eyes, or the tortured look on his face or... or whatever the fuck just happened, but she moved from out of his way without anymore resistance.
He stepped past her and opened the door, revealing the woman from the front desk. "Everything is fine." He muttered, exiting the room before shutting the door behind him.
He nevered looked back.
Lex slumped down to the floor, letting her knees sink into the torn up carpet as the tears fell from her face. She might not understand what had just gone down, but there was one thing that she was certain of... absolutely nothing was fine.
******
655 T.D The Diary Of Bonnie Quasar
"I've always imagined what being loved felt like. Not in the way that my disgusting old man would do to me whenever mom was drugged out of her mind on the H&H from the club she worked at. That wasn't love. No matter how many times he had tried to convince me that he was only doing those things because he loved me. I thought that I had maybe found it when I had met Kaeron and Logan, but they just saw me as a weak and fragile girl who needed protection. That's when I started to believe that I would never be loved in the way that I wanted. That was until I met Hades. Maybe it's Helia for the first time smiling down upon me for finally leaving that bastard Draefins side, although in all honesty, I haven't prayed to the goddess of love and new borns in a long time, so maybe it was Vorgus, playing another one of his cruel tricks on me and this moment of happiness was nothing more than an illusion. Honestly, I don't care. I plan to cling to every second of this bliss as if the moment I let go, I'll die. Truth is with what I have planned. I most likely would."
******
Foul didn't even begin to describe Kaerons mood. He had sniffed more ash than he had ever done in one sitting before stepping out of his car into the orange of the setting sun.
He observed as the already impressive line of people in front of him grew every second, all of whom were praying to catch even a glimpse of the naked bodies of the most beautiful women in the world. Some were said to even rival Valeria the supposed goddess of life and the beautiful. Kaeron had thought it a pretentious title even for a goddess who was said to be so beautiful that one look at her face would be enough to turn men into her mindless slaves.
Club Vesna, named after the two soul god/goddess, Vesna, the supposed god/goddess of debauchery and the night, was on tonight's "anywhere but the hotel" list. The club wasn't as large as the one in Dekidos, but it was still an impressive size for a strip club. It was also where he knew he would be able to find Whitney, according to Bonnie's diary (so two birds). Apparently, she worked as a server while doubling as a client finder for Draefins night walkers.
Writing such sensitive information in a diary that could easily be read by almost anybody was... just like Bonnie.
A shooting pain in his head had Kaeron clamping his eyes shut.
"1 2 3 4 5..." He counted through gritted teeth. He got to 11 before the pain finally receded, and he could open his eyes again. He should probably take that as a sign to rest. He still hadn't slept, and his body was beginning to rebel, and yet his damned brain refused to stop showing him Ratfords decapitated head smiling up at him whenever he closed his eyes, and he really wasn't in the mood to analyze why something so irrelevant bothered him so much (It's not as if it was his first decapitated head). He'd just have to find a way to deal with this sick feeling that had burrowed deep into his chest another day.
He scanned the crowd out of habit before striding toward and then through them (as if he'd wait in line).
"Hey. Yo. Can't you see theirs a line!?" He ignored the outraged cries of those who he pushed through. If they had an issue, they could do him the pleasure of trying to stop him. He would love an excuse to lay somebody to rest right now.
Kaeron broke free of the line and.. "What the..!" His reaction to the danger was slow, fucking Phoenix ash. A body slammed into him. He whipped out one of his barettas... "Get back here you bitch!" A man shouted. Kaeron changed targets in an instant, and instinct took over. Before he could think about it, he used his free hand to press the person deeper into his chest as shaking fingers clung onto his shirt. Confusion, relief, and even anger wafted from off them (but not fear).
A bland looking man in a black suit, with a white undershirt, came dashing from out the club stopping as soon as he saw Kaerons gun pointed at his head and scowled.
The icey smile that Kaeron gave the man could freeze over a lake. "Take one more step, and I'll decorate that fairly large bouncer behind you with your brains."
The bouncer flinched, and Kaeron didn't miss how the chatter from the others in line behind him ceased. He was drawing unwanted attention.
"You seem to have a knack for getting in my way." The man spat but took a step back anyway, putting his hands up.
"Do I know you?" Kaeron eyed the man but came up blank. Movement at his chest reminded him that their was somebody still there. He glanced down and was stunned to be met with eyes the color of a storm, sensuous brown lips, and slick black hair that sat on smooth dark brown shoulders exposed by the tight fitting strapless black dress she wore, that hid very little.
She took a step back but did not move from out of the arm that he hadn't realized he still had wrapped around her. To his own surprise, Kaeron found himself rebelling at the idea of releasing her from his hold and made no move to do so. The warmth there cracked some of the frost that had taken root in his heart, and he almost smiled at the feeling.
What the hell was it about this woman who made rational thought impossible.
His eyes wandered down her masterfully sculpted body taking note of the golden floral pattern that lined the front of the dress from the bottom right to the top left, but he couldn't keep his gaze off her gods gifted face for long, especially when she smiled that gods damned peonies smile, and it felt like his blood had been ignited by hellfire.
"I'm flattered, but only a lover or a pervert would stare so long at a woman's body, and seeing as we are not lovers. Are you a pervert?"