• “What’s it feel like?”

    “Like acid. Like your skin’s burned so bad it’s melting.”

    “Yeah? Well, I’m not taking my lip ring out. That’s a price you have to pay, if you want to kiss me.”

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    She took in a deep breath of the rain-pregnant air and tapped after him. Her hand was warm, his was cool, and they found themselves sinking into an excruciating, unbearable lukewarm mediocrity.

    He dropped her wrist, let her blaze, and returned to the cold. Moving fast past the dying phosphorescent, he led her through the dim streets and darker souls, finally pulling her towards the entrance of the alley-maze.

    “It’s in the city, isn’t it?” Krea shoved her hand back into her pocket, eyes coldly appraising, straying lower occasionally to stare hungrily at his wings. D'Roy hissed softly, making it sound more like a sigh than anything else, and wiped the impatient malice from his face before turning back around.

    “What do you think?” he sneered contemptuously, “This is the only hell-hole of civilization left on Eurasia, except for the deserts.”

    Krea’s jaw tightened, eyes sparking in anger, but chose to stay silent.

    She wasn’t going to follow him, he could tell. s**t.

    There was a kind of gravitational force pulling him backwards into the maze—a sort of tug that whispered come to me.

    Wings tucked in, D'Roy threw off his leather jacket, hissing softly at the zipper. Without a word, he turned and ran—ran back to everything that was wild and forever.

    He made sure it wasn’t too fast.

    Krea pulled on the ends of her ragged hair cut angrily, biting down on one lipstick-chewed lip and tearing into the dead skin coating. ******** fairies. Whatever happened to pixie dust and just believing you could fly?

    (that’s what mama did—she tried to fly. she tried to fly off the fifty story buildings.

    stupid fairy promised her he would catch her.    )

    Her socks are old. Old and thin to the point of swiss-cheese holes and a playground heaven. She wears three pairs at a time under shoes that are too big for her anyway. She spends a ridiculously long amount of time wondering if fairies wear socks.

    Why don’t you come and see?

    And in a step, she enters the labyrinth.

    (with a monster in the middle)

    What she doesn’t know is that the earth she has just stepped onto is blessed. There is magic in the grime, magic that swelled up and pounded through his veins until he found himself clenching his hands tightly, half longing for the delicate bones to snap. Sharp, mostly-human teeth ground together as he ran, leading her further in.

    Not yet.

    She ran past the street art, the worn down graffiti holding close to the bricks in a lover’s embrace. She sucked down the air, feeding it into her lungs, puzzled by the odd way it stung her throat. She was not letting him get away.

    Ahead of her, D'Roy’s wings had disappeared, folded tamely back into his black T-shirt. She blinked—and he vanished.

    He made sure no one would be able to hear her scream.

    Her head cracked back against the wall, his forearm to her throat and her shoulder scraping hard enough to bleed, stinging in a way that only a scrap could. Her windpipe closed, until all she could think of was pain pain pain and not breathing.

    Her feet kicked out, several inches above the ground, mismatched shoes scrabbling for some purchase. Useless, bitten fingernails tugged at unnaturally cold skin and she was getting dizzy—

    “You really think it’d be that easy?” D'Roy hissed into her collar bone, “You really think I’d let you destroy my home?”

    (break me break me break me—)

    “Shi—” Krea writhes, throat clogged and wet, struggling for the evasive air—

    (you steal my breath away?)

    D'Roy smiled suddenly, sharply, throwing his face into sharp relief. The expression was not a kind one—he looked, if possible, less human. “You annoying girl…”

    (you don’t die pretty)

    Her left eye could no longer see anything but an all-encompassing mottled purple. Twice, her body reflexively tried to throw up, but to no avail. She kicked out at him, one last time, missed—

    Think, Krea chanted to herself distantly; Stop acting like he expects you too—

    She tilted her head, and pressed her lip ring against the delicate skin of his wrist. For a second, he didn’t move—her head began to slump forwards—she really couldn’t see anything anymore and her lungs felt like they were popping—

    (kill me kiss me)

    She could smell his skin burning, just before she fell.

    Before she’s fully conscious, before she’s even hit the ground—she breaths.

    It might not be something to advertise—but she is one of the desert people.

    She was born to fight.

    She manages to take in two, sharply wet breaths before striking the dirty asphalt and tangling her legs around one of his. D'Roy might be one of the fey—he might be lightning, eye-blurring fastfastfast—

    But she’s not completely human, either.

    He jumps up over her first leg and comes down on the second with a mind numbing snap, grinds the shattered nerves into the dirt while she gasps, and bites.

    “s**t,” D'Roy swears, and shakes furiously as her teeth sink in deeper, the steel enforcements sending jarring shocks into his brain, “You b***h—”

    (his blood tastes like shadows)

    Forearm pinned between her teeth, she laced their fingers together, pressing palm to palm and finally letting go when he got a knee to her stomach. She did throw up then, dropping his hand and gagging pathetically, hating her own weakness as she shook on the ground.

    Cold, practical hands lifted her hair up behind her neck. She waited a moment, after she was done, to see if those same hands would wrap around her neck. They did—but in a way that was far more intimate than malicious.

    “I said I’d take you there,” D'Roy said lowly, “I don’t lie, if I can help it.”

    Still huddled on the ground, she raised her face slowly, trying to ignore the careful hands cradling her neck. She could feel the bruises beginning to rise. “Then why did—” she had to break off again, clamping her teeth against the nausea and the unbearable soreness before trying again, “Why did you try to kill me?”

    He sneered in a way that was all predator and blood and didn’t reach his cold, cold eyes, “You never said you couldn’t go in pieces.”