Enjoy
Though no sun came through her wide apartment windows, the words “take your gun” written on her floor in what could loosely be called blood sparkled. Trinny stared at it trying to remember the smiling, full of life Marylin Cory and not the rotting, violently jerking version that had written this message. It didn’t work. She stroked the gun then turned her back on those memories and left.
The air outside was viscous. It possessed no life of its own so it was determined to rip out Trinny’s. The sun wouldn’t arrive for another two hours. Until then, the world was colorless but even the sun couldn’t bring life into this city.
Her head started to hurt; a determined painful thump in her temples. To say the headache was her constant friend was overdramatic but the sentiment was still the same. After so long, it became easier to ignore the war raging between her temples.
Trinny sped through the red light and was sad others stopped instead of running into her. Three more red lights and several close encounters later, she pulled into a building’s underground parking garage. The headache was like bricks hitting her skull.
Several people…creatures…things waved to Trinny as she climbed out her car. The demons inside them knew who she was. They wanted to be friends. Trinny ignored them and shouldered her bag.
“Good morning Bates.”
James Wilson refused to call her Trinny. His opinion of the name was colorful and always entertaining. The nicest was Trinny sounded like someone whose brain was leaking out of their ears. She didn’t go by her first name so Bates was his only option. He gave her a half smile, always only a half smile and never showed any teeth.
People often thought they were siblings but James had a calm and intimidating demeanor Trinny could never accomplish. He had somehow managed to keep his turquoise eyes when they moved to the human world. Those eyes stood out spectacularly against his dark brown skin.
“Good morning James.”
“You try to kill yourself again,” he said eying the new scrapes on the car.
“Sort of.”
“When is that man going to learn his witch doesn’t work on you?”
“She gives me a headache.”
He chuckled as he grabbed Trinny’s hand, placed it in the crook of his arm and steered her towards the elevator. She itched to snatch her hand away, pull her gun on him and force him to stop acting like her subordinate. James would simply laugh and pat her head so, she had no choice but to let him treat her like a princess.
“So how was your night?” James asked, grinning more than was necessary.
“Loud.”
“Neighbors have a party?”
Trinny cringed. She wasn’t in the mood for his games.
“I wasn’t the one keeping you up last night so don’t growl at me.”
“You smell like a human, who was keeping you up last night?”
He flexed his muscle to squeeze her fingers to the point of breaking them, almost.
“How is that any of your business?”
He released her. She snatched her hand away then balked when his eyes shifted. It was the only sign a person got before he destroyed them.
She stopped and folded her arms, “Why am I even afraid of you?”
James too stopped and turned to her. The hard calm in his eyes was infuriating.
“Because Bates, although I love you like a sister, I have no misgivings about hurting you to make a point.”
She flinched. “Demon.”
“Come now.”
“Sardonic beast.”
“That’s better.”
