“Want to know the secrets to keeping the big bad monsters off your back?” His voice is pure, low drawn out seduction.
And I hate that I truly do want to know the advice he’s about to tell me.
I nod hesitantly.
He takes a single step closer, his boot settling with a quiet tap along the dirty tile floor just between my thighs. He interrupts my space just like that, but the closeness is something that draws me in like an unseen power luring me to him. His head dips and I follow the move with watchful attention.
“The secret is,” one hand settles on the back of my chair and before I know it, my chin is tipped up to him, breathing in his close spoken words and the gleaming glint in those dangerous dark eyes, “the secret, Innocent Izzy, is to find bigger, badder monsters.” A tearing sound tips through the room just as enormous, battered white wings jut out from his broad shoulders. Warmth slips down my cheek and when I look up, each one of those perfect feathers are coated in blood.
His blood.
My breath catches but I force myself to find a steadiness inside me before replying. “And you think you’re the bigger, badder monster?”
The way his lips carve up in a sneering smile should be answer enough, but he leans in ever so slightly, his warm promising lips grazing mine as he speaks once more just to me.
“I know I am.”
And that is how I became best fucking friends with an angel living a life in hell…
Wait. Stop. Time out. I’m getting too distracted by the one pretty thing in this entire doomsday of an academy.
“What are you?”
The mysterious shine in his eyes brightens and his arms flex from holding himself rigidly above me.
“What do you think I am?” His weight shifts and now he’s so close to me his hips are held firmly between my thighs, not touching but blazing up my skin with how much his pants tease my center with his closeness.
“You’re an angel.” I don’t blink, I refuse to show any uncertainty from here on out with these people.
He shakes his head but doesn’t answer.
“We’re nephilim. My brother and I are children of fallen angels.” The girl cuts in like she’s absolutely sick of watching the two of us.
“You’re one of the founding Prods,” I say slowly, trying to remember the notes I took.
Syko straightens slowly, pulling back from me fully as he shrugs and pushes his white hair out of his big black eyes. “It’s not really a prestigious thing to be a race of the founding six prods who created this shithole.” The venom in his words linger in his cutting features. “The angel, the vampire, the faerie, the shifter, the warlock, and the nephilim had good intentions. They prevented reckless supernaturals from destroying the world. But this place is not what they had in mind. I refuse to believe a daughter of a fucking angel took one look at this prison and said ‘sign me up’. It was a great idea with a shitty execution.” He slinks down into the chair next to mine and I note how discreetly he slides his arm along the back of my seat.
“What’s your name?” The small girl asks.
“Izzy. What’s yours?”
Her dark eyes study me for a moment as if she might not tell me at all.
“Kayos.” When that strange name slips from her tongue, her pretty blue eyes flicker from bright to black before she blinks it away and focuses on her lumpy lunch.
Nerves crawl through me, the hair along my arm standing abruptly on end as I watch the sinister little girl with the big beautiful eyes.
Syko nudges my leg with his, drawing my attention back to him as he shakes his head just minimally.
“I forgot ketchup,” she mumbles on a faraway voice and my confusion only grows when she wanders off to... god knows where because I guarantee condiments cost extra in this joint.
“Kayos is a nephilim startle Prod.” Syko’s voice is quiet, timid sounding. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard him be so serious about anything since the moment I met him.
“A startle Prod, what’s that? And how old is she? She has to be the youngest person I’ve seen here. Is it even legal for a little girl to be thrown in this prison palace?”
A sad sort of smile pulls at his lips and I have to admit he’s handsome in that tragic way.
“She’s fourteen. The President of Prodigiums doesn’t give a fuck what our age is. Kayos is dangerous. That’s why she’s here. If she doesn’t get her creature under control, they’ll control it for her. And startle Prods, they don’t stand a fucking chance. Any sudden sound, any threatening setting, any… any little thing will set her off. And the people in her path, they’re as good as dead.”
The way the muscles in his arms bulge when he folds them across his chest and plasters a picture perfect smile on his face tells me she’s back. She slides into her chair, ripping open little packets of sugar and shaking them out onto her food without thought of what the fuck that sugary hot dog concoction must taste like.
But I can’t seem to even glance down at her tray though. All I can think about is how the supernatural government sent this sweet little girl into the one place that’s like a ticking time bomb for her. Syko’s right, she doesn’t stand a chance.
I can’t imagine how it must feel to sit back and watch your own flesh and blood and know that they’re going to fail.
A strangling feeling consumes my chest and I just sit there numbly while she eats, her gaze flickering from time to time when a fork clatters to the ground or a tray rattles the metal tables.
With each sudden sound, I can’t help but wonder if this is the last thing I’ll hear sitting across from the innocent little girl.
But nothing ever happens. Syko does an endless job of making sure she’s distracted, focused on his charming words and larger-than-life laughter.
He’s... sweet.
I think.
Chairs knock to the ground, several of them banging into each other just before an entire table flips and a man with burning palms collides his blazing fist into another demon’s face. The two plummet to the ground, knocking more chairs, trays and people to the floor in their tumbling violence.
“Let’s go, Kayos.” Syko’s spine is stiff, shoulders broad and ready. He’s a living, breathing defense mechanism in this moment.
Kayos’s lips tremble, her teeth sinking in hard to stop the quivering of her jaw, but even as blood trickles from her mouth, she still shakes uncontrollably.
“Now, Kayos,” Syko grabs her hand and without another word, his wings splay wide and in the next instant he’s soaring her over the deadly crowd at a controlled, casual pace.
The door bangs open in his wake and the sunlight casts across his bloody wings like an angel set out for vengeance.
And I know, that’s exactly what he’ll be if anything ever happens to that little girl.
Six
Izara
The afternoon classes fly by and I stumble along with it with so much dread in my stomach I think I might be sick.
Because the last thing on my fabulous agenda is the one thing adults shouldn’t have to put up with.
I just shouldn’t. I did my time. I ran my miles.
I should not. Have to do. Fucking Gym.
The sunlight prickles my eyes as I glare up at the nicest building this whole damn campus has to offer. Figures they’d throw the budget on something as torturous as this.