He starts walking towards the door.
“Abaddon! Where are you going?” I call after him, turning in my chair.
“Away.”
I sit, dumbfounded by his sudden departure, for a long moment. Eventually, it becomes apparent that he has no intention of coming back to finish our conversation.
I’m almost tempted to take the opportunity to rifle through his things for whatever secrets they may hold, but the moment I start to walk towards his drawers, guilt grips me in an iron fist. I can’t bring myself to invade his privacy. Not after that moment of vulnerability he just showed—no matter how poorly he dealt with the intensity of his feelings in the end.
Instead, I see myself out, heading back to my room.
After I’m done freshening up, I stare at the wall for a long time, trying to process whatever is going on with Abaddon and me.
I can’t. I just keep coming up to dead ends. He’s a complete puzzle, full of enough conflicting emotions to give me whiplash.
I hate him, I want to fuck him. He’s cold, he’s caring. We fight, we bond.
“Heaven help me,” I mutter, looking up at the ceiling inexasperation—as if anyone up there is actually listening, and I’m not just ranting to myself as I slowly become more mentally unstable. “Can’t a girl just catch a fucking break already? The world isliterallyending. Did I not have enough challenges down here as it is? You justhadto add in a hot, moody angel king?”
The best coping mechanism that I can come up with is to head to the training yard, where I can at least release my frustrations on something.
I find an empty station in the courtyard and pick up the first weapon I come across, which happens to be a wooden bo staff. Then, I walk over to the nearest practice target—a meat sack dummy vaguely shaped like a human.
That’ll do.
I proceed to violently beat it with my stick.
Shwack.Shwack.Shwack.
I can’t hit a moving target, I can’t fight back when I’m afraid, and I can’t control my biblical parasite. I’m still not convinced the damn thing wasn’t aiming for Jackie and got me by mistake. At least she would have the arrogance to try to put an immortal being on their back.
Shwack.
I’ve had it with this place! These angels only give me more questions than answers. I’m sick and tired of feeling like I’m being dragged from one impossible problem to the next. And Abaddon… I swear, that fucking angel…
Shwack.Shwack.
The fake head snaps from the practice target and flies off.
“Oh, that was a good one,” I mutter to myself, watching the head roll away. It looked like nothing more than a melon when it was on top of the dummy, but now it bleeds like flesh. “Disgusting, though.”
What am I supposed to do about him? Abaddon? The fact that he brought me tohisroom feels just… off.Wrong. I mean, I hardly know the guy! Not on any emotional level, at least. He’s consistently been near-emotionless for the majority of my time here, and?—
Well, no. That’s not true.
There was that one night in my bedroom when he accidentally slipped me all of his hidden emotions, which happened to include enough sexual desire to drive me to masturbate to dirty thoughts about him once he left… so… I’m still pretty ashamed about that, actually.
Suddenly, I don’t have the urge to hit anything anymore.
I drop my wooden sword and slink past the stone pillars of the center building, finding a private spot underneath the shaded awning. With a ragged breath, I allow myself to slide down against the stone wall, sitting on the ground with my head to my knees.
If he knew what I did to myself that night, I’d be so beyond humiliated. I try not to even think about it. Abaddon and I have subsisted just fine in this apathetic, busy relationship for many weeks now. It’s better than being completely and totally alone here.
Until yesterday.
Oh, God. What if he read my emotions then? After I had taken the fruit? It might be a bit of a blur in my memory, but I do remember how I wasso fucking horny for him. I would have done unspeakably kinky things to the… incredibly hot, tall, muscular… yetinfuriating bastardof an angel. It was all I could think about. If he had only?—
Strange shadows suddenly cast across the ground, snatching my attention.
