For the second morning in a row, Amara woke up on Vee’s couch. It was, in a way, more strange to be in this house than it was to be in Purgatory. They had known the planes were going to be acting strange, but Vee? The girl that had tried to kill her, then swore that they would never be friends? Now Amara was practically living with her.
Even stranger, Vee had even been sowhat nice these last two days. Yesterday, after the fight with that strange beast, she’d started asking about Amara’s abilities. Was it genuine interest? Or was she just trying to strategize about their escape?
What even was that creature? It passed through walls like a ghost, but I was able to punch it easily enough.
With a groan, Amara stood up and started stretching. She was a little sore from the fight yesterday, and it didn’t help that her wings were cramping from sleeping on the couch. Making sure she was in the middle of the room, she opened her wings as wide as she could and started moving through her standard routine.
She’d been a demon long enough to have a strong understanding of her body, and had designed a series of stretches that helped her wings and tail wake up. The most interesting thing about her demonic limbs, in her opinion, was how flexible they were. After twenty years of living with a standard human body, she’d grown accustod to limbs that only bent in specific directions. Her tail, in contrast, had full mobility in every direction, and was completely prehensile. Her wings were more limited, likely due to their complex bone structure, but not by much.
She was in the middle of a sowhat elaborate stretch when she heard Vee leave her bedroom. When Amara looked up, she saw Vee standing in the hallway, staring back at her.
“Oh, sorry, I didn’t an to interrupt,” Vee said, looking away quickly.
Amara rolled her eyes. “It’s not like I’m masturbating; it’s just stretching. The couch is comfy but hell on my wings.”
There was an awkward pause, then Vee cleared her throat and walked to the kitchen. She rummaged through the fridge, throwing together a makeshift breakfast before sitting at the counter. Amara continued stretching for a few more minutes until everything felt loose and limber, then moved to the kitchen to join Vee.
“So, what’s the plan today?” Amara asked.
“Well, our only real lead is the circle under Lysander Hall. If we assu that Tessa is looking for us, she’s bound to go there eventually, right? We could probably just wait there until we hear sothing, but then we risk running into that creature again.”
“What if we sought the creature out? If we can figure out why it’s here, what it wants, we might be able to figure out how to avoid it.” Amara took a quick pause to eat, then continued. “I’d say we should try to kill it, but I don’t know if that’s possible. I an, if it lives in Purgatory, it’s probably already dead, right?”
After a mont of contemplation, Vee spoke up. “I’m not against that, honestly. I’d rather face it out in the open than in another cramped hallway. It’s strange that we both spent an entire day exploring campus, but didn’t find that thing until yesterday.”
“Great! We’ll finish eating, then head out!” Amara went back to shoveling food in her mouth, and soon enough they’d both finished eating.
Vee returned to her room and changed into a new outfit, the new clothes looking even warr than what she’d worn yesterday. She didn’t bother offering any clothes to Amara this ti, and when she was finished, the girls left the apartnt.
Amara was growing annoyed at how bland everything was. The campus looked exactly the sa as it did yesterday, with absolutely no indicators that ti had passed since they had returned ho. Her thoughts wandered to stories of spelunkers that spent days underground, returning to the surface to find their circadian rhythms completely disrupted. Would that happen to her? Could there be any more dangerous effects to hopping between planes?
She didn’t particularly want to think about it. She was thrilled that her demonic side protected her from the cold of Purgatory, but there were other side effects of traveling through interplanar portals. She rembered Brandon’s last monts, desperately fighting to avoid falling through a portal, only to have his hand severed when the portal closed on it.
A shiver ran through her body, not from the cold, but from the thought of a portal slicing part of her off.
Eager to think of sothing else, she returned to sothing more light-hearted; she was determined to figure out Vee’s na, but was running out of nas that began with V.
“Okay, what if it’s sothing weird?” Amara said.
“What, the creatures? They’re pretty strange already, don’t you think?”
“No, like, all my previous guesses have been normal nas, but now that I think about it, you probably wouldn’t be ashad of your na if it was sothing normal.”
Vee groaned, clearly annoyed by Amara’s persistence. “Ugh, can you just drop it already?”
“Maybe it’s so strange, new-age thing. What about Vengeance? That would be fitting. Wait! I’ve got it!” Amara ran in front of Vee, stopping her in her tracks as she excitedly kept talking. “Vee for Vendetta!”
Amara expected another frustrated groan, but instead, Vee just looked down at the ground. She was strangely quiet, and when she finally responded, her voice was soft and timid. “Why are you doing this?”
“What? I’m just curious about your na. You could stop this at any ti,” Amara said.
“That’s not what I an, and you know it!” Vee said, her voice growing louder. “Ever since we got here, you’ve been insufferable! You’re horribly rude, you insult constantly, and you ignore all requests to stop! What is your problem?!”
“I’m sorry, MY problem?!” Amara t Vee’s escalation, and was now yelling back at her. “My problem is that, two months ago, I started turning into a demon with no fucking clue what was happening to ! And then, before I have the slightest idea what’s going on, one of my best friends decides she wants to fucking kill ! No questions, no conversations, just a quick monologue before you’re trying to shove a sword through my heart!”
“I-I didn’t know—”
“You never tried, Vee! And you know what? I was on your side for weeks! Every ti Tessa blad you for that fight, I defended you. I bent over backwards to try and see your side of things, to give you the benefit of the doubt, because I thought you were right. I spent weeks begging for forgiveness, trying to talk to you, and what happens when you return to campus? You insult , throw into your wards, and shoot in the back!”
Amara stepped closer, jamming a finger into Vee’s chest as she kept shouting. “You’re the one that attacked ! You’re the one avoiding ! You’re the one that swore, to my face, that you didn’t want to be friends anymore! You don’t get to turn around now and complain that I’m being rude to you, Vee, because I’m giving you exactly what you asked for!”
“I never said I didn’t want to be friends!” Vee said.
“So now you’re a liar? Or are you just delusional?”
“I said we couldn’t be friends! Not that I didn’t want to be!” Vee paused, breathing heavily as the shouting match ca to a sudden halt. They glared at each other briefly before Amara responded, her words quiet with surprise.
“Wait, do you want to be friends, Vee?”
“Of course I do! I miss you, Amara; you were my best friend. I trusted you with everything! When I learned you were lying about so much, it broke .”
Amara hesitated, trying to process Vee’s words. “Except you were lying too. Were you ever going to tell you were an angel?” she asked.
“I… no, I wasn’t. I’ve known I was an angel for as long as I can rember, and the Church told over and over that I had to keep my identity a secret. If people find out who I am, they stop seeing as human. I’m suddenly a ans to an end; a thing to worship, threaten, and bribe. All they see is what I represent, not who I am.”
Amara’s voice nearly broke as she responded. “Yeah, I wonder what that’s like.”
Vee's eyes went wide. Her mouth opened, attempting to say sothing, but no sound left her lips. Amara continued talking instead.
“Yes, I’m angry, Vee. I’m angry at you, I’m angry at that stupid cult, I’m angry at the entire fucking world. Do you know how many people have tried to rape in the last two months alone? Four! And the last three succeeded because I was hungry! I begged them to do it because I needed them to think they were in control, but I was just using them; they were nothing but prey to . We’re alive right now because I accepted who I was, I embraced the monster everyone thinks I am.”
Amara’s breathing was starting to slow. This entire conversation had caught her by surprise, and she didn’t fully understand what might happen next.
“I don’t think that anymore, Amara,” Vee whispered.
“Well you should.” Amara looked up, her eyes lingering on Vee's scars. “I do. Every ti I look at you, I’m reminded how easy it is for to hurt people.”
“What, my scars? I'm the one that almost died, Amara!”
“You think I don't know that? That I don't see what's happening to ?!” Amara hesitated, scared to continue talking. “Sothing changed the night of the ritual, Vee. Maybe it was the gangbang, or the fight, or being next to an open portal to hell, but it's so much harder to fight my instincts. When I woke up here and found you, I only rembered that you’d been avoiding all week. So, I thought, okay, if you want us to be enemies, then fine. I'd rather be that than strangers.”
“That’s really what you thought? That I wanted you to insult and dean ?”
“Wouldn’t it be easier? If I turn out to be a malicious, soul-sucking demon, that ans you were right. No complicated moral questions, no begging for forgiveness; you get to sleep peacefully knowing the world makes sense. And… and I wouldn’t have any of this guilt.” Amara turned away from Vee, staring up into the lifeless Purgatory sky. A tear fell down her cheek, and she quickly burned it away.
“I don’t want to live in that world,” Vee said, stepping closer. “Not if it ans giving up on you. I didn’t save your life to settle a score, I did it because I believed you were trying to be better, but now? This isn’t the Amara I saved.”
Amara wasn’t sure what to say. Before she could piece together her thoughts, Vee spoke up again. “You know what? When we found each other in Purgatory, I was honestly a little happy.”
“Happy to what, spend ti with ? You’ve been avoiding ever since the ritual!”
“Yes! I want to see you, but I’m scared, Amara! My powers don’t work like yours; they’re given to by an angelic Patron. That’s what I ant when I said we couldn’t be friends; Heaven won’t allow it. What happens if my Patron looks down from Heaven and sees us happily eating lunch together? Do I lose my powers? My life? I have no idea!”
“You seriously think Heaven would kill you for eating lunch with ? I thought they were the good guys?”
“It’s not that simple. I was born because my Patron needed another agent on Earth. How do I know that my magic isn’t the only thing keeping alive?” Vee’s voice wavered, her fear more than obvious.
Listening to Vee’s words, sothing finally clicked in Amara’s mind.
She’s just as scared and confused as I am.
“Vee, I—”
“LOOK OUT!” Vee shouted, interrupting Amara before imdiately tackling her to the ground. Above them, exactly where Amara’s head had been a mont earlier, a massive ghostly jaw snapped shut.
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