Devil

-28-

-Goddess-

"Ourselves," I answered simply, with a shrug.

I was probably enjoying this way too much. The way her eyes slid over me, then glanced away shyly, the way I could almost feel her heart beating against my naked skin. With Nico I felt more submissive or timid in the way I interacted with her, but with Esla I felt dominant and daring around her.

"Are you gonna kill me?" she asked smally.

"Only if you were behind any of this," I flashed her a smile, "Otherwise no."

She relaxed and I kept that as a note in my mind. "Well, shit, how am I supposed to help you guys?"

"Well, before your lovely fight today, Nico and I decided we were going to interview you. We decided if your dad was alive we'd leave you alone and let you live your life, and if he was dead we'd interview you. But, your fight made me decide we should still talk to you, despite your dad's life span."

"Interview me about what?" she asked.

"More about what happened, the people you know, other things," I shrugged.

"And you couldn't have chosen a better time? What am I gonna tell my mother when she finds out her daughter is gone from school?" she asked me.

"You'll have to figure that out," I shrugged.

Her mouth fell wide open, and I reached to get a cold onion ring out of our bag to plop into my own.

"So what do you guys do?" Esla asked after she had composed herself.

"21 questions with you, huh?"

"I'm helping you guys out, not the other way around," she reminded us. Ah, I like a woman that can take charge of a situation. "Agreed," Nico said from the front seat. "Blindfold her."

"Wait what?" panic seeped through Esla's voice.

I grabbed the blindfold off of the seat and tied it over Esla's eyes, holding her still as she attempted to fight me back. "Chill out, it's only so you don't see where we're going. I told you we aren't gonna kill you," I rolled my eyes. I tied her hands up too, and waited for further instructions. It made me antsy to be following Nico's orders, but it would have to do.

We pulled up to the location Nicotine had chosen for our interview and she unlocked the car doors. I grabbed Esla's shoulder and steadied her, preparing myself for any sudden movements or urges to fight to arise. She was a feisty one, I'll give her that. "We're entering the building, once you're inside we'll take it off of you," Nico said calmly.

Jealousy fell to to the pit of my stomach at how gentle she had been concerning Esla. I tried to dust it away, but the jealousy lingered like tar. I shoved Esla through the doorway, letting a moment of anger slip. She squealed and fell on her knees, turning her head around wildly and flailing her arms around. Nico shot me a questioning look, as if asking why I had done that.

I ignored my best friend and walked up to Esla, pushing her back against the floor. Nico closed the building door behind us and we were placed into dim lighting. It smelled like mold in here and I could hear little feet running about. Either Nico was hiding children here or those were rats.

"What do you know about Thomkeesha Walter?"

"Nothing, she was just talking shit about me," Esla said, her voice high and shrill. I pinned her neck to the ground with my foot. "So she started talking about you out of nowhere?"

I heard a little noise come from her mouth, but it was too low for me to hear exactly what it was.

"Yes," Esla said quickly. "I went to fight her with my friends."

"You ever dated anybody or fucked with somebody she knew?" I asked glancing up at Nico with a bored expression as I directed the question to Esla. She was going to crack soon, this was boredom for me. I liked to torture and to prod. I liked the ones who would die for their mistakes, but then cracked at the end. I still would kill them anyways for wasting my mercy, but it was still entertaining and soothing to one's excitement and thrills.

Nico shook her head at me, mouth in a thin line. She put her hair up, glancing down at Esla as she squirmed on the floor, still blindfolded. "Say something!" she begged us. "I didn't do anything!" she told us a moment later.

"I think we're done here," I said, smirking at Nico.

For extra measure, I grabbed Nico's hand and started walking towards the door and closed it behind her. We started walking away from the building and I stopped short of the car.

"We'll have her cracked open like a nut in no time," I told her. "The problem is, I think she's telling the truth," I admitted, a bitter feeling in me that I believed the girl.

"I think so too," Nico frowned. "But we can't let her know that. Obviously."

"So what do we do? Ask her about Thomkeesha some more? Prod her about the people who shot her father and my attacker?"

"I'll have someone look at any possible connections between Esla and the girl she fought. I'm thinking maybe an ex, an old friend, or a sibling is the connection between the two females."

"Well, it needs to be quick," I shrugged. My heart nearly dropped out of my body. "The girl! You forgot to kidnap the girl, Nico!" I hissed, hitting her chest.

"Oh!" her mouth formed an O-shape.

Nico jumped into the car and I walked slowly back to the building so that Esla could hear every foot step up until the moment I snatched the door open. A rat was investigating her while she cried out, wriggling around. "Damn. 'Pathetic' doesn't look good on you, honey," I commented.

"Please, please," she begged.

I shooed the rodent away and took off her blindfold. Teary brown eyes stared back up at me with pain and distrust. "I see into your head," I told her nonchalantly. "I see the answers," I poked her forehead. She moved away from me, and nearly fell backwards. I pushed her on her back and stood over her.

"How does your tongue taste?"

I cracked myself up at the joke, standing back and moving from over her. Esla's distrust turned into fear as she stared up at me. "You didn't answer me. Perhaps I should elaborate: if I cooked your tongue," I said slowly, nodding at her, "how would your tongue taste?"

Little whimpers emitted from her and I leaned my back against the wall, sighing to myself. "Of course I wouldn't eat it, because I'm not a cannibal. But we could feed it to some of the traitors we keep caged up. You know what we do with the ones we decide to keep?" I asked her boredly. "We let the ones who still have limbs go and feed the ones who are decaying alive, and we just keep replacing them and replacing them and replacing them."

I looked her up and down, adding each detail into my memory bank. "You seem like you would last a long time."

"No," she whispered.

I clapped my hands, giving her a large grin, "You can talk? I was wondering if I had been hallucinating our entire conversation earlier. You seemed more feisty," I pretended to frown, "where's your spirit?"

I stepped closer to her and she shrunk back. "I don't trust you, and you don't trust me. If you tell me what you're hiding from me, then I can trust you," I explained slowly, crouching down in front of her. "Because then you'll be showing that you trust me too."

"I'm not hiding anything," Esla told me firmly, tears falling down her face. "Wait a minute," I turned around with a grin, "I'm gotta get my axe." I went down a hall to a room where Nico kept some random weapons. I chose an axe and weighed it in my hands.

This would have to do.

I brought it back slowly and Esla scrambled back, inevitably ending up against the wall. "Please, please," she started to beg, her voice cracking. "I don't want to die! I just want my family to be okay!"

I swung the axe at her leg, waiting for the second it would land in bone, skin, and blood.