For the Hopeless

Chapter 19: Snowfall

"What do you want from me?" Bailey rasped, leaning heavily against the wall of a video game store that made up the left side of the alley. She had no idea why she'd chosen this alley. It was a good mile away from her home, sure, but it was potentially a very public place, and she was wearing nothing but bandages. Plus, she was accompanied by an impossibly tall man with impossibly red skin and eyes that glowed with an impossible red light. What happened if someone saw them?

"Brave of you," he began with a quick survey of the alley, "to come to a place like this with me, all alone, in your current condition."

"If you wanted me dead, I would be dead." She shifted her stance, now resting her entire back against the wall instead of just one bony shoulder. The chill of the brick sent a shiver through her, though the cold of the air didn't bother her a bit. "So what is it you want?"

"I told you already," he said, his eyes taking another look about the area, slowly and boredly. The small clumps of snow on the ground seemed to be more entertaining than her at this point. "I merely wanted to see how you were doing."

"Why?" she asked, and he looked up to find himself pinned with a hard glare.

"Because I'm studying you," he answered, the annoyance to his tone suggesting that this were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Why are you studying me?" She, too, was growing annoyed, but her aggravation stemmed from suspicion instead of misunderstanding.

"Because you're a devil," he started, laughter adding an oddly pleasant lilt to his thunderously deep voice, "yet you have friends. Friends who aren't devils. Friends who trust you and care about you. I'm surprised you haven't been studied sooner!"

"So you're not going to hurt them?" she asked, suspicion no longer coloring her voice, though her brow was still furrowed skeptically. "And you're not going to hurt me?"

"Not unless you give me a reason to," he said, grinning in a way that made her most uncomfortable yet somehow made him seem more trustworthy. He was almost baring his fangs at her, but beneath it, there seemed to be a genuine hint of goodwill. He just seemed incapable of portraying the emotion properly.

"Will you help me with something, then?" she asked, her eyes fixed on the shark-like teeth in his creepy smile.

"Certainly, my lady," he said with a gallant bow. She could still see his mouth, though, and she couldn't look away. "You need only name it."

"The girl who did...this to me," Bailey began with a vague gesture at her bloodied bandages, "can you find her?"

The devil perked up immediately, eyes wide in childish excitement. "To kill her?"

"No, no," she hurried to say. "Nothing like that. I just need to know where she's hiding."

"So you can kill her?" He seemed thoroughly puzzled now, eyebrows drawn together in a confused frown. She sighed. And this was the epitome of her race...

"I don't know yet," she answered vaguely. "Can you find her for me or not?"

"But of course, my dear," he said with a devilish smirk, taking her hand in his and bending to place a gentle kiss upon her palm. Only then did she noticed that the crimson coloring had reached her shoulders and begun to spread up her neck and down her torso. She was looking more and more like a devil with each passing moment; just as he wanted, she suspected. "I'll return to you when I've located her."

"Just remember not to hurt her," she said, her eyes on the redness which looked so odd sneaking its way along her breasts; but the warmth left her hand suddenly, and she looked up to find that the man had gone. "This is stupid," she mumbled to herself, gazing at the spot in which he'd been standing only seconds ago. "I don't even know his name yet."