What we do in the Dark

Chapter Twenty-Six

A few days have passed, Zev's wounds have closed up and scabbed over. I was stuck to him like glue almost to the point of him being annoyed, at his request to not leave him alone. It was early morning, maybe 7, I was sitting up in his bed reading. He was asleep next to me, head resting on my thigh. The curtains were closed but they still allowed quite a bit of light through, enough for me to see the words on the pages of my book. Suddenly there was a familiar voice.

"Hey princess." It was none other than Thorin, standing in the doorway of Zev's bedroom looking down at us.

"Hey, you're back." It's been only about two weeks now since we last saw him, a lot has happened since then though.

"You know it," he smiled. His eyes wandered over to Zev, and his smile dropped. "What happened to him? He's injured." How does Thorin know that? "I can smell the blood, sure it's dried but it reeks all over the both of you and the bathroom. Us demons have a keen sense of smell." Is it my place to tell Thorin what Zev did to himself? "Did he cut himself again?"

Again? "What do you mean again? Do you know about his past?" I put my book down and sat up properly accidentally waking Zev in the process.

"Jasper, what's going on?" He looked up at me, then his eyes shifted over to Thorin who still wore the same worried expression on his face. "Oh hey Thorin," Zev said as he rubbed his eyes tiredly sitting up.

"Why did you cut yourself like that?" Thorin's words were straight to the point, visibly catching Zev off guard. Zev was silent for a few seconds the Thorin spoke up. "That man from a few months ago was one of my kind." That man that I hit over the top of the head with Zev's boot was a demon? "I wish one of you had mentioned it sooner."

"Wait but how I saw him and Zev was awake the whole time. He could move and speak too?" I remember that day. The man didn't seem like a demon at all.

"Our kind cannot paralyze humans if they are fully awake, but we can make you weak, confused unable to fight back. Though it's pointless because we mainly feed off lust, so if the human truly doesn't feel that at the moment we really get nothing from it, except maybe the despair that they feel. That's probably why he let you hit him like that. Because Zev didn't want it. We tend to be more playful than dangerous." I looked over at Zev and he was pale, his eyes wide and the colour flushed from his lips.

"But I thought you said that we had to let the demons into our life, that they couldn't just show up?" He did say that right? Unless you're a child though. I do remember that part.

"Well yes but our kind sometimes doesn't have to follow that rule. We will often visit humans at random, though we prefer to have a sort of bond with the human. We get more out of it that way. As for why he decided to try Zev when he was fully awake beats me, I'd have to ask him myself. Though I'm sure he had his reasons." Zev's relapse was all because a random incubus decided to attack him in the middle of the day? All this pain and sadness? "Would you like me to remove those cuts and scars for you? Give you a fresh start?"

I looked over at Zev's pale face. He stared into Thorin's purple eyes and nodded. "You'll do that for me?" Zev asked softly.

"Of course. I dislike seeing the two of you in pain or discomfort, and as of right now it's oozing from your pores." Was it really that obvious? "Done, you're healed, also the ones on your wrists. I just healed your full body instead of the one area, thought it may be easier." Thorin smiled.

Zev looked down at his wrists, they were indeed cut free. "Thorin you have no idea how much that means to me. I can start over, no physical reminders of what happened. Thank you." Zev was beaming tears of happiness welling up in his eyes.

"I'm glad I could help," Thorin smiled softly.

"You didn't need to touch him to heal everything?" I asked. Why'd he kiss us before when he healed our wounds?