Monsters and mundanes 5

5.19 A no-mane

When Esther is with Kelley at his house she gets a phonecall from Caroline telling Esther that her husband was found dead at the hospital. Esther stares into nothing with a traumatized look on her face.

"Thank you for calling me" she says before she puts her phone down. Kelley looks at her concerned.

"Is everything alright?" he asks and Esther looks at him.

"Dustin is dead" she says with a breaking voice and Kelley looks worried. He walks up to her and holds her in his arms.

"I don't know how to feel" she says and Kelley rubs her back.

"He's your husband. You shouldn't be happy he's dead. You should feel sad and alone. It's nothing wrong if you don't but I understand if you do" She hugs him back and a tear falls from her eye.

A blue snake crawls up the wall outside Elvis' house and in through an open window to his bedroom. The blue snake turns into Nellie and she looks around his room for the little book where he has written all his rules for the pride. She finds it in the drawer beside his bed and when she's got it she throws it down to Harper who's standing beneath the window. Nellie hears Elvis' steps going up the stairs and she walks over to the window again and turns herself into a snake and crawls down the wall and onto Leo's hand. She stays around his arm as they walks away from Elvis' house.

"You're getting pretty good and shifting even if it's not your strong side" Harper says and looks at Nellie as Leo holds his arm up so Nellie can look back at Harper. They get to her car and she turns human again. When they get inside, Harper opens the book and looks at the rules.

"Now, we just have to learn all of these and find ways to get around them so he can't get to you for breaking the rules. We should start with something easy. Something he either won't get mad for or won't even notice" Harper looks around in the book.

"Elvis seems to get mad for pretty much everything" Leo says and Harper looks at him and nods while thinking.

"Something he won't notice it is then" Harper looks in the book again.

Later the same night Nellie carefully opens the door to Aiden's room and he turns to her from his chair by his computer.

"You're late today" he says questioning.

"I was with Harper and Leo" she whispers and walks up to him. He stands up and meets her halfway.

"Your voice is already starting to come back" Nellie shrugs her shoulders and smiles. "That's good. What were you doing with Harper and Leo?" he asks and she walks around him. He watches her slightly confused.

"I'm gonna be a no-mane" she whispers.

"You're gonna go against Elvis?" he asks and she nods. "He's gonna kill you" Aiden says and Nellie stops in front of him and lays her arms on his shoulders. "You're lucky I won't let him" Aiden says and wraps his arm around her waist. "You enjoy that power you have over me, don't you? The power that no one else has?" Aiden smiles at her a little and Nellie nods. "You got an attitude, you know that?" Aiden says and she smiles.

"I know. I don't care. My attitude, not your problem" she says shortly. Aiden sighs in frustration and his eyes start glowing.

"You're playing a dangerous game with everyone around you, lady" he says and she pouts at him. She stands on her tippy toes and pulls him in to kiss him but stops milimeters away from him. She smiles and then she takes a step back and walks out of his arms. But she doesn't get far before he grabs her wrist and slams her up against the closest wall and looks into her eyes with his glowing eyes.

In the morning Aiden and Nellie are sitting beside each other by the breakfast table as Nancy picks out the last things and puts on the table before she sits down.

"It's nice to have you back here, Nellie" Nancy says and smiles at her. Nellie signs a 'thank you' to Nancy and Nancy looks a little confused.

"It means thank you. She's learning sign language because she lost her voice" Aiden explains.

"Lost your voice?" Nancy looks worriedly at Nellie.

"Elvis' sister Sarah came back from the grave as a draug and she cut Nellie's throat making her lose her voice" Aiden explains simply and Nancy looks very chocked and stares at him with empty eyes.

"Oh... Right" she says trying to pretend like it's normal.

"I'm sorry mom" Aiden says as him and Nellie laughs a little. "I don't usually tell you these things because I don't want to worry you. I know you wouldn't want to know everything that goes on in the end" he apologizes.

"That's nice of you. But I am very curious of how you spend your time outside of school and why you're almost never home at night" she gives him a motherly look and Aiden looks down a little with a smile.

"I'm sorry" he says quietly and Nancy smiles at Nellie rolling her eyes at her son making Nellie laugh a little too.

In a dirty earthen cellar, Kian is sitting on his knees in front of a pentagram. He cuts both his wrists with a knife and then he cuts his skin from his forehead to the tip of his nose. He closes his eyes and turns his head up. When he opens his eyes they're completely white and the devil is standing above him with his hand on Kian's forehead as he takes his soul. After a little while his eyes turns completely green as a green smoke comes out of them. He closes his eyes again and the devil steps back into the pentagram and is swallowed by the ground.