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-He watched me so hungrily for my blood, or maybe for me and I hesitated for a second before giving him another warning. My stupid body wasn't mad at the idea-
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"Where are you going?" Mom asked me when I went for the stairs.
I turned to look at her—at all of them sitting at the table with their gazes fixed on me—and I tried to repress the disgust I felt when my eyes landed on her.
Seeing her as a negative person after she's been my idol for so many years was unusual for me. It was like everything I knew until that moment was demolished and I was finally facing a truth that changed every perception I had before.
Until she proved to me differently, Elaine leaving on a path to death was her fault.
"To my room," I didn't stay to see if she has anything to say, I simply left, knowing she wouldn't stop me.
Mom has always been authoritative but knows how to step back and not insist. Especially because I tended to make a scene to get myself out of an unwanted situation. Call it manipulative, I call it effective.
Once I got to my room, I locked the door and returned to working on the investigation. There's a silly little part of me that thought in the few hours that were coming, I could do something to help her.
Hundreds of minutes passed with me staring at the same old and wrinkled paper I read over and over only to come up empty at the end. There's no way out of this and I couldn't help but think it was all Devil's fault—I was bluffing, but since I wasn't succeding I had to make someone else responsible for it. Maybe if he wasn't there yesterday, I could've been more observant. What if I missed something thanks to his outrageous presence? What if—
"Missed me?" a voice I heard too many times in the past few days asks.
Again, I had to repress the instinctive shake of my body at the sudden sound in a room that has been quiet for hours. I didn't let him see how much he actually scared me, though.
In that moment, I decided to act like he wasn't there and continue my work. Not even two seconds after I took the decision, Devil put a sandwich on my desk along with the arrow I shot him with. I looked at them from the corner of my eyes, my stomach grumbling after an entire day of protest which meant no eating.
"I got your arrow back, now treat my wound," his lips were dangerously close to my ear, his breath washing all the way to my neck and between my breast with the traces of a soft touch.
The shudder in my body betrayed my attempt to act unaffected, and I cursed Mother Nature for it. Mom said to never do such thing, but she couldn't be the one to speak when she's sending her kids to die willingly.
After my breathing evened, I straightened my back. Kind of wished I didn't because that only brought me closer to him, allowing Devil to sneak his face in the creak between my chin and shoulder. Fortunately, he removed himself from there.
