Parallel Lines- *RAYOR*

Chapter 10

I think we're all the main character of our own story.

Is this what it feels like to be hungover?

My throat is dry, my mouth is parched. And yes. I have a pounding headache.

It feels like I'm lurching around, my feet unsteady as if on water. I was taken on a ship once as a treat- Mum had stolen it from a sailor for the night, who was too drunk on white liquor to care- and it had been awful. My stomach had swooped at every turn. The sea had been turbulent, and half of the box of Frosted Flakes I had had that morning came up.

I thought cuts were the more bearable kinds of pain because they were easily forgotten. But you couldn't forget the sore part where you burned yourself pulling a loaf of bread out of the oven. Couldn't forget a pounding, tender spot in the head from a blow. Couldn't forget the agony of a headache. The sharpness of a sting. It creeps up on you, then swallows you whole.

"Headache?" says Levy.

I groan in answer. My head is still on my pillow, and it's time for reaping, but I feel so lousy and weak.

"If you'd only not drunk the potion," says Levy. "Don't worry, we'll find an antidote sometime."

"Good," I say, but I can't be sharp.

"Do you want to stay home?" Levy's stroking my hair like Mum used to. But she hasn't in so long. It feels nice, for someone else to take care of you.

But I don't like being dependant.

"No. Gosh, Levy, you're like Mum," I say, and with an effort I push aside his hand. A look of hurt flashes across his face. I almost take it all back, but I'm swinging my legs off and walking to the sink to throw up.

Gabriel is waiting at the portal that will take us to the Underworld. I'm almost crying from my headache.

"You look really sick," says Gabriel directly. I huff and turn away.

The sun is scalding, beating down relentlessly. I'm so tired.

"Come on, I want to go home," I say as Levy takes his sweet time.

"Aren't you sick?" asks Levy.

"Well. To the others I'm too sick to go out. But they don't need to know that. I want to get out of the palace."

"Why?" At the moment, lying around in the palace with reapers waiting on you and feasting on an inordinate amount of delicacies seems like pure bliss.

"Because it's boring," he says. My head aches. In vivid detail I remembered Blake's words.

"You like adventures, don't you?"

"I'm a child of chaos. I have to."

I smile faintly at the recollection. I'd coaxed a smile out of her then. I would find a way to make Gabriel smile, too.

"So is watching other people reap," says Levy pointedly. Gabriel averts his eyes.

"I'm not doing it because I want to- avoid work or anything-"

"That makes it worse, because I can't report you," I say, raising my eyebrows because I haven't mastered the art of raising a single one yet.

"You can report me. You just don't want to," says Gabriel. He raises an eyebrow expertly and gives a Mona Lisa smile. Not quite a smile, but his eyes seemed less harsh.

I shake my head. "It's for Blake," I lie. He doesn't seem to care; he knows and I know that I'm lying. There is something about Gabriel that I like, although begrudgingly.