Lost In The Night (On Hold)

A Deal With The Devil

(Cressida's P.O.V.)

During the drive to school, Adri and I discussed possible ways to bring out the better side of Raphael. So far, all we had was try to reason with him as a solid idea.

"We could lock him in a room and threaten him." Adri is driving, but that doesn't stop him from giving suggestions he knows I'll chastise him for.

"Adri! We can't threaten him, if anything, that'll make him pissed at us and hate us."

"Fine fine," he sighs. Then a mischievous smile spreads across his face, making dread the next words coming out of his mouth. "You two could make out!"

If he wasn't driving, I'd have slapped him already. "Oh my god, no!" Adri glances over and laughs at my mortified expression.

Concluding that no harm would be done, I slap him on the back of his head.

"Ow! Hey, I'm the one driving here!" Adrian rubs the back of his head, grimacing.

Shrugging, I say, "you wouldn't have crashed."

"And you know that how?"

"Because I know you, now shut up and drive." He does so, and the rest of the short car ride is spent with both of us thinking about what we need to do for our plan to work, even if we didn't have it planned to a tee.

Adrian pulls up in the school parking lot and finds a relatively close parking. Just as luck would have it, as we get out of the car, we're approached by none other than Raphael himself.

"Helloooo hunters! Oh, my bad, hunter and huntress." Raphael stands in front of us, looking annoyingly arrogant. "Well well, what's this? Your minds are shielded from me. Care to explain?"

"We don't like our privacy being invaded." My voice is emotionless, while both Adri and I maintain poker faces.

"That so?" Raphael arches an eyebrow, making him look even more arrogant, if that was possible at this point. "I daresay you're lying to me, little huntress, and I have a feeling Jerimiah will think the same."

"Whatever," I grab my bag out of the car, shrugging my shoulders as I close the door. "Our deal still stands, and if you guys are willing to screw it up over a trivial suspicion, be my guest." That shut Raphael right up, knowing too many things were at risk.

He pursed his lips, glaring at me. "You win this time, little huntress." Turning around, the vampire stalked off into the school.

"Well," Adri says, "this is going to be harder than we thought."

"Not quite," I reply. "The way he's acting is exactly that, an act. It's a facade. While part of him wants to be the emotionless vamp he was when we first met, another part just can't. I think now that he sees he was a shitty person before, part of him knows that he shouldn't be acting the way he is towards us, towards anybody really."

My brother looks at me, making me realize what I just said. "Cress, is the bond growing stronger? Before, you could never give so much detail."

"Oh god," I bury my face in my hands, I hadn't even thought about it until now. But it came to light that yes, the bond had indeed grown stronger. My reaction was enough for my brother, but it also told him just how much that worried me.

He engulfed me in a hug and said, "don't worry. Everything will be okay, we'll figure out what this thing means. I mean, it can't be anything too bad, right?"

I glanced up at my twin. "With our luck, it just might be." Sighing, I pull out of Adri's embrace and head towards one of the entrances to the school, him not far behind.