Fallen Angels

Chapter One

Be careful who you trust, the devil was once an angel

     Lights of assorted colors flickered on and off, strident music blared into my ears, and sweaty bodies danced against mine as I tried to reach the bar.
     For the past two hours and a half, my bestfriend Lottie had forced me to dance with her and her date, Seth. Though I wouldn't consider it dancing. It had become a mixture between jumping and mouthing words to the lyrics of songs we didn't even know.
     Moonlight Howl was the heat of all the talk recently, becoming the number one club in the entire state in just one week of opening. At least it was all according to Seth, but I wasn't quite sure that I believed this. 
     "ID?" The bartender shouted over the music.
     "Rootbeer!" I shouted back, turning my attention towards the ocean of the dancing crowd.
     Within my scavenge for Lottie and Seth, my eyes interlocked with Seth's mischievous ones. It took him only a moment to wink, and in return it had taken me only half  a second to flip him off.
     Before I knew it, both of them came over, Lottie's attempt to get me to approve of their two week anniversary. 

     Wasn't. Gonna. Happen.

     "Dance with us!" Lottie cried out, her words slurred and in jumbles. There was a hint of alcohol in her breath, which immediately caused me to glare in Seth's direction. How she had managed to get her hands on alcohol was beyond me, but it only made sense that Seth had a part in this. 

     "Really?" I scowled.

     "She's her own person, Ashley." Seth muttered, more to himself than to me.

     "Come onnnnn Ash!!" Lottie tugged at my wrist and attempted to raise me off of the stool I had so rightfully claimed.

     The thing was, I'd already made up my mind. "Hey, go have fun, I prefer the stool anyway." I swiveled around in the stool and handed the bartender a five dollar bill from the pocket of my skinny jeans.
     From behind me, Lottie sighed outloud and slid into the stool beside me, propping up her elbows on the table and clamping her hands together. This was how she argued. "Ten bucks if you get back out there." She batted her long eyelashes at me, big blue eyes staring intently into mine.
     "I can't be bought."
     "Twenty."
I glanced at her, a smile tugging at the edges of my lips. "Twenty-five and I'll give you a lap dance."
"That's my girl!" She squealed, hopping off of the stool and heading back out to the dance floor.
A hint of guilt tugged at my heart, a frown forming on my lips. There was still no way in hell that I was gonna go back out there, but I had at least gotten rid of her. For now.
"And people call me cold hearted."
Now that was a voice I hadn't wanted to hear, much less get lectured from. I had even made my attempts to ignore him obvious. I turned to face Seth, his blond hair bright within the dim lights of the club.
He was the type of trouble that Lottie didn't need to get involved with, and I knew the second Lottie told me that she was dating him, that he'd break her heart.
"You are," I responded bluntly.
Seth was a pretty boy, which evidently tricked girls into falling for him. Maybe it was his green eyes that made girls melt with just one glance, or maybe it was the way his shaggy hair just barely curled at the tips, and possibly the way his jaw had a strong set to it.
I should know. He had sat in front of me in every class we had last year, and I was forced to watch him take advantage of all of these things he'd been gifted with.
He treated girls like new toys. For a while he loved them, cherished them, treated them as if they were everything in the world, but when he got bored of them, he would exchange it for something else, something new.
"I'm not the one who tricked her bestfriend into thinking she was gonna go dance."
Though I wasn't facing him, I knew a smirk played on his lips. He was trying to piss me off since he knew more than anyone else that I detested him, but it had all come to me that second as I'd realized why he had even bothered to ask Lottie out.
He was trying to get to me. This was how he played, and damn did he play clever and cruel. But he was Seth, and I expected nothing less from him.
We had gone way back, seeing as how he had been my bestfriend in elementary school, but we grew apart in the mids of middle school, around the time I'd met Lottie. In ninth grade, however, Seth declared war when he had stuffed my bag and locker with worms.
Why Lottie had even agreed into dating him was far beyond me, especially when she knew my past with him. This was all so humorous seeing as how Seth hated Lottie as much as he hated me.
I felt my blood boil with anger, my cheeks flushing. This made no sense whatsoever—but the point was, lying to your bestfriend that you were gonna go dance wasn't even something that would break her. Boo hoo and boom, she's over it.
"Whatever," I muttered, mainly to myself, as I felt him walk away.
When I had confronted Lottie about why she had even agreed on going out with Seth, she had simply claimed that love had mysterious ways of working.
Love. My. Ass!
"Meet me in the alley in five minutes alone or your friends get it." A hoarse voice whispered into my ear, making me jump out of my seat in surprise.
I turned around, bulging my hands into fists to deck the lucky contestant, but no one was behind me or looked as if they were fleeing.
My heart hammered loudly inside of my chest, the room becoming much hotter than it had originally been. I turned to a man who sat beside me, though by the way his shoulders slumped miserably I could tell that there was no way he would have seen who it had been.
This was probably just to try and scare me, as a prank, right? It couldn't be possible. This was too insanely stupid! I shook my head and sat back down, doubt eating me alive.
What if it wasn't a joke? I gulped and wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans. Everything was making me feel claustrophobic, the flavor of my drink leaving a bitter after taste in my mouth.
Even if I did plan to go, how would I be sure what alley he was talking about? For all I knew, he could've confused me for someone else, but if he hadn't then Lottie and Seth would pay for it.
Don't go, don't do it! My instincts yelled as I ignored every fiber in my body that tensed up as I hopped off of my seat and left the safety of my stool, of being surrounded by witnesses, and of my bestfriend.

In the alley I paced back and forth impatiently. Though it stank of rotten garbage and the wind blew hard, sweat beaded down the side of my head. Who was I even waiting for? How did I even know this was the right alley?! Or if this freak was even coming?
I didn't.
"Told you she'd come!" The same voice I had heard from earlier announced from behind me, my body tensing and shuddering at the sound.
     I turned around, my hands into fists, but before I could see anything I was slammed against the alley wall. My vision became a haze as I cried out in pain, my back arching on its own with an agonizing sensation.
     There wasn't any time to react, only time to feel the dark pain that consumed me. I groaned loudly in hope to get someone to hear, but was rewarded by being kneed in the stomach. "Shut up!" The man yelled through gritted teeth. "I don't need the popes to hear you."
     Each time he jerked his knee away, he dove it back into the pit of my stomach harder. At this point I couldn't see anything but dark circles clouding up my vision, pain that jolted throughout every fiber in my body making my vision darken. This was it.
     I couldn't even feel pain anymore, only the feeling of letting go. Somehow, something inside of me mustered up the strength to deck him exactly where it hurt most from where I laid on the floor.
     He cursed and I heard him stumble back a few steps away. It gave me enough time to recover my vision, for me to see him and his companion.
     Both were buff with menacing looks that would send Luke Hobbs running for his money. One had black hair with a scar that went from the right corner of his bottom lip all the way up to his left eye, and the other had blood red hair that spiked up into a ridiculous mohawk with matching red eyes.
     I would be laughing if I weren't afraid of moving any more than I should.
     "Stupid insignificant girl!" Mohawk yelled, moving forward to attack again. I wasn't going to stick around anymore, but even my pitiful attempts to crawl away weren't going to save me. "Where do you think you're going?" He grasped onto my hair brutefully and pulled me backwards and onto my bottom.
     On instinct I brought my hands up to where his were and sunk my nails deep into his flesh to get him to let go of my hair, but he didn't budge. I wanted to scream out in frustration when I realized this was hopeless, but I knew if I did he'd only bring me more pain.
     It was then that I realized he was toying with me. That much I could tell. He let go of me and walked over to Scarface and then back over to me, indecisive over what he should do next.
     Without warning he thrusted his shoe deep into the pit of my stomach, taking the air out of my lungs.
     A loud sob escaped my lips as I gasped out for air wanting nothing more than to go home and crawl into my mother's warm embrace.
     "You're gonna kill her." Scarface said dully, speaking up after all this time.
     "Nah," Mohawk chuckled, my vision beginning to cloud with darkness once again. I just wanted to sleep, to disappear from this world. "She can't die, she's—" His voice got caught off as I heard him choke on something, and then there was nothing but darkness welcoming me with open arms.