To Heaven and Hell

Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Eden

"Saints and Sinners ball bullshit, that's a Gossip Girl rip off."

Luca's eyebrows crease. "What's a gossip girl?"

I laugh a little. "It's one of those TV shows I told you about."

"Oh yeah," he takes a bite out of an Red Delicious apple. "You know," he points at me. "When I was alive, I watched Tom and Jerry and The Ed Sulivan Show. And my mom watched that god awful show I Love Lucy." I can see his finger nails digging into the apple, breaking the skin to expose the soft white inside. He looks up at me and sets the apple down. "What?"

"Nothing," I shake my head.

"It's not nothing. I know you better than that."

I take a bite of the pasta salad I brought and look up at Luca's tree. I watch as the sun shines through the leaves. "Did you find out who did it?"

I can feel his eye burning into my skull. It forces me to look at him. His eyes are cold and psychotic, a look I have seen a few times before. "I took care of it," his voice is low.

"Did you? Did you really take care of it?"

"Of course I did. Why wouldn't I?"

"I don't know."

A silence settles between us.

"Do you think," I say after a while, "that they are going to do something else?"

He looks at me straight mouthed. "If they do something again, I'll kill them."

Andi

"We need to take her down from her power position. The only reason she has power is because of him. We take him out, we get her as well." I glance over at Mila and she is looking at me like I am stupid. "Don't you give me that fucking look," I growl.

"Look," she says turning her head back to watch Eden and Luca, "you've been here, what? A month and a half? Two? You don't get it. Anything we do it can't shake their relationship, trust me I've tried. And Luca is a psychotic bastard who has been here longer than anyone else. He knows everything."

I scowl at her. "If you are having second thoughts you better back out now, but if you do I will rip your fucking head off."

She squints her eyes at me. "Don't be a bitch. I'm just saying he will be a challenge. Chill the fuck out." She bites the inside of her cheek. "I don't think going after Luca will work. It can't just be a straight attack on him. It has to be Eden. Knock her down and Luca won't know what to do."

"How do you know that will happen?" I question.

"I read people, it's part of my work." She rolls her eye as if to say I should already know this. "He has been here the longest out of anyone here. Everyone that was here when he got here is twice dead. He is independent of everyone else. He knows more than everyone else. He is the original insider. Everyone's business is his business. The only thing I have ever seen him hang on to is Eden. It's almost possessive in a way. She is like a favorite toy a first grader plays with. Luca will go play with others, but he always comes back to her. I think that it's a sense of security. And if we take the security away from him by destroying her...well that will cause the chaos we need."

I eye her carefully. "Mila Jones," I begin. "What goes on in your head?" I ask rhetorically.

She laughs and responds anyway. "I over analyze. It comes in handy."

"Well then I can only assume that you have a plan then." Luca glances over in our direction and we duck back behind a tree.

"We are treading on dangerous water," she states pressing further back against the tree's bark.

"We're fine. Tell me your plan; I know you have one."

"I do, but it's going to be difficult."

"Why?" I ask.

"Because Luca knows we are going to attack."

**

"There's my darling Phoenix!" Father exclaims as Nix comes in through the door.

I roll my eyes. Nix the darling angel, fuck you. I cross my arms and lean back in my chair. My eyes flick up as my father gets up from his chair. You'd think I was the bastard child, not her. He was married to my mother first, not hers. Nix and her mother are stuck up snobs, and I am the forgotten. Fuck this. It's not fair, nothing is fair anymore. I should be the one my father greets with a smile, not a scowl.

I run my tongue along my bottom lip to wet it. I could do it. I could kill her.

I shake my head. I shouldn't take it that far. I'm not really that kind of person.

"Dad," Nix says. I glance up at her.

My mouth drops open and I stare at the boy behind her.

Oh.

Hell.

No.