Sin of the Saint

CHAPTER NINETEEN: A DUEL FOR THE WAR

**WARNING: VIOLENCE AHEAD**

After the final class of the day, Liv rejoined with Axel in the choir classroom. Mr. Harrison had just got done explaining that he would have another order of sheet music for the two newcomers when Leah Briggs lightly shouldered Liv on her way out.

"I'm sorry," Liv apologized quietly, almost mindlessly.

Axel shot a strange look between Leah and Liv as Mr. Harrison rambled on to the both of them about something unimportant.

Mr. Harrison then moved on to playing a few scales, which Liv and Axel both had to chime into to test their ranges. Despite what she thought about herself, Mr. Harrison categorized Liv as a soprano, and Axel, as he suspected, was a tenor. Without so much as even a little audition, Mr. Harrison approved their entrance to the choir.

When he'd finished speaking and excused them, Axel mumbled, "What was that about?"

"What was what about?"

"Leah...she bumped into you?"

Liv shrugged, "She seems a little...unimpressed with me, but it's whatever I guess."

"From what I know of her, she's unimpressed with everything," Axel said. "But that was a little surprising—she usually would leave the new kid alone."

"Hm." They walked out of the classroom and Liv made her way towards the back of the school where the gym was.

"Where are you going?" Axel asked.

"Oh, I uh..." Liv cleared her throat. "I've got some extra credit to do with Coach Luther. I'll see you tomorrow, yeah?"

Axel smirked, "You bet. Later, Liv."

"Yeah, you too," she said, giving a slight wave of her hand as she turned into the commons, and...

...was immediately surrounded by mist.

She gasped, trying fruitlessly to exit the veil—her fingers combing desperately through the fog. "No...not again!" She wanted at least one more training session with Coach Luther before she'd see Cupid's ugly mug again. What if he kills her just like the first time?

Or worse...what if Felicity already told him about her wings? Sure, she was locked up now, but Felicity knew about them since the beginning of September! She had all the time in the world to tell him if she knew his true identity!

She glanced around the misty nothingness of the veil—there was no sign of Cupid anywhere yet. She pulled her staff out to examine it again. It bore a familiar resemblance to the one that Coach Luther had lent her during their training sessions together, but this one, along with her skin and her hair, shimmered gold.

She grasped it in her hands and spun it as she'd practiced. Upwards and downwards, upwards again and upon twirling it to change sides, snapped it down onto her shoulder by mistake.

"Ouch!" she groaned, rubbing the sore spot.

"You're getting a bit better I see," Cupid's silky, sultry voice sounded from behind her. "Sorry it took me a minute to get here."

Startled, she whirled on him, holding her staff with both hands on the lower half, pointing the weapon up to Cupid's neck. He was closer to her than she initially thought.

"So hasty, as usual," he rolled his eyes and brushed the staff away with the back of his pale hand. "Can't we just meet like two normal individuals for once? Without all the hasty violence?"

"Hasty violence? You killed me in a matter of minutes the first time we met! Are you the incarnation of greed? Or of hypocrisy?" Caritas asked, then jabbed quickly with her staff, hoping to catch him off guard.