GLASS || The Catalysts Series, #1

XVII || Partnership Gone Wrong

"I broke your skateboard."

The words are out before she can think, and immediately, she regrets it. For once again, everyone turns to stare at her. What's worse, the two that seem the better friends of Caelus, Roen and Neesha, are giving her alarmingly disapproving looks: Roen's eyes are wide in horror, darting from her to Caelus' back; Neesha is waving her hands and shaking her head frantically.

Caelus has stopped dead in his tracks when Lena made that stupid move. There is hesitation, she senses it. And though he still has his back against her, she can feel the tension in his shoulders because the very atmosphere around her responds similarly — the air grows tight, the pressure low.

He turns, and a glare pierces through her as though a real sword.

Then, he steps forward, slowly passing Neesha. Roen, who barely realises his friend's movements, struggles to Caelus in any case he shall fall, but Caelus trudges on and despite his state and injuries — though Lena doesn't know how severe — he walks on normally, finally coming to a halt directly before Lena.

He isn't that much taller than her, only an inch or two, or somewhere in between. Although his size and the state he's in are not at all convincing, Lena fights the urge to back down, because his stare is purely intimidating. She hears her own heartbeat drumming against her ears as she finds herself lost in those stunning purple eyes.

Caelus does a quick movement of his hand, and, for a terrifying second, Lena believes he is going to hit her, slap her —

He merely extends his right arm, palm outstretched to Lena's left. She looks from the hand to his face, completely baffled. There is no one there to pass him whatever he is expecting.

She lets out a scoff, but it's more out of relief, though part of her still worries about what he can do with just a flick of his hand, she has seen it first hand the way he'd dealt with Lucifer...

Lena stands her ground, her stubbornness prickling her skin. But part fear keeps her in place — her feet are frozen solid.

There is a slight, soft sound of a whir, and just then as Lena looks to the source on her left, she realises Caelus has a device on his extended arm: a silver band that looks way too techy for her taste as it looks as though it is plastered well and befitting to his skin. The sleek band travels over his wrist and extends a notch towards his palm, and when he flicks his hand gently, the device flares to life after sensing movements.

Light goes up the bars on the device, the beeping intensifying. Other than the sound of whirring, there is a greater, more prominent magnetic sound resonating in Lena's ears.

When Lena looks back questioningly at Caelus, whose eyes are still, shockingly, glued to her, something flies so close to her face that locks of her shoulder-length, honey-brown flutters to the front of her face. She can smell so vividly her faint strawberry shampoo, now being replaced by dirt and smoke. The scent drifts before her and in between them.

As her hair flings back into place, some of them stay plastered in her cheek or near her mouth due to the sweat of crawling under the canyon. Everything around her, like her hair, still moves perfectly normally, but Lena herself cannot seem to get a grip. She seems numb, unable to even get the hair out of her face.

She is too sure that Caelus can sense her trepidation, her uneasiness. Yet his face is still so unreadable, so ungiving.

Caelus brings in his arm, and what Lena finds a dark blue skateboard in his hand. He twirls it in his arm quite so casually, before dropping it to the floor and kicking it back up and catching it in his hand again. "You were saying?"