Of Fangs & Fins ✔

55. Cry for Me

SR: A L E X, Alicks - Proud of You

fifty five.

Hades.

Eryn chose not to speak to me on the plane ride to New York. Not even when I placed my hand on hers and told her lets the join the mile-high club again. Not even when I threw my legs on her lap and gave her my biggest puppy eyed expression. Her back was toward me and she looked out the window like some sort of lost puppy. I was half tempted to compel the sulkiness right out of her.

Nobody liked a downer.

Chris's fingers tightened around the steering wheel. We all managed to squeeze into a car that was so graciously given to us, but Eryn looked as if she was going to explode any second. "We can't get into the city right now, so for now we're heading to Brooklyn. From there we'll go to the underworld haunts and see what the locals think."

"Underworld haunts?" Eryn frowned. She took the time to turn her head and stare at Chris. She called for shotgun before Sagan and I had the chance to say anything. It was probably to get as far away from me as she could.

Sagan sat on the other end of the car, pressing herself against the window. I'm sure if Eryn didn't get the passenger's seat, Sagan would jump at the opportunity. I set my mouth into a hard line. These girls were my scions; if they'd gave the same respect they give me now a couple of centuries ago... I suppose with all the times I kept leaving and coming back... the respect diminished. Sybil really should've talked to them about me more.

I couldn't really blame her.

"The city is being overrun by demons," Chris replied, his gaze going out to the river beside us. AS I scanned the city, my eyes widened when I saw a skyscraper in the distance set blaze. Bodies jumped out of the building one by one, some on fire. The building tumbled within minutes and fell onto the other one, the fire easily spreading. What was making the fire spread so quickly? Something had to be helping it.

Eryn sighed. "We can't do anything about it. We have our own problems."

"We need to stay focus, everyone," Chris stated sternly, "You're to take down Lucinda and extract Nerissa and Marina. If you want to pull off another doing other things, we're risking the lives we can here to save."

I lifted a brow. Chris would be the one that went headfirst into these kinds of things. He helped everyone he could, even if he was choosing them over himself. Upon seeing Lance with him for the first time... it made me proud. He needed someone that would fight for him as much as he fought for others. Lance did exactly that. Chris would go traipsing off into other peoples' problems where Lance would run after him, picking up Chris when he would fall.

But seeing him now, how he had such a one track mind, no doubt he was taking this personal.

Perhaps he blamed himself for Lucinda's actions.

"Why are you being so cautious?" I asked. I couldn't go into Chris' mind, he was the closest in age to me. He knew how to keep his mind an impenetrable fortress. Not that I would dare delve into his mind anyways.

Chris' eyes met mine through the rearview mirror. He gazed flitted to the girls before looking back to me. "We already have a set plan."

"And it has nothing to do with the impending downfall of the city?" I countered, lifting a brow.

Eryn peered at me through the rearview mirror only for a fragment of a second, but it was enough for me to know she agreed. Even with Marina in the clutches of Luce, Eryn still had a hero complex. Go figure. "Maybe we should see what's going on over there."