Black and White

Part 10

"This is my favorite place in the whole school. My studio at home is infinitely fancier, but this place is just so much more comfortable and homey. It's more conducive to art for me. Dad's really proud of having a private studio made for me in the compound, so I can't really say that at home." Hope shrugged with a soft smile. "I play some soft music and I can work for hours if no one disturbs me."

"I can see why." Lizzie nodded understandingly. The classroom was lit with harsh fluorescent ceiling panels. Students' art decorated the walls with bright and cheerful colors and designs. A half-circle of chairs and easels were set up around an empty table. Lizzie could imagine how comfortable and reassuring the room would feel with all of the seats filled.

"I can handle anything you might need that you don't have here or tell you another story... anything that you may want or need." Lizzie offered, maybe a little desperately propping herself up on a stool beside the one Hope occupied. She had so far not gotten to see any of Hope's art and was really kind of hoping that today might be the day. The tribrid girl had been working hard on the base sketch she carried around constantly. Respectfully, she leaned back far enough that the art piece wasn't in her line of sight despite her ever-increasing curiosity.

"Do you do music? Could you make my phone play me all of my favorite music, whatever I need to hear but I didn't know I needed to? That would be absolutely perfect." Hope asked, her eyes lighting up. It was truly adorable, though, and unexpected from a girl who had made the school's queen bee cower only a few hours before. The fury Lizzie had seen in golden werewolf eyes had completely dissipated from the beautiful ocean pair she saw now. Though she had only seen a glimmer of the change before, Hope saw no sign of the demon eyes in Lizzie either.

She took her favorite version of the base sketch she had done and pinned it to the top of the easel and twirled her pencil between her fingers as she stared at the blank canvas in front of her.

"Sorry, Hope, but that's a... not a real thing. I can do insane things, but as a devil, I really really can not do miracles. I am pretty much the antithesis of everything miracles are." Lizzie offered her a small smile. "I can give you a customized and free Spotify account if you want. Would that be close enough to suit your needs?"

"That's pretty awesome, Lizzie. A miracle by any other name. You deserve your wings. You should get to fly if you want to. If anyone asks me, if you could curb your overreactions to perceived threats towards me, you would be every inch the angel you once were, at least to me, Elizabeth." Hope smiled, put her headphones on, and realized the version of Spotify Lizzie had made her, literally played the exact songs Hope wanted to hear. Her demonic angel really was more amazing than she gave herself credit for.

She realized quickly she was completely spacing out and thinking about Lizzie instead of working on her piece. It took a moment to clear her mind again, then she put pencil to canvas, and decided not to move again until she had to pee or eat. Hope was so invested in her work she didn't realize when Penelope came into the room and started eating beignets right out of the school bag beneath her chair.

"So, do you happen to know what happened to Dana Lilien's face?" Penelope Park asked Lizzie pointedly, sitting down beside her and arching a single eyebrow, green eyes sparkling wickedly. Somehow this witch managed to strike fear into even Lizzie's evil heart. There was a fire in her heart that reminded her of her sister. Lizzie wished Josie could meet her two new friends... so long as Penelope wasn't about to burn her down.

"You know... I might know a thing or two about that little mess. I might have even had something to do with it myself. Do you have a problem with what I did? I already caught a hell of a lecture from Hope. Somehow she managed to convince me that I was wrong. I don't know what happened or how." Lizzie shrugged, eyes wide as though she were still shell-shocked. Hope had this effect on the people around her.

"She pulled the exact same thing with me when we first became friends. In the beginning, for me at least, being friends was just convenient because we were both witches. She is exponentially stronger than me because she's a tribrid, but I didn't know that then. I just wanted to see the world burn. I pretty much only wanted to cause chaos and get whatever I wanted, just because I wanted it... then came Hope, and somehow she made me care, about not just myself, but the people around me as well. I think it might just be who she is." Penelope explained, brushing a little powdered sugar off of her mouth with the back of her hand.

"Do you still want to see the world burn?" Lizzie asked, a smirk pulling at her lips. She knew the feeling Penelope was talking about all too well.

"Only always." Penelope chuckled. "But keeping her as my friend and in my life is more important than making that happen right now. I am pretty sure that if you hadn't done something about Dana though, I was going to snap and actually set her on fire. That bitch has had it coming for a long ass time."

"It is a very good thing you're not the one who summoned me, then. We could have caused real trouble and then we would both have to face Hope's wrath... she could topple kingdoms with that furrowed brow and her 'disappointed in you' face." Lizzie chuckled, lacing her arms together behind her head and floating about a foot above the ground as though lying in a bed. There was a level of amusement and affection in Lizzie's voice that immediately drew Penelope's attention.

"Oh my God... you like her, don't you?" Penelope asked a bit too loudly than she should have, given that the only thing blocking Hope from hearing her was a set of headphones. She seemed involved enough in painting her artwork that none of it registered, though.

"I do, but we have only just met and I am literally a devil, Penelope. A devil from Hell. The two of us are inherently incompatible. I am not going to hold my breath, no matter what our teenage hormones have to say about the matter. I have screwed a lot of things up in my seventeen-year-old eternity. Her life isn't going to be one of them."