The Life of Jezebel Firetongue

4

I felt something standing over me in the morning, and I immediately kicked out, colliding with something hard. “Ouch!”

The thing standing over me was Jake, and he was rubbing his jaw. “Well, you’re in a good mood this morning!” he snarled. “A guy comes here to ask a couple questions and he gets hurt for it! Great start to the day. Now why don’t you tell me about that funny thing I saw you do yesterday?”

“You idiot!” I screamed, leaping to my feet. There was no way he had seen me fly, and if there was, he sure as hell wasn’t going to be allowed to remember it. I punched him, leaving behind a nasty shiner.

Jake was stunned. “What was that for?”

“You have to leave. Now.”

“Why?”

My eyes flashed with apprehension. “What makes you think you should get to stay? Why are you here anyway?”

This made him drop his earlier query quickly. “Jezebel, I’m lost. I have nowhere to go. You are the only person I know right now that I could possibly stay with. Please, let me stay with you,” he pleaded.

Good, I got him off topic. I began to clean up the cave. “Find somewhere else. I’m not your mom, and we barely know each other. Besides, I don’t have a permanent residence at the moment.”

He caught my arm and enraged me further. “Jezebel, I know that we don’t know each other very well, but I need somewhere to go.”

I whipped around, tugging my arm out of his grip. “You don’t know anything! My life is dangerous and risky. I am on a mission that could kill you. Do you really want that?” I hit him in the gut, forcing him to lose his breath. “You say you need somewhere to go,” I whispered menacingly. “Well, this isn’t the place. You’ll get hurt a lot worse than that if you don’t stay behind.”

“I…can’t…stay…behind…” he gasped.

I straightened him up, and grabbed his shoulders. “I will not allow you drag me down and screw up my plans. You are going to leave now, got it?”

I was being cruel. I knew that. But somehow, I couldn’t stop myself. I had to kill my enemy. That was all I knew. And after seeing the destruction he could cause, I knew that I had no choice but to destroy him, and hopefully destroy my own life in the process. Anything to tie me to life was a hazard. I would not allow it, under any circumstances.

Jake caught me in his arms and looked me in the eyes. “Please listen to me Jez. I need to tell you something.”

“What? How can you possibly know something that I need to know?”

He swallowed and looked uneasy, as if he was afraid to tell me this. “The fact of the matter is that I have feelings for you, Jezebel.” Jake smiled half-heartedly at my look of incredulousness. “If you were to leave me right now, I might not be able to go on.”

“That’s a load of crap.”

His eyes flickered and he shook his head. “No, it’s not. I felt this connection as soon as we met yesterday, and I will not rest until I’ve further explored these feelings.” He leaned his head closer to mine, and whispered a small, “Please?”

If he had expected me to say yes, he was wrong. Jake may have been trying to woo me, but his closeness repulsed me. I pushed away frantically, trying to get back to work. “The answer is still no, Jake.”

“I won’t take no for an answer!” he cried. Then, without warning, Jake Flyte spun me around and pressed his lips to mine.

That did it. I shoved him back and roundhouse kicked him to the ground without a second thought. Did I care what happened to him? No. All I could think about was getting away, keeping him off me, fearing the prolonged closeness.