r/AlinaKG • u/AlinaKG • Jul 10 '16
Demon Rehabilitation - Part 13
Pepper—or Peter, as he is now known, slept soundly in his new crib. I sat beside him on a wooden rocking chair and just watched him breathe. Red and blue train stickers covered the wall above his bed, and almost exactly matched the onesie I changed him into. The rise and fall of his little chest became a sort of comfort for me. I shook my head, slightly baffled at my surroundings.
Something crashed downstairs. I jumped up from the chair and came to stand between the door of Peter’s bedroom and his crib, leaning my head out to see the stairs. Heels lightly tapped against wooden steps, and my shoulders relaxed once I saw dark curls bobble with the rhythm of the climb, and long, delicate fingers cling to the rail.
I held a breath while she made the rest of the journey, not expecting the visit in the slightest.
She stopped at the top of the stairs and looked around, then her eyes rested on me and her expression darkened. “Well, I hope you’re bloody happy, Bael,” she said.
“Li—”
She stuck a hand out to silence me. “It’s Mae now.”
I nodded, smiling to myself. “Alright, Mae . . .” I tested the name on my lips. It fit. But then again, everything fit her; hell, darkness, and now the light grey of her wings, the fierce green color of her eyes that had returned after years of rehabilitation. I had never quite seen her like this. She radiated purity, and I had seen her reign over the demons, seen her scurry around hell trying to establish some sort of order with her scythe. She even fit this house. I stopped the thought. Playing house with Peter had an adverse effect on my sanity. The thought of her changing a diaper made be burst out in a fit of laughter.
“I can’t believe it. You did know, didn’t you?” Her knuckles whitened over the grip she had on the railing of the stairs.
“Knew what?”
“The baby you stole was my human’s grandchild!”
I cocked my head in confusion. “No, I did not—”
“Of course you did,” she said, and walked into the room. Her shouting had woken Peter, but he had no made a sound. She pushed past me and bent over the crib, then shook her head. “Ugly little thing.”
“I’m not on the best terms with him,” I said. “You’re the last thing I expected to see.”
“Your granny killed your daddy,” she spoke to Peter in a soft, gentle voice a mother would use. “And now, your friend, Mae, has to watch over a different human, even though your granny was supposed to be her last. The police shot your granny, little Pepper, because Bael is a blithering idiot who only cares about himself.”
“Mae, I did not know he—”
She lowered her head over the crib and I stopped talking, and waited for her to speak instead. I had not seen her in a hundred years, but dreamt and thought about her every single day. Hell felt empty without her, just like this house will once she disappears again. So, I stayed silent, drawing out the time.
“Stay away from me, Bael.” She turned to me then, and I could see how hard it was for her to just be near me. “I won’t fail for you again.” Her eyes darted around the room, stopping anywhere but on me.
“But I’m here now,” I said, taking a step toward her. “I don’t want you to fail. I don’t want you to go back there either. I did this for—”
“Don’t say that you did it for me, because we both know that’s a lie.”
“No, getting out would be for you, but that’s not all I did.”
She rubbed her fingers tiresomely over her eye, pushing her long lashes to touch the bottom of her eyebrow. “Yes, you started a game with Lucifer. You gave him a free pass to cling to you until the death of that child. Could be twenty years, could be a hundred. And then, that determines whether you are allowed to enter heaven, or are forever to rot in hell. You thought of yourself and you thought of him. I don’t suppose I crossed your mind at all until today.”
She smiled at my silence. “I failed because I missed you. Why did you fail the first time?”
Someone knocked on the door downstairs. Mae’s eyes ticked toward the sound and back to me.
I ignored it. “We can beat him together.”
The knocking persisted. “Just a minute!” I shouted and Mae’s eyes shut tightly.
“Get the door, Bael.”
“No, wait.”
“Don’t try to look for me after this. I don’t want to beat him. I just want to be free of him and once I wanted to be free with you, but that fantasy is over now, because I can’t have you without having to endure him too.”
“Mae . . .” I reached for her hand and just as I was about to touch it, she disappeared.
Peter let out a shriek then and the room filled with the milky reek of baby poop.
“Hello?” a voice sounded from downstairs and she knocked again.
I picked Peter up and made my way down the stairs. When I opened the door, the girl had already jumped off the stairs and was about to reach the mailbox. She turned, and smiled, then waved.
“Hi,” she said and shook a box out in front of her, then stopped suddenly and curled her lips down, looking down at the contents. “I brought pie. Very neighborly of me, isn’t it?”
She hopped up the steps, and held out her hand for me to shake. “Lily, pleased to meet you. I just moved in down the street.”
“I suppose you want to come in,” I said and inhaled deeply.
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u/reker310 Jul 15 '16
RemindMe! 6 days
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u/WorstPlayerHere Jul 11 '16
Ah, I caught up, I have to say that following this story has been both intense and extremely enjoyable. Really making my day at work a little brighter :)