Page 121 of Legendary

The voice said over and over again like it was a song. It was familiar. So, so familiar. I would know Dani with my hands tied and my eyes closed, but this wasn’t her.

I felt myself being dragged down, my fighting subdued, and it was like I was retreating further into myself. I was getting smaller and smaller, while whatever was trapping me was gaining more control. I was screaming out to myself, my body, to let me out, but nothing happened. There was nothing to get me out, nothing to pull me from within myself when something this strong was in charge.

I felt small caresses from a familiar presence, but the familiarity was off. It wasn’t the same.

I watched from the hollows of my being as I clenched and unclenched my hands, walking over to my side of the room and grabbed my sword.

Now, Nicholas, you are going to do everything that I say.

REESE

The first beer was what I needed, the second, well that one was probably unnecessary, but who really fucking cares at this point. I leaned against the small kitchen counter, the bottle of alcohol staring back at me. Usually when I was stressed out, I would have downed about six of those things, but right now, I was drinking slower than usual and even then, it still wasn’t helping. Hybrids were popping up out of nowhere. When I found out about the last one, I was in close proximity to my home, but now I was stuck in this world of demons and hellhounds. When I was stressed out, I talked to Nick, but that was a no go since he was off in,I’m in love with a demon, but I probably haven’t told her and now she’s gone and decided to say fuck you guys, I’m doing this shit aloneland. I picked up the beer and took a drink, letting it run down my throat. I smacked my lips together, thankful that it tasted decent enough given where we were.

Elise hadn’t come out from where she went to find Beetee, thank the fucking realms. She cared about Dani even though her cold, shriveled bitchy heart would have everyone think otherwise. I wasn’t as dumb as she clearlythought I was. As much as I couldn’t stand any moment she breathed near me, I knew she was worried and bit on edge with everything that had just transpired. I didn’t have the kind of connection either of them had with Dani, but I could admit I hadsomethingwith her. We both truly cared about Nick, and I could honestly admit that I believed her when she’d told me that she did care about him. Nothing about her admittance sounded fake and I had let out a breath of relief knowing that he wasn’t in this for some kind of one-sided attraction, that I probably wouldn’t be able to talk him out of.

I swirled the contents of the bottle in my hand and downed the rest of it. I was never scared by much, nothing really ever shook me to my core, but when I actually really thought about it, thought about what Dani had done…I considered things differently at times. Maybe she didn’t do it to spite us, to give us a giant middle finger. Perhaps she did it because of us, because in her own head she formulated it as her battle to fight. Not ours. I was pissed she tried to relieve us from fighting, but then there was this other feeling that if we fought Lilith and somehow made things right then I could take that heroism to my parents. I could use what I’d done as some sort of olive branch—if they even wanted that.

I looked up, hearing some commotion upstairs. I was immediately on alert, but then it stopped. There were demons and Enchanters sitting around the lounge area, who hardly took notice of me or the noise that I had just heard. I wasn’t surprised though, since for the last few days I’d heard bits and pieces of Dani and Nick fucking and that was something I was mentally never going to recover from, so random noises weren’t something to be so alarmed over. I heard footsteps on the stairs, letting out a relieved breath when I saw Nick coming down.

He hadn’t noticed me yet as he faced straight ahead, descending the stairs in an almost stoic kind of motion. It was odd but given the circumstances I wasn’t about to call out anyone’s moody behavior.

“Nick,” I called out, waving my hand in his direction.

He turned his head to look at me and something about the way he rotated his body, the way his eyes flicked to mine made me eerily uncomfortable. I was looking at the same person I’d always known, but then again, I wasn’t. He started making his way over to me and that’s when I noticed his sword. The hilt was in his grip, his knuckles were white, like he was holding on for dear life. He didn’t respond to my greeting, he just kept coming towards me and I found myself backing up.

“Nick, are you okay?”

He stopped when he was a few inches near me, his breathing was calculated and even. He flinched a little, his face flickering with some kindof pain. He closed and opened his eyes and looked at me again, his brown eyes more muted to me now. Devoid of emotions. “I’m fine.” His voice was monotone and lifeless.

I opened my mouth to protest against his response, but then he lifted his sword and swung at me. I jumped back, nearly hitting a wall as I stumbled backwards. I tried to catch my hands on something so that I wouldn’t fall. “Woah, Nick, what the fuck!”

He didn’t respond, he just tried to strike me down again, moving closer and closer. The demons having their casual conversations before were now looking at the situation in front of them. Some of them retreated upstairs, probably already having dealt with so many catastrophic issues in their life, they didn’t want to deal with anything else that could come close to that. Others started running over to us and tried to get Nick under control.

They grabbed at his arms, but he just threw them back as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He brought his sword down towards me and nicked my arm. I grabbed the area he had struck, blood appearing on my fingers. Some of the demons tried to create dark magic to subdue him, take him down, but he just shook it off. It was like it didn’t matter to him. He yanked one by the arm and threw them against the wall. He threw his elbow back, hitting another in the face and swung his sword around, nearly slicing them right along their neck.

I couldn’t get around him, so I made my way to the dining room, noticing he was stalking after me. He had so much determination in his eyes. My bow was upstairs, but even if I had it, I wouldn’t want to fight my best friend. I mean, we’d fought before but this was different. I was fearing for my life at this point, I was in crisis mode, and I didn’t know how to navigate the waters of my best friend trying to kill me when I’d literally done nothing wrong. I felt my magic brewing inside my body, so I let that out instead. Light flashed from my palm and towards his chest. It dissipated when it landed on his body and he stumbled back, but he remained upright. I did it again and again, but he wouldn’t budge. He just kept taking the hits, but never submitting to them.

He took one big swing at me, and I reached for a chair, holding it up and blocking him. He struck blow after blow as pieces of wood flew around my head. He swung his leg out, and I was sent backwards to the ground once he yanked my feet out from under me. The chair clattered to the ground, and I tilted my head up, rubbing the back of my skull from where it landed on the floor. He smirked down at me and held his sword in front of him.

A door slammed open and feet shuffled into the room.

“What the fuck are you two absolute dickheads doing!” Elise screamed,Beetee settling behind her. Her lilac eyes were wide as they bounced from me to Nick. When neither of us answered her, she spoke again. “I asked a fucking question. Nick put the sword down, what the hell.”

Nick slowly turned his face to her. If his neck could have made a creaking noise while it happened, that was the sound that would have played during that moment. Elise looked at him and then her eyebrows raised up behind her bangs. Her eyes fluttered closed as she took one long exhaustive breath. “Nick. Put. The. Sword. Down.”

One side of his mouth ticked up as he ignored her and held the sword with both his hands, lifting it up and bringing it down with every intention of killing me. A long shadowy tail wrapped around his wrists and turned him away from me, yanking him forward. The sword flew from his hands, and he fell onto his face. Nick recovered quickly, barreling towards Elise and using his whole body to take her down. They both ended up on the floor, tangled up together until he broke free, grabbing onto her shoulders and started banging her head against the floor. Beetee grabbed him by his hair and yanked his head back. She opened her mouth, displaying what looked like snake fangs and bit down into his skin.

He cried out and eventually let go of Elise. Frantic footsteps came from the stairs as Leah and Garrett came into view, startled with what they were seeing. Nick grabbed Beetee from behind him and easily lifted her and threw her over his shoulder. He reached for his sword, getting up. I kicked my leg out, tripping him, while his head nearly missed the dining room table as he fell backwards. I jumped up to get on top of him, forming a fist with my hand and punching him right in the face. I didn’t know if I thought that would knock some sense into him, but maybe it might. “What’s going on?!”

He didn’t answer me, he just struggled to remove himself from under me. I punched him again and again, but then he caught my wrists, shoving them back and swiftly moving to my throat. He maneuvered his legs so that he rolled us over so he could slam my head into the ground as he choked me. He removed one of his hands and grabbed his sword, placing it near my neck. His eyes were these whirls of anger, but they weren’t his own. He wasn’t himself and it was like a tiny piece of me could feel him trying to stop, trying to talk some sense into himself.

He made no move to slit my throat. His eyes flickered all around my face, all around the room. He brought the hand that had been around my throat to his eyes as if he was trying to wipe a visual away that only he could see. I turned my head and saw Leah, her fingers sparkling with a purple hue. She was glamouring his vision.

I shoved away from him and brought my leg up to kick him in the chest,but right before he could stagger backwards to the ground, Elise swiftly wrapped her tail around his neck and started squeezing. “I told you to drop the sword, Nicholas.”

He clawed at her tail, the black, inky venom, dripping out slowly, but not touching him quite yet. He started making choking sounds as she yanked him back and off of me. Beetee came around them and ripped the sword from his hand, nearly shaking as her eyes flashed from diamond pupils to their lilac coloring. Garrett ran over and helped me up as Leah stayed in place, keeping the glamour she had on him up. Elise brought him to her chest as he shook his head, whipping it left and right as if he was in a whole other world inside his own head.

“Let me out,” he said more to himself than to us. “Let me out, let me out, let me out!” He kept shaking his body, thrashing back and forth in her grip. He forcibly moved to the left, grabbing the blade of his sword from Beetee. Blood started to instantly drip from the wounds he caused himself and he shoved her back with his strength. He lifted up his other hand, bringing it up slowly as if he was trying to stop himself, but couldn’t. He opened his palm toward Leah who was sent sailing back by an invisible force, but when she hit the floor with a thud, black smoke dissipated around her.

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