© Copyright 2011
All work is property of Leah Crichton, any duplication or reproduction of all or part of the work without explicit permission by the author is illegal.

Ambush: (am-buh-sh)

an act or instance of attacking unexpectedly from a concealed position

My sleep didn't last long before I was awakened by a breath on my face. I thought perhaps Orion had decided to make the most of my last night alive and, without opening my eyes, I smiled. “What are you doing?”

A hauntingly familiar voice responded. “Now now love, is that really the way you want to greet somebody?”

My eyes flew open faster than the smile on my face evaporated. The top half of my body shot up like I was ejecting from an aircraft, but his icy hand shoved me back down. “Damien.”

He grabbed my face roughly and placed his body directly on top of mine, his movements fast and rigid. “The one and only, love. I must say you are stunning when you sleep, especially when you’re mumbling sweet nothings about your Romeo.”

“Where’s Orion?” I choked. “What did you do to him?”

“I did nothing. He left you, willingly.”

“He wouldn’t leave me. Where is he?”

“I told you. He left.” Even in the darkness I could see the exaggerated look of dismay on his face. “Went to help somebody, I think.”

“Who?”

“Oh, you know, some blonde bimbo. Carrie, Cassie, no, wait, Chloe. Yes, love, that’s her name, Chloe.”

“Chloe? Why would he help Chloe?” I didn’t try to struggle underneath him. It wouldn’t do any good, and I didn’t want to set him off.

He ran his fingernail along my face. I cringed. “In case you haven’t noticed, Orion has a whole damsel in distress issue. Really, he should have dealt with it, prioritized. He made this way too easy for me. Not so fun when it’s easy.” He sounded depraved.

“You did this?”

He rested his skin against mine, cheek-to-cheek so his mouth was beside my ear. “Of course I did this, love. It was the only way to make the game fun.”

“My life isn’t a game.” 

“Maybe so, but his is and, unfortunately, you are like a little pawn in that game.” He pulled back and looked at me. “Check. Mate.”

“Why Chloe?” 

“Because, love, she was easily manipulated. Poor girl wanted nothing more than Orion to take her too; you know, being sorry for her sins and all that, but he didn’t. He. Chose. You.” 

“He wouldn’t leave me.”

Damien’s face took on a distant look. His voice changed. He sounded exactly like Chloe. “Orion,” he sobbed in her voice. “Orion, you have to help me! Please, he’s coming.” His voice, as hers, was laced with pathetic desperation. “Please help me, I’m scared. I’m so scared. Please, you have to help me!” Then, as quick as the flick of a light switch, his voice turned back to his own. “Pathetic.”

“You’re sick,” I mumbled. Hearing Chloe’s plea through Damien was enough to make me want to save her. Of course Orion had gone to her.

“You like it,” he retorted. “You little bitch. The two of you think you can fool me, but you can’t. I’m the best there ever was.”  

“I didn’t try to fool you.” I fought the instinct to cry, refusing to show him how terrified I was. 

“Yes you did. It didn’t work, love. You were acting so strange when I came to your house yesterday that it made me suspicious.  Then today at school, you made it clear. Like a terrified little deer caught in the headlights. You’re like a book that’s easier for me to read than Run Jane Run. Actions speak louder than words and, sadly for you, they were all but screaming the truth at me. Orion should have taught you deception a little better.”

I knew it had been presumptuous to think I had pulled it off. “Get off of me.”

“I think not,” he said. “You and I are going to have a little fun.” 

I began to struggle but, despite his smaller size, Damien still possessed superhuman strength. He grabbed my throat with his hand and ran his tongue up the side of my face. “Don’t worry, love, this won’t hurt a bit.”

The future I had seen was transpiring, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. An earth-shattering scream escaped, but just as it surfaced, Damien’s hand rose up and came down on my head with brute force, sending my mind into a confused frenzy. He grabbed my shirt and hauled me out of the bed.

My head was still spinning so I had no idea how he managed to get me outside. He grabbed my arms and yanked them behind my back, securing them with rope.

“Sorry, love, so sorry it had to be this way. I tried to be nice about it, like your hero. But you are such a stubborn little creature; you just don't want to listen. You didn’t give me a choice,” Damien pulled at my hair, dragging me to his car. My eyes pleaded with him, trying to appeal to any shred of humanity that might be left. The rope sliced into my skin, chafing and burning. 

“Anyway,” he sighed. “Definitely makes it more fun for me this way. He’ll try to save you. My brother always was a sucker for girls. I’ve been waiting a long time for Orion to find someone worth dying for.” He opened the car door, and the weight of his hand pushed me down to make sure I didn’t slam my head on the frame. “He can sacrifice himself, and I will let you live. You can go back to Daddy Dearest and never know any of this ever happened.” 

I wiggled around, trying to adjust myself. There was no way to be comfortable with a rope carving its braided indent into my skin, but I hoped I could make it bearable. In seconds he was beside me in the driver’s seat.

“Orion’s your brother?” Inside my valor was unhinged, but I’d rather die a thousand deaths before I let Damien see it.

“Oh, I suppose, love, that he left out that little detail, huh?” His bony fingers turned the key and the engine roared to life. “Of course he would. He wouldn’t want you to know that he is a monster, just like I am.” He flashed his toothy grin at me.

I didn’t want to believe those words. They were coming from the master of disguise himself, so his credentials for honesty were lacking.  “He can’t die,” I told Damien sharply, feeling instantly victorious. If Orion was Death himself, there was no way he could possibly die.

“Don’t go fooling yourself, he can die. Death can die. When our time in this monotonous existence is over with—when the penance is paid—we too can go to a better place exactly like you pathetic little humans. Which is a better place is open to debate, but that is irrelevant.”

I looked at him with disgust. Why couldn’t he just leave Orion alone?

“There are terms. And your little lover boy broke a cardinal rule by giving you a choice, which sadly for him has caused a terrible chain reaction. Breaking rules has consequences. In Orion’s case, he’s opened himself up for a whole world of trouble. The man upstairs and the one downstairs are very partial to rules, and once those rules have been violated all fair play goes out the window. Rules no longer apply; one Reaper can kill another so long as they are still earthbound, so to speak. And when I kill your true love, darling, he’s going to go to a void: a cold, black hole of infinite emptiness. That is where my brother is going to spend the rest of his eternity.” He looked across the seat at me. “And he’ll do it, love. He’ll do it for you.”

I shook my head. I wouldn’t let him. I wouldn’t let Orion give up whatever afterlife he had to save me. He was too important.

“Ah love, yes, yes he will.” Damien’s voice was repulsive. “He can make this all go away for you, and he knows it. I want nothing more than for his very existence to be erased. Terribly sorry you had to be involved, but when I first saw you—saw your soul like he did—I knew this was it. This is exactly what I’ve been waiting for, someone Orion would put above himself. He was stupid. Should’ve just killed you when he had the chance.”

“If he really is your brother, how can you say that?”

Damien started to drive. There was no indication of where he was planning to take me, but I knew one of two things was unquestionably going to happen: Damien would either steal my soul and bring it to a desolate despairing place, or he was going to force Orion to give up everything he had worked for, for me.

“Well, I suppose I can tell you. You will either be dead soon enough and will see for yourself, or your true love will cease to exist—as will any memory, thought or recollection of him.” This made him smile, and his disgusting arrogance made my blood boil with rage. “I never wanted a brother. I never asked for one, but I guess my little idiosyncrasies—you know, like being violent and unpredictable—had my parents thinking I needed a playmate. My, shall we say, questionable personality was foreign to them, and they decided to adopt Orion. I suppose I just wasn’t good enough for them on my own.  They didn’t even try to understand me.”

“You will never be as good as him,” I said, suddenly struck with a courage I didn’t know I had. Courage or total idiocy? Probably both.

“Shut up, bitch, I’m talking!” His hand flew across the seat, grabbed the back of my head, and drove it into the dashboard with remarkable strength. The blood gushed from the wound accompanied by instant pain, but I still would not let him see me cry. I refused to give him the satisfaction.  “I hated him the moment I saw him. I loathed him for breathing, despised everything about him. I began to fantasize about what it’d be like to kill him. As we got older he became stronger, better, and smarter. The urge to eliminate him grew stronger. ” Damien smiled at the memory.

I was sick. Orion had lived a normal life once, like me. My heart felt like it was breaking. 

“I deceived him. Convinced him I’d change, begging him to reconcile, bury the hatchet, so to speak. Among many other things, Orion was gullible. Honestly, he really was a stupid boy.  For the hardest weeks of my life, I pretended to love him as a brother should. In truth, it took every ounce of self control I had to tolerate him.” His face now looked like the recollection would make him ill. “Once I had gained his trust, I followed through. Simple enough, right?” His smile grew bigger.

I listened, afraid he was going to hit me again. Courage or not, I still had an instinct to survive. “I stabbed him, love. I can still remember the tearing of his flesh, the warmth of his blood, but nothing compares to the look in his eyes when I did it. It was more than I could’ve hoped for. My betrayal was unexpected to him, it was devastating. But even in death, the bastard was too strong. He didn’t take his last breath until he killed me himself. Strangled with his bare hands.” The casualness of which he spoke about it was revolting. He looked at me for some reaction. Raising his brow, a cocky expression crossed his face. “Didn’t see that one coming. Doesn’t matter though, it was worth dying for. Hurting him was the only thing that ever made my life worth living. Hurting him remains the reason I am so easily accepting of this existence.”

“You’re sick,” I told him again and recoiled, waiting for his next assault. But he didn’t do anything.

His face was suddenly somber, his twisted grin gone. He sighed. “In his last breath he told me he forgave me. Can you believe that? Who does he think he is? Jesus Christ?” He looked at me again, hoping for some appalled look, some sort of confirmation that Orion was mad for forgiving him. When he didn’t get one, he sighed again. “Anyway, here we are now, both banished to this life for our sins: me, a demon; him, a savior. It’s bloody poetic. Ugh,” he cringed.

It was repugnant, not poetic. Orion was killed by his own brother. The fact that he forgave Damien only made me love him more. “He is going to kill you again, Damien.” I knew what was coming, but I didn’t care. I would defend Orion until I took my very last breath.

Damien’s face distorted as his eyes turned blood red. His hand moved remarkably fast, and he pummeled the side of my face with incredible force. It was more shocking than the first time and, as my head knocked on the window, the glass splintered and crackled as tiny spider webs erupted from the spot of the impact. I was stunned again. “I told you to shut up.”

My throat closed up as tears formed. My heart broke for Orion. He hadn’t done anything except be himself. Damien, who was governed by incredible jealously, made this choice for them. Why was Orion paying a penance for Damien’s sins?

My determination to not let this monster see me cry faltered. The tears were more overpowering than my resolve. A single one betrayed me, running down my cheek.

“Cry for your true love, darling. He’s going to need it.”

His face relaxed and his eyes were no longer crimson. He seemed to be calming down, which I could only attribute to the fact that I was keeping my thoughts to myself. I turned my face away from him, staring into the black nothingness.

The road seemed to go on forever. It was desolate. Empty. Abandoned.

I wished he would just kill me, get it over with. My death was inevitable; who I was with and when it would happen were the only variables left. Things weren’t looking good. 

Lights reflected off of the side view mirror. The sudden brightness was approaching at break neck speed. I was able to make out the now familiar silhouette of Orion’s Audi, the unmistakable pattern of his headlights. A flash of recognition appeared on Damien’s face, and his thin fingers adjusted the rearview.

“Ah, perfect, love. He’s just in time.”