T W E N T Y - N I N E
Checkmate

HIS HAIR WAS matted on his face due to perspiration, and his body was hanging limply from the ceilings with only the cables supporting his weight. Cassiel looked barely alive, barely even breathing as he slumped his head down after taking a glance at me.

Thoughts reeled in my mind but there was one particular question that stood out above the rest. Why was Cassiel here? He was supposed to be taking care of Minnie and Gabriel, he was supposed to be safe.

With my heart thumping rapidly in my chest, I dashed forward, weaving myself through the forest of wires in an attempt to reach him. I wasted no time in attempting to loosen the wires around his wrists, pulling them apart while trying not to aggravate his already red and sore wrists even further. From the struggle, the paper that was tucked into my pocket fell out to the floor, drifting slightly before it landed. On it, the words were sprawled into a new message.

As the slip of paper fell from my pockets, I managed to catch a glimpse of its words, causing me to swallow the bile in my throat uncomfortably.

I see everything for I have eyes and ears everywhere.

"Pilediah?" He asked, a sticky sheen of sweat layered across his skin. "What on earth are you doing here? Get out! He's coming." Cassiel's voice was much weaker than I had expected. The words came out of his lips in a throaty gurgle, as if he had already no strength to even spare a few words. My heart clenched painfully at the way he was, angered that he wasn't safely tucked away like I had left him to be.

"You are crazy, Cassiel." Grunting, I pulled at the cables after casting him a brief glance. "You were supposed to keep Minnie and Gabriel safe! And yet you charge out here and ended up getting yourself caught? I can take care of myself fairly well, as you can see."

"What are you talking about?" He asked with confusion in his voice, forehead wrinkling as he raised one eyebrow. My movements slowed down to a stop as I assessed his blank and clueless face, a single possibility hitting me like a ten-ton truck.

Slowly, I backed a few steps away from him, eyes darting from his hanged up figure towards the words on the slip of paper.

I see everything.

I had been too busy examining and helping Cassiel that I hadn't even noticed the clicking of polished leather shoes from behind me, and only when a single voice rang clear into the air had I snapped over to look.

"Addison! Get out! It's a trap!" From at the other side of the cables stood the exact replica of the man that was in front of me. The same shining green eyes, the same tousled light brown hair, and the same handsome features.

The second Cassiel stood there, exactly how I had remembered him to be. Caring, worried and perfectly safe. Ignoring the fact that he was supposed to be in the room accompanying Minnie and Gabriel, the man that now stood at the other side of the room was definitely the one I had undoubtedly spent time with.

"He's here," the first Cassiel whispered under his breath, yanking at his bounds with sharp tugs in an attempt to escape. However, my attention was not on him and was instead in the gleaming eyes of the handsome man I found myself fancying along the way.

"Why are there two of you?" My voice bounced along the hallways, and the second Cassiel took one glance at the man behind me, his eyes lit up with alarm.

"Addison, back away from him. That's Death." He yelled, taking a single step closer to me in an almost hurried motion.

"You're supposed to be with Minnie and Gabriel so what are you doing here?" I straightened my posture, eyebrows set to a deep frown as I stood my ground.

Just like that, his entire demeanor changed. It was as if something had snapped within the man, causing him to realize I was not so easily persuaded as he might have thought I could be. His handsome features crumpled, worried expression turned blank as his posture slackened.

"Oh well," he said with a sigh in his voice. "I guess it has finally come down to the boss level."

He stepped into the shadows, walking in the dark as all the cables started to shrink away, sticking themselves on the walls to make space for him to walk. When he emerged, he was a whole new man. With midnight black hair and one gleaming gray eye, the other pale green – just like the original color of Cassiel's eyes – Death beamed brightly with a sinister grin on his face.

"Andy! How wonderful for you to finally catch up. I had honestly never expected you to get yourself so far, you know? Such a pleasant surprise. You are much brighter than I had remembered you to be."

From behind me, the real Cassiel was struggling but I barely spared him a second glance. Instead, I was reaching for the pistol that was tucked in my back pocket. Death's eyes zeroed in on my movements, and with a wave of a hand, two cables came out of nowhere, securing my wrists as they pulled my arms wide apart, leaving me like a starfish dangling a few centimeters above the ground.

"That's not very nice. I am still talking." Death clicked his tongue mockingly before he stopped right in front of me. Even while I was elevated, he still towered over me by a few inches, the corners of his lips twisted up into his well-known smirk.

"Let me go." I gritted out, tugging at the cables but to no avail. Death watched me struggle with amusement clear in his eyes, to which only aggravated me even further as I tugged pitifully at the restraints. With each movement, the plastic casing of the wires only seemed to burn into my skin, causing me to hiss out in pain.

"No can do, princess. Do you know how hard it is to arrange a party like this? I mean, the yearly ones where no one got hurt was fairly easy and fun but to get all of these special people in one place at one time needed a little more persuasion."

"I think you need to refresh your vocabulary. This is a massacre, Death, not a party." I spat, venom in my words.

"Ah." He raised a single finger into the air as if signaling for a pause. "My apologies, darling. Do you know how hard it is to arrange a massacre like this?"

"You are psychotic." I threw the three words out with as much maliciousness as I could gather but this only seemed to make Death smile even wider.

I could hear Cassiel – the real Cassiel – mutter a few colorful words under his breath but I paid him no mind. Whatever rustle there was back there did not even have one-third of my current attention as compared to that I was giving Death during his victory speech.

"Not psychotic, no." Shaking his head, he smiled brightly before leaning his face near mine. "Just really, really desperate."

Pacing, Death turned back to cast me a brief glance before stretching his arms in a manner that resembled normal human beings when they just got out of bed. He let out a sigh of relief and his smile brightened even further to the point where it was humanly impossible for a person to be this happy.

"Posing as this pretty boy was hard, you know, Andy? So very hard. And yet, you still fell for it like a dim-witted girl. Though you're smarter than I had previously assumed." He paused in his steps before turning back to face me. "Or just a really lucky woman. Either way, it is too bad that you will never be able to solve the final riddle, though. I've won the game."

Leaning in, his lips hovered inches above my own as I leaned back as far as I physically could. I groaned at the restraint, desperate to put some space in between the both of us to buy myself some time.

I knew deep in my heart, however, that this was it. This was where I would die in the hands of Death himself. In which I would die as a woman fooled by men for she was too naive and trusting in this harsh and cruel world.

Oh, how the tables had turned from my younger days where I was the one that did the fooling.

"Check..." Death had a glint in his eyes, one that clearly displayed his blatant delight at his obvious soon-to-be victory.

There was a susurration from behind me as I felt the gun being extracted from my pockets. A set of footsteps echoed in the room, a sign of someone hitting and landing against the floor from a great height. Before Death could plant his lips on mine and end the game and with it, my life, the white pistol that was once tucked into the back pockets of my jeans was now poised right by my ear as a shot rang loudly across the room, followed by a grunt of pain as the bullet hit the spirit right in the gleaming eye.

Death fell to the ground, his green colored eye dissipating as a warming sensation overwhelmed me, followed by the loosening of the cables around my wrists. As soon as I was free, I landed onto the ground on all fours, lips parted in disbelief as Death staggered a few steps before his body hit the ground. Just like that, he evaporated into a mist after casting one last short glance at me with his good eye, hand clasped over the other, leaving a strong gust of freezing wind to spread across the area, slamming me back against the wall before everything warmed back to the usual not-so-chilly winter weather here in Riverside Creek.

I whimpered from the pain that was the result of the back of my head hitting hard against the concrete walls, hands raised to hold the pain in as a voice groaned from beside me. When I turned my head, I could see Cassiel standing on his two feet, the white pistol in his hands as he stared down at the very spot in which Death had disappeared from.

Cassiel, the real Cassiel, then walked closer toward me, offering me a hand as I graciously took it. With much ease, he pulled me back up onto my feet before both of us simultaneously breathed out a sigh of relief. Those wires that had once bounded both of our limbs were not hanging either limply from the ceiling or on the ground with no signs of the dark magic that Death had used on them.

My eyes were met with a pair of crystal green ones that seemed to be filled with tire and exhaustion. Cassiel sent me a tight-lipped expression before turning back one last time to eye the rest of the enclosed area.

He then finished the phrase which Death had started, eyebrows furrowed and chest heaving with pants. "...mate."

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