"Wait out here." Harry stated, gesturing to the vague area of the hall.

"Out here? Alone?" Delilah was in hell. The literal hell, and now she was supposed to stay in a creepy hall alone?

"Yes, I'll only be a minute." Harry finished, his voice slightly irritated as his fist clenched the doorknob harder before he opened it to enter the room.

Delilah was about to say something more before she saw the door shut behind him.
  Now, leaving her in the long winding hallway, alone, with only the faint echoing eerie noises she couldn't identify.

"Un mierda.." Delilah cursed to herself under her breath.

She crossed her arms across her black low-cut shirt from the bar that she died in, in an attempt to provide some sort of comfort.
She hated being alone.

She hated being alone in any sense. She's been alone enough in her life, and she hated it.

Ever since her mother died, and her father leaving her at a young age, she found it difficult to avoid being alone. She feared it.

She found herself begin to drown herself in memories and fears, walking backwards to finally back up against the wall of the hallway.

And now, she was in hell?

She took deep breaths, trying to ease her anxiety away.
Her breaths quickened at the thought of being alone, in hell, and being guided by some random beautiful stranger.

On the other side of the door, Harry had entered the office, looking around the elegant room to find a fireplace and a nice silver desk just a few feet away from him.

There at that desk, sat the devil himself.

He was known by many commonly used names : The devil, Satan, Hades, and Lucifer.

But ultimately, he was called Desmond by Harry's mother before she died, so that's what his father usually preferred.

He was filing through several papers and occasionally typing something in his large computer.

"Dad?" Harry called to his father to announce his arrival, seeing he was very busy and in a mindset that not many could shake him out of.

"What is it?" The devil responded, his mind obviously somewhere else.

"I just came back from a pick-up. She's waiting in the hall, did her files come in yet?" Harry asked, gesturing his ringed finger to the door.

Harry's father exhaled as he finally looked up to look at his son, seeing him standing there with his shirt popped opened and his hair ruffled as usual.

"How many times do I have to tell you to button up your goddamn shirt? You look like a damn homeless man." His father sneered, his eyes very clearly portraying the faintest tint of red anger.

Harry stiffened at his father's words, quickly moving his hands to fumble at his buttons to slowly redo them. "Can I just get her file?"

Desmond huffed, standing from his desk chair to button up the bottom of his black on black suit.

To the naked human eye, he looked just like a normal business man who was highly invested in his work.

But to his anti-christ demonic son, he was anything but.

Desmond was a very temperamental man, being the devil and all, and one often had to tiptoe their way around their words when speaking to him. 

The devil wasn't made to be a father.

"Name?" His father called out once he reached his filing cabinet.

"Delilah.." Harry began, realizing that he never really picked up on her last name, until he heard his father answer for him.

"Delilah Ruiz, time of death 12:34 A.M ?"
Desmond asked his son for clarification as he held a very thin new manilla folder.

The other files in the drawer were identical to Delilah's, but they were all older and worn.
Delilah's was brand new.

"Yeah, that's her." Harry answered, hoping that was her last name but her death time matched up.
He walked over to meet his father as he walked over to his desk to set down the folder.

He flipped it open, seeing a photo of Delilah before skimming his finger over the print below it.

Desmond furrowed his eyebrows as he read over Delilah's new file. "Her death retirement is still pending. It hasn't given me a specific location of where she's going yet."

Harry silently cursed to himself, worried that there was some error done on his part.

Harry was a very confident, intimidating, and egotistical person who was used to getting his way.

But around his father, Harry became dirt at the devil's feet.

"She's a conciliator civilian." Desmond added, assuming his son knew the meaning of Delilah's new title.

"What does that mean?" Harry asked, now shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans.

"It means that Ms. Ruiz's place of retirement isn't decided yet, so she belongs to neither hell nor heaven. It's just a pending error, we'll see soon enough."
Desmond explained, closing the folder before handing it to Harry to take.

"Keep an eye on it. We don't need her staying here longer than she needs to and put a kink in our maltreatment system which already works very well with the inmates we already have."

Desmond explained, unbuttoning his suit to sit down at his desk again to file through the constant inmates always filing into his clutches.

Harry clutched the folder in his hand, unsure of what to do with Delilah now. "So, what do I do with her how, then?"

"Just keep an eye on her. She has to stay here until her retirement is decided, then she'll go from there. Find somewhere to stay and put her in there for the meantime."
Desmond was already growing irritated from his son's incompetence.

Harry mentally groaned with annoyance at the thought of essentially babysitting a conciliator civilian.

"How long will the file take to decide her retirement location?" Harry asked, clearly annoyed.

"It'll take as long as it takes!" Desmond growled, "It could take as long a couple months, so cut the sorry act right now, and do what you're fucking told." He despised his son's constant questions of his authority.

Harry flinched at his father's venomous words, and his ego immediately shrunk.

Harry had better things to do to occupy his time, and it surely didn't consist of watching over some random preppy girl who had no interest in him as he doesn't to her.

"You're dismissed." Desmond waved his son away without looking up at him, his eyes still glued to his pen as it scribbled on the paperwork.

Harry began to walk towards his office door again, still fairly confused on what he should do with Delilah.

"Ahem?" His father coughed, his eyes now glaring up at his son.

Harry flinched at his father's clear irritation in his sarcastic cough, knowing he didn't want to upset him any further, so he addressed him.

"Yes, father. Thank you." He wanted to swallow his words, hating the way his father made him feel as though he were as low to the ground as the hell inmates.

"Asshole.." Harry muttered quietly under his breath.

And it was with those final words, that Harry was allowed to finally leave his father's office.

Harry stepped out into the hallway again, closing the door carefully behind him before letting out a sigh of relief.

He could breath again, and he could think for himself. He despised his father, but then again, was the devil really supposed to be likeable?

Being a demonic immortal and living with your immortal satanic father was no picnic.

It grew very maddening at times.

Delilah pushed herself off the wall, seeing Harry re-emerge from the office with an irritated look.
She saw his fists clenched at his sides with frustration, and his breathing become heavier.

He was now holding a folder that he didn't enter with, and her curiosity got the better of her.

"What's that?" She asked, her arms still crossed as she pointed to the folder.

Harry looked up at her, and she could've sworn that his eyes were a faint shade of red.

She gasped silently, her eyes widening.

But upon seeing Delilah's scared face, Harry knew what she had seen.

"It's nothing." He snarled, his accent becoming more defined the deeper and angrier his voice was. "Let's go."

"Go where?" She asked, her curiosity at its peak.

"Sweetheart, do you ever stop asking questions?" Harry rebutted as he began walking down the hall towards where they entered again.

Although he found it slightly irritating, he found it interesting at the same time that she had the guts to ask him all these questions.

She was different, all right.

Delilah rolled her eyes at the nickname that she so hated while she followed behind Harry.

It was annoying.

"To answer your millionth question, we're going to my house." He answered, biting the inside of his cheek as he contemplated if this was a good idea.

He didn't know where else to take her, so he chose the first neutral location that came to mind.

They finally reached the end of the hall, in which Harry made the door reappear for their leisure.

He reached his ringed hand to open it again, turning the knob to open it to reveal the opening.

"Please." Harry smirked at Delilah, turning to gesture his hand to go through the door and inside before him again.

So it was with hesitant steps once again, that she entered through the doorway to re-emerge on the other side.

She wasn't really sure what she expected a house in hell to look like, but she was sure it wasn't this.

It was no house. It was a mansion.

She allowed her eyes to roam to see that she was standing inside what looked to be a grand modernized castle—with all black interior.

There was intricate patterns and inscriptions along the blacked walls as well as the vast ceiling depicting the most beautiful of paintings to add a color pop to the black color scheme.

It was gorgeous.

"Wow.." She breathed, looking up while her eyes glittered with mesmerization. Harry smiled thinly as he saw her fascination.

"This is your house?" She asked again, her mouth still open as she admired the entire castle.

"Yes," Harry answered, gesturing for Delilah to follow him up the polished gallant staircase.

It was then that Delilah decided that Harry must be of high superiority to have such a house like this, so what would that make him in hell?

"So, how do you own this all? Who are you?" She asked, her eyes facing the back of Harry's head as she followed him up the clicking steps of the staircase.

"I'm Harry Styles, sweetheart." He answered simply, smirking as he turned back to see Delilah's confused face.

He enjoyed instigating her.

"If you're this popular in hell," She began, beginning to put two and two together.

"Then what does that make you? Satan?" She asked, mostly as a joke but also as an actual question.

She heard Harry chuckle as his walking came to a stop once they reached the top of the stairs that led to the second floor.

He paused so that they stood face to face, taking a bold step closer to her so that she could see right into his fiery pits of his eyes.

She could feel herself blushing at the closeness of his face, practically burning up at the feeling of his breath hitting her ear as he leaned in to whisper.

"No, of course not, darling. I'm his son."

Harry smirked as he pulled away, enjoying the way he could get her all tensed and flustered.

Delilah felt shivers shoot through her spine, but once she realized what he had said, she froze.

I had a drink at a bar with the devil's son..

~

Author's Note :

so, here we go! let's pick up some more speed now.
please, let me know what you think of this story so far!

there is SO much more to come!!

stay tuned ;)

xo..kay

.2022 words.