I stare at myself in the mirror, admiring how smooth my body's curves look in the burgundy cocktail dress. It is made of a silky, sleek material that gives me an air of power and superiority, making my dull eyes pop. My long hair cascades over my shoulders, straight and brown and soft. I collect my old clothes into a bunch, slide on the black sandals I chose, and walk out of the dressing room.

My heels click on the floor as I strut out and make my way back to the hotel. I need to find Angel and talk to him about what happened with Alastor.

As I enter the hotel, I'm greeted with the familiar, grandiose room. I look up briefly at the pink chandelier hanging from the ceiling before glancing around for Angel. I see him leaning on the bar top counter, conversing with Husk, a neon green drink swirling in his hand.

I make my way over to them. When Angel sees me, a (proud?) smile spreads across his cheeks and his eyes narrow in that way that they always do.

"Well. Look who it is. You're welcome, by the way," he says, taking a long sip of his green cocktail. A gun is resting in another one of his hands.

"Thanks," I say.

"So, tell me about it," he says, his face full of nothing but smugness. "Did he teleport to you?"

I smirk, tilting my head to the side slightly. In the direction of my office. "Yes, and I think I'm going to meet up with him again later today. You know, no biggie."

"Really?" he asks, actually confused. "Why?"

"Because we have things that we need to talk about. I'll tell you later. I can't have anyone... listening," I say before crossing my arms over my chest, giving Husk a friendly nod, and continuing to my office.

Sitting cross-legged in my white leather chair, I listen to the unnerving silence, staring at the fish tank that sits silently only meters away. I wonder if I'm supposed to feed those fish. Charlie never told me. Plus, I don't see any fish food around. Maybe they eat demon meat or something.

The office is quiet when I'm alone, but unlike the way that the lake is quiet. The lake is peaceful and safe. This office is upsetting and depressing and now reminds me of Alastor's obnoxious look when he bounced back from a bullet to the head.

My eyelids begin to droop closed and my tired head starts to swirl on my shoulders. Too many things happened today. Seeing my office for the first time, going to the bar with Charlie and Vaggie, getting drunk, talking to Angel, making a "deal" with Alastor. Too much. Too many things happening in my life. Or, rather, my unlife. If that even makes sense.

My head sags further and further down until it lands on the desk with a loud bang.

I dream about Vaggie.

ᯬ

The noise is piercing my eardrums, little needles stabbing at the center of my brain. My face flushes with irritation as I pull myself upright and search, disorientated, for the source of the noise. Then I see my phone, buzzing on the glass table. I grasp it and hold it in front of my face, blinking the blurriness away from my view.

It's an unknown number. I answer it.

"Hello?" I ask groggily.

"She's coming to your office now. Ask her how her relationship is with Charlie. Ask how close they are. Make sure to get details. Meet me by the lake at 9. Don't be late, and don't do anything that you will regret."

"What? I'm sorry, who is this?"

The phone beeps. I have been hung up on.

My mind begins to race. Who was that on the phone, with the scratchy, secretive tone? It must have been Alastor. Who else would want me to report information about someone to him? After all, I had just made a "deal" with him. He must be eager to use me however he can. But, in other matters, who's coming to my office? As I'm deep in my train of thought, there is a knock on the door.

Placing my phone on the table, I sit back and try to appear as calm as possible. "Come in!" I say brightly.

The door opens, and in rolls Vaggie. Literally. "Hey," she says, scooting her wheelchair in before closing the door.

According to the caller, I'm supposed to find out how close she is with Charlie. Right? Isn't that what probably-Alastor said? To get all of the details I can get about them?

"Hi," I say kindly. "How are you?"

"Same as this morning. You?" she drawls.

"I was probably better earlier than I am now."

"Why?"

"Some events," I say, avoiding the topic. "What brings you here? Do you wanna make an appointment or something?"

"No. If I wanted to do that, I would have just called," Vaggie says. She rolls her wheelchair right in the middle of the two yellow seats. She looks tired, or maybe even drunk. She's wearing the same thing that she wore to the bar - a cutoff, dark grey tank top with white crosses over her boobs, a dark blue jean skirt, long miss matched socks, dainty black flats, and of course, her huge pink bow. "I love your dress. The color suits you."

"Thanks. I stole it from somewhere," I say, careful not to mention where I stole it from. "So, what's on your mind?"

"Well," Vaggie begins. Her eye flickers to the ground, her dark eyelashes longer than ever. "It's about Charlie."

My heart rate speeds up, so I clear my throat to try and hide the timidness in my voice. I don't like what I'm doing, being on both sides of the same story. Alastor in one hand, Charlie and Vaggie in the other. "What about her?"

"She's kind of panicking right now. She hasn't stopped drinking since we went to the bar earlier, and now she's at my house, crying and complaining about 'what a fucking mistake she is' and how 'she has no purpose if she can't save her people'. It's getting real annoying. And I'm worried about her," she explains. She does look worried. Genuinely. Like she cares a lot about Charlie.

Hmm.

"Okay..."

"So, I need your help," Vaggie says as if her intentions were obvious from the beginning.

I look down at my lap, where my hands are fiddling together nervously. My chest is shivering with hurt and jealously, but I don't know why. Charlie and Vaggie have been friends for so long. It's not like Vaggie is just going to drop her because I showed up. My emotions are wrong. I must appear as agitated as I feel, because when I meet her eyes again, she is frowning skeptically. She asks, "Um, are you good?"

I nod. "Yes, I'm fine. Do you want me to come over and talk to her?"

"Ugh, please do," she says gratefully. "I've tried rationalizing with her, but the only thing she's rationalizing with is the bottle of vodka she is pouring down her throat, like she was poisoned or something and the vodka is her only antidote."

"Take me," I say, standing up quickly to mask my inner reluctance.

With my hands on her wheelchair handles, I follow Vaggie's guidance as she leads me outside. The foggy red sky is getting dark. It must be getting late. I'll have to meet up with Alastor soon if I want to keep my game going.

I push Vaggie down the sidewalk of a cracked, over-used road. Small houses line the road, squeezed close together, like two-story condos. Each lawn is crunchy with dead, brown grass. We continue down the road for what feels like quite some time. At one point, I start singing All Of Me by John Legend, and Vaggie complements my singing voice.

"I used to want to be a professional singer," I confess.

"You still can be," she says. "I can get you a gig at that one club. The one where we went to dinner with Angel and Charlie and Husk."

"The club where we hooked up?"

Vaggie pauses. "Yeah, that one." I can practically hear her smiling.

When we get to her house, I carefully half lift, half push Vaggie's chair up the steps to get up her porch, then walk around her to open the door. I let her push past me into the house, and I follow her in after closing the door gently behind me.

"Charlie?" Vaggie calls into the seemingly empty house.

There is no response.

"Charlie? Hey, where are you? If you're hiding again, this seriously isn't funny," she demands.

Still no response.

Vaggie stops. Dead in the center of the short, thin hallway that connects the living room to the dining room/kitchen area. I can't fully see into the dining area, but whatever Vaggie is seeing must be important, because she is stiff as a board, gaping into the room.

"Oh no," she says. I can hear the urgency sewn into her voice. "Charlie. Charlie, wake the fuck up." She puts her hands on the arms of the wheelchair and lifts herself onto her legs with a weak grunt. I run to her aid, sliding my arm underneath her shoulders.

Then I see Charlie. Slouched into a dining chair, her forehead pressed against the glossy wood of the table. An empty bottle of vodka sits toppled over next to her head. Her hair is spread around the top of her head and spilling onto the table, messy, but somehow still soft.

I notice that she isn't moving.

A flash of heat like lightning courses through me. I unhook my arm from Vaggie's and help her lean against the wall to keep herself steady, then run over to where Charlie is sitting.

First, I make sure that she's breathing. She is, but very slowly. She could be sleeping, for all I know. I check her pulse: steady and faint.

"Charlie," I say, shaking her shoulders lightly, then gradually getting more vigorous. "Charlie, wake up."

Nothing. I scoop her head in my hands and lift it up. There is a string of drool on her chin, and her eyes are half closed, clearly not registering anything.

"Charlie. Hey. It's Danielle. I'm going to need you to wake up, okay? Can you do that for me? Can you wake up?" My voice becomes alike with Vaggie's - fast and scared and unsure. I give Charlie a light slap on her cheek. "Charlie! Please wake up. For real. Wake up, damnit!"

Her eyes open, then blink closed, then open again. They are bloodshot and dull. Her gaze finds my face and looks at it for a very long time. "Hi, Danielle."

Then her cheeks expand and I jerk out of the way just in time. A stream of brown vomit comes jetting from her mouth, all over the table and the floor. I catch a glimpse of Vaggie glaring distastefully at the mess in her kitchen.

Charlie almost collapses to the ground, but I catch her limp body just in time.

"What should we do?" I ask Vaggie. She observes the actions happening before her as if she is watching a movie. Unfocused and unaccepting.

"Take her up to my room. She can rest there for a bit," she says dully. I follow her request and hoist Charlie up onto my shoulders. It's hard, carrying her up the stairs with my hurt arm, but she isn't all that heavy, and I can manage the pains. When I get to the top, I pause to catch my breath, then proceed to Vaggie's bedroom.

The walls are a deep, ocean blue, like, twilight zone deep blue. There isn't much clutter, only her simple white bed, thin wooden desk, and a closet stuffed with skanky-looking clothes.

Back downstairs, Vaggie is mopping the floor with a look of disgust, her arms working hard to scrub all of the grime off the wooden planks.

"Here, let me help you with-"

"I can do it myself," Vaggie snaps, shooting me a look. My hand draws back, and I look between her and the floor and the table. Silence descends over us. It's not awkward, but not comfortable, either. I step backwards, letting her clean up on her own.

Vaggie finishes scrubbing the puke relatively quickly, occasionally letting out grunts of discomfort or pain. I wish she would let me help her. I don't like seeing her like this, angry and hurting and disappointed.

A part of me knows that this is my fault. If I were smooth enough to avoid that spear, then maybe, just maybe Angel and I could have made it in time to save either of them from getting hurt.

"I'm sorry," I say, splitting the silence apart.

"For what?" she asks, turning the sink on to wash her hands.

I look down at my thumbs. They are touching again. It's a soothing feeling. "For, you know, letting you get stabbed and all."

"You didn't let me get stabbed," she says, turning around to look at me aggressively. "I chose to get stabbed. I don't know if you saw it all happen, but Charlie was about to get hit and then I jumped in front of her. If I hadn't, she could be dead right now. I would choose being forced to use a wheelchair all day than let my best friend die."

My eyes sting. I can feel my lip shaking and bite it hard, but it hurts so bad from being constantly bit that I wince. I don't want anyone to be stabbed. Not Vaggie, not Charlie, not Angel, not me. Not even Alastor. I just want everyone to be normal.

Apparently, that's too much to ask for.

"Yeah," I say, my voice cracking. My eyes do not lift from my thumbs. "Well, I'm sorry that you were stabbed."

When I do look up again, Vaggie's face is softer, but still defensive. "Seriously. Don't be, Dani. You don't have to pity me."

I shake my head gently. "Fine."

I walk away, one arm hugging my chest, the other wiping away disappointed tears as I leave the home and walk out to the street.