The Mysterious Demon

-Dominic-

“Oi Dead Corpse! Grab me a drink!”

Nick and I had just walked out into the main room of the bar and my ears instantly pricked at the voice who I knew directed those commands to me.

Both Nick and I turned to see it was him. King. Sitting there with his feet up on a table staring right at me, a challenging smirk on his face, knowing he had gotten my attention and a good few of the rest of the people in here.

“That him?” Nick asked quietly from next to me and I nodded. His muscles instantly tensed but all he did was put a firm arm around my shoulders and kept me in place. “Don’t listen to him, Dominic, ignore him.” He tried convincing me but my eyes hadn’t left him yet. They couldn’t. I couldn’t just ignore him because,

“He’s asking for a fight.” And I never back down. He may have beaten me but I’m not weak. I needed everyone to see that. So, I took Nick’s arm off of my shoulder and walked right up to him. King’s smirk widened into a grin when he saw this action. He was going to say something but before he did, I quickly lifted a leg and kicked his legs off of my table without a seconds hesitation. It caused him to lose his balance on his leaned back chair and fall over. He growled when looking up at me.

Served him right.

He seemed to see my amused look and shot up right away, standing dangerously close to my face with an ugly look on his own. “You bitch.”

“Sorry, rules say vermin are to be terminated, I was hoping a little kick would do the trick,” I replied, holding my ground despite having to look up at him. It pissed him off nonetheless. There was no anger in my tone and that annoyed him the most. He wanted to get under my skin.

“The only vermin I see is what’s left of you.” He started and I put my hands in my pockets as I listened. “Aren’t you embarrassed to show your face here? You’re nothing but dead to all the people who once loved you.” I ignored the pain in my chest and instead let out a laugh.

“I’m glad to be dead to those that once loved me rather than not be loved at all.” I retorted and for the first time, this seemed to tick him off more than usual. He put his fist up in the air, ready to strike. I knew I could have blocked this punch but a part of me wanted him to hit just so it would start a fight. I was deprived and this was a good excuse.

His fist started coming down but just before it made contact, it was stopped mid-air. I looked to see that on my right Nick stood holding his shoulder back, behind me, Xavier stood looking down at him with a glair and on my left stood Blake, holding his wrist, stopping the punch from hitting me.

King looked around at the guys, a hint of fear running through his eyes before he covered it with annoyance and roughly pulled himself away from Blake and Nick. “Hah,” he laughed sarcastically, “Got yourself some bodyguards because you knew you couldn’t beat me. You’re so sad.”

“No,” Xavier carries on casually, “We stopped her from killing you.” King scoffed at this and picked up his bag before heading down to the street fighter’s area, probably hoping for a fight to cool him down.

“Thanks, guys,” I say, turning around to face them all who was grinning down at me. I then looked at Blake with a half-amused, half confused face, “What are you doing here?” I asked and he shrugged,

“Couldn’t sleep.” I couldn’t help but give my own grin back. These guys instantly making me a lot happier than I was before. I gave Blake a side hug and with his arm around mine, Xavier led us to his office where we decided to chill while also supervising the fights.

At one point Xavier for some reason decided he wanted to have a friendly spar against Blake, saying something about being curious about his strength. Unconsciously, I assessed both of them, their stances, their weak points, their positions. Xavier clearly had the upper hand but it seemed he was more out of shape than he used to be, it almost made me cringe.

I stood up and walked in the middle of their spar, catching Blake’s shin as he tried kicking Xavier and jabbing in between Xavier’s ribs and elbowing his chin up when he reacted to it. “You guys are painful to watch. B, your kick isn’t strong enough to give you an edge, he’d block and counter quicker than you’d be able to hit him. Work on it. Xavier, your posture’s worse than your grandma’s. Why the hell are you bent so low?”

“It’s not my fault your boyfriend’s so short, and leave my grandma out of this.” We laughed at his comment before I told them to go at me again which Xavier did with no hesitation and Blake followed after. Xavier swung a fist to my side which I blocked with my forearm and moved forward to then have to block Blake’s second kick which was a lot harder than his first but I was still able to catch. I pushed Blake’s leg behind me and at the same time kicked Xavier’s leg from under him causing them both to fall together.

I smirked at the both of them under me only to suddenly fall myself when Nick knocks the back of my knees at the same time. “That was so low,” I say laughing before laying with my back against the floor, cherishing this moment.

“You know, Demon, I wasn’t kidding when I told that bastard that we stopped you from killing him,” Xavier suddenly says causing me to sigh and sit up, reaching for a Monster out of the minifridge next to me. So much for the moment.

I was about to tell him to drop the subject when Blake suddenly says, “She knows that, she just doesn’t want you feeling bad because your student’s better than you,” which causes me to spit out my drink and burst out laughing,

“Blake, I love you!”Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.

—

It was around 4 am when we decided to go home that night. Blake ended up getting a text from Jake saying he needed him at their apartment so I’d see him some other time and I went home alone.

I changed clothes and was about to go work out when my intercom rang. I was confused because I wasn’t expecting anyone and it was way too early for anyone to be awake so I put on a hoodie on top of my work out bra and went to open the door.

“Zack?”

Zack was at my doorstep, drenched in rain, in his own dark hoodie. “Hi, Dominic,” His voice was very sombre and he usually called me ‘Demonic’ so this was pretty off and concerning.

“Nick and Bake aren’t here, they headed home from the bar,” I informed him, thinking maybe he was here looking for them.

“Yeah no, I know,” he sighed, running a hand through his hair, “can I come in?” he asked earnestly.

“Of course,” I opened the door for him and let him in before grabbing him a towel to dry off and something warm to drink.

He thanked me before sighing again. “Hey, what’s wrong?” I asked curiously and worry especially getting the best of me.

“I just-” he paused, shaking his leg anxiously whilst biting his lip as if trying to keep himself together, “I feel like I’m such a failure!” My eyes widened at his outburst but continued to listen anyway. “All I’ve done all my life is drink and party and haven’t taken life seriously, knowing that I’ll fuck myself up but decided to fuck it and live how I wanted at that moment for my own self-satisfaction. I hoped that I wouldn’t live long enough to have to decide what to do or go through shit like this and yet here I am, unable to do anything!” At this point, he started breaking down but tried hard to wipe away any tears that fell. “I continue to be happy, you know? Because my act is all I have left but I’m breaking! And I don’t know what to do.”

He looked at me with a mix of pain and hope, “you’re successful, and I didn’t want to disappoint Nick so I thought I could come to you for help,” but then his eyes darkened, “I understand if you can’t though,”

I was more than willing to do whatever was in my power, but listening to him made me realise something and that was that the fear of failure was something I didn’t face alone.

I put a hand on his shoulder reassuringly, a genuine smile laying on my face which seemed to relax him a little.

“You’re not a failure, and I’ll prove it to you.”