Is this what death looks like?
Ash stood over the corpse with mild fascination.
Bile and foam spilt from the lips and nose, dripping into the ears. Livor mortis had begun to take effect, dark purple splotches appearing on the underside of the body. She felt the urge to close the yellowing eyes. The way they seemed to stare right at her shadowy form had her stomach roiling.
“Why does it look like that?”
She asked the Demon, but the Angel answered first, “You died, Ash. This is what death looks like for you.”
“Who’s gonna find me?”
The Demon’s dark eyes regarded her thoughtfully. “No one, if you ask nicely.”
She rounded on the black-eyed creature. His hair, the color of pitch, hid chiseled features expertly in its shoulder-length glory, appearing to have been submerged only moments ago as shimmering water droplets rolled off the sharp ends and onto the concrete roof with a hiss. He certainly had a flair for the dramatic.
“What do you mean?”
The green-eyed Angel tensed, revealing unmasked frustration through ruffling his ten-foot alabaster wings. “Why do you still listen to him?” he asked, brushing stray copper hairs behind Ash’s ear. “He would more likely display your corpse from the side of this building than help you.”
Ash bristled. She didn’t like being questioned by the Angel, especially not an hour after her death.
“Why do you always make me feel stupid?” she grumbled, wrapping her willowy arms around herself. The wind on the rooftop was blustery, but she felt nothing besides an aching chill in her bones.
The Demon chuckled before speaking over the Angel’s excuses. “Superiority complex. But I don’t need to tell you that.”
The woman turned her face from her corpse to repress the image of a fat blowfly crawling through her snot, taking in the scenery. It was dawn, and the cityscape lights had yet to dim. She pictured each one as a star in the night sky.
“Or an angel in heaven,” a voice sounded sarcastically behind her.
“Stay out of my head, Aidoneus,” she snapped at the Demon, who withered from the reprimand.
“Leo.”
“Then stay out of my head.”
“Fine. Are you going to ask the same of him?”
The Angel scowled at Leo. “The way you always find a way out of calling me by name truly is astounding.
“Oh astounding, is it?” Leo mocked.
Ash rolled her eyes, tired of the toxic displays of supernatural masculinity. “Shut up. Both of you just- just shut the hell up.”
Although both ethereal in their own right, their voices were beyond irritating. Ash went to walk away from her lifeless form when she felt a tether, tying her foot to foot with the body.
“Why can’t I move?”
Leo jumped down from his perch on the building’s edge and pushed his hair back to look at her boot-clad feet. His sharp features gave him a dark edge that Ash found herself leaning into. No, she chastised herself. He left you, don’t get sucked in again.
His lip twitched, and Ash had a bad feeling he had been listening to her thoughts again. She didn’t press the issue as the Angel’s cool hand brushed against her lower back.
“I’m sure it’s nothing. Come now.” The Angel went to beat his wings when Ash’s shadow self drew down against him. She cried out in pain from the strange sensation, and the Angel tried again despite her anguish.
“Micah, stop!” she screamed, desperately attempting to jerk her arm from his grip, but his strength was vicelike. Inhuman.
Leo growled and grabbed Ash’s other arm, forcing a soothing warmth to flow over them both. She tugged away in surprise, her grey eyes widening, seeing a mirrored expression back at her. An unfamiliar cry of pain escaped the winged beauty, followed by a flash of blinding heat.
Ash heard guttural screams before she woke in her bed to the sound of the backstreet boys on the radio. The sounds echoed in her mind as she slapped the alarms snooze button.
“No way, that was a dream?” she whispered, bringing her hands to her cheeks in relief. However, the sticky wetness she found seemed to point to something out of the ordinary. Jumping up, ash slipped on her strewn sheets and landed painfully on the hardwood floors.
“You okay, Honey?” Her mother’s warm voice called from the next room.
“Yep, just... fell out of bed.”
Her dad’s warm laughter had a heat rise on her cheeks. He was probably going to mock her for days about that lie.
She crawled to the full-length mirror and gasped at the reflection she saw. The purple bruising behind her neck was easing, but dried white foam coated her face and ears. Just the sight alone made Ash want to gag. Instead, she coughed into her elbow and forced back the urge to retch when another sensation overcame her: to sneeze. She let the force escape and nearly screamed when a small black mass flew into her palm from her left nostril.
All curled up and smothered in clear mucous.
It was that damned fly.
Ash Knight was a bad influence.
Every report card her parents received shared that delightful tidbit in some euphemistic form.
‘Ash is a talented student but tends to disrupt the class. Ash can sometimes encourage other students to break the rules,’ or her favorite, ‘Miss Knight, would be a more successful student if she focused more on her studies and less on her peers.’
All complete nonsense.
Any time her parents questioned her, she gave the same answers. “I don’t even talk in class, and I don’t know why that teacher always picks on me.”
Despite their generally understanding nature, by her final year, they confronted her with exasperation.
“Seriously, Hun. What are you doing? Your grades are perfect, so why are all the teachers saying you are causing trouble in the class?” her dad said opposite her at the dining table, a furrow between his brows.
“Your teacher said that the other honor students in your class are failing” her mother added.
Ash swallowed her mouthful of toast and rubbed the crumbs off her fingers with a frown. “I swear, I’m just doing the work, Dad. It’s not my fault the other kids aren’t doing well.”
Ever the softie, her father gave up the lame attempt at an intervention while her mother held firm for a moment longer. “Then why are the ones failing always sitting next to you?” she said, leaning against the marble counter.
Withholding a grumble, Ash tilted her head at her mother’s tightly folded arms. “How is that my fault?” She slotted her final piece of crust between her teeth before muttering under her breath, “I’m glad they’re failing.”
Her mother clicked her tongue and threw a dishtowel at her daughter’s lap. “I heard that, Ash. Tell me the truth.”
The truth? I wish...
She couldn’t tell her mother she had a strange ability to see souls or that said ability made the situation at hand entirely ‘her fault’. Nor could she mention she was capable of manipulating anyone to be the worst version of themselves with a simple touch of her hand. “They’re honestly rude, mum. They don’t deserve all the special treatment they get.”
“Ash!”
She got up from the table and put her plate in the sink as she defended herself. “What? They’re bullies and get away with it because they’re smart. You should hear them in class. It’s like they enjoy making everyone else feel stupid. One of them, Declan, told a girl her reason for being ‘slutty’ is that her dad abandoned her. In class, in front of the teacher, and he didn’t even get written up for it.”
“He actually called her -?”
“Daniel-”
"Yes! Verbatim.”
Her father cast his wife a withering look before telling Ash to head off to school.
“Daniel, we aren’t finished-”
“Kathryn, darling. She’s done nothing wrong. Just let her be. There are only a few more days of the year left anyway.”
“Don’t Kathryn darling me-”
Ash rushed from the room as she heard her mother’s resolve crumbling. She did not need to listen to their healthy, loving relationship and sloppy make-up kisses.
Scooping up her school bag, she slipped out the door and headed to school. Living a twenty-minutes' walk from school had its perks, and Ash enjoyed the crisp morning air against her warm cheeks.
