I shift on my feet, and the stupid leather of my uniform squeaks loudly. I see Echo’s lips twitch, and I send him a scowl. “You don’t get to make fun of the squeak. This isyouruniform,” I point out.
I quickly snatch up the scythe from the floor, just in case I need to use it to defend myself. I don’t care that their combined muscles are larger than my debt. I will scythe the shit out of them if they come at me.
“Alright,” I say, tossing my sweaty purple hair away from my face. Useless ponytail. It’s like I didn’t even try to manage my hair. “What the hell is going on?”
“I take it you didn’t know you were a demon?” Iceman asks carefully.
“What do you mean by demon?” I demand. “Costumes? Cosplay? Kink—”
“It’s not kinky sex shit!” Jerif cuts me off with a scowl, his orange eyes blazing hot. “I already told you.”
“Fine,” I shout, feeling completely overwhelmed and at a loss.
He shakes his head, studying me like a bug. “How do younotknow?” he asks, baffled.
I don’t like the judgment laced in his tone, and I tighten my hold on the scythe. Crux grimaces. “Please don’t swing that shit at us again,” the surfer demon pleads.
“This is a fucking disaster,” Echo growls at the others before taking a step toward me. “Alright, look, Miss Gates. You’re right. Thisissome weird ass kinky sex shit, okay? There are no real demons. This was all a misunderstanding. Why don’t you go home to rest and go find a new job better suited to your...delicate needs?”
I narrow my eyes at him and point my scythe in his direction. To my utter delight, he looks nervous about it. “Don’t do that. Don’t trick me into going all weird damsel,oh I must’ve imagined everything I sawmode,” I say in a fake girly voice.
“You swooned,” he drawls as he scratches over the dark tattoos at the back of his neck.
“It was a fake swoon!” I shoot back. “I just needed a fucking pause to take in what happened and try to get you guys to leave me alone!”
“You’re making it worse, you fucking idiot,” Crux mutters at Echo under his breath.
“Shut the fuck up,” Echo snaps at him. “She’s clearly fucking clueless! She wouldn’t last a single night at the Hellgate.”
“But she appears to be an Inner Ring, Echo,” Iceman chides. “Maybe she can’t defend it yet, but just her presence could stabilize it. Do you really want to let her walk away?”
I point at him, interrupting their little argument. “That! That right there. What does Inner Ring mean?” I ask.
To my irritation, they all groan, as if they just found out I don’t know how to do basic shit like wipe my own ass or something.
Instead of answering me, Echo and Iceman-Rafferty go right back to arguing. “She saw all three of us in the graveyard, even though we were warded. She’s not some useless fucking Diluted or Outer Ringer. We could finally manage the Gate with her.”
Jerif shakes his head. “This is a bad idea. Echo’s right; she doesn’t know shit, which pretty much makes her next to useless.”
The quad all share a look before their eyes trail back to me, and they look at me like they’re trying to figure out how to solve a fucking Rubik’s Cube. Which, for the record, I’ve never been able to do.
“What the fuck is going on?” I demand, feeling like I’m about to seriously lose my shit unless someone explains.
Iceman sighs. “I’m—we’re—also demons. Actual demons. As in, not human.”
I blink at him. And blink. And blink some more. My brain hangs up a sign that statesleft to freak the fuck out, be back in five minutes.
He runs a hand nervously through his blue hair, careful to avoid his horns, and looks to the other guys. “Did she go on pause mode again?” he asks them.
Crux circles around me, lifting one of my arms and letting it slap down against my leather clad thigh like I’m a defective doll. “Huh. Maybe.”
I flinch away from him as the situation suddenly kickstarts my panic. Immediately, I break out into a nervous sweat. It’s like the heat of Hell itself has suddenly enveloped me simply because they admitted to being demons. I start fanning myself as the sweltering temperature takes over my body. “Demons. As in Hell demons?” I clarify.
“Yes,” they all answer at the same time.
I fan harder. “And your costume....”
Iceman clears his throat. “Is, umm, not a costume,” he tells me, looking down at his blue body like he’s trying to see it through my eyes.
