Chapter Three

♦September's POV♦

'...my boots are squishing my pinkies and...'

"September!" Cyril growls angrily in my head. "Shut it, shut the fuck up, you've been yammering endlessly for ages."

"Get your snout outta my biz," I say out loud, pushing a hand through my tangled hair.

"I wish," he fires back. "You're practically yelling with your bits and pieces of a voice."

"Like your metallic clang is any better."

"We're here," Selena says quietly, ending our tirade.

"Awesome," I say softly, stepping out before any of them can. I take a few steps forward and notice someone dressed as a valet. I thought he's a black guy at first but on second thoughts, he's just really dark, I move to step out of his way only to realize that he doesn't want me out of his way. He's heading towards me, I barely hear Selena yelling my name before I'm dragged into a sea of sensations, a nostalgic feeling overwhelms me and I feel myself swim out of the pool of sensations, black spots creep into my vision but someone shoves me and I fall to the ground jolted awake. I raise my head and see Cyril raise his head from the neck of the valet and he falls away, crumbling to dust before he hits the ground.

"What? Ow, was that?" I ask, rubbing my neck as Selena helps me off the ground. "One moment I was trying to get out of the way and the next I couldn't move anymore."

"That was a slave demon," Cyril says shortly as he hands his keys to another valet.

"Well?" I ask no one in particular while looking at Selena.

"What?" She asks back not returning even a glare.

"Okay, as I said before, that guy was a slave demon,  and they're what we use as slaves around here even in the old country but only for those who cannot afford higher creatures. Legend has it that they need to find another supernatural soul to offer as a sacrifice to free themselves, they are mostly sold by their demon masters for very little money. But over the years, they've been greatly defeated, since they weren't technically strong anyway they were forced to surrender but no one believes in the legend anymore." Cyril explains, I think I see fear flash in his eyes but he quickly covers it up.

"I think we should have been more careful." He adds gently.

"It's not your fault I'm a sniveling coward. I mean, the things sound weak." I mutter loud enough for them to hear me.

"Stop it already, there was no way you would have known." Selena interjects.

"Alright people, we came here to party, Lena, give us some party vibes." Cyril says cheering us up.

Selena manipulates our soured emotions and soon we are happily heading for the entrance, the line seems to go on forever but Cyril just walks up and two bouncers come to lead us inside the club.

Everyone seems to know them, Cyril receives pats on the back, Selena receives winks and hugs and for a moment  I'm lost. Selena grabs my hand and takes me away from the music.

"Umm... I'll be right back Ember." Selena says in a slightly raised voice.

"I can hear you just fine." I remind her.

"I think I know that Ember." She enunciates, eye-rolling. "I just want to make sure I have your attention.

"Whatever. Have fun, I'll go join Cyril." I search for him with my eyes and see that he's not far away.

"Bye." Elena says, disappearing into the looming crowd.

"Cyril! Wait for me!" I yelled mentally, hoping he can hear me.

He pauses but doesn't look back, when I join him, we continue finding our way towards our seats. He leads me to a raised platform with about five tables, we make our way towards the one in the middle. This area definitely has to be the VIP section, I'm not the party type but I know this is no regular table even in a VIP section.

As we make our way towards the table, someone pulls me into a warm embrace.

"Hey girl, you look good. Nice curls." A red-haired girl walks up to me with a high five.

"Umm... Thanks, I decided to try something new today." I say lamely trying hard to remember where I saw those hazel eyes.

"Is that Selena? Tell her Dane will be here soon, he's on his way."

"Yeah sure," the redhead says absently waving her hand. "She pretty much heard you anyway." All this while, she doesn't even take a proper look at me.

We get to the table and Cyril is talking with a guy who reminds me a lot about the girl I just spoke with, matching hazel eyes and all.

"Hey," I wave and try to flash the most - baddest smile I can muster, I'm probably flunking it big time. I make my way to one of the fancy chairs.

"That's not your chair." Cyril's friend says,  looking up from his phone.

"Uhh... Okay." I mumble, confused.

"Selena?" Cute guy asks, his eyes flashing, now that I take a good look at it, it's more of an edible chocolate brown, not hazel.

"Huh?" I reply sounding more like a question than anything else, moving backward as he advances towards me.

"Who're you?" He asks dangerously, looming closer.

"Hey guys!" I hear my saving grace's voice right behind me.

"Selena where were you?" Cyril asks, obviously not concerned and obviously oblivious to my situation.

"Sorry, I was catching up." Selena says flashing her signature smirk.

"Selena, who's this? When did you get a clone?" Cyril's friend asks, his eyes still glowing menacingly.

"Yeah, you should have called me instead, I have the perfect spells for that." The red-haired girl grouches.

"No knuckleheads, I didn't clone myself." Selena says face palming, "She's my twin, why would I go cloning myself?" She asks rhetorically pushing me towards a seat.

"Oh. My bad, I'm Zach, Zach Mistletoe." He apologizes introducing himself. "And this is my baby sister, Arianna." He adds, flashing a grin, his eyes returning to their normal chocolate color. 

As expected, my siblings can't seem to do anything right, of course, they would have abnormal friends.

Arianna goes to hug him and smiles, "Yeah, my big brother." She agrees, zapping him on the cheek with a pink colored blast of light from her fingertip. "Doesn't mean you have to announce it all the time ." She adds before going to where I was seated.

She sits beside Selena and asks if we would like to drink something, we all place our orders and I hear myself ordering a vodka - a double.

I have no idea what vodka means but the waiter doesn't laugh at me so I figure I got it right and didn't name a tenth planet.

"Umm... September?" Selena tries to caution me as I throw the contents of my cup down my throat, blinking away tears as my throat burned.

"Wow." Arianna gasped softly, her eyes wide. "That was so cool, do it again, do it again." She encourages me, handing me her share.

I don't even remember what she ordered but I was already on a roll.

"September, you really don't want to do that." Cyril warns but it bumps off my back as I swallow her drink too. A warm feeling spreads through my body, all the way to my fingers and toes as I feel the ropes of common sense loosen.

"HIII!" I hear myself say normally, ignoring the rest wincing and covering their ears. "LET'S HIT THE DANCE FLOOR, HURRY OR I'LL LEAVE WITHOUT YOU." I threaten already moving towards the dance floor.

The people clubbing seemed to welcome me with open arms as I turned, dipped, twisted and bent to the loud music. I see myself weave through the crowd till I'm in the very middle of the ruckus, dancing vigorously, head and heart pounding.

Suddenly a wave of nausea washes over me and I sway, latching on to the nearest thing for support, I see me holding onto a huge hunk of a person. Lightening grey eyes flash out of a dark face.

"HELLO!" I yell. "YOU ASH SHTRONG." I slur, swaying harder. "I... ARRM SHEPTEMBER."

"What? What did you say?" The stranger asks, supporting my entire weight now his deep honeyed voice washing over me.

"SHEP... September." I repeat my voice trailing off, abruptly I shake my head, raising my drooping head to stare into his eyes. "Pretty... Pretty eyes." I mumble, patting his face, my eyes closing. As I blackout, the last thing I hear is Selena's voice yelling my name in the distance.