Hallows: Black Death

More Like Dramatic Death

The Plot In You- Feel Nothing

B.B.:

My dad sits at the piano and begins to play one of his early songs on it. I pause when I go to the door. The name of the song is The Poison Apple. It makes sense to me now. The anger in it. The betrayal in it. I wonder what happened between them. I open the door to find Espinosa standing there with his hand up prepared to knock.

"Hey," he greets me putting his hand down.

"Hey," I sigh and step out onto the porch with him.

"You have guests?"

"I do," I nod and shut the door behind me.

"Everything okay?" he asks looking me over. "You look almost like yourself again,"

"Umm, what are you doing here?" I ask.

"I got a few reports yesterday. About a black Mercedes hauling ass through residential streets," he crosses his arms over his chest.

"Yeah, I was in a hurry,"

"To what? Tie that thing around a tree trunk like a bow?" he glares, his eyes slit with a sneer. He's scolding me for being reckless. Why is this turning out to be difficult? It's Espinosa for f**k sake.

"Look, Espinosa. Thank you for everything. You've been a-" what is he to me? "The thing is that I don't want you around," his expression blanks. "You remind me of something I could have had but don't,"

"B.B-"

"Please, don't make my life harder than it already is. I don't want you here waiting around for Ashley. She's not coming back. I called her phone and it was disconnected. I don't just have access to my personal trust fund anymore. I have my entire inheritance now. Everything is under James's as of yesterday. Once I turn eighteen, it'll all fall on me.

"I don't want to think about her. I don't want anything to remind me that she really just f*****g left me all alone. So, please. Just go and if you see me on the street pretend I'm just some f*****g kid with a s**t attitude. Arrest me. Do whatever the f**k you need to do to forget we know one another.

"I look at you and it feels like she's here. Like she's reaching out and I don't want to feel that anymore," there are tears streaming down my face. I don't mean any of that. A part of me wants him here and I'm not sure why. "I want to get better and you're not helping me. You're doing more damage and I don't want to say something f****d up to you, David. You don't deserve that but I won't be able to help it. So, just please go,"

He nods pressing his lips together. There are tears in his eyes but there's also anger. He's pissed. I don't know if he's mad at me or if he's mad about what I said about my mom. David Espinosa is a f*****g mystery to me. He always has been and while I want to believe what my dad said, I can't. David has been here for me even when I've done my best to push the man back. But I see it in his eyes this time. He knows I'm serious. Maybe it's my calm tone but he's buying into it.

"Okay," he nods. He reaches down and presses a kiss on the top of my head. "I'm sorry that you feel like this, B.B. I-uh," he clears his throat and tilts his head to the left until it pops. "Yeah, okay,"

I watch him walk back over to his car and leave. I press my fingers to my eyes trying to keep the tears back but they're just leaking through. Even if my dad hadn't made me do it today, I would have eventually had to have done it. He's a cop and we do things that cops shoot first and ask questions about later. It would have become a problem. I know that but this hurts. It feels a lot like losing a friend. A real friend.

"Hey," I look up at Natalie. I didn't even hear her approach. "You okay?"

"Did you see that?" I choke out. She nods pulling me into a hug.

"Hopefully that's the last person we lose in a while," she whispers in my ear. I nod letting her rub comforting circles on my back. She pulls away and takes a handkerchief from her back pocket.

"That's f*****g cool," I admit making her smile at me.

"Picked it up in Rome," she shrugs. I look up as she dabs the silky fabric on my face to clean up my tears. "Come on, Cuz. We got a lot of s**t to talk about,"

"Right," I agree.

The door behind me opens. My dad is standing there. He's looking at me like I kicked him down the stairs or something. He's upset by how much I care about Espinosa. I groan and walk past him.

"Now that you're all here," he begins when we all gathered in the library. Luc doesn't hesitate to pull me onto his lap. He kisses my cheek before wrapping his arms around me. "We need to talk about the toad,"

"I did say she was shady," I look over at the others.

"What about the toad?" Marco asks rolling his eyes but it's not in an annoyed manner. He's giving in to the idea of it. Thank goodness.

"First, I'd like to hear your opinions about her," he says.

"Sketchy, vague, disgusting," I answer, making the others laugh. He grins.

"Okay, anyone else?"

"I mean she is quirky. She tried to eat me," Stacy raises her hand. "But she has been mostly helpful,"

"Mostly," Carson and Lucien agree.

"Have you guys heard of the Fringe Division?" he asks.

"James mentioned it," I say when no one speaks up. "What is it?"

"You're going to love this," he smirks. "The F.D. was established three hundred years ago by Alastor Blackstone. Also known as the Grim Reaper,"

"Is that a class of reaper?" I ask.

"No, there are only three types. Merciful Death, Black Death, and Death. He was known as the grim reaper because he was creepy as s**t and I say that standing here as the Black Death itself,"

"Okay," I laugh.

"Alastor was a mad man and like you, he liked to dabble in science crap. He'd lure his prey here and would do all kinds of f****d up s**t in our basement. His mom was weird," he shakes his head. "Anyway. He found that there's more to how we turn out than just our bloodlines. He learned that breeding with certain genetic anomalies can produce stronger and more competent hallows. It was successful enough that my parents tried it and here were. Dual wielders.

"This motherfucker introduced hallows to the government and black-mailed them into creating an alliance against supernatural beings. He promised them an army and well, let's just say that the U.S. doesn't just have nuclear bullshit to protect it. We have an F.D. embassy on every continent. Even in the most remote places. Even among the indigenous.

"He set a code of conduct," he holds up a little black book that looks like a small bible. The kind soldiers are given in BootCamp. "They know s**t that you can't even begin to imagine. Right now, it's run by a man named Donald Verretta.

"Verretta is a Reaper. He grew up in the F.D. business. Knows s**t about what he is that even I don't. A lot of people are going to die in the next couple of weeks. Enough to bring people like Montoya and Verretta here.

"Now, I know you guys are really good at covering your tracks and that Merciful Death is in the middle of a territory war with the Jimenez Cartel even though the i***t doesn't know who he's up against. But I need to get this done fast. The longer I am up here, the more the darkness is going to get to the crazies. With that said, I need you all to come up with a plan to shut the school down so we can focus on this and this only,"

"What?" Natalie sits up. "No, I can't let you do that. The school is the only place of sanctuary some of us have. If we shut it down a lot of innocent people are going to die. Kids who have nothing but the idea of getting the f**k out of Hellbourne,"

"That's the point," I sigh, standing up. "Dad, I agree with Nat on this. You might be okay with it because of what you are now but I'm not. If you need our full attention, we'll give it to you but not by shutting the school down,"

"B.B-" he begins and I shake my head stopping him.

"I can't let you do that, dad. I can't. We can find another way. Give us a couple of hours to think about it,"

"Okay, but if it goes to s**t. We're going with my plan. I'm going to be downstairs. I'm going to leave you all the cliff notes on what you are," he sighs and walks away as if he were a professional dealing with a bunch of novices. Black Death? More like Dramatic Death.