Hell's Angel (EDITING)

38 - James | Portal to hell

I was frozen.

The angel screamed, thrashing about in Danyel's strong grip. Tears sprung to her sparkling blue eyes, shimmering brightly under the glow-in-the-dark stars.

The party was still in full-throttle around us. Students danced and laughed, taking group selfies that they didn't realize featured our morbid exchange.

Marie gazed at me as she silently begged for help, her face etched with hurt and betrayal. My betrayal.

I tried to speak. To tell her I hadn't done it. To say something. Anything. Black smoke choked me the moment I parted my lips, constricting and burning my throat with hellfire.

I slowly slipped my hand in my pocket, my arm feeling like it were weighed down with lead. The cross was missing. The half she gave me. I hadn't removed it from my pocket since she had put it there.

My eyes traveled down to the corsage on her wrist, moving as slow as a crimson glacier. It hadn't left my possession since I bought it. I sluggishly pondered whether it could have been tampered with before—my brain seemed to be working in slow-motion as well. How could Danyel have known?

'Oh by the way, James.' His honey-like voice dripped into my muddled mind.

I lifted my head with difficulty, meeting his smug gaze.

'Andrew is on his way.' Danyel's lips tipped up in a twisted smile. 'I think I'll meet him behind the school... by the steep, ragged cliffside.'

Sirens went off in my head as he started dragging the angel away. I put one foot forward, the effort almost draining me. They were almost as the door. Gritting my teeth, I placed another in front of it. They were no more in my line of sight.

The hold on my body suddenly vanished as the distance between us grew. I crashed to the ground, as if the strings that had been holding me up had been severed all at once. I pushed myself off the floor, trying to steady my jelly-like legs.

And then I ran and ran and ran.

I ran out of the gym, pushing past the swinging double doors, not caring who saw them move. Past the ghostly empty corridors, lined with metal lockers and uneven wall tiles. Bursting out of the school building and running till I was drenched in the heavy rain. It beat down violently, hitting me like cold needles and blinding me as I looked wildly about, trying to catch a flash of red.

Seeing nothing, I ran in the direction I thought the cliff to be. My eyes were stinging in the wind and my chest was on fire with gasping breaths. Still, I kept running.

Then I saw him. Andrew. He was running to where Danyel held the angel, in the middle of a circle of fire at the edge of the cliff. A portal to hell.

'James! You've decided to join us,' the demon cooed, 'You're just in time to say goodbye to this sweet angel.'

Andrew was running fast towards them, yelling at him to let her go, but my own movements slowed as I neared Danyel.

'Andrew,' I gasped, the words coming out in a cloud of burning smoke, 'Stop!'

The wind whipped at my words and carried them away, not allowing him to know I was there. He was far ahead of me and I could barely walk. Before I could warn him, Danyel and Marie disappeared from before us, along with the portal.

Danyel's hold on me disappeared and I sprinted, ignoring the after-effects of my sudden-cut strings. But, Andrew was already running too fast.

On a road slick with rain.

He gasped, a look of horror passing over his face as he saw the cliff-edge a mere foot away. He slipped and slid, trying valiantly to stop himself. His arms flailed as he tried to find something to hold on too, grabbing at nothing but freezing sheets of rain.

I watched Andrew skidding off the edge of the cliff.

I leaped off the edge of the cliff.