Grey II - Ghosts

Chapter 7 - City Streets

I can't get away with murder.
I am bound to take it further.

Pop Evil - Deal with the Devil

Nevaeh's attitude got steadily worse over the weeks, as if she honestly believed the entire world was against her. I suppose I could understand why someone like her would see it that way. Her parents were lost, her sister, and now her Clan. She had gone through the ultimate threesome of shit in her life. I tried to be kind to her, to be sympathetic, something she hadn't seemed to think of in regards to me yet. But it was difficult when she would get in my face, screaming like we were on some reality TV show.

I hated people getting close to my face, it had always made me want to bite them, which I full well knew was a strange reaction, especially for my kind, but it was still always my most readily available reflex when someone got their face too close to mine.

Usually, I just let it slide with her, let her vent at me, even when it was about stupid shit, but lately it had gotten worse, and she had started drinking, or rather, her drinking had gotten worse. She had gone from thirteen or fourteen drinks a day to thirty, and even for a Darkling, that was a little much, especially when the drinks were the size and strength she made them to be.

I tried to be kind, understanding, but she was angry and hurt, yet too proud to admit her injuries, so that just left the anger, and mixing that with her binge drinking and an already less-than-sugary personality, sometimes it was all I could manage not to squeeze the life from her in her sleep.

I sat across our messy but fine room on my bed, watching her shoulders rise and fall as she faintly snored, a trash can next to her half filled with vodka-smelling vomit. For a Darkling she had never been able to hold her liquor well. I almost let my mind wander to how the hell I had come to be where I was, how my life had fallen apart so quickly. A month and a half earlier I had everything, almost everything, but I pushed Ambriel from my mind as well. None of that mattered anymore. I laid back on my bed as I tried to think of productive things, tried to reign in my mind, but it was no use. I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep, not with Nevaeh sure to wake up every hour or two for more booze, or to puke again.

My support of sharing a room had quickly faded within the first week. I liked my privacy and my sister didn't have a thread of modesty in her. I sighed as I stared at the ceiling, trying to remind myself that I should go easy on her, that even my life looked easy in comparison to the one she had suffered. I knew I was just in a bad mood because I was restless, because I hadn't done anything in weeks, hadn't practiced, sparred, hadn't even Shifted in over seven days, hadn't left the penthouse in six.

Nevaeh didn't seem to mind doing nothing, but it was draining me, boring me to death, but I couldn't seem to find any decent reason to drag her from our hotel either. It was as if she had chosen the quietest city in the region to relocate us to, or maybe I just didn't know where to look, who to ask. I pulled a pillow over my head so I wouldn't wake inebriated-beauty as I let out a frustrated groan.

I left soon after, just needing the streets, their freshly polluted air, the possibility of violence, anything but the monotony that my life had become, the mind-numbingly boring nothingness that my life had become. Nevvie was almost out of booze anyway, so I told myself it was a liquor run, but it wasn't, it was a search, a hunt, though I didn't have any particular prey in mind.

I took a short cut through an alley, since there was no reason for me not to. I didn't have to fear some little hoodlum, and we hadn't seen signs of a single supernatural event since our arrival. I had decided weeks ago that we were the only even remotely dangerous beings living in the gray city. But then I felt it, just a little tingle from my Shift, from the Shift that had been dormant for far too long. I froze, wondering if I should switch my vision, or if I was just being paranoid. I kept walking.