Immortal Breath: Bedfellows

My heart stops as electricity jumps several inches away from her arm as if it was a lightning rod. She was seething angry, and it could probably attribute to the amount of clicking and mechanical sounds coming from her arm, as well as the whizzing of electricity.

"Well? Are you gonna answer me or not?!" Her tempers flares, and though she directs the question to Felix her livid expression does not leave me. "Who is this whore?"

Felix glares, his cheeks suddenly reddening in his own anger. "She is not a whore! She's… staying here for a while!"

That only seems to make her even more cross. "Another woman!? She gnashes her teeth together, "You ingratiating bastard!"

She swings the electrified fist at his head, and inciting a gasp from me as I watch from the corner. Felix ducked backwards, making Arabella's fist narrowly miss his face. He reaches around her middle and knocks her to the floor and pinning her once again. It was a full on brawl; who had the most strength to get the person down and to make them surrender. Legs and arms flew as they tangled in each other…

One minute, they're fighting to the death, the next Arabella's on top of Felix kissing him against the floor. My heart slowed and my eyebrows furrowed in confusion. What was going on? I had the decency to look away as I crawled behind the upturned couch, trying to decipher this puzzle of a woman that had first tried to kill me, then had tried to kill Felix but was now mauling on his face like a wild animal, or at least, that's what it looked like.

Laughter fallowed after a couple of minutes, and shuffling fallowed that as Felix and the woman got to their feet. "Ramona?" I heard my name from behind my sanctuary in Felix's tenor voice. "You can come out. She's not going to kill you."

I peek up over the red fabric just a little, feeling like a rodent popping out of a hole. "Are you sure?"

He chuckles. "Yeah, I'm sure."

I stand up and dust myself off, trying to hide the embarrassing red tint in my cheeks. "Just making sure, 'cause it looked like she wanted to kill you."

Arabella's eyebrow rose. "I would if you'd done something stupid." She replied rather bluntly. "But you seem too young to be… ya know." She made a rude motion with her hands, and I felt my breath choke in the throat.

"This is Ramona, Ara." Felix said, trying to spare me anymore embarrassing conversations. "She's been staying here because of family problems; that's all."

"I can't go home I said; not family problems." I interject. I hold out my hand to the woman, trying to keep myself from cowering. She was much taller than me, but only an inch or so shorter than Felix, if not the same height. "Ramona, Sixth generation Asher."

"What?" She looks confused, and she scoffs. "Whoever the hell you are, I don't care. I just came for him," She jams a thumb at Felix.

"No pun intended," Felix interjects, smirking.

Ara doesn't seem to notice the innuendo as she circles around me, observing me like a predator would her next meal. "So, Stray, how long have you been here?" Her voice was harsh, almost as low as Felix's.

In that split second, I realized she reminded me of the criminal bullies from back home that would try and beat me up. I needed to answer her calmly; she seemed to react to cowardice or sureness. "About two months."

Felix watches from a few feet away as if he wanted to help, but the interrogation continued, and it seemed he was powerless to stop it anyway. "How did you meet him?" She jabs another finger in the direction of Felix, and he starts to open his mouth to answer for me.

But I take the challenge. "I saved him from some thugs who were trying to kill him."

Her eyebrow rises in a question and she scoffs. "You? You couldn't--,"

"I'm stronger than I look." I answer curtly, trying my best to sound and look confident. I was trying my best to keep my answers short.

Arabella frowned, irritated that I'd interrupted her. "hmph." She smiles, and the white felt like it was biting my eyes. It was now obvious that this woman had something against me, even though I'd only known her for about fifteen minutes.

"Ara," Felix buts in, placing a hand on her shoulder and stopping her in her pacing, "C'mon, she's only a kid; leave her alone."

Ara shoots a glare at the both of us, then suddenly grabs Felix around the shoulders and whispers in his ear. I look at the ceiling, not wanting to know at all what she was telling him. A second later, Felix clears his throat and puts his arm forcibly around Ara's waist, pulling her close. "Ara and I are going to talk a while, Ramona. Could you try and clean up please?"

I feel my insides twist a little. "Sure." I say submissively; quietly.

Felix throws me one of his award winning smiles. "Thanks."

The two of them walk down the hall, and I hear the door close behind them, leaving me with my thoughts.

The house had been trashed. The couch had been over turned on its back, and papers littered the floor from where the door had burst open, knocking over the coat hanger that in turn had skittered across the desk and had sent the papers on top of it flying around the front of the room. There was a dent now in the wall where Arabella and Felix had tumbled and her arm had punched the wall. Everywhere there was glass from the window of the door, and it crunched underneath my boots as I moved about the room tidying up.

My mind wandered absently as I did, and came to rest on the abrasive woman. Who was she to Felix? They obviously had some sort of arrangement, and if I was right she was the owner of those bins of clothes in the bathroom. My stomach twists as I came to the realization that they probably lived together far before I'd gotten here. And-- I block my thoughts out, not wanting to think about it anymore as the glimpse of white sheets and bodies runs through my head uninvited. Was that how it was? Why did she not come back sooner?

Looking up, I notice that I was finished, the glass had been swept out the door and the papers had found their rightful place back on the desk. The house was back to itself again, as much as it could be anyway after the sudden break in.

I felt tired as I walked down the hall and pushed open Felix's door, "I finished cleaning--,"

My heart stops and my stomach twists painfully in my stomach as my eyes register what's before me. Felix and Ara lay mostly beneath the covers of his bed, striped of most of their clothes and their hair messy. Felix lay with his arms around Ara, his shirt unbuttoned all the way revealing the contours of—

I look away, my eyes burning suddenly. I put my hands to my chest as a horrible pain racks my heart and my stomach twists. I ran into my own bedroom slamming the door and sliding down onto the floor in shock as I held onto myself, the only thing I had. The comments from this morning had been lies, my brain shouted, bringing me down further. He was just waiting for her to come back. My body fell slowly on my side and I curled into my knees as I continued to tremble uncontrollably. I felt confused; why was I reacting this way? He'd been with her from the start!

I crawl into bed and pull the sheets over my head, hoping the idea that was forming in my mind about myself wasn't true.