Chapter 40: Chapter 40

I groaned when my head hit the wall as they threw Avyanna and I on the floor at Havana’s order. I would have shouted at her but the look in her eyes was murderous and was nothing like the Havana I used to know. Needless to say, I didn’t want anyone killing me at such a young part of my life.

“Paris?

I looked up to see that it was my brother, Valparaiso, tied to a chair and my eyes widened when I saw how different he looked. Not crazy different. Scared different.

“Val, I didn’t notice you were here.”

“That’s alright,” he said as he looked down and I never knew how much pain he was holding in him until he added, “Nobody ever does.”

Valparaiso was always the least popular one amongst our trio. I was the girl everyone loved and admired while Havana was the rebel that everyone feared even the worst of boys. Val, on the other hand, was just a nerd who would have gotten bullied if people weren’t terrified of Havana’s and my wrath.

We used to protect him when we were younger and he was the only reason why I’d learned how to fight. I felt really sad that all these years he had gone through torture and I wasn’t there to protect him. It explained why Havana was so bent on getting her revenge. It didn’t justify it but I understood.

I heard a sound and looked to see that Havana had slapped Val and I gasped. I’d always known her to be a very aggressive person but she had never tried to hurt any of us. It was like I was looking at her doppelganger and not my sister.

“You’re a weapon and weapons don’t weep,” she said harshly and I felt a pang of pain in my chest.

I glared at her. “How can you treat your own brother like this? It takes a very broken, twisted soul to do what you do.”

She laughed and walked up to me, pinching my cheeks. “You’re too kind. Thanks for noticing.”

“You’re fucked up,” I said after roughly pushing her hands away.

“Isn’t everyone’s family a little fucked up?” she asked with a wink and she stood up straight then flipped her hair and walked back to where Val was seated.

“Now, listen to me and listen to me good. I have somewhere to be urgently and I do not want to deal with your pathetic self, trying to stop me from getting my revenge. If you try anything stupid, I will destroy you and everything you have ever cared for.”

“You do realize that includes you, right?” I asked with a raised brow.

“I’m counting on it,” she said with another wink. “My friend here, Max, will watch you guys for me because I don’t trust you on your own. Toodles.”

I scoffed and crossed my arms. “You act like you’re indestructible but you know you’re not.” “I guess you’d know best, huh?” she retorted.

I frowned. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Figure it out. I’m sure you have a brain for a reason,” she said and walked towards the exit, her heels clicking with the rough stones and causing me a migraine.

“Who are you and what have you done to my sister?” Val asked as tears rolled down his eyes.

She stopped and looked at him showing the tiniest bit of emotion as she said, “Who you were meant to be. The old me is lost somewhere. I’m different, I’m new.”

With those words, she shut the door and left us with the man who had refused to look up from his phone since we came in. I was more concerned with how he was comfortably sitting there while there was a head on the table but I refused to say anything because I was sure he could kill me even with just a glance.

“We need to get out of here and stop her,” I said with a long sigh.

“Goodluck doing that. She doesn’t seem like such a nice person,” Avyanna said with a shrug as she laid down on the floor. “It isn’t even comfortable.”

“It’s the goddamn floor, what do you expect?” Val asked shooting her a glare.

Before she could reply and start an argument with him, I asked, “Isn’t there something you know we can do?”

Val nodded. “I know one thing but it’s really big and involves a lot. You see, Havana becomes less human the longer she transforms. It’s the side effect of the whole project and if Havana had been a little patient, she would have heard it from Evander’s men.

“Soon enough, she’ll lose herself and go crazy. She won’t see us as family anymore. We’ll become enemies and there’s no saying she’ll let us be alive.”

“Funny enough, she said something similar about you,” I said placing my hand on my chin.

Val chuckled. “I did go crazy but that’s how I knew and Evander was able to help me even though it was his fault in the first place. He couldn’t change me back but he gave me this amulet and as long as I have it on, I’ll be fine. I could give it to Havana to help her but the only problem is that if I go through with this, I’ll have to die because the amulet is the only thing keeping me alive.”

I shook my head. I wouldn’t let that happen. “I can’t let you die. You won’t. What happens if you don’t?”

“We all die.”

That was such a painful thing to hear that you had to lose someone important to you to save another important person. It was something I couldn’t afford but we were all out of options and it seemed that was our only one.

“In my opinion…” Avyanna started.

“It’s a real shame nobody asked for your opinion.,” Val said with a roll of his eyes.

Avyanna ignored him and continued. “…I think we should just kill your sister. I mean, what’s the point of leaving her alive when she will pose a threat to all of us eventually.”

“I know my sister like I know my own mind. Something else is wrong with her. Let me fix it.”

Avyanna groaned. “What exactly are you fixing? She’s already gone. You already assumed that she was dead so just keep on thinking like that but know that this time she is gone for real. There is nothing to fix.”

I shook my head. “I can’t do that. She’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, hers and mine are the same.”

“I have to agree with that,” Val said with a shrug.

Avyanna stood up and punched the wall. “There is no recovery, no rehabilitation, for her! Do you honestly think that she can change? Are you that delusional? You really think she can be helped? She is remorseless, cold, uncaring…she is a monster.”

I stood up too, shooting daggers at her. “Your kind made her a monster! She wasn’t always like that. Don’t judge her when you didn’t know her.” She raked her hands through her hair and looked away. “You know I’ll forgive you because you didn’t ask for this. Remember that it’s just a bad day…”

“Week,” she corrected.

I rolled my eyes and continued. “…a bad week and not a bad life.”

She nodded and looked at Val with a sigh. “If we’re going to get out of here, we’re going to have to work together. After that, we can go back to killing each other,” she said with a patronizing voice.

I had that feeling that this wasn’t the first time they were meeting. He glared at her and sighed. “Oh, fine.”

“It’s funny that you guys are talking about your escape plan and all you’ll do to hurt my boss when I’m sitting right her,” the man said and I looked to see that this time he was actually eating. With the head on the fucking table.

How gross was that?

“How are you eating?” I asked the man as he happily devoured the poor pizza. He rolled his eyes. “With my mouth, you adorable dumb twit.”

I purposely ignored the fact that he called me adorable. I simply smiled and said, “I meant with the head on the table.”

He looked at it, shrugged, and got back to eating the pizza. “You get used to it after you have killed close to a million people. Don’t worry you’ll get used to it soon enough.”

I didn’t understand what he meant by that since I had never killed a single person in my life. I was too emotional to kill even ants.

“I’m not getting used to anything.”

“So, we’re just going to ignore the fact that he called you adorable? Okay, let’s focus on the head because that’s apparently more important,” Valparaiso finally spoke up and the man glared at him. “Sorry.”

I ignored Val’s voice that was bent on ruining my shot at getting out of there and asked with the sweetest voice I could muster, “Can you just let my brother, my friend, and I go?”

The man, Max like Havana had called him, winked and said, “You can go.”

I opened my mouth to speak but Valparaiso beat me to it. “You demonic piece of shit!”

Max angrily stood up and marched until he was in front of Val. I didn’t know what he did to him but it made him start screaming like a banshee. I didn’t know what banshees screaming sounded like but I was sure it was a horrible sound.

“Valparaiso, shut up and calm down!” Avyanna shouted him with a groan.

“How the hell do you expect me to calm down? My leg just fucking dematerialized.” I looked at him and saw that he was right. “Max, can you just give him his leg back?”

Max hesitated then nodded, said a few legs, and Val’s leg was back in place. “I was thinking I will let you go on only one condition.”

I grinned. “What is it?”

“Don’t kill Havana. I want you to save her from herself. She’s my friend and I don’t like what she has become. I’m only letting you go because I know there is no bond greater than family.”

“That’s easy enough. All I have to do is take off my amulet and die,” Val said with a smile that was surprisingly calm.

“You will not die. I will find a way around it,” I said giving him a stern look then turned to Max. “Thank you so much. You can come with us if you’d like.”

“I just might.”

“I figured it out,” Avyanna said with a bright smile and I looked at her to see what she was talking about. “I know how we can get both things without either one of them dying. All you have to do is lock eyes with Val when he takes off the amulet and nothing will happen to me. Hiro told me about your blessing.”

“Oh my God, Avi, you’re a genius,” I said and pulled her into a hug that she reluctantly settled into. “This might just work out well.”

Max untied Val and he laid down on the floor saying that if the plan didn’t work out, he wouldn’t have to deal with falling to the ground to show he was dead. Of course, I knocked him for saying something as stupid as that when I was so sure it would work.

Val and I locked eyes and he slowly took off the amulet. I felt a pain in my chest and used my hand to clutch it but I made sure I didn’t break eye contact. Unfortunately, Val did because his eyes closed almost immediately.

“You stay awake do you hear me?! Don’t you dare close your eyes! Please! Come on!” I began to shake him like my life depended on it because in a lot of ways it did. “You’re not allowed to die, dammit!” My voice quivered, threatening to break as I shook Valparaiso’s limp shoulders. “I promised myself you wouldn’t die here. I promised you I’d get you out of this. God damn it, I promised!”

I was already crying then I heard him say, “I got you.” I smacked his shoulder and dropped him as he burst into laughter. “I got you really bad.”

“I was actually terrified you had died, Val,” I said with a frown. “Don’t do that again.” He pulled me into one of his warm hugs that I had so dearly missed. “Never.”

Max cleared his throat and we turned to look at him. “Well, since that’s done, let’s go be heroes!”