Pretty Faces and Dark Places (11 page)

“Andrew, no!” I cried out. “Andrew, stop it, why are you doing this? Stop it! NO!” But he didn’t listen to me or care to answer my pleas. The next minute, my wings were pulled out of my back. I saw them as he dropped them beside me on the bed, stained with blood. I could hear Andrew’s panting and his attempt to catch his breath after removing my wings. The hand that was pinning me down to the huge bed was a little far for my hand to reach it – not that I wanted to touch it, anyway. I was too weak to even get my hands released from underneath me.

I was no longer screaming, though the pain felt like freshly burnt skin centered on my upper back. The need to cry was so strong, yet I had no idea why my eyes wouldn’t just produce tears and let these fighting emotions inside me form any kind of relief.

I felt Andrew as he left the bed, then when he came into my sight, his eyes held so much love in them that it was almost troubling. They were sad and I wondered if demons cried at all, because I thought that if he could cry, he would be. And maybe that was why I couldn’t cry myself? I had no idea. I only knew that I didn’t want to see him; the look in his eyes hurt me. I didn’t want to see those green eyes full of sadness and sorrow. And … I didn’t want his sympathy either.

Andrew kneeled in front of the bed, the guilt of what he’d just done written all over his face as he spoke, “I’m so sorry, Beautiful Maya.” Sorrow colored his voice. “Please, forgive me.” 

Everything in me was begging the tears to fall, but they wouldn’t. I felt the tightening in my throat and the ache in my chest. My heart was beating so fast and my breaths were slow and uneven, but – still no tears.

Turning my head to the other side was all I could do. I was too exhausted to get up and leave, and even if I could leave – I didn’t know where to go, and I was sure he could find me, anyway.

I heard him as he got up, heard the sound of the door closing, and I realized he had left the room. I turned my head to the other side again to look at my wings, and was shocked to see that they had turned into some kind of powder that looked like glitter, only all white glitter. I was disappointed that I couldn’t take a final look at what had been a part of my body for two or three hours.

Not much later, I found the energy to get up, and then I made my way to the bathroom that was inside the room. I was beyond shocked to find a very elegant-looking bathroom, with a huge tub and two sinks – but I couldn’t find a toilet. I was even more shocked to realize that I’d never felt the need to relieve myself since I’d gotten here, though it had been almost four or five days, or something like that.

I didn’t think much of it and eventually blamed it on the lack of the food I’d eaten. As I took my clothes off, I tried as much as I could not to look at the bloodstains on the top, and then hopped into the tub.

Surprisingly, the water didn’t need me to set it to the temperature I wanted; it was warm on its own. I liked the sensation of the slightly cool material of the tub against my stinging back as I waited for the tub to fill while I was in it.

I couldn’t get over the fact that Andrew had put me in all of that pain. I’d understood at first that he needed me to be like him so I could live in his world, and that the converting was something I couldn’t get away from. But then I went through so much pain just for the wings to come out, and he held me all through it and hushed me with his kind voice, soothing me with his loving touch, right after he’d confessed his love for me. But then to pull out my wings, break them and make me bleed? That I couldn’t get.

My heart hurt because I’d thought that he would never cause me harm. I truly believed that, but I guess you could never trust a demon. Maybe all of the words of love he’d said to me had been nothing but lies.

One thing I wanted to know more than anything, though: Now that I no longer had wings, would he still want me to be beside him, like he’d said? Or would he just kill me off and forget all about me?

The water in the tub never got cold; it stayed warm, holding the very same temperature that it’d had when it seeped out of the pipes.  It was really strange, but I thought that this heat was the norm for this world: warm.

The only thing that heated more than norm was the fire in my heart and the flames of thoughts that burned my mind constantly. I kept thinking of how Andrew might not want me anymore and might just kill me. It was sickening. And that sickening feeling was at the thought of leaving him or being away from him, not at the thought of being killed – I guess I’d gone
that
crazy.

But – I couldn’t lie to myself anymore; I cared so much for Andrew, I knew this very well. I’d been fond of him since the very first moment I’d met him. I knew now that he’d been controlling my mind, but he said he’d only done it to make me let my guard down, and that I eventually would’ve done the same, felt the same. And I believed him.

I believed Andrew because those feelings inside me towards him could never be some sort of message or a result of a game of mind control – they were real. Because even after everything he’d done to me and the pain he’d put me through, I still felt things for him. That fact had been confirmed for me when I saw the miserable look in his eyes and found my heart aching at the sight and my soul begging me to find a way to remove it from his beautiful features.

I doubted
his
feelings for me, though. I couldn’t understand how you could hurt someone if you loved them as much as he’d told me he felt for me. I couldn’t understand why just because my feathers were white, he had to remove them that way. Why not just pluck them out and throw them away or something? I couldn’t understand if that meant that I’d be human again or what? But, no – it couldn’t be. I’d been in the underworld for God only knows how long, and I was still there. Andrew had said that if I was a human, I wouldn’t be able to live there. But what did that mean? If I wasn’t human, and without the wings I wasn’t a demon, what would that make me? Those things were really confusing.

With a sigh, I got out of the tub and went straight to a fluffy towel I found on a hanger. The material was something I’d never seen before, but it did the same thing the towels in my world did, so I didn’t care, nor have the heart to think one more second about it.

I wrapped the towel around my body and walked from the bathroom to the walk-in closet. I dressed in the only color that was there to be worn, but another pair of jeans and strapless top. I wasn’t that surprised when I looked at my back and saw no trace of open wounds, because the pain was already gone. I found only a dark shade of blue where the base of the wings used to be. I wasn’t really confused about the reason why my wounds had healed so fast, thinking that maybe it was a demon thing.

After I brushed my hair, I walked back into the bedroom. Andrew was still nowhere to be found, and I felt the familiar feeling of longing that I always had whenever he wasn’t around, the same feeling that had become my best friend for the past year.

I didn’t know what to do with myself, so I just walked around the room, which was the only thing I’d seen in the underworld since the converting. My legs took me to a side wall that had rows of framed photos. I was pretty curious to see what was in those photos, wondering if it would answer a question or two out of the numerous questions I’d had since I left the woods; I now realized that the painting I saw at the cottage was speaking of the converting process.

I was wrong. The photos actually made more questions rise in my head. There were faces I was already familiar with, faces that belonged to Andrew’s family. All of them looked like wedding photos from the way every couple was posed – facing each other or facing the camera with their cheeks pressed against the other’s, with their smiles and happiness showing on their pretty faces.

Their clothes were all black, though with different designs and different materials. Some looked silky, some looked as if they were sparkling and others looked as plain as you could ever describe those elegant clothes as being. The darkness of their wings was an even deeper shade of black than their outfits, if that was possible.

I was able to recognize Andrew’s mother, and I wondered if she had one day been a human, or was it he who had been the human who had turned into a demon.

I also saw a photo of Mathew, pausing to study his features that hadn’t changed from the ones I’d seen on that Halloween night or on the milk cartoon. The only thing that had changed was the look in his eyes. They didn’t look at all evil or as bad as what I could see in his mate’s eyes; they were kind of – sad. I wondered if it had anything to do with his human life, or if it was just something my mind had come up with that was far from the truth.

Another photo made me stop the slow, lazy steps that I’d been taking as I gazed from one photo to another – it was Sophie. My heart ached and my chest swelled as I stared at her picture with William, their eyes gazing lovingly at each other and their smiles matching as they posed the same way human do when they say their ‘I do’s.’

I couldn’t get over the fact that I was looking at my best friend’s wedding picture, a wedding that I had never attended or helped her prepare for, like we’d always dreamed of since we were little kids.

My throat was tightening and I wanted to cry, but of course I still couldn’t. I tried my hardest to tell myself that I should be happy for her and grateful that she’d found life, even if it was nothing like we’d expected. At least she was with her soulmate and she was happy, even if there were dark wings attached to her back. What more could I want for her other than that? I just wished I’d been there to share her happiness and witness one of the most important moments of her life. But I guess you can’t always get what you wish for.

“She wanted you there; she missed you very much,” I heard Andrew saying from behind me. His voice startled me. It wasn’t scary or anything; his voice was still this beautiful velvet, kind and caring, but it was just that I hadn’t heard him enter the room or approach.

When I looked at him, he offered me a small smile, but I didn’t return it or offer him any kind of reply. I just moved on to look at more photos, not really looking at anything anymore, just trying to avoid him. Yes, I did have feelings for Andrew and he mattered to me, but I still couldn’t get over the fact that he had tortured me that way.

“You don’t want to speak to me?” Andrew asked.

I didn’t reply, but I was actually happy that he’d finally come to this realization and knew that I wasn’t very fond of his company, even if it was far from the truth. And while I disliked hearing his voice all miserable that way, it didn’t prevent me from giving him the cold shoulder.

“Please, forgive me, Maya. I had to do it,” he tried again, his words sounding sincere, which made my heart tingle, but I still said nothing, using the silent treatment as my weapon. What he’d done made me very sure that I had no power over him, that he was much stronger than me.

I tried to block him out of my hearing, gazing some more at the pictures hanging on the wall in front of me. I couldn’t understand – it was very odd how all of the photos looked exactly like the photos I’d seen all of my life. They looked just like humans posing to take photos, as in any other photo I’d seen before in life – the only difference was the black clothes and the wings that everyone had.

Another photo of Sophie and William made Andrew’s words about her wishing I was in her wedding sound again in my ears. I wondered how true his words were. The Sophie I knew would’ve killed to have me in her wedding. She would miss me if I couldn’t make it and would feel awful if she knew I wasn’t going to be there. But the Sophie I knew also wouldn’t sit back and watch when chains surrounded me and my hands were tied as I was tortured with birds, or was it bats, or whatever creatures eating my skin.

But to be honest, I couldn’t really blame her. Most likely she had no power to stop it or control it. I guess that a part of me only hoped that she’d objected or asked them to stop. Anything.

My vision blurred slightly and I felt a headache approaching, but before I could dwell on it, I felt the stinging pain in my back, the same pain I’d felt right before my wings came out, and I groaned.

“Are you okay?” Andrew asked with concern.

“My back,” I breathed.

“That soon?” he questioned, then I felt him approaching me.

“W-what is it?” I moaned as the pain started to grow greater.

“The new wings are coming out,” Andrew explained.

“New wings?” I put my hands on the wall, steadying myself because the pain was so much I felt as if I was going to fall.

“Yes, Beautiful, they grow again, though I didn’t think it’d be this soon. This time the feathers will be black like they should’ve been,” he said, and I felt his hands as they reached for me.

“Don’t!” I said through clenched teeth.

“Maya?” he sounded hurt.

“Don’t touch me!” I ordered through my groans, my head bent down and my eyes clenched shut. My arms on the wall were the only thing that was keeping me on my feet.

“Please, let me just hold you,” he begged.