This is a story I wrote as an English assignment in 2005. I later decided I liked the story and added to it bit by bit.

it isn't perfect, and i welcome and appreciate suggestions, but please keep them polite. this is, also, an original work, and it belongs to me. do not copy it, or use characters or pieces of it for any purpose without express permission

if you can think of a better title than Ali's Christmas, let me know, and i will consider using it.

Ali's Christmas

“Who are you?” The boy asked. He was taller than Ali with a rangy build and dark hair and eyes. Ali’s own Ruddy red brown hair was wet from the cold rain and her purplish gray eyes were filled with confusion. His cold gaze was stripping the heat from her, yet she continued to meet it. Ali had been walking down the alley after a play rehearsal when she had been pinned against the wall by the boy, and even though she was two inches or more off the ground, she only came to his chin, making him easily six-foot-two. One would wonder why the play rehearsal had lasted until midnight and why a nearly seventeen year old had been in it; it had lasted so late because it was their first night and roles had been handed out and switched around before the group of actors and actresses had gotten to run through it, so the rehearsal had lasted until midnight.
“I’m Aleira.” She answered, refusing to hear her family nickname used by a stranger.
“Why are you here?”
“It’s a shortcut to my house, I always use this alley. Did I do something wrong by following a pattern?”
“Someone else is coming through this alley tonight, I need to warn him of something.”
“And warning includes pinning him up to a wall?”
“In this case, yes.”
“Then why don’t you leave me alone so you can “warn” this friend of yours?”
“Because you know that there’s something going on and you can tell someone.”
“But I’m not going to.”
“How can I trust you?”
“Because I’m gonna be a little too busy getting my yelled at for being out this late on a school night.”
He dropped her and let her stumble a bit as she caught her balance. Ali turned and started walking the rest of the distance to her home, but someone on the street saw her first and began walking toward her.
“Aleira Melissa Urameshi, you are in so much shit!” It was her father, Connor, and he looked furious. He was rarely home anymore due to diplomacy work, but when he was, he was extremely protective of his children, Ali, Steven, Ali’s older brother, and Eric, Ali’s younger brother.
“Umm, hi dad?”
“What are you doing out this late?”
“Steven and I went somewhere and I got wrapped up talking…”
“For half an hour?”
“It was a good conversation!”
“Right. Com’on, you’re soaked, you need dry clothes. If I yell at you now your mother will kill me…”
Ali trailed after her father, knowing that she was going to be grounded for a long while after this “little stunt” as her parents were no doubt going to call it. For Ali, that was one of the downfalls of having parents that weren’t divorced; they got on her case more. Even though her mother, Kim, was an actress herself, she wasn’t going to approve her oldest two children, one of which was only in high school, being out this late. Her oldest was in college and staying at home until he graduated, and she wasn’t going to want him setting a “bad example” for his younger siblings, although, she also didn’t know that if Ali wasn’t out acting, she’d be out roaming the streets instead, but how could a trusting mother who didn’t think she needed to check on her daughter at night know that?
Ali had followed her father into their home, changed, and gotten the exact lecture she had known was coming, and her brother got the lecture of setting a bad example for his siblings. Neither one argued, knowing their parents wouldn’t listen. Finally the two were allowed to go to their rooms and the subject was dropped with the classic promise of “it wont happen again,” that neither really meant.
The next morning as she was dressing for school her friend Sakura walked into the room they shared whenever Sakura’s parents were out of town with a look of slight annoyance on her face.
“What’s on your nerves, Sakura, usually you’re in a good mood in the mornings.”
“Yeah, and your usually the bitchy one in the mornings, but today, you’re on my nerves!”
“How so?”
“Your comment last night.”
“Ahh, but at least you know he likes you back now.”
“So? You embarrassed me when you said that, too!” the night before Ali had insinuated that her brother liked her friend when Ali and Sakura had switched roles due to a make-out scene with Steven’s character, and Ali couldn’t bring herself to perform the scene, so Sakura had switched the role of the sister of Steven’s character with her friend.
Ali had told Steven, “Don’t get too into your part…” before walking backstage, leaving both Steven and Sakura blushing.
“And your point is? Now he knows you like him, he likes you, and you can both be happy!”
“But what if he doesn’t do anything about it? Com’on, I’m what, four years younger than him, and the youngest girl he’s gone out with was two years older than me?”
“So? He really likes you, age isn’t gonna be enough to stop him.”
“But-”
“But nothing! He likes you. Period. If he decides to be shy, you ask him out, plus it’d be funny to see him blush, usually he’s shameless.” Ali smirked at the idea of her brother’s embarrassment; usually she had to work to annoy him, embarrassing him would be even harder… for anyone but Sakura.
“But what if he says no?”
“I know my brother, he wont.”
Ali had finished dressing and they walked out the door to go to school. They walked the ten blocks to Ali’s high school and Sakura said, “See you after school, Ali.”
“Okay.”
Ali was walking to her first class when she saw a familiar face, it was Damien Koroku, a boy who went to her school—barely—and he was the boy from the alley. She blinked and continued toward her classroom while reflecting on Damien: he was a constant truant, but he was in a few of her classes when he was actually at school, which totaled about once every week or two. He had decent grades, so he obviously picked up assignments, meaning he knew he was going to be gone, but he hadn’t simply registered for the independent studies program, which spiked Ali’s insatiable curiosity. Now she wanted to know more about him. In her Home Economics class there was a partner change, at the teachers choice, since two-thirds of the class was failing or on the verge of failing. Ali was paired with Damien, strangely enough, and their first assignment was learning more about their partner and the way their home worked to compare how different situations resulted in different home environments and therefore resulted in different personalities.
The pair was silent for a moment before Damien cringed and asked Ali, “So… what’s your family like…?”
“Umm… a little too protective. My dad barely lets me or my brothers out of his sight when he’s home, my mom is melodramatic and childish, but sometimes a little too responsible, my older brother is a protective bastard on a regular basis, especially when my dad’s not home, and he has a crush on my best friend. I generally like those three, but since my little brother was four or five, he’s hated my guts, and I never did learn what I did wrong.”
“What kind of ‘hate? ’”
“To the point that he breaks as much of my stuff as possible and when I almost ended up getting raped two years ago all he did was smirk about it.”
“And this kid’s your brother?”
“Somehow.”
“Have I met him?”
“Possibly. He’s the red headed freshman who hangs out with all the Goths.
“That jackass? The one who got canned twice this year?”
“That’s the one.”
“What about home life?”
“Once again, protective. The only trouble we have on a normal basis is my mother yelling at me and Eric, my little brother, about our rooms being junkyards and constant heavy metal filtering through the walls, floor and ceiling of Eric’s room. Or yelling at me and Steven, the oldest, for being out late and setting bad examples.”
“Sounds pretty stable.”
“Sometimes I wish we had chaos sometime other than the holidays.”
“Why are the holidays chaotic?”
“Because I have a huge family, most of it adopted, not biological, so we have to fit nearly fifty or sixty people in one room. And the cleaning…”
“I have a pretty big fam’ly too, and same goes for mine, most is adopted, cause my mom’s sister adopted about twenty kids, literally.”
“Sounds like somebody I know, but I haven’t seen her for a while, cause she lives near my dad’s family, they’re a ways away in a place they dub the manor, and my family lives in Boston, we go see them for almost every other holiday, though.”
“That’s where my aunt lives, too… but I haven’t seen her since I moved out about a year ago. Then I came here.”
“This is gonna be a wild guess, but who’s your aunt?”
“Her name’s Kiri…”
“Holy shit! My dad’s best friend is one of her niece’s kids…”
“Who’s your dad’s friend?”
“Romeru.”
“I met him once…”
“Then you met my dad and aunt.”
“So Connor’s your dad?”
“Yeah.”
“I never saw you then… it was almost two years ago…”
“I was visiting my grandparents, and my grandma doesn’t like their side of the family much, so I didn’t get to go for that trip. Although, back to the assignment, what’s your family like, and since I already know most of the Nayakis, you don’t need to tell me about them, just your dad’s side of the family.”
“Okay… my dad’s and only child, thankfully, my grandparent is out there though. My grandma died when I was ten, and my grandpa went a little insane at that point, he started spacing out a lot, and he started acting like a toddler constantly. After that, he and I never really got along.”
“Ok. What are you, since there’s no way your human if your mother is a Kitsune…”
“I’m half demon, a quarter human, and a quarter vampire.”
“Ok, who are you living with, and why did you move out?”
“I’m living where I work because they offer board, and I moved out because even my mom couldn’t keep my dad and me from fighting, which she did for sixteen years. Eventually it came to fist fights instead of arguments, and the fights were tearing my mom apart inside, I moved out and started calling her every night so she doesn’t miss me quite so much.”
“You sound like the good son of the family.”
“I’m not gonna get started on the good-for-nothing I call a brother.”
“Why do you and your dad fight?”
“He hates the company I keep and everything else I do.”
“Ahh.”
The class ended and the teens in the room began packing up.
“What do you have next?” Ali asked Damien.
“History.”
“Okay, that’s just weird, I’ve had three of four classes with you so far, and now it’s four of five. Do you have Pre-Calc and then Art?”
“That is weird. No, I have geometry then Art.”
“Good lord! That’s five of seven classes!”
“I know, somehow, this world is against me forgetting last night.”
“Yup.”
“You didn’t say anything, did you?”
“Nope, if I know one thing, it’s that my parents hate me being out late on school nights. Period.”
The two walked to their next class together, just talking about nothing important and laughing. They survived the eccentric history teacher’s lecture on the Boston Tea Party and parted ways until art. The class was directed to move the desks into a circle and draw any other student in the classroom and to use the charcoal and watercolors that were laid out once they were finished sketching. For some reason she couldn’t define, Ali felt the urge to draw Damien. She told herself it was only because he was a perfect model, with simplistic features that only looked complex due to his coloring, hairstyle, and clothing; and better yet, she was directly across from him so she had a perfect front view. She could swear he was looking at her too, but she couldn’t tell, and when the teacher told them to present their drawings to the person they sketched Ali saw Damien coming toward her. She stood up and handed him her dried painting and he reached to hand her his painting.
When she saw it her heart missed several beats. The painting was nearly dry, and instead of spending a lot of time trying to get the paint to be dark enough, he had made it look like there was a dim haze around her. The details were nearly perfect too, he had captured the light of concentration in her eyes, and even the tiny wisps of hair that were trying to drift out of her loose bun.
“This is really good!” Ali exclaimed, looking up at him surprised.
“Hardly.”
“But it’s so good! How can you say that?”
“Not really…”
“Yes it is! There are photos of me at my house that are less precise than this!”
“You’re exaggerating…” Damien was beginning to blush.
“No, I’m not. This is really good.”
“There’s no way I’m that good.”
“Yes, there is.”
The two bickered over the quality of the painting until the teacher came over and asked, “Is there a problem?”
“Yes, there is! He wont admit that his painting is as close to perfect as I’ve ever seen!”
The teacher looked at the painting, exclaimed over it, and insisted on showing it to the class. Damien blushed deeply and ducked his head, softening the features Ali had been sure were made of stone. The final bell rang and Ali grabbed her backpack to leave. She met up with Sakura and filled her in on her day, including the painting and history class.
“Sounds to me like he’s got a crush on you.” Sakura said, grinning.
“I wish!” Ali said, blushing.
“Oh, so you like him?”
“A little. I’m starting to get a crush on him…”
“And it sounds like he likes you.”
“As I said, I wish. He’s probably already got a girlfriend.”
“You should find out.”
“Maybe.”
“Coward.”
“At the moment, yes.”
“Are you going to tell anyone about him?”
“Not until he asks me out.”
“Okay.”
A few weeks went by and Ali drifted closer to Damien. He was trouble waiting to happen, but she didn’t care. She liked him. One day after art he taped her on the arm as she was leaving and Ali turned around to look at him.
“I wanna ask you something…” He started, blushing more than he had when the art teacher had showed off his painting.
“Okay.”
“Do you wanna… umm… go out with me…?”
Ali stared at him for a moment before nodding. “When?” She asked.
“Friday?”
“Umm, I can’t make any promises, but it’s likely, I’ll let you know tomorrow, ok?”
“Perfect.”
Ali left the school blushing. When she met up with Sakura, her friends purple hair was up and her purple eyes with tints of a deep forest green were sparkling.
“What’s up, Sakura?”
“Your brother and I were cleaning the kitchen while your parents weren’t home… and… he kissed me. Of his own accord, not because a script required it!”
“Man, today’s just full of romance!”
“What has you blushing?”
“He asked me out.”
“So you’re going to ask your dad?”
“We’d both die if I didn’t.”
“Yup, so tonight’s going to be very…umm… interesting.”
“Yup. The scary thought is that dad’s gonna wanna meet Damien.”
“Assuming he even allows you to see him.”
“Point taken.”
Ali and Sakura got home and finished whatever tasks they had waiting, and when Connor got home, Ali asked him her question.
“Dad,” She started, “there’s this guy at school, I really like him and he asked me out. Is that okay with you?”
“Who is he?”
“His name is Damien Koroku, he’s in my grade, you know his mother and he’s really nice.”
“No, not him. I don’t want you anywhere near him Ali, he’s trouble waiting to happen, and there’s a good chance he’s gonna hurt you.”
“Dad, I know he’s a trouble maker, but so am I! I like him. A lot.”
“No, I don’t want you near him, I don’t even want you to look in his direction.”
“But dad!”
“No! From this point on, you may not talk to him, you may not look at him, and if I could stop you from doing it, I would stop you from even thinking about him!” Connor wasn’t shouting, but his voice was carrying a lot of emotion, making his voice louder and firmer.
“Fine.” Ali said, muttering under her breath as she walked to the stairs leading to her room, “For now.”
“No, not for now. For good.” Connor said from the couch.
“Whatever.” Ali said.
She sat on her bed, trying to think of a way out of her father’s jurisdiction. She saw someone walk under the streetlight ten feet outside her window. It was a young woman with her husband, they had a little girl with them, and they looked happy. Ali got an idea to see Damien without her father knowing—no one of her family would suspect her seeing him if she left the house, and if he walked under the streetlight, she could go meet him. Although, she was going to have to warn him so he didn’t come directly to the house and run into her father; that would get them both in trouble.
She informed him during their first period class the next morning and they spent the whole day talking. That night she used the excuse of going to the library, and they went to see a movie and she came home with already gathered information.
One day at school, Eric had been taunting Damien during their lunch period, and Damien lost his temper. He had nearly started a fight with Eric when Ali saw them and called for Damien to stop.
“Why?” He asked.
“Because he’s my little brother. Plus if he deserves it, I’ll murder him when we get home.”
“Fine…”
Eric was placed on his feet where he glared at the two and walked away.
The dating went on for a month until Ali began practicing for a play, so she simply left her house a bit early and went to the theater from there. Finally the final performance came and Ali was extremely excited, waiting to see how the group of actors and actresses three months of hard work had paid off. She saw Damien in the crowd and smiled to herself, she was happy he had come. He walked her home after the performance as well, looking only slightly stressed at one moment, but more so at another, and not at all in the next.
“Ali, how do you do that?” Damien asked, eyes and on figure next to him. Ali looked over and saw the streetlight putting soft highlights into his hair and making her own look darker and slightly angelic in the half-light The glow of a streetlight was giving their skin a soft glow.
“Do what?” she asked.
“Get up on a stage and transform into whichever character you’re playing in front of more than a thousand people!”
“I’ve been able to do that for a long time, Damien, I don’t see why it’s so spectacular now of all times.” Ali was blushing at his compliment. Damien stopped and held her face between his hands and stared into her purplish gray eyes. He took his thumb and rubbed it over her eyelashes, removing the last of her sticky stage makeup. “You missed a little.” He said when she opened her eyes and looked questioningly at Damien so she nodded her understanding. Ali met Damien’s eyes and glanced to four figures in black hooded sweatshirts and said, “I think we made someone mad, Damien. They don’t look friendly.”
He nodded and said, “I did. Ali, I have to take this fight. Assuming I win, there’re going to be more fights. We need to talk to your dad. Later though. But in the meantime, go home.”
“No!” She said as they began to walk and turned into a dead end alley. They reached the far end and turned to face the four at the entrance. They had been dating for four months and had known each other for five. Ali didn’t want to abandon him now, so when Damien asked her to leave again, she refused a second time. Damien stood looking at Ali for a moment before pulling her against him and kissing her roughly.
“My first—”
“Ali,” He tried again, “I don’t want you hurt. Please go.”
“No. I can fight, and I can’t just leave after you kiss me like that.”
“Ali, go. Please.”
“Alright. I don’t want to, but I’ll trust you. Walk under the streetlight when you make it out.” “
Okay. I’ll be fine, Ali, I promise.”
Ali moved toward the open-end of the alley and surprisingly, the four hooded figures let her out without any trouble. One of them smirked at Ali, looking as though he knew what was going to happen and that she wouldn’t like it. She stood still and listened just past the opening of the alley. She heard the fight begin and listened to the thuds and crashes for a few moments before going home.
Ali went to her room and sat on her bed. The window she could see the streetlamp from was at the head of her bed, so she sat on her knees watching for Damien all night. When dawns first light filtered through her eastward facing window and Damien hadn’t come, she knew something was wrong, so she rushed back to the alley.
The walls and ground were covered in blood, some Damien’s, some his attackers.’ There was a spot where blood had pooled and Ali knew that one of them had died there. Ali was part supernatural, giving her stronger senses, especially smell, and she could tell by the scent of some of the blood that it had come from the chest, and most likely nicked the heart, so that was one more of the attackers down. The third had been wounded in the stomach and likely wouldn’t have lived another two days after the fight. The last had only been stabbed in the shoulder. Ali noted this before seeing Damien lying on his back, chest unmoving and a deep gash running across his throat. His once white shirt was dyed red in the front from his blood and the cut on his throat was so clean he must have been restrained, and there were numerous half healed bruises on his face and arms, and they were most likely on his chest and stomach as well. Ali rushed over and fell to her knees beside him. She touched his face and began to cry. She was a healer when she wanted to be, but she didn’t notice that her tears were healing the bruises on his face and the gash on his throat, or the flicker of a face akin to Damien’s in the shadows. Ali cried for another three hours before going home.
Her mother didn’t notice as Ali walked into the house and went up the stairs to her room. She laid on her bed, refusing to look out the window, tears running down her cheeks. After she had dozed off once and dreamed of Damien, seeing him in the alley again, she woke up sobbing, and looked around her room. She hadn’t noticed that his blood was all over her shirt, and she was still oblivious to the fact as she looked at the dagger she had received for her last birthday.
Ali reached out and grabbed it from her bedside table, staring at the leather sheath. She pulled the blade out and saw her face reflecting in the metal, it was red, blotchy and her long hair was messy. She looked at her wrists and before she gave herself a chance to think, she pushed the extremely sharp blade deep into the skin of one of wrist, then the other. She watched as the blood soaked into the heavy quilt on her bed and closed her eyes, allowing her mind to drift until her body slept half an hour later.

Within another half hour, the door opened admitting Sakura.
“Kim!” She screamed to Ali’s mother downstairs as she tried to stop the bleeding of her friend’s wrists. Kim ran into the room and stopped short, whispering “Oh my god…” in a horrified tone as she saw her daughter and began trying to help Sakura.
Connor, Ali’s father, was a healer as well, but when the ability was passed to his daughter, his wife’s strength intensified it, but it also left Ali nearly insusceptible to a healing herself. He had been woken up in the room across the hall when Sakura had screamed, so he had stumbled to Ali’s room to see what was wrong and found her covered in her own blood and the blood of the boy he’d forbidden her to see. When he saw his daughter, his heart stopped for a moment before he ran to the side of her bed to try and heal her wrists, but all that he accomplished was to slow the bleeding. The three bandaged Ali’s wrists and took her to the hospital where she regained consciousness one week later.
“Aleira, what were you thinking?” Connors asked when he saw her eyes were open. Ali blinked, trying to remember exactly what had happened.
“Not a lot.” She finally answered, having fully remembered the situation.
“I thought I told you to stay away from that boy.” Connor’s voice was level, but his daughter knew he was furious. She simply didn’t care.
“And I told you I wasn’t going to.”
“What if he’d tried to hurt you?”
“Then I would have left him. But Dad, he didn’t try.”
“Then what did he do to make you do this!”
“He died.”
“He could have killed you.”
“But he never tried.”
“Ali, I still don’t approve of him. If he were to come back somehow, I would still forbid you to see him.”
“I wish. Dad, if he did come back, I would still disobey you. Did Steven throw a fit?”
“Yes. Thankfully Eric didn’t as well, your older brother was bad enough to cover bother of them.”
“I expected as much.”
“Sakura wanted to say something to you, but before I leave, I want to ask you something.”
“Okay…”
“How far did you two go?” Connor was referring to Ali’s relationship with Damien.
“How far do you think we went?”
“I’m fearing the worst.”
“No, not that far. He only kissed me. Once.”
Connor raised his eyebrows, not understanding how a few months and a single kiss could make his daughter want to kill herself. He left the room, telling Sakura that Ali was awake.
“Ali, why did you have to do that?” Sakura asked as she walked in.
“Because my heart shattered and forgot to leave a shard behind for me to live on.”
“Over one guy that you met barely five months ago?”
“You’d feel the same way if Steven died.”
“So? I’ve known your brother a lot longer.”
“But you still love him. I still love Damien.”
“Ali, you knew this guy for four months! That’s not long enough to wanna kill yourself over him!”
“I didn’t want to kill myself over him. I tried to kill myself because he died.”
“Ali, you went against every rule your parents set for you over this one guy! What happened to your common sense?”
“It ran away the day I met Damien.”
“Did you have to do that on you birthday of all days?”
“If I’d remembered it was my birthday, I would have waited another day.”
“You were so excited over your birthday coming, and then you forget it?”
“Yup. Sakura, I can see you’re building up to saying you’re never gonna talk to me again, so go ahead and say it. I’m gonna miss you, but right now, I can’t care. Just do me one favor first, please, don’t hurt Steven. Don’t push him away too. He’s crazy about you, and he didn’t do it, I did. There’s nothing left of me to hurt, but he still has his heart. Please don’t crush it.”
“You know me too well. No, I won’t hurt him. Do you even realize that it’s Thanksgiving Day?”
“No, I didn’t. Make my parents go home, they can come back tomorrow, I’ll still be here, and I need time alone before I have to face any more questions.”
Sakura nodded and left the room. She spent forty-five minutes persuading Connor and Kim to leave the hospital, have a decent meal and get one decent night’s sleep. They came back the next day with Ayani, Ali’s cousin, who wanted to talk to Ali.
“Little cousin, nobody’s giving me any details, why did you try suicide?”
“Somebody I love died because he was trying to protect me and he was too stubborn to let me help him fight. But if I had stayed and helped him, he would still be alive.”
“So your boyfriend died trying to protect you?”
“Yup.”
“How do you know he’d be okay if you’d stayed?”
“Because at least two of the four attackers died, one either died or is paralyzed for life, and the last was stabbed in the shoulder. If I’d stayed Damien would be fine.”
Ayani listened patiently as Ali broke down and began crying again. Her cousin moved closer to the narrow hospital bed and held the sobbing seventeen year old.
“I know little cousin, I know.” She said softly. Ali cried against Ayani until she fell asleep and her cousin walked back to the waiting room.
Ali was released from the hospital three days later. The lock had been removed from her door, the window had been painted shut, and Connor refused to allow Ali unattended. The only time when he wasn’t there, someone else was or she was locked in from the outside after a quick check for anything she could use to try committing suicide again. The only things that hadn’t been taken from her were her radio and her CDs.
Ali had been listening when she heard Sakura’s mother, Ariel, talking to Kim.
“Sakura’s gone missing.” Ali heard Ariel say.
“So have Kaori and Ayani, but my mother in law doesn’t want me to tell Connor yet. He would have a fit if he found out his sister and niece were gone.”
“Do you know when they disappeared?”
“On Monday, why?”
“That’s strange, that’s the same day Sakura disappeared.”
“Something doesn’t feel right here, but I’m not sure what.”
The doorbell rang and Ali heard her mother greet whoever was there.
“Oh, hi ‘Meru! Sutoku, you need to stop growing! You’re taller than I am now! Nakina, you look more like your grandmother every day. And you need to stop growing too! You’re nearly a foot taller than the last time I saw you!”
Ali heard the sarcastic reply of “Thanks for reminding me, I really haven’t heard yet.” And her mothers laugh. ‘Meru, or Romeru, was her father’s best friend since they were in diapers, and Sutoku and Nakina were his kids, they were around Ali’s age.
Eric walked in, making the mistake of allowing the door to shut behind him, locking him in with Ali because Connor had put and auto lock on her door.
“Eric, what do you want?”
“Not much.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I’m bored.”
“Great.”
Eric began taunting his sister, making her angry and sad at the same time.
“So, how did you fall for that guy, he’s in your grade, right? Honestly Ali, even I thought you had more taste than that… His sister? Com’on.”
“Eric, shut up and pray mom or dad decides to check on me soon or you’re dead.”
“Why, it’s true! He was a wanna be Goth, he didn’t even know how to do it right!”
“No, Eric, he wasn’t. If he had a social class, as pathetic as they are in High School, he was a Punk, even though he didn’t act like anything.”
“He hung out with Goths.”
“You hang out with Goths yourself, but I don’t call you one.” Eric prided himself on his Gothic attitudes, and hated it when anyone even questioned them, much less said they were false.
“Hey!”
“And, he also hung out with jocks, nerds, preps, and anyone else who wanted to be around him. As long as they left everybody alone, they were cool to him. He admired decent people.”
“You fell for an ass.”
“Why, because he didn’t turn against me?”
“No, because he wanted to kick my ass.”
“And he stopped because I was nice enough to ask him to. Now, Eric, I feel only the most sisterly concern for you, so I’m gonna warn you now, shut up.”
“Cut the crap. You hate my guts and you don’t care who knows it.”
“Oh so true, but because you are my brother, I won’t kill you, even though I should for that attempt on my life. But as I told our family, I wont kill you unless you attempt to do the same to me first.”
“You don’t seem to care that I tried.”
“No, I don’t because we’ve hated each other so long. What pisses me of is that you got dad pissed off at me when I ditched you. Fortunately he noticed I was bleeding, and pretty close to a vital organ and asked what happened.”
“And you ratted me out.”
“You woulda done the same. In fact you tried to frame me, but it didn’t work. Now I’m gonna ask nicely one last time. Shut up. If I have to say it again, I’m gonna make you, and it won’t be pleasant.”
“No.”
Ali pulled a role of duct tape from a drawer and pinned her brother down, putting a strip of tape over his mouth and taping his wrists together behind his back. She taped his ankles together, and hearing Sutoku and Nakina talking on the stairs, the quietest place in the house, and put Eric in a large box padded with clothes on the bottom. She put the box on her top shelf and watched as the box wriggled from her brother’s movements and fell to the closet floor. The two others came in when they heard the thump, and asked Ali what the sound was. Ali had closed her closet door, so they couldn’t see the box and answered, “I can’t tell you unless you let me out.”
“We can’t do that.” Thankfully Nakina had stopped the door from closing.
“Then you can’t know.”
“That’s not fair!”
“Listen, I need out, and you need to know what made the thud. I can give you that information and you can free me. Why don’t we trade?”
“Why do you want out so bad?”
“’Cause my best friend, my aunt and my cousin are missing. I can’t tell my dad ‘cause he’d flip out and make things worse. Plus I’m the only one who knows where they are.”
“How do you know where they are.”
“I used to work there before my bosses tried to kill me.”
“So you wanna save them. We’ll let you out if you tell us what made the thud.”
“Okay.”
“And you don’t ditch us.”
“Deal.”
The three left the house and took a bus as far as they could, eventually getting to a long stretch of countryside and forest where they had to walk because the roads had ended.
“So, what was that thud, anyway?” Nakina asked Ali.
“A box.”
“What was in it that was so heavy it made that loud of a thud?”
“Eric.”
Finally the teens reached their destination, a mountain that was mostly hollowed out into chambers and tunnels. Ali went through the entrance where they found a room with one main computer and several others that were connected to it. She passed them by and went through a door, staying in the shadows.
“You know where we’re going, right?” Nakina asked.
“Yup, just follow me.”
They made their way through several tunnels and chambers, eventually Ali stopped in one long hall with guards at numerous doors. She motioned Sutoku and Nakina to stay in the shadows as she opened a door and ushered them through. She put one index finger to her lips before they could say anything and went to the corner, and pressing on the wall, opened a hole in the wall large enough for a person to crawl through.
“Holy shit!” She heard a voice shout from the other side. Ali crawled through the hole to see her aunt staring, alarmed, at the wall.
“Ali, what are you doing here?” She asked her niece.
“Rescuing you.” Ali went to one of the corners and opened another hole and crawled through to find Sakura with a fevered flush across her face. Ali walked over to her friend and touched Sakura’s forehead, but immediately pulled her hand back. She pulled her friend’s sweater off and tied a knot in the hem of Sakura’s shirt so it was away from her stomach. She opened the final wall and found a beaten, frightened and angry Ayani.
“Sutoku, can you go through the wall and be ready to lift Sakura through?” Ali asked. He nodded and went through, taking Sakura’s arms as Nakina took her legs and lifted her through the hole, doing the same until the were in the room they had started in. Ayani looked down at her cousin when she was motioned through the hole in the wall.
“You go, Ali, you’re younger.”
“No, you’re hurt. I’m not, plus if I get caught, they don’t have anything they can do to hurt me. You go first.”
“You are the youngest here. You don’t need to watch out for us.”
“Yes I do, you’re hurt, Sakura’s out cold with a fever, and your mother isn’t in the best condition either. Plus I’m the one who knows how to get out again. You don’t.”
‘Damn!’ Ayani thought, ‘she’s thinking like a thirty five year old! She doesn’t deserve to be seventeen anymore. She’s more of an adult than I am. And I’m ten years older than her. We’re thinking on the same plane, except, she isn’t afraid of them anymore. I’m almost glad the kid died, it made my cousin grow up. But it hurt her, so that’s not enough. I need to remember to stop treating her like a kid, she doesn’t deserve it anymore.’ Ayani finally nodded and went through the wall, and eventually they managed to leave the building, and strangely unharmed.
They made it home safely, with a waiting party of adults to greet them.
“Mom, we need ice! Lots and lots of ice!” Ali shouted. Kim looked out, and seeing the urgency in her daughter’s face, nodded. They put ice bags around Sakura, one on her face, one on her stomach, one on her chest, one per leg and one next to each side of her to keep her fever down.
“Ali, where were you?” Connor asked, his voice was low with fury.
“I was getting Sakura, auntie and Ayani home safely.” She answered, patiently, sounding as though she was speaking to a temper mental child.
“Aleira, do not use that tone with me. Is there a reason I wasn’t informed that they were missing?”
“Yes, you would have thrown a fit and made a bad situation ten times worse. Plus you’d have never found them without my help, and you’d never have let me help, so we’d never have found them.” She was still using that patient tone, making her father grit his teeth. He was silenced by her reasoning, knowing it was completely true.
“How did you get out?” he asked.
“I made a thud and bribed Sutoku and Nakina with the knowledge of what it was if they’d let me out. They threw in that I wouldn’t ditch them. The bargain worked nicely.”
“What made the thud?”
“Eric in a large box from the shelf in my closet.”
“Ahh. Is he still in your room?”
“Unless someone let him out..”
“Is he still in that box?”
“Probably.”
“Go let him out.”
“Good idea, he has been there all day.”
“What did he do to deserve that?”
“He came in my room, he said stuff to me that should never have made it to the English language, and he broke my favorite CD.”
“Little harsh, don’t you think?”
“Not with what he said to me.”
“Which was?”
“I’m not repeating it.”
Ali went upstairs to her room, propped the door open and let Eric out of the box.
“If you ever say something like that to me again, I’ll do worse than let you fall off my closet shelf in a box.” She whispered as she pushed him out of her room and closed the door. She lay on her bed and cried until she fell asleep, not waking up until her mother opened her door and turned the light on because it was dark outside now.
“Ali, are you alright?” Kim asked, seeing the girl’s tearstained face.
“Mom, I miss him so much.” Ali’s voice was choked with tears.
Kim walked to her daughter’s bed and hugged her child as Ali began to cry again. She cried into her mother’s shoulder until she fell asleep again. She slept soundly until morning. She sat and watched the seconds tick by on her wall clock and reflected on the past two weeks. To Ali, a lifetime had gone by. A particularly painful lifetime though.
‘I miss him.’ She thought. ‘He made my life worth living. He added color to my world. Even if it hurt to lie to dad, it was worth it. I miss him. I want him back…’ Even though she tried, she couldn’t rid her memories of Damien from her thoughts. She had two weeks until Christmas. She didn’t want to celebrate, but she chose to, putting a cheerful face on for her family. She helped decorate for Christmas, and she went shopping, finding decent gifts for her family. Finally Christmas day came. Ali received two CDs, thankfully the ones her brother had broken, although, she wasn’t amused by them as she usually would be. Only Kaori, Ayani and Alany, Ayani’s younger sister, had come. Ali had hugged her father and brother for the CDs and watched as Eric opened her gift, a game their mother had refused to buy for him. He looked at her as though he hadn’t expected her to get him what he wanted, but she shrugged. Kim placed a larger gift on Ali’s lap. She opened it to find a new stage makeup kit. Ali genuinely liked it, and she hugged her mother tightly. Her next gift was the one from Ayani; it was the same shape and size as a CD, so Ali inwardly groaned. She pulled the paper down from the edge, exposing a piece of something dull, dark silver, and with a shred of sky blue behind glass. Ali finished pulling the paper off and found a picture of Damien. Ali remembered the incident: Damien and his friend Tom had been wrestling on the field at school. Lauren, tom’s long time girlfriend had taken the picture. Damien had been smiling and happy, his stone like features softened. His usually semi neat hair was mused. He looked like a kid for once, not the adult the world wanted him to be. Ali hugged the picture to her chest, two tears slipping down her cheeks.
“It’s just a picture!” Ayani said, feeling guilty that she had made her cousin cry.
“It’s the only solid thing of him I have. How did you get it?”
“I found out exactly who you’d been dating, and I knew him, but I knew he was photo shy, so I asked his friends if they knew of any decent pictures of him. Tom said to ask Lauren, and Lauren gave me the picture. When I told her it was for you, she insisted that you get the original though… I’m not quite sure why…”
“That’s just how Lauren is. Thanks Ayani.”
Eric had grabbed the picture and sneered before handing it to Steven, who wanted to see it too. Connor looked over his son’s shoulder and frowned, but didn’t say anything.
“I’m going up to my room. Tell me if you need help with dinner Mom.” Ali said, taking her picture back. She went upstairs and lay on her bed in a stupor for two hours. The auto lock had been removed from her door the night before, so she thought nothing of it when she heard the door close, but eventually she looked up because she felt whoever it was staring at her. Damien was standing just inside her room, staring at her. Ali’s eyes began to well up with tears when she saw him, thinking he was an illusion.
“Ali, what’s wrong?” He asked when he saw the tears in her eyes.
“You died… you shouldn’t be here…”
“Yes, I died. But I don’t see why I shouldn’t be here… other than your dad.”
“But dead people are not supposed to randomly show up. And dead people are most definitely not supposed to randomly show up in my life!”
“But I’m not dead anymore.”
“Okay, that’s it, I’m dreaming, and I don’t like it!”
“No, you’re not.”
“Then how did you come back?”
“My cousin brought me back because the dumb assess who killed me were supposed to obliterate my soul, but instead they sealed it into my body, figuring that if my body died, my soul would too. It didn’t. So my cousin managed to get enough blood in me that I’d survive and pulled off jump-starting my heart. I healed at his house for a week before he dragged me here. I think he’s trying to kill me, that’s the only reason he’d drag me here to deal with your dad.”
Ali began to laugh, and then cry with relief before she yelled at him for not letting her fight. She let him explain that if he’d let her fight, then she’d have gotten hurt, if only mildly, and Connor would have killed him, and done it right. Ali would have hated him, and if that happened not only would Damien be unable to come back, but Ali would be worse off than if he simply died. She hugged him, but her knees gave out, and eventually, Damien’s did too, so they both collapsed on the ground next to Ali’s bed. She laid against his shoulder, half asleep, until the door opened and Connor walked in.
“Aleira, what’s going on here?” he asked, startling her out of her daze as he pulled the teens up and dragged them downstairs to the kitchen. He lectured both of them before sending Ali out of the room and closing the door. He’d forgotten that even a whisper could be heard through it.
“Why are you even bothering to date her? You work for people who are trying to kill her.”
“Not work, worked.”
“When and how did you quit?”
“The day I found out Ali was a target. I quit by screwing an attempt on her life up. Bad. I was supposed to throw my partner a knife hilt first then distract her so she got killed. Instead I threw the knife blade first and screwed up his hand and he dropped the knife. Then I got in his way by going and talking to Ali, so if he’d thrown it, the knife woulda hit me, and where we were, he was in the only place to attack from without being seen.”
“How didn’t you know that Ali was a target?”
“Critea and Merrin don’t tell anyone who a target is unless they’re getting rid of them.”
“Don’t people gossip?”
“No, the last person who did became an example.”
“What kind of example?”
“A very brutal, very messy, very ugly one.”
“How bad?”
“Kiri couldn’t be that brutal if she tried.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Can’t.”
“Kiri couldn’t do it?”
“Nope. She may be the cruelest one in the family, but she isn’t capable of being that brutal. Assassin or not.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about the umm… change in work plans?”
“One, you would’ve killed me for trying. Two, I was somewhere more important, and before I could get here, I got into the fight I couldn’t get out of.”
“Where did you have to be?”
“The play Ali was in.”
“You came now why?”
“Because my cousin dragged me here. I didn’t have the heart to leave, anyway. Or the sense to notice I should.”
“Are you trying to convince me ot stop trying to protect my daughter?”
“No.”
“Then what are you asking me for?”
“For you to stop being an ass and give me a chance.”
Kim had walked in and was checking something on the stove. Damien saw her smirk, but said nothing.
“Fine, but I have a few rules.”
“I expected as much. Don’t worry, I’m good at following them if they’re not so strict I fell as though I have to break them.”
“You may not go out on a school night, that includes Fridays. When you are together, I want you with other people as often as possible, and in public at any given time. I want to know where you are so if I decide to check on you, I can find you. If you’re driving, you are to be on the main roads unless absolutely necessary. You may not do anything even mildly illegal, you are not allowed to do anything that could get her hurt, and you are to stay out of the alleys.”
“What if Ali’s walking home from a play rehearsal, she uses the shortcuts to save time.”
“Then I expect you to walk her here safely. You-”
“Connor stop!” Kim broke in. “You are being entirely unfair and way too strict! If our parents had given us rules like this to follow when we were dating, we would have broken every single one just for spite!”
“But our parents actually trusted us.”
“The only reason we can’t trust them is because you put them in a position where they felt they had to break them so they could do anything at all!”
“But-”
“No buts! You’ve been a complete ass over this and it has to stop! I’ve never agreed with you on this and I’m not gonna let you keep acting like this. I’ll agree to some rules, but you’re trying to give them way to much!”
“Then what so you agree to?”
“No school nights, but Friday is okay, it’s a school day, not a school night. I agree to having other people with them, but it’s not a requirement. I agree to the not doing anything illegal, but if it’s to save a life, it’s an exception. I do not want them in the alleys, but if Damien is walking her home and that’s the only reason they’re there, it’s okay. And Damien, I assume you’re staying for dinner?”
“If I’m welcome, Ma’am.”
“Of course you are! Can you call your mother, I haven’t seen her in a while…”
Damien moved to call his mother before going to the living room. Blade was just leaving, but he stopped in the doorway, met Ali’s eyes and smirked, said, “Merry Christmas, Ali.”