The Mysterious Demon

-Arthur’s POV-

I watched intently as Jake stepped out of the house, scanning the area before picking up his phone.

“Let’s start, everyone, go!” Nick instructed and with that Blake shot at each hinge of Dominic’s door which had closed as Jake exited. The shots had caused the door to fall and as it did, Nick, Zack and I ran in whilst Jason and Blake had staid out to guard just in case they get out.

If I didn’t have my other motive then leaving Zack out there to guard as well would have been a smarter choice. Nick had caught onto this as well but I convinced him otherwise. Even though I wanted us to succeed, I needed the other gang to succeed more and so I needed the least defence on the outside as possible.

With that going through my head, we made it into the dining room where we were all supposed to be faced by the three others but instead were greeted by an empty room.

“Wait, this isn’t right,” Zack said which was what Nick and I were thinking too. They weren’t here. The dining table was deserted with nothing but the cards there to greet us.

“Zack and I will check upstairs. Arthur, you look around down here,” Nick ordered and I nodded back at him. As they left I walked closer to the dining table, a little more relaxed because no one was here.

A game where they did more talking than playing, where the order wasn’t continuous. It was something I had never seen or heard of before. I checked through the cards that had already been played on the field with confusion. There was no correlation between them. I then looked at the cards that were left behind, which were supposed to be in their hands. These cards did correlate, all of them were royalty and the heart suit. Dominic was the Queen, the guy who’s shadow looked like Xavier’s was the King, Jake was the Ace and the other dude was the Jack.

“What the actual fuck,” I thought out loud,

“It’s complex isn’t it?”

I quickly turned, pointing my gun in the direction of the voice but to my surprise, the person standing there was one of the few people that I would never want to point a gun to. I put my gun down and let out a breath of relief. “William! What are you doing here man?” I asked and hugging him with one arm.

“Actually Arthur,” he stared, he hadn’t hugged me back either, “I’m not William right now,” I furrowed my eyebrows and pulled away. What was going on? William gave me a fake-looking closed-eye smile before carrying on, “Right now, I’m the Jack.”

“Will?” I asked confused but in that split second, I realised: the cards.

The person that was left. William was the Jack of hearts.

My eyes widened and William took notice that I figured out what he meant, he didn’t hesitate to pull out a knife and slash it against my stomach. “Arg!” I grunted in pain and stumbled back into the dining table, dropping my gun and using one hand to hold the table, the other holding tightly against my bleeding stomach.

Everything was going so fast, it left me in a dizzy state. I slowly lifted the hand that was on my stomach, watching it tremble once I saw the amount of blood covering it.

I dropped onto the floor after that but to my surprise, William also dropped the knife he had in his hand and slowly sat on the floor in front of me. I looked into his eyes and he did the same back. I don’t know what I had expected to see but it wasn’t tears.

He scoffed at my expression and looked away but the scoff was one that was filled with pain more than anything else. “H-how do you guys do this?” His voice trembling, “I can’t even think about hurting someone else and this? This is driving me insane!” He expressed which made me grin. So it was the William I knew after all.

“They why did you do it?” I asked with amusement but his face suddenly went blank, as it did before, which scared me slightly.

“Because what you’re doing is wrong and I have to be the one to deal with you. You did tell me to protect Dominic after all.” He stated when suddenly gunshots were heard from above us making us both look up but William didn’t seem fazed.

“I’m in the wrong?” I hesitated a little but carried on, “I’m also trying to protect Domi-”

“Bullshit!” He shouted at me with a deadly look in his eyes. “That’s bullshit and you know it! You’re going to get her and the rest of them killed!” He throat was straining itself while screaming like that, I could hear it and it pained me.

“I’m not going to kill her!” I shouted back but he then jumped on top of me and gave my face a hard punch,

“BUT THEY ARE!”

I flipped us around and tried punching him back but when I raised my fist I flinched in pain due to my cut. He took note of this and used the opportunity to block so when I punched him it didn’t hurt him.

“They told me they weren’t!”

“And you trust them over us!?”

He pushed me off of himself pretty easily and stood, grabbing the knife on his way up. Seeing that, I also grabbed my gun and did the same. “You know they say ‘don’t bring a knife to a gunfight’ right?” I say and he smiles back which makes me uneasy,

“But I was prepared. You are the one who isn’t prepared to shoot your best friend.”

I froze after his statement. He was right. I couldn’t shoot. My finger wouldn’t even get on the trigger.

I watched him come nearer to me, knife ready.

“It’s time for you to let us take control for a bit, Arthur.”

-Nick’s POV-

Zack and I headed upstairs, on guard and ready to attack. Them disappearing like this, at the same time as our attack plan didn’t make any sense. We checked all the rooms with Dominic’s being the last one.

“Sis?” I called out but didn’t get a reply.

“It’s like they vanished!” Zack exclaimed as we entered the room.

“They’re street fighters, not magicians,” I said, amusing myself while looking at a phone of Dominic and I that she had on her desk next to one with her and Blake, another with her and the rest of the gang, and lastly one with her and Xavier.

Distracted by the photos, I hadn’t noticed for a while that I didn’t get a reply from Zack, instead, I heard the door of the room closing. “Zack-” I turned but behind me, I saw Xavier holding Zack’s mouth shut. My first instinct was to help Zack so I took hold of my gun and managed to shoot, scraping Xavier’s arm as he tried to dodge which led to him letting Zack go.

After that, Zack tried to hit Xavier with the back of his gun but Xavier blocked it and threw the gun out of the window, smashing it in the process. This didn’t stop me though and instead, I grabbed a knife and went in to attack him. At the same time, Zack went in as well which wasn’t wise of either of us because as we went forward, the fear of hurting the other made us hesitate and Xavier took that opportunity to land a punch on both of our stomachs hard. Making us both double over. He was something else entirely.

Before I could fall completely, I raised my gun and tried shooting again. This time I didn’t hit him but Zack was able to trap him while he was trying to dodge again.

“Xavier, stop fighting us,” I ordered but he glared back at me.

“I’ll stop fighting you when you get back to your senses, you fucker!” He shouted and easily broke out of Zack’s hold. I ignored what he said and instead got ready to fight.

-Jake’s POV-Exclusive content © by Nô(v)el/Dr/ama.Org.

Shit.

As I stood outside of Dominic’s house’s door I realised something. “We have two men outside,” I mumbled to myself. The plan hadn’t thought about how to deal with the guys outside. Fuck.

As I thought about this though, Blake came out and ran up to me, looking at me hurriedly. “Stay out here, I’m going to get Dominic,” he said, handing me his gun before running in. Normally, I would be bothered by his anger but right now, all I could do was smile. He’ll go in there, Xavier or William will catch him and everything will go to plan. This will probably be the first time I’m thankful for his jealousy.

When he went in, I walked towards the back of the house, where Dominic and I were supposed to meet, but as I went around, something caught sight in the corner of my eye. Jason. He was in his sniping position and hadn’t spotted me yet. He was inspecting the house, I was sure.

I looked at the house too to see rows of windows and Dominic’s shadow could be seen inside. Knowing Jason, he was going to use his sniper to shoot Dominic as she ran to the last window to stop her from getting away and I couldn’t let that happen.

I started to run as Dominic ran, following her shadow, getting ready for the last window. I closed my eyes and ran.

Bang.

I almost fell, almost gave in to the pain but I pushed my body and kept running.

Jason would probably head inside after this and they’d all be trapped. My job now was to get Dominic away from here.

I jumped over the fence and ran towards The Mysterious Demon’s bike. Dominic made it there at the same time as me and tossed me a helmet.

“Let’s go-” she started but her eyes met my wound, making her stop. “Jake…”

“I only have adrenaline keeping me going, we can’t stop now,” I said quickly, trying to divert her attention. I couldn’t have her worrying about me. She stared but and then ordered in reply,

“Jake, drive the bike.”

This was crazy. My vision was getting blurry and I was scared. I wasn’t scared of crashing but of what Dominic would do if I damaged this bike. Dominic was sitting behind me, not telling me why she told me to do this yet suddenly started tearing my shirt behind me, shocking me into nearly swerving.

“This is going to hurt but you’ll just have to stay calm,” she instructed, “let’s talk casually, yeah?” She continued before I felt her stick something inside my back, making me grunt in pain. I see, so she was taking the bullet that got stuck in my back under my shoulder blade out.

“Well then sweetheart, why do you have a boys’ name?” I asked, trying to focus on anything other than her sticking something sharp in my back.

“My birth parents knew they were having twins but Nick covered me in the ultrasounds or something and only found out that he was a boy so they assumed I was one as well. They chose the names early and I guess they decided not to change them after our births.”

When her story ended, I groaned again as she finished stitching the wound but then I smiled in satisfaction.

“You are really something you know that? Stitching up a wound while on a bike? Blake better take good care of you after this,”

“Stay focused on the road J, crash my bike and I’ll stick this bullet back into you twice as deep.”

—

It didn’t take too long before we got to a safe location. It was the place where we had nailed Dominic’s streetfighter name on a tree after we thought she had passed.

The plan didn’t state what to do after we got here but I assumed that we waited for the rest of the guys to come here or give us some word that they needed help. Except, as I sat down to try and preserve what was left of my energy, Dominic didn’t look relaxed at all.

“I’m going back,” she suddenly announced which made my eyes widened and I sat up, wincing in pain as I did.

“What? Are you insane? That’s only in the backup plan! So far everything going great!” I exclaimed, trying my best to change her mind but due to the blood loss, I felt really weak, starting to get dizzy because I moved around too much.

Dominic kneeled down next to me and smiled. “Rest Jake, you’ve done your part, you’re safe now.” She started, and before my eyes could fully close, the last thing I heard her say was,

“The Queen must protect her people.”

.