Fatima snapped her head up. The intense focus on her craft blurred her eyesight. With aching fingers, she flexed and shook out her wrists to prevent cramping and any of her knuckles from locking. She pulled off her headphones and heard nothing. She rose from the chair and double-checked that nothing she did so far would be undone. With a quick glance at the clock, she noted two hours had passed.

The room was silent and still, almost disturbing. She couldn't hear the TV from the other room. She knew those boys were fighting over it last, she checked. Clothes were still scattered across her floor, so she took a moment to kick it all into a pile out of the way. She went furtively, avoiding the items on the floor, tiptoeing her way to the door. Slowly twisting the handle as not to make a sound, she silently opened it.

The carpet muffled her steps as she approached the living area. Her eyes scanned about the hallway, making sure nothing would try to jump out to scare her. With a slightly held breath, she peered around the corner from the hall. The TV was on but muted. The sofa was empty and the room was vacant of boys.

She let out a small sigh of relief, "Finally they left." She whispered to herself with a slight smile.

"Oh, they did? That's good," Dawn whispered behind her, peering around to look.

Light simply looked at his twin, "Why are we whispering?"

Fatima turned around to hush them, "Because I decided to whisper." She paused for a moment, "Wait a minute." She stared at them with a blank expression as they looked at her with slightly concerned faces. "You're still here!" She banged her head on the wall.

They covered their ears, "There's no need to shout, Baka."

"Don't call me Baka! Why are you still here?" She whined holding her hand to her head. Steve appeared and leaned against the wall adjacent to her corner.

"Only because we're waiting for the word to send you back to hell, no questions asked," He didn't look at her as he answered nonchalantly.

She turned with a half smile and mocked in turn, "Careful Curly before I smash the TV on your face. Perhaps I will do it regardless. It would most certainly improve it." She matched his glare with her own.

With a gravelly sneer, "I don't see why Dia would even get acquainted with the likes of you, much less kiss you."

"Aw jealous, are we?" Fatima jeered with a catlike smile.

His words were daggers, and then as he took a step forward to intimidate her, "Why the hell should I be jealous. You're nothing more than a passing fling, a curiosity. All this is, is a basic interest and once she's bored, she'll leave, and we'll deal with you." He had a deadly smile, "and so resumes our normal routine and we'll never see you again."

"Good, better yet, skip the whole sending me back to hell bit and just leave! Just like everybody else, not like I wanted you here in the first place. I don't even know you!" She huffed and calmed herself down, "I don't want to see your face anyway, it's embarrassing to look at. Get some better threats. The sending me back to hell one is getting old." She walked past him, ignoring the twins howls of laughter at their banter.

Leonard came in sometime halfway through and watched from where he sat on the kitchen counter. He gave her a warmer smile as she simply stared at him.

"What is it that you want?" She grumbled in a chilling voice.

He tilted his head to the side, "You don't have to be so defensive."

"Oh, I shouldn't," she replies sarcastically, "I should just ignore the death threats. Yeah, thanks for the advice." She tried to control herself so she wouldn't snap any of the cabinet doors off their hinges.

The boys dramatically sighed, "They're only messing with your head. Dia wouldn't let them touch you. After all she quite clearly expressed her fondness for you this morning." He looked off into space thinking about it, before returning to reality with a more mischievous smile.

She gave him a skeptical look, "What do you mean?"

"I'm talking about what she did before she left." He watched as Fatima stood there recalling the morning events. Her expression had changed a few times before she stared back at him confused. "I'm talking about that kiss, Blondie."

"Oh!" Her eyes widened for a second, "what about it?"

"You're an idiot."

"No, it was a cheek kiss, it doesn't mean anything." She had a sheepish smile now, feeling slightly awkward.

"For normal people it wouldn't, but I been around Dia long enough that she doesn't just go around kissing people, not even her boyfriends." He laughed a moment at the poor souls who fell for her.

Fatima stared off into space, "So what you're implying is," Her voice trailed off slightly.

"Yup," Leonard patted her head and jumped down from the counter. "Have fun with that bit of news, Blondie."

"My name's Fatima," she grumbled under her breath after swatting his hand away. He walked away to talk to Steve and the twins. She eyed them for a moment before focusing on finding something to eat.

While she did, she let her mind drift back to her work. "Perhaps a double strand, no triple strand," she mumbled to herself and grabbed a can of soda from the fridge. "But I don't have that much material for a third." She went to the pantry and grabbed a bag of chips.

She began to stroll back to her room. She paused right at the beginning of the hallway, turned to Steve and gave him a one-finger salute before brushing past the Twins to get to her room. She kicked her door closed and set the items in her hand down on her dresser.

Chris stood over her desk examining the half made necklace, which he held in his hands. Fatima nearly jumped to see him there suddenly. He turned and glanced at her for a moment before turning back to her stuff.

"What are you doing," she demanded, as he began to pull out craft boxes from her desk opening them. "Hey, stop touching my stuff!" She rushed over and snapped a lid shut from one of the big organizer boxes. "Do you know how many beads I have in here? You can't just go through them. If it falls and spills over, do you know how long it takes to sort them all out again?"

"Cool it. I'm only curious, it's not every day that we can see something different than what you're used to." He flicked her on the head.

"Ow, why the hell are you able to do so much!" She rubbed her forehead.

"Guess I'm just talented," he taunted casually. "Anyway, you've been so focused on this thing the whole time. I already went through everything else."

"Why would you do that?"

He shrugged as a reply and continued to mess with her jewelry equipment. Fatima took that time to pick up the box that contained the beads and lifted it up to put it back on the top of the desk to get it out of her way.

"Why do you need that many beads anyway?" Chris asked not because he wanted to know, but because he didn't want to talk to the idiots in the other room. "You have ten different blue beads. That might be a little too much."

"Not all colors go well with each other. I usually use one or two, but people request a certain color and so I have it," Fatima said as she placed the box just on the ledge. "I have to tell you, after awhile, it gets heavy just to carry this thing around." Chris merely nodded in response and picked up the unfinished necklace.

Fatima tried to snatch it from his hand. He was much faster and held it away from her. He smiled slyly as she began to get frustrated. "I have to finish that," she stumbled over her words as she tried to recompose herself. "Don't you dare break it!" She reached for it again as he laughed.

"You still have a bad attitude. I can't even look at what you made?"

"I don't care, and no I have to finish it." after a moment of trying and failing to get the necklace back, she sat down glumly and waited. He then held it out to her. She didn't move to take it back.

"What? You were just complaining about how you have to finish it," Chris yelled. She glared at him, still not taking it back. "Fine, I'll just keep it then." He smiled at her, baiting her with torment. It worked because she dove for the necklace and he moved it out of her way, so she hit the desk instead.

It was enough to tip the box of beads up and it slid off the top of the desk. Her eyes grew wide with horror as it tumbled down and hit the edge of the desk breaking it open. A rainbow of glass beads burst out like fireworks and showered down like a hailstorm onto the carpet.

They wordlessly stared, before Chris started to laugh at her plight. Fatima gazed down at the pile of beads, she could only hear the sound of the beads falling onto the floor. She knelt down and picked up a handful of beads, all mixed together. It will take a countless number of days for her to sort out her beads again. She let them slip through her fingers as she vacantly scanned the rest of the floor. All the beads were now lost in the carpet fibers, that she could never find, money wasted.

Her shoulders slouched in disheveled defeat, despair was clear across her face.

"Hey, you okay?" Chris asked after he finally stifled his laughter. She squared her shoulders and made her face blank, she had enough of these boys. He heard her mutter something under her breath as she stood up.

She stared dead into his eyes, "You have until I get back, to either start picking these up or run." With a turn on her heel, she walked out steadily to the main room. She passed by the twins who gave her a queer look. Steve watched her in mild amusement. Leonard walked up to her.

"You okay?" She didn't hear him, nor did she see him. She was too focused to notice them. She stood in the kitchen and pulled out a meat cleaver from the knife holder. She glided a finger along the edge, feeling how sharp it was, how easily it can cut into something. She then purposefully dragged the edge down along the counter.

Steve thought her mad and approached her, "Hey Idiot, what do you think you're doing?" Her eyes glanced at him and grabbed the forgotten bottle of holy water from the table. He grew annoyed by her ignoring him. He stood in front of her blocking her way to the sink, "did you hear me Blondie?"

She stepped right through him, "Sharp knives cut too easily." She answered calmly. She ripped the top off the bottle, not even bothering to unscrew it. Holy water splashed against her skin burning her, but she didn't notice. She continued just as calmly as she set the knife into the sink and dumped the rest of the holy water onto it. "Dull knives tear the skin while cutting." She picked it up and pressed the cleaver against his chest to force him to take a few steps back. "If you're going to threaten someone, do it right."

She turned away and started to head back to her room. The twins and Leonard had already disappeared. She knew Steve did as soon as she turned away. Her hand seared in pain and she felt that it was wet and sticky. She looked down to see the blade had red rivulets of blood dripping down from her hand onto the floor. She looked up once she was at her bedroom door and saw Chris was gone as well. She slammed the cleaver into the side of her dresser and turned to look at the damage.

She snapped out of her small trance and the pain flooded up her arm. She winced as she ran back to the sink to wash off the blood from her hand quickly. She looked at the trail of blood leading from her room and cursed herself.

"How am I going to explain this to Kate?" She grabbed a towel and wrapped her hand to stop the bleeding. "Okay, first where is some alcohol or anesthetics?"

Chris stood off where he knew she couldn't see him. He knew, of course, that he could have easily handled the altercation and disarmed her. But he decided last minute that Dia would have his head if she found out. He watched her dash to the closet in search of something to keep her hand from getting infected. He sighed irritably, this girl was frustrating, everyone felt it from her. "Except Dia chose to ignore whatever it is that makes her so irritating." He unknowingly said it out loud.

"Well, maybe if we hadn't overwhelmed her all in one day, she wouldn't have threatened us with a cleaver," Leonard said matter of factly. He just so happened to be standing behind Chris the whole time. "Dia is still going to kill us for letting this happen, specifically since it was your fault."

"It was hardly my fault, she knocked it over herself." Chris snapped at the boy who smiled slightly at getting under his skin. "Even so, that didn't warrant a hostile reaction."

Leonard smacked the back of his head, Chris slowly turned with an evil glare and punched him in the face, knocking him to the floor. Leonard stood back up quickly rubbing his jaw, "We weren't in the right, you know that. Especially since you haven't been acting normal since you saw her. Steve and Jacob were predictable in disliking her."

"She's a damn demon and every demon we encountered has tried to attack and kill Dia!"

Leonard turned to look at Fatima as she slowly poured rubbing alcohol onto her burnt hand. "So why hasn't she attacked yet? What exactly is she waiting for? She could have just used magic to attack, but instead used a dull knife soaked in holy water."

"Which was stupid because she burnt her hand! Her fault also." Leonard smacked Chris in the back of the head again. This time, he dodged Chris's attack and ran away before he could chase him down. Chris turned his attention back to the girl and sighed irritably.

"She has absolutely no idea what she is doing."

Fatima rushed to the closet where she had pulled out the holy water before and pulled out a Grimoire. She dashed back to the table and began flipping through the pages." Where is it, where is that spell, Here it is!" She fumbled with one hand to lift the book up and walked over to where there was still blood on the carpet. "Take a sea sponge and... Seems easy enough." She ran to the carpet again and grabbed some supplies and a sponge. She mixed together the ingredients and slowly poured it over the blood stains. With the sponge, she dabbed it all up. Afterwards, she tossed the sponge into the trash and put the book away.

She grabbed a hand towel and rushed over to her bedroom to retrieve the cleaver. She dashed up to her door and her dresser had a large split in the side where she had slammed the cleaver into it. Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion, as the blade wasn't there, nor anywhere in sight.

The noise of something being thrown into the kitchen sink startled her and she turned around to see Chris scowling, leaning against the counter. "You're not allowed to play with knives anymore," he called over to her. She scowled in response and stepped cautiously over to him.

"I thought I scared you idiots off."

"It takes more than that to scare me," he gestured to the cleaver before turning on the tap to rinse it off. He then grabbed her hand and tilted it palm up to see how bad the burn was. "You need to wrap this up, disinfecting the wound isn't going to do you much good if you don't."

She whisked her hand away and held it to herself, "Why should you care."

He grabbed her arm, towed her to the table and made her sit down. "Because Dia won't care whose fault it is, she's going to blame me in particular for letting this happen." He shuddered at the thought of facing her fury. Fatima merely stared at her hand as Chris began to inspect it.

She noted that she could feel the pressure of his hand, but she couldn't feel the warmth or any physical contact. She looked away wondering what it took to reach this amount of manifestation, how much energy he must be spending to be able to do as much as he had already.

"Thinking about how horrible it is to be in this state?" Chris asked as she jumped and stared at him with a hard regarding look. "Whoa idiot, don't move like that, anyways, you have to work on hiding your facial expressions. Otherwise everyone could read you like an open book." He stood up, "Now where's your first aid kit."

"I can get it myself," Fatima stated in a dull tone. She hated that she tended to give away what she was thinking like that. Her roommates tend to pick on her for having these key looks that betrayed her thoughts. Chris gave her a stern look that forced her to stay seated. "Top shelf of the closet." Her face flushed slightly.

Leonard took that moment to make his presence known. "Aw, you're blushing!" She turned with a sharp glare. "You know you keep glaring like that you're gonna have ugly wrinkles."

"I'm not blushing, and what do you want now," her voice sharper than she actually intended. Chris returned and ignored the other boy with a spiteful passion. He held his hand out for Fatima to offer hers. With reluctance she did, and watched as he doctored up her hand meticulously. She waited for him to try something.

"Relax Blondie, I'm gonna make sure he doesn't do anything!" Leonard told her poking Chris's face trying to disrupt his concentration.

"Yeah, because that makes me feel so much better."

*

With a slight tilt of his head and a slight smile, Grey walked casually along the sidewalk toward his car. He saw that subtle change in Dia's expression. Her eyes lit up with curiosity, interest, and most of all danger, if only for a split second. It was enough to make the day not as long and burdens of the job not so heavy.

A pair of girls walked past him, giggling to each other and obviously made it known that they were interested in the man. He saw past them, as he did all the rest. Some silly girl would see a white haired young looking man in a nice clean suit and they would lose it. While he had somehow landed some stalkers, they couldn't follow for long, as he was always three steps ahead of them.

Grey came up to a white Z11 Camaro parked right under a budding Cherry Blossom. The Camaro was void of any dirt and seemed luminous it was that clean. He cast his gaze up to the tree limbs above, the tiny buds just barely showing a hue of pink. In a week, they'll be in full bloom.

He stepped into the car and revved the engine, the pair of girls who walked by earlier stood in shock as he drove away. One of them blatantly glared at the car as it turned the corner out of sight, as the other looked slightly defeated. Grey only noticed they were there when he checked his back mirror, "Women are so dumb sometimes." He sighed disbelieving how vexing girls can be when they think they stood a chance.

He proceeded to drive out of the city taking the back roads to avoid rush hour. It does help to know not only all the back routes in and out of the city but all the roads where police like to hang around so going 40 over the speed limit was fine for him. He was soon out of the city and long past the suburbs of the surrounding area.

Trees surrounded the road on both sides, tall enough to block the sun and cast a shadow over the majority of the lone road that twisted and turned constantly. It was enough to distract him from directing his attention upward and the area already submerged in shadows obscured any sign that something was above.

Grey then saw something quite small, slowly drift down in front of the car before it whipped over the windshield and tumbled about in the slipstream left behind. Grey thought a moment considering it looked like a feather, but unusually large for any birds in this area and so white it was almost luminous.

There was a light thud from on top of his car. Grey's eyes widened with the realization of what was going on and slammed on his brakes, and at the speed he was going had to skillful maneuver the car so it wouldn't flip over. A figure tumbled off the roof of the car and rolled onto the hood where they hung on for dear mercy until the car stopped moving.

Enraged, Grey nearly kicked the door open and briskly inspected the damage to his poor Camaro. While there wasn't a scratch on the car, he could only imagine the damage to the brakes as he peered at the tire marks left on the actual road. He turned his attention to the person on his car, who miraculously survived and sprawled on the hood.

"Lucky me, Mr. Grey I don't have the mortality of humans," The figure said, his arms crossed, tattoos of chains peeked out from the sleeves of his shirt. Their nearly identical black eyes rested upon the other with mild detest and loathing.

"Perhaps next time, instead of landing on my car, but in front of it. We'd properly test to see if you have the mortality of a human," Grey mocked with his jaw clenched. His fingers itched just to kill the man who stood before him. The man laughed and approached Grey, who shifted into an apprehensive stance.

"Perhaps I should introduce myself, but I do believe we should skip the formalities for now and go somewhere with less chance of someone driving by." With that, the man got into the passenger seat of the car. Incredulously, Grey watched before sliding into the driver's seat, calculating how many ways he could kill an angel.