Gabrielle felt the warm bed beneath her, and then something else. Something large. With her eyes still closed, she reached out and touched it. It felt warm. She traced her hand along the side of the figure and came to the conclusion that it was a person. Who was in her bed? She didn’t remember bringing anyone over, let alone allowing them to sleep next to her.

Opening her eyes, she was met with a familiar face. Skyler laid there, still asleep. Her face went beet red, and she shook him awake.

“Huh?” he grumbled as he slowly sat up.

“How the hell did you get here?!” she squeaked, her heart beating out of her chest.

Skyler scratched his head and yawned and pulled down on his black tee shirt, then looked at her. “I did warn you about not sleeping in your own bed, didn’t I?”

“You never mentioned that you’d be teleported into my bed! If you did, I would have left!” she said, covering her face. She felt hot embarrassment radiating from every pore in her body.

“I don’t believe that. I’m sure you would have shook your head and told me you’d sit there no matter what,” he said with a grin, pulling up his black pajama shorts.

She looked at his arms, his ghost white skin ended at his elbows, the skin on his lower arms and hands was pitch black. “Do they hurt?” she asked.

“Hmm? What does?” he shifted in her bed, letting his legs dangle off the edge.

“Your arms, do they hurt?” she sat up and scooted towards him, more worried than embarrassed.

“Ah, no. The scar on my eye does sometimes, and, well, the wounds on my chest sting, though I should have the stitches out in a week or so,” he said in a relaxed tone.

“You should stay in bed at least until they stop bleeding,” she said, and grabbed his shoulder.

“They should have stopped weeping by now though,” he said and grabbed at the hand on his shoulder.

“That’s not enough to get me to stop worrying, please let me at least look at them,” she begged, and placed her other hand on his back.

“If it’ll get you to let me up, then alright,” he says, and rolls back his shirt revealing clean, unbloodied bandages.

“That’s strange, weren’t your bandages stained with blood?” she asked, she could have sworn that they were stained last time she saw them.

“The nurse at the infirmary changed them while you were out like a light on your chair,” he said with a chuckle.

She unraveled his bandages to see the stitched up wounds that he had shown her before, but they weren’t bleeding.

“See? I checked before I went to sleep, they were at the tail end of the weeping stage anyways. The reason why I was at the hospital when you were was because I had to ask the doctor about the weeping. He told me that it was normal for the kind of wounds I have, and that it’d go away in a few hours,” he explained, and traced a finger along the side of one of the stitched up wounds, where the skin turned black.

“What do you mean ‘kind’ of wounds?” she said as she started to bandage him up again.

“The weapons used on me were extremely rare and are meant to cause a lot of damage. Dr. Gage has a lot of knowhow on all types of weapons because you have to treat wounds made with different weapons differently,” he said and raised his arms in a stretch.

“I’ll never forgive whoever did that to you,” she whispered angrily as she finished bandaging, disdain planted itself deep within her stomach, she knew she was overly protective of him, but if she wasn’t, who would be?

“You don’t have to, they’re all dead anyways,” he said matter-of-factly, resting his closed fist on his chin.

“Dead? Don’t tell me you killed them, did you?” she asked, she thought that if they had rare and deadly weapons they must have been powerful She would be surprised if they were.

“I’m not saying it was easy, though it did happen.” He got up and stretched again.

“Who were they, if you don’t mind me asking?” she said as she slid back to her side of the bed and got up.

“Have you ever heard anybody on your side of the fence say anything about the Lords of Darkness?” he said, his back still turned to her.

She gasped and froze, remembering that Shai had talked about the Lords of Darkness disappearing recently. She couldn’t believe that Skyler could kill all of them at once. Just how powerful was he?

“So you have heard of them?” he smiled and turned towards her.

“You’re the one who did it?” she said, turning towards him.

“I have a good reason, but it’s a secret, for now,” he said, his grin turning into a wry smirk.

“I don’t get it, aren’t you supposed to be on their side? Weren’t they your friends? Why kill them?” she asked, confused as to why he would kill those who are the same as him.

“They were never my friends,” Skyler said, his smirk morphing into a scowl. “I had to deal with their shit for years. You have no idea how glad I am now that they’re gone.” he balled up his fists.

“What did they do to you to make you so angry?” she said as she got up and walked to the end of her bed.

“I can’t talk about it; what they did was the stuff of nightmares,” he said, then shakily relaxed his hands.

“Worse than all those wounds and that scar on your eye?” she said, walking up to him.

“They didn’t trust me, didn’t care for me, didn’t want me to even exist. They threw me away after they found I couldn’t be easily controlled. The promise my mother made to them was the only thing that kept me alive after I was given my new body, but it only applied to me.” he sighed and lowered his head.

“It was luck that Mother found me, she begged them to give me a second chance, and paid a heavy price in return for it. They threw her away when they were done with her too, they were too busy with their master plan to care about other people. Why wouldn’t I be angry at them? Hate them even?” he said and turned his head towards her.

“I’m so sorry, I don’t know what to say,” she asked she put a hand on his shoulder.

“I’d never seen such shameless evil the night I saw the monster who would be my future father,” he brought a hand up and looked at it.

“Before you were reborn?” she said and stepped closer.

“Yeah, I told you before. I got powers from him before I was reborn. He told me after I got my new body that he was the reason I lost my old one, that’s why he was the first one to go,” he squeezed his hand into a fist.

“You killed him first? Why didn’t they try to avenge him?” she asked and slid the hand on his shoulder down to his upper arm.

“Killing him was the reason why I have this scar on my eye,” he said, relaxed his hand and brought it up to his right eye.

“They let you get away with just a scar?” she said and let go of his arm.

“Remember, they had weapons that are supposed to cause long term damage, it may not be the case physically for the most part, what they do is damage all three anchors of existence; mind, body, and soul,” he said as he traced a finger across the scar on his eye.

“The other ones you have will do that too?” she asked, hot electric worry shot through her body.

“They’ll become scars, and when they decide to ache, which could be at any time, everything will. Even Dr. Gage doesn’t know how to remove them yet, or I wouldn’t have any,” he said and looked at her.

“What will you do? If just one of them aching cripples you, how will you deal with four more?” she said, grabbed his upper arm and pulled it to her chest, holding it snugly to her body.

“Dr. Gage made medicine that counteracts it, though it still hurts a bit when it happens,” he said, raised his hand and patted her on the head.

“Oh, thank goodness for that… By the way, you don’t have outside wear or shoes with you,” she said and looked down at his bare feet, his lower legs were covered in black skin, stopping halfway up his shin, and his toes were clawed like his fingers were.

“That’s ok, I can ask my friend to bring my pants and a pair of shoes over, he’s got a key to my place. Can I use your phone?” he asked, taking a step to his right, where the bedroom door was.

Gabrielle let go of his arm and walked to the door. “Sure, it’s in the living room.”

They both walked into the living room, which was minimalist, it was a small apartment so the kitchen and the living room were in the same room. On the far wall stood a flat screen TV, a simple tv stand below it. In front of it was a plain white three seat couch that had a chaise on the right side. In between the tv and the couch sat a glass table with a book sitting on it. To the left of the couch was a tiny wooden stand with a black landline phone sitting on top.

She points to the phone. “You can call your friend, I need to get dressed, so my door is going to be locked.” she slipped back behind the door, closed and locked it. She felt a familiar feeling, the one that she used to have back before she left him. Her body became hot with bashfulness, she hadn’t felt this way in a long time, and thinking about him being so close made her heart flutter and her breath shorten. She used the excuse that she was getting dressed to regain her faculties. she was playing it cool for a while, but when the reality of the situation set in, that he was at her apartment, and it was a lot to handle.