“I’d ask you tell me all about it but I’m trying to focus on this game.” Amy was sitting in front of the chess board. There were only two pieces missing from the board and it looked like she was playing herself. She’d probably started just after I left.

“Good I don’t really know what happened, just that it probably wasn’t normal.” I walked over to the bed neither of us used and fell back onto the old fabric. The dust cloud that burst up around me twinkled in the flickering lamplight and gave me something else to focus on.

“Fine,” Amy groaned. I could see her flick over the king on the opposite side of the board. “What did you see that’s so unusual?”

“How well do you know Dante?”

“Better than you, not as well as Hope. Why, what did he do?”

“I think he lost it.” Amy looked concerned but didn’t say anything. I was a little concerned myself, what would happen to me if Dante went crazy? “He said he tried to kill Trish and his eyes went all red and there was blood on his face. Hope had to force him to look her in the eye before I even noticed it.” Amy’s jaw dropped. “What? He’s immortal. It can’t be that bad, right?”

“Where’d they go?” She looked freaked out.

“Hope said they were going to see Felix, whoever that is.” Amy made a face, she obviously didn’t like him.

“Why were they going to see him?”

“Hope said he could help.” Amy had started to pace around the table. She’d gotten me feeling even more nervous than I’d been before.

“Is that all they said?”

“Dante called Hope Agatha, but I think that was delirium setting in.”

“Nope. That settles it. I’m going.” Amy grabbed me by the wrist and yanked me off the bed and onto my feet. “And so are you.”

Amy practically dragged me out the door and down the hall. It took me a second to grasp the gravity of the situation, something must seriously have been wrong if she was this concerned about someone she hated. At least I assumed she hated Dante, he was a contractor.. not her contractor, but still. She didn’t seem to like Felix either, whoever he was, and she certainly didn’t like Hope. So yeah, I was worried.

“Please tell me what’s going on before I get dragged into a room where I have no idea what’s happening and what I should be doing.” It wouldn’t have been the first time, and I didn’t exactly mind before, but the last time I did that I shot someone and ended up enslaved and confused.

“I’ll make this simple to understand and easy to say. Dante’s weird. His eyes are messed up, they normally look like that vibrant blue, yeah? Well that’s like his battery meter, blue is full, red is… pretty much empty. He must have burned through an insane number of souls to try and kill Trish, which I assume he knew wouldn’t work. However, burning that much power in one shot has consequences. With the way his eyes work, just going red was likely one of the more tame possible reactions. I doubt his eyes going red is all that happened, he’s clever but not exactly strong willed, and it’s highly likely that this incident has caused some other kind of damage.”

“Then was he reverting to a younger state of mind to protect himself and confused Hope for a girl he used to know called Agatha?” I’d seen it on a low budget cop show once.

Amy stopped and turned around to look me in the eye. Her expression weirded me out, it was like she was examining me. She shook it off and resumed dragging me along while I remained lost.

“So I take it that isn’t what happened?”

“No, that’s stupid.” I didn’t even bother to say I was offended, she probably would have just laughed.

“Then what happened?”

“That, I cannot say…” She hummed off tilting her head as if deciding whether or not to tell me something. “... exactly. There is a reason, but it’s not my place to tell you. If Dante’s still sane when this blows over, you can ask him.”

“Will it blow over then?” I was still trying to hold on to any optimism I could muster.

“Everything blows over eventually. Whether or not it’s as dust in the wind though…” She didn’t finish her sentence, I knew what she meant. The outcome was probably fifty-fifty.

Stolen story; please report.

Amy stopped abruptly in front of the door at the very end of the hallway. It had never occurred to me before that the entire building was pretty much one long hall with a bunch of doors leading off to rooms, I’d never seen it from the outside either. It probably looked really weird. I grabbed the doorknob and tried to pull it open but Amy grabbed my arm to stop me.

“I know this involves you as much as anyone, but… just know, no one wanted it to.”

“What?”

“Nothing, just go in.” Amy closed her eyes and covered her face like she was ashamed.

Here I was just trying to get answers and there she went just giving me more questions. That seemed to be the rules of the game, I didn’t get to figure something out without needing to ask about something else. I felt so insignificant having to rely on everyone else for answers and advice, it was like I was intentionally being kept out of some secret even though it directly involved me. Me and some glass that didn’t show a reflection. Now wasn’t exactly the best time to bust out a demand for answers, and even if it was, I doubted I would get them. I had to be content with living a manipulated life... for now.

“How many did you use?” It was the first thing I heard as I walked into the room. “Look at me Dante, just tell me so I know how many to give you!” Hope was shaking Dante by the shoulders but he wasn’t even blinking. I would say it was nice to see him acting normal again, but this was active indifference, not his natural carelessness. He’d developed a thousand yard stare that looked terrifying with his red eyes.

“Pretty much all of them.” Dante muttered. I could barely hear it from across the room.

“You heard him Felix! Get the transfusion ready!” Hope shouted to a nervous looking man in a tropical shirt who was trying to look productive in the corner. I could see him from the side though, he was just standing there with his teeth clenched and his hands fumbling around on an empty desk.

“How much did he say?” He spoke with a slight German accent, but it sounded like he was one panic attack away from speaking with a stutter. I heard Amy chuckle behind me as she walked in.

“Did he stutter Felix? He said all of them! So get all of it ready! I thought doctors were supposed to be calm and collected in emergencies.”

“Y-yes, I will get right on that.” And there went the stutter. He ran off into an adjacent room, nearly tripping over his own feet on the way out.

“Well that’s one good thing about this situation, when it comes to Dante, she scares him witless.” Amy laughed quietly. Hope glared at her and she stopped.

“At least you understand why, and why you should be just as terrified.” Hope hissed. It was creepy how fast her expression changed when she looked away from Dante and how fast it changed back as she looked back.

“Is he going to be okay?” Which wasn’t exactly what I wanted to know, I wanted to know if I was going to be OK, although they were pretty much the same thing in this instance. Asking about him just sounded less offensive.

“That remains to be seen.” Dante turned to me but just sort of seemed to look right through me. It was a little scary with his eyes. “If everything works out I have some things to show you. If it doesn’t, you won’t need to see them anyways. Rest assured that your safety has been secured.” He smiled a little. It seemed so wrong, even now he was still putting on the act. “I’ve handed your soul over to Hope for safe keeping so I won’t burn it out by accident.”

“Idiot.” Hope mumbled.

“You’re not wrong.” Dante sighed.

“I’ve got it!” Felix stumbled back into the room pushing a stand with a massive blood bag swinging wildly from the hook. “Grab the needle, girl!” Amy gritted her teeth and stiffly walked over to a table and retrieved a needle.

“Marvelous thinking, storing this beforehand, of course all your thinking is…”

“Shut up and stick the needle in my arm already, Felix. I’m dying here.” Dante’s sudden attitude sounded like the most honest thing he’d said since I entered the room. Possibly that I’d ever heard him say. There was no subtext or hidden messages.

Felix fumbled around with the needle and an IV tube for a second before jamming the needle into Dante’s arm. There was a slight proud smile on his face for a second before Hope gave him an irritated look and he made a quick exit. I think it was safe to say no one liked Felix. I didn’t quite care for him either.

“That’s better.” Dante took a deep breath and closed his eyes as the red substance from the blood bag reached the needle. I was tempted to say it was blood, but that would be too obvious. The second I assumed anything I’d probably get a weird look and an explanation that would raise more questions.

“Ugh, you idiot. Don’t you ever do that again.” Hope wrapped her arms around him and whispered something into his ear. I could make out “I love you…” from the way her mouth moved, but there was a word missing. I love you, blank. It probably wasn’t important, just some little phrase they used a lot.

“I know.” Dante opened his eyes, which were now a soft almost violet color, and wrapped his free arm around her. “I love you too, Agatha.” It was a beautiful little moment, only they were both evil, I hated them both, and he was probably delirious. Apart from that though, beautiful.

I let out a loud sigh and turned to leave. I felt like the entire situation had been over dramatized. The solution was so simple and his apparent recovery was so quick. It was like they wanted me to panic just to see how I’d react. That actually sounded exactly like something Dante would do to me. I pushed the door open and groaned as I started to make my way back to my room.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Dante called from behind me. At least he hadn’t snuck up right behind me, he might not have been well enough for that though. “I told you I had things to show you right? Don’t you want some answers without questions?” He was reading me like a book, he knew I wouldn’t be able to resist that offer. “Just give me a few more minutes and we’ll be off.” I turned back to see him smiling at me, it looked genuine, which was either a decent first smile or another act. Either way, I was willing to wait.