Children of Ambition (Children of Vice 2)

“I do not!” I said, walking over to the refrigerator and reaching inside for a bottle of water. All of sudden, a chill went down my spine.

Lifting my arm up slowly, I watched as the hair on it began to rise.

“What now—” Sebastian looked over to me. The look on my face must have terrified him so much that he forgot to take off his gloves before rushing to me. “Gabriel! Gabriel!!”

I tried to speak but I couldn’t. My throat burned hotter than hell. It was like someone was pouring lava down my throat. My legs buckled…my body fell forward…was like my mind was disconnected from my body and I lost complete control of myself… “Gabriel hold on! Dear me, hold on!” I could see his lips moving but couldn't hear him. He rolled me to my side and I don’t know when he managed to get ahold of his gun or why he even needed it until glasses and plates above me shattered, raining broken shards all aro

und. I could only see their boots as they attacked.

Peaches and vinegar, I could smell it. It was coming from me…

MOVE, Gabriel! FUCKING MOVE! My mind yelled for a brief second but just when I tried the burning intensified. One minute I couldn't feel anything and the next, I could only feel the burning; as though my flesh was being scorched off my bones.

Please, God, please… I begged as I saw a pair of black combat boots stop in front of me. The boot rose and kicked me to my side.

No. I’m a goddamn prince! I won’t beg! I will never BEG! With all the strength I could muster, I found the will to say, “Fuck you.”

Breathing through the pain, I could barely see anything but the slender object in his hand. Bending down, he brought his hand back and I didn't look away. He was not going to see fear in my eyes. Like a hammer, he brought his hand down into my chest. Whatever he stabbed me with, spread like ice throughout my whole body. As if I were coming up for air, I inhaled greedily and rolled on to my side.

“Fuck me? That's not what you say to the people who just saved your life, now is it?” An older woman, not a man, with an American accent spoke. She took the black mask off her face, revealing her shoulder-length black hair and brown eyes.

“Do you plan on lying there all day?” I glanced past her towards the brown-haired, green-eyed man walking up to us. He reached into the open fridge and took out an apple. His accent was more… Irish?

“Really?” the woman said to him.

“What?”

“You're going to eat an apple from the fridge of a prince whose evil stepmother's favorite method of murder is poison.”

“What? She wasn't poisoning the food; it was his paint.”

I glanced over to my canvas…then back at them.

“Who…who are you people?’

“Who we are isn't the question you should be asking,” the man crouched down in front me, taking a bite of the apple. “This is the part where you ask me what you should be asking.”

The woman beside him didn’t speak, merely putting her elbow on his shoulder blade…in her hand a silver gun. She smiled, but it wasn't comforting.

“You saved me to just kill me?’

“We've done crazier things,” the man replied, shrugging before taking another bite. I believed him.

“What is the question I should be asking?” I asked, as he had requested.

He stood upright, offering his hand to the woman who took it, rising beside him. She spoke for him, “Can we help you kill your stepmother and punish your enemies…can we make them bow at your feet…so you can cut their heads off?’

“Can you?’ I asked.

This time, she was the one who grinned. “We're the mafia, we can do everything.”

“The mafia?” I snickered. “Do you both know what year it is?”

“Apparently, it’s the year of bitch-ass princes locked in towers,” the man stated, walking over to Sebastian, who lay bleeding the ground but still breathing. The man pulled out his gun again and pointed.

“Stop!” I pushed myself off the ground, my legs still so weak I nearly fell. I forced myself up right and I grabbed onto his arm. “He's my guard.”

“He’s a shitty guard,” he replied.