"Didn't I tell you to stay in the damn car!" Nico scowled at me.

I was still lying on my back on the rough cement ground, as my mind struggled to function what had just happened.

I struggled to get on my feet, "I-I did, but there was this girl-"

"So you'd just let her in?" He threw his arms recklessly in the air and they fell back to his sides.

"I didn't- well, I thought the trunk-"

"Who in their right mind would think that?" He shouted.

I flinched when he bellowed at me, "What did you expect from me to do?" I got more and more frustrated the longer we spoke.

"Uh, not let her in the car?"

"And just leave her-"

"Just.. drop it" he pulled his hand up in a silencing gesture, which made my blood boil.

He walked towards the dead creature, and I almost screamed when I spotted that thing's dead body laying only a few feet away from us between the field, "I thought that thing just.. Vanished," I wasn't sure if I sounded dumb or not saying it, but I know what I saw when Nico slashed his sword down that thing's body.

"Only its soul," he answer cooly.

I scoffed, "where did it go?"

He kneeled next to the disfigured body and slowly pushed the head but it's horn with his index finger. "Hell."

I blinked at him, "Hell,"

"a place regarded in various religions as a spiritual realm of evil and suffering, often traditionally depicted as a place of perpetual fire where the wicked are punished after death-"

"I know what it means," I interrupt him.

He shrugs and goes back to inspecting the creature, "what is it anyway?"

"A jersey devil, a rare one," he places both hands on the long pointed horns, "what are you-" I choked on my words when I saw him decapitate its head from its body in one gesture.

The sound of bones snapping sent me almost hurling, "what are you doing? Put it back!" I scolded. I felt like a mother shouting at her child to put back a chewed piece of gum from the sidewalk.

He grinned at the skull in his hand, like it was some kind of prized possession, "a souvenir,"

"Why would anyone want that as a souvenir?"

"I found an abandoned gas station nearby," he ignored my question as his eyes began to inspect the skull in his hands, "I.." He paused, collecting his words, "contacted a friend, he's on his way right now,"

Something about what he just said didn't seem right to me. How was there an abandoned gas station in the middle of nowhere, and how did he "contact" that friend if the place was abandoned and pretty much a wreck. He was definitely lying, for a certain reason I didn't know, yet.

"You have a phone?" I raised a questionable brow.

"No," he quickly answered, "I found a booth back there,"

"Well that's great," I began scanning the road I assumed he came from, "we can call for help."

"I already called-"

"I don't mean your friend," I cut him off, "I need to go home, my mom can't take care of herself alone,"

I could've sworn I saw his left eye twitch, and bis expression softened the slightest bit. He seemed to notice that I was staring so he began to scan his surroundings, "where does your mom live? I can send someone there to help her,"

"No you're not," I answered sharply, not wrong how or who he'll be sending, my mom can barely get out of her bed without collapsing to the ground. And like hell I was gonna trust some stranger with my mom, "I need to go home, now!" I grimaced at the straining pain around my neck, when suddenly a sharp paining sensation electrocutes my side.

I look back up at Nico, his eyes seemed worried but he kept a rock hard expression, "you're bleeding, not good,"

Before I could respond he crouched down and began to pull up my dress, "what the hell do you think you're doing," I slap his hands off.

He stared up at me in disbelief, "you're bleeding, what do you think I'm trying to do?"

This guy was unbelievable, "just rip the fabric over my wound," I grunted, the pain escalated the more I talked.

He rolled his dark eyes and dropped his head back to my wound. Carefully he traces his fingers on the torn fabric and in one movement he ripped the fabric apart, just enough so he could see the wound.

I knew the tear was wide enough to the point where he could spot the line of my underwear, but I pushed the thought aside as I tried to focus on the pain.

I kept my attention to the night sky, and for the first time in my life I could actually see stars and was baffled by how bright they were. I began to feel like I was floating with them, as they moved and twinkled in every direction.

A sting rushed up my ribcage, "Is it bad?" I winced.

"I'm surprised you haven't fainted by now, you're losing a lot of blood," he said.

My eyelids began to droop uncontrollably, "I stand corrected," His voice echoed in my head, and in a fraction of a second I fell into the void.