Jin

"Fly with me to the horizon," Jin said, sticking a golden stick between his lips. The tip blazed red then settled on orange.

There was something undeniably alluring about what he said and how he said it. Smoke-curled words always tasted better, didn't they?

"Only got the two lives. This one and Hell," he drawled, humor hugging the corners of his words. "Our nice, long, eternal punishment." He inhaled deeply, exhaling a cloud of black smoke glittering with golden specks. "Might as well enjoy one of 'em." A sly grin spread across his thin lips. "C'mon Midnight. Taste some gold."

He flipped a thin golden stick over in her direction. The bleached white of his jagged bangs fell over his slitted, dark eyes, covering them like jail bars. Jin moved like a cat, mischievously and with little regard for the laws of physics. He took two steps closer, swaying as he moved, until he could hunch to eye level.

The dark eyes glimmered, flickering pink as a shop opened behind her and turned on its lights.

"Take it."

The world was cold.

It was cold and useless.

Every night, she went to bed hungry. She followed the rules and played the game and it got her nowhere. She bled for the machine of the city and to what end? Her family was dead. Her stomach was empty. And a rat slept in her closet.

"Aw, Midnight. Don't tell me you're a candy-ass."

For years, she looked for a dealer of golden rods. Years. The world wasn't bright enough and her life wasn't worth enough to not join the rebellion. The drugs for her loyalty. It was a fair trade.

So her life would be on the line trying to topple the government just for a high. What did it matter? Her life was on the line living in the flat she did.

"You wanted it so long. Fuckin' coward."

She was a coward. Raised well, went to school, graduated. That was more than most of the populace of the city. Midnight knew that. And she knew Jin knew that too. There was a cleanliness to her record that disgusted to

"This is why I don't deal with people who had two parents."

Her life fell apart three days after graduation when both her parents were shot to death by the cops. Then she shifted into someone different. Someone who lived off vending machine noodles and energy drinks. Sins and the shuffling hope things could change.

The dream of golden rods.

"Give it to me," she snapped.

"Oh? So sure now?"

Painted purple fingernails reached out as she took the golden stick from his fingers.

It was warm and dry between her lips and tasted heavily of something sweet and floral.

"I'm sure I'll die either way. Let the high, the rebellion, whatever destroy me."

"Mm," Jin hummed, his gaze softening with interest. "Maybe you aren't a coward."

"Let's see. Destroy me," Midnight said, leaning forward into his flame and breathing deeply. "And leave nothing behind."

The tip flamed and the high came.

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A/N: Just a quick little hello to let y'all know I've changed from "Silver Serpent Books" (which is a real mouthful) to "Silver Daux". So no freaking out! :) It's still me.