The Apartment Building

I sighed, and touched Lee on the arm, in some sort of calming gesture. "There's one more thing I want to see, unless you want to leave immediately." I wanted to know what was in that Rainy Day envelope. It was small, so it probably wouldn't be a ton of pictures or anything like that. Money, maybe.

Thanatos placed his palm over Ariana's face, and then stood up. Her soul - as a ghost - sat up, leaving the body behind. Her ghost looked younger than she had at the time of her death, seemingly in her mid-twenties. That was the time of her life that she had been happiest.

I followed Lee back into the room and picked up the envelope, then tore it open. Inside, there was... money. A sh#tload of many. There were a lot of fifties and twenties, and some hundreds. I would have counted it and added it all up, but I sucked at math and would have screwed it up with my dyslexia, anyways. Wait a second, how had I managed to read all the captions just fine? Maybe it was better not to question these things.

Ariana's ghost faded into the darkness, and Thanatos went over to the deceased creeper. He didn't bother going through the old rites for this one, he just had his iPad materialize and activated his app for reaping souls.

What were we going to do with all this cash? My mind wandered while I thought about it, and I recalled that one b#tch walking in on us before... maybe it would be nice to stay a night somewhere away from camp, alone. Alone... hmm... ohhh, I had an idea...

After his job was done, Thanatos walked back into the hall, and leered into the bedroom. "Don't destroy any of Ariana's possessions," he ordered.

Thanatos left the hallway, only to go sit on the sofa. He was being rather annoying, with his mind made up not to leave until Cynder and Lee had left the apartment. He didn't want them to destroy the place, after all.

Yes, I had a wonderful, wonderful idea. I didn't want my father to hear what I was about to say, though, so I stepped closer to Lee and whispered my suggestion into his ear. "You know, with all this money, we could probably stay in a very nice hotel for the night..."

On second thought, Thanatos realized that it was probably not a good idea to leave those two alone in a bedroom. Dammit. Oh, well. He hadn't wanted to watch them eating other's faces anyways.

"I love you, too," I replied with a smile, before grabbing the envelope with the birth certificates. "Let's get out of here, now, before any other unwanted guests drop in..."

I nodded, and followed Lee out, and then proceeded to the couch. Unfortunately... my father was holding onto the blanket.

"Oh, did you want this?" Thanatos asked, somewhat condescendingly.

I glared at my father. Gods, was he really going to do this stupid sh#t? "Yes."

"Yes... please."

"I am NOT going to f#cking say 'please'," I raged. GODDAMMIT, MY FATHER WAS ANNOYING ME. If I could have stabbed him and lived to tell the tale, I would have.

Thanatos waved the blanket around, just out of his daughter's reach. "Ask nicely."

Ugh... just... f#ck it. "Please."

"Please what?"

"Can I please have the goddamn blanket?"

Thanatos tossed the blanket onto Cynder, and it landed rather gracefully right on her head, covering her face, like she was pretending to be a ghost or something.

I pulled the blanket off my head, which messed up my hair and made it all static-y. Gods... damn it... As if I didn't look horrible enough already, covered in blood. Much more and even Lee wouldn't be able to stand the sight of me.

Well, sh#t. This wasn't going to end well. I took a few steps backwards, towards Lee, as if that'd provide some sort of defense against my father.

Thanatos threw a lamp at Lee. Why a lamp? Well, a lamp happened to be the closest thing besides the couch, and he didn't much feel like hurling a sofa across a room. That tended to kill people, unfortunately...

The lamp fell on the ground, then, but miraculously didn't break. Thanatos waved his hand dismissively at the demigods, and reached for the remote. He flipped the television on and, to his horror, Toddlers and Tiaras was on. He instantly turned it back off.

"Let's get the f#ck out of here," I muttered, and walked out over the broken door. My father was a completely insufferable prick. No wonder he and my mother had ended up together.