Sagittarius' POV

*Flashback*

"Mom? Dad?" I asked coming down from the stairs.

My dad looked at my mom with feirce eyes then walked up to me. Everytime he looked at me, it was with kind eyes. He always made me feel safe.

"Go upstairs, and go to sleep, Sagi," he told me.

Everytime, I would just nod and do just that. I was only 10 at the time. My birthday was coming tomorrow, so almost 11. My parents would fight nonstop. I didn't know why until this time, I stayed at the stairs without them noticing.

"You can't fucking raise her like that!" my dad would yell to my mom.

Mom rolled her eyes at him. He looked really mad, but she looked just as pissed. Next thing you know, my mom was throwing things at him. Glasses. Plates. Anything she could find. I flinched hearing things break and watching my dad dodge them all.

Dad looked like he was about to kill. He always had a very high temper. Just never with me. I admired him because he would never physically hurt my mom. He never called her the words she called him. He had a temper, but he wasn't impulsive.

"You can't tell me how to raise my fucking child!" Mom screamed at him still throwing things.

Dad was still dodging everything that was thrown at him. "Her birthday is tomorrow! You're getting high! Drunk! You didn't even feed her today while I was at work!" he yelled back at her.

My heart was racing fast. They're fighting because of me. I didn't want to be in this situation. There wasn't much time for me to start thinking about my position in the family. Everything was just getting louder and louder.

My mom shook her head. "I can do whatever the hell I want, Noah! She'll have a great birthday, I can take her to McDonald's or whatever that place she likes to go to," she says throwing a frustrating hand in the air.

My dad ran his fingers through his hair. "She doesn't even like McDonald's, Joyce! You're not fucking taking care of her like you should be doing!" he raised his voice again. "I pay the bills! I work every single day, not being able to see her most of the time, because I have to pay everything for her myself!"

Mom sat down on the messy couch. Everywhere in my house was pretty messy. Drugs everywhere. Bottles of alcohol. Even things from other men lie in my parent's room. My dad deserved so much better.

Mom took a sip of whatever alcohol she had in her hand. "Maybe you wouldn't have been in this mess if you didn't let me abort her, hmm?" she asked sipping from her huge bottle again.

What the hell did abort mean?

My dad had two fists in his hands. I knew he wasn't going to hit her. She knew he wasn't going to hit her. My dad has too much class for that.

"Everything I do is for her," he said clenching his jaw. He had a stern voice now. He was trying not to yell too loudly thinking it'll wake me up, but I was still awake although he didnt know that.

My mom looked around in the couch and found a lighter. "We don't need you, Noah," my mom says to him lighting a cigar.

My dad just shook his head. She was wrong. I hope he knows that she's wrong. I need him.

"I'm taking her with me," he says taking his coat with him.

This made my mom very angry. She jumped off from the couch. "You are not taking my child away from me!" she screamed at him.

I was excited to stay with my dad. My mom isn't much of a mom, as you see. At least this time, I get to be around my dad more. At least I mattered to him. At least he showed me I mattered.

My dad started to walk away from her. I was still by the stairs watching and listening, hoping they wouldn't see me.

My mom started throwing things again. "You're not fucking taking my baby away from me!" she screamed again, this time grabbing his arm.

My dad didn't even yank her off. For a second, my mom looked like she was about to cry. I didn't know if that was her drunk emotions or her high feeling. "You wanted to fucking kill our child! Before she was even born, Joyce! If you don't want her, I'll have her," he says looking at her dead in her eyes.

A tear went down my mom's face. "I need her!" she says grabbing his arm with two hands now.

My dad looked in disbelief. For a second, I thought my mom came to her senses and actually needed me. I never knew she needed me for the wrong reasons.

My dad looked up to the ceiling and clicked his tounge. "For what? To use her as an excuse to get money from men? She's just a man-magnet to you. She's so much more than that. You're just a fucking con artist, Joyce. Selling drugs on the streets. Hooking up with multiple other guys-- don't think I didn't notice other men's clothes scattered across our fucking bedroom," he says almost yelling again.

My heart sank. I knew my mom didn't care about me. I don't know why it hurts so much. The fact that this was all so real made the tears run down my face. She used me. The whole "I need money for me and my child" trick. She fucking used me.

My mom's face softened then tensed up again. She was really angry with my dad. He lets go of my mom's grip, and she started throwing things again.

"You're not taking her away from me!" she screamed loudly. The same volume that woke me up in the first place.

Next thing you know, my mom was throwing knives. My tears were rolling down my face faster and faster. I couldn't even move watching them fly.

"Fuck! Joyce!" my dad screamed out. A knife got caught in his left leg. My tears rolled down faster. My mom walked up to him, and at this moment, I thought she was going to kill my dad. She was fucking crazy.

"I will not let you take her from me," she said with a few tears down her face.

My dad struggled getting the knife out of his leg and covered the scar with both of his hands.

He shook his head. "You're a crazy psychotic bitch!" This was the first time he's ever called her out her name. My mom didn't say anything else as my dad was limping to the couch. He was still being strong. That made the tears I had fall slower.

"We don't need you, Noah," my mom says almost in a whisper.

He shook his head again and looked like he was about to cry. "But she does." He gestured to a dirty t-shirt covered with my mom's cigar ashes. My mom gave it to him, and he wrapped the shirt around his leg, letting the blood bleed through it.

My dad yelled in agony. He was hurt. Because of my mom. And they were fighting. Because of me. Seeing my dad in pain made the tears roll down even faster than before. I tried not to make a sound, so I covered my mouth with both of my hands.

"Let's come to an agreement," my mom says sitting down beside him.

My dad didn't even look at her. He had his eyes closed and his head laid back on the couch.

"I will be a better mom. For her. We won't need you anymore, Noah," she says wiping a tear from her cheek.

My dad kept shaking his head. He couldn't even say anything. I could tell everything she was saying was a lie. I believed her before, and I wasn't going to make the same mistake again. It only pained me seeing that my dad did.

He nodded his head this time. "Okay," he said. "You got to promise me to take good care of her."

Mom nodded her head as she sat up. "I promise. I'll take great care of Sagittarius now. I will make her have a great birthday tomorrow. Just don't take her away from me. Her own mother, Noah. For her birthday, I just want her to not have us to fight anymore," my mom says helping him stand up.

My dad at this time still had his eyes closed. When he opened them, his eyes were like a waterfall. What was happening? He nodded and stood up.

"You can see her for the last time," my mom suggested.

Last time?

My dad started to limp his way over to the stairs. I quickly ran upstairs to my messy room and pretended to be sleep in my bed. When my door didn't open, I went to check the time on my clock. It was two minutes past midnight now.

It took him a while to get upstairs by himself. When my door opened, I faked a snore and shut my eyes. I could hear him limping over to my bed. My fake snoring was very well-practiced, so my dad expected I was really asleep.

I felt a cold hand on my forehead. He plays with my little curls as I felt a drop on my shoulder. He was still crying. It was just silent for a while. I could feel one of my curls wrap around his finger. He used to always love to play with my hair.

There was a gasp. I peeked on eye open to see his shadow of him hanging his head down. "I love you so much, Sagittarius," he started to say. I felt a couple more drops on my shoulder and I closed my eyes again. "But I have to go." The cold hand on my forehead turned warm. He grabbed my small hand and cupped them with his own. He kissed it leaving a tear on it. "Happy birthday, babygirl."

My hand was slowly placed back on my bed. I could feel his presence leaving me. Forever. I get back up when I heard my door close again. Nobody was here but me and my mess of a room.

I ran to my window to find my dad limping to his truck. Tears started to roll down my face again. This time, I couldn't quiet down my crying. It was uncontrollable. My dad got in his truck, and I struggled to open my window. I never had my window opened before, so it took me some time to understand how to do it.

When I got my window open, I see the lights to my dad's car turn on. He was ready to go.

"Dad!" I screamed out in the top of my lungs. I didn't care if everyone in this trashy neighborhood were sleep. I just wanted my dad.

"Dad! I'm awake!" I screamed louder. He didn't hear me. "Stay with me, please! I need you! I love you, dad!"

As loud as I screamed, he couldn't hear me. The engine to his truck was loud enough to conceal my squeaky voice. It made me cry harder when I saw him go. The truck whirled to leave the neighboorhood. The smaller the lights went in the distance, the harder I cried and screamed. When his truck was no where to be found again, I collapsed to the floor, bawling like crazy. I was completely blinded from my tears. Everything was so blurry.

"Sagittarius," my mom calls out to me with a cigar in her hand.

I tried looking at her, but my vision was super bad. Hearing her annoying, drunken voice made me want to throw everything I own outside the window I left open.

I felt a hand grab my arm. I wanted to pull away, but I was too busy crying. Why didn't my dad fight for me? He was leaving me. With her. Because he fell for her tricks too. It made me hate my mom so much more than I already did.

"Sagittarius, what are you doing up?" she asked me with her innocent voice.

I couldn't answer her. Did she expect me to magically stop crying after finding out she was the reason my dad thought it would be okay for me to stay with her? I fucking hated her. I wanted my dad.

"Baby, what's wrong?"

So now she wanted to act like a mother? I rubbed my eyes from all the tears that were in it. They stung. It was like swimming in a pool of acid with my eyes open.

"Why did he leave?" I asked her.

She shook her head. I already knew the answer. I needed to test to see if she really did want to be the mother she said she wanted to be downstairs. I stopped crying. I was tired of crying. I didn't want to cry anymore.

"Baby," she started saying. She sighed. "He left because he thinks you're too much work to handle. He said he didn't deserve a life to be forced to stay with a child he wasn't happy with," she told me. "He worked every night and day as an excuse to not be here. I guess he grew out of love with me too," she let her forehead touch mine.

My heart dropped. My eyes were filled with anger. I didn't cry anymore. I wasn't going to cry anymore. I looked dead in my mom's face. She looked so fucking innocent. So innocent that I would've believed her if I didn't know.

My mother wrapped her arms around me, and I didn't hug back. I was just there. Limp. Broken. I eventually started to feel nothing. She hugged me for a long time, and I could smell her cigars, alcohol, and a man's cologne that was not my dad's. She was fucking horrible. To me. To my dad. I hated her all my life. It made me wonder why I even stayed with her. Until I was 15.

*End of Flashback*

I walk into Ophiuchus' house late at night after everyone went to sleep. Scorpio seemed the most suspicious, so I had to do the only thing I could to throw him off. Thinking that we were in a relationship.

Upstairs, I saw Ophiuchus on his bed watching cartoons. He looked just the way he did the night we switched worlds. He caught me walking into the room.

"You don't knock?" he asked me grabbing the remote to turn the volume down.

I leaned against the wall. "You lived a thousand years without people around. Be lucky you have a person right here in front of you," I say crossing my arms.

He smirked and sat up from the bed. "Guess who I met today?" he asked me walking towards me.

I titlted my head. "That's something you couldn't say for a thousand years," I laughed.

He rolled his eyes at me and stopped walking. "I met Gemini and Libra."

My eyes widened. "You didn't do anything to them, right?" I ask, getting kind of scared if he did.

He scoffed. "Pfft, no, of course not. I'm staying on my best behavior right now." He gave me a seductive smile.

I sighed in relief knowing that they were okay. Ophiuchus is real. And he was here. It still scares me that I know this information. But I couldn't tell anyone. And I wasn't going to. Secretly, I've been planning on ways to defeat Ophiuchus, and I got seriously nothing. That night I was at the grocery store, I was talking to a man who believed Ophi was real. But he was no help.

Then that was when Scorpio saw me. He almost ruined the whole entire thing. I stayed in my car that night hoping he would leave, so I could finish my search, but he wanted to be annoying. He never cared about anything before. Why does he have to be interested when it involves destroying the one person who could destroy all of us?

"Did you know a payphone was only three quarters around here? Back in my day, we just sent letters and birds," he says trying to lighten the mood.

I only rolled my eyes at him. "At least you finally bought a phone. And wait, how did you get my number?" I asked him.

He shrugged. "We all have our ways, Sag," he says to me. I flinched when he called me by my nickname.

He started to walk in circles. "We're friends, right?" he asked me while looking up.

I pin myself from the wall I forgot I was up on. "You think we're friends?" I ask raising a brow up.

He stopped pacing in circles and looked at me. "Well, I told the Gemini that we were friends," he says walking up to me.

I flinched as I relized he was getting closer to me. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders. I take his hand and pushed him away.

"What did you guys talk about?" I ask curiously.

He tapped his chin. "She invited me to your halloween party tomorrow night. I will most certaimly be there," he said with a grin.

My eyes lit up. "Great!" I said out loud. Now that I'm saying it, I didn't know if it was so great for the destroyer of us all to be around everyone he will soon kill. I went silent after that.

"I know! Now I'll have a chance to meet all of your friends," he says clapping his hands together.

I rolled my eyes. I wanted to tell him something, but I'm pretty sure that would've made things much weirder than they needed to be.

He sat on the bed. "What?" he asked scanning my face.

I sat on the bed next to Ophi. "Nothing. It's just that the man who will soon kill me and all of my friends is going to be in the same room with us. So nothing at all, Ophiuchus," I say being highly sarcastic.

He looked at me, and I tried not to make eye contact. He was just weird to me. "You don't seem to be scared," he says to me.

I looked at him now with disbelief. "Trust me, if only you knew," I say standing back up in front of the TV.

He looked confused. "You're scared of me too? And here I was thinking we were friends," he says smirking now.

I shrugged. "Can you blame me? You threaten me not to tell anyone or each of us will have a slow, painful death. You find ways to contact me, so I can come back just to make sure I haven't told anyone of your presence. You're trying to know my friends, so you could kill all of us. Do you expect me not to be scared?" I asked crossing my arms now.

His eyebrows rose. He was just quiet for a while then looked down to his knees. I was waiting for him to say anything, but he didn't. Not even an annoying, snarky comment.

"Exactly," I said throwing frustrated hands up in the air and standing up now.

I don't know why I was going off on the same guy who could kill me. I guess a fiery temper runs in the family. But I knew he wouldn't kill me yet. He was smarter than that. That's what also scared me.

"You of all people shouldn't be scared of me," he says raising his head up. His brown hair was really messy and his eyebrows were bushy.

I shook my head. "Why not?"

He stood back up. It scared me everytime he stood up. He was about 6 inches taller than me, but appeared taller. Or maybe I just appeared shorter.

"Because I know you. I was you. And I also know that you're trying to find a way to stop me. Kill me, to be exact," he says hovering over me.

I couldn't tell if he was even mad. How did he know any of that? Could he read minds or some shit? No, that couldn't have been it. If he did, I would've been dead by now. Right?

I swallowed a lump in my throat. "I don't know what you're even talking about," I said trying to sound convincing. I closed my eyes in frustration after hearing my words sound like a scrawny nerd in middle school.

He looked up, still hovering over me. "You're a good liar, but not that good. Your lying skills could use a little work," he said almost making me back up. Almost.

When I didn't back up, he stopped moving forward to me. A part of me was really scared. So scared I wanted to apologize for plotting against him. My brave side was telling me not to let anyone make me feel small. I do whatever the fuck I want. That was the side I listened to.

"Fuck you, Ophiuchus," I said, still kind of trembling but getting the hang of my balance.

His eyes lit up. He furrowed his brows at me. He looked extremely mad right now, and I was bracing myself for what was about to come next. I closed my eyes until I heard walking.

When I opened them again, I saw Ophiuchus walking back to the bed and sitting on it turning to his cartoons. I gave a confused look at almost everything. Why is he so weird?

My body was still tensed, but I didn't really realize it until he started speaking again. "Are we watching TV or not?" he asked me patting down to the seat next to him.

Everything inside me literally froze. He wants me to watch TV with him? After he knows what I was planning on doing? He was probably going to kill me as soon as I sat down, but he would've killed me if I walked out anyway.

I slowly started to walk next to him and sat on the bed. He did absolutely nothing except for watching his cartoons. Everything about him was so weird. It made me uncomfortable. I kept looking at him time from time to see him laughing or even smiling at the TV. He caught me watching him and turned my way.

Fuck, I thought to myself as I looked back to the TV.

"I have a code name," he told me.

I turned back at him. I don't know why the hell I needed to know that. "Okay," I replied with then looked back at the TV, not really paying attention to the cartoons.

"It's Neil. I introduced myself to Libra and Gemini as Neil," he says.

Still, I didn't care. "Alright," I say with this time.

I could feel him still looking at me. He looked back at the TV but continued talking. "Y'know, the Gemini has an admiration for me?"

I looked at him this time. He looked back at me again grinning. "Don't talk to her," I demanded him.

He laughed. "Why not? She's cute. My type, if you ask me," he said pissing me the hell off.

"Stay the hell away from Gem."

He shrugged. "You're probably gonna have to tell her that. I'm pretty sure she has a liking for me. Just saying," he says looking back at the TV.

I looked at the address written on his hand. It was Gem's handwriting. I knew he said she invited him to the party, but I can't have Gem getting close to him. She doesn't even know who he really is! He could hurt her.

I shook my head. "Scorpio thinks we're dating," I blurted out.

His eyes widened. "You talk to the scorpion about me?" he asked being smug.

I rolled my eyes. "No, he caught me being on the phone with you and thought I was having 'trouble in paradise' with my 'boyfriend,'" I explained using finger quotes.

He smiled. "And you went with it?"

I rolled my eyes. "Better than him thinking it was anybody else. If it was someone in the zodiac group, he would ask them what we were talking about since I sounded pissed," I explained again.

He nodded his head. "So we're dating?" he asked me putting an arm around my waist.

I burned his arm on instinct. I didn't mean to do it. It just sort of happens when I'm pissed off. And right now, Ophi was pissing me off.

I thought Ophi was going to yell at me or do some freaky magic shit on me, but he didn't. He just rubbed his arm and smiled, looking back to the TV.

Why is he so weird? I would've seriously killed me right now!

"Y'know," I started saying, "you're really not as scary as you think."

He looked at me. "Hmm, I thought we had this conversation before," he says squinting his eyes at me.

I shook my head. "You could've killed me right now. But you're too smart to do that. You could've at least tortured me or anything, but you decide not to," I fully turned my body to him. "Why?"

He squinted his eyes again. He didn't want to answer the question because he knew I had a point.

"Do you want to be tortured? I didn't know you were into all of that freaky, kinky shit," he says to me making me uncomfortable.

I turn away from him and saw him smiling. I know he asked that so he wouldn't have to answer the real question. Everything about him was so different. He was awkward. A wanna-be villian. But he was just like me? I thought back to what he said earlier.

I was you.

What does that even mean?