Page 49 of Hexes From Exes

“Yep, that’s all of it. Now who told you?”

Stephanie turned on her heels and headed for the door. She was reaching out to grab the handle when he headed her off.

“C’mon, Steph, who was it?” he practically begged.

“Fred,” she said, unable to go back on her deal. She almost felt bad selling him out, but then she remembered that a few weeks ago he stood in this very room with Chad and her other exes and literally summoned a demon to try to terrorize her life.

“That fucker…” Chad said.

Stephanie didn’t hear the end of his sentence. She was already out into the warm night, the paper tucked into her purse, the door slamming behind her.

* * *

What was she doing wrong?

She’d done it three times now, each time checking and double checking the ingredients, the intent… everything.

Did she need more people? The paper didn’t say anything about multiple people. Should she call Jennifer? Would that be too much to ask of an assistant?

Stephanie stared down at the floor of her condo. It was covered with random items she’d spent the last 24 hours collecting, finally gathering it all. Under the light of the waxing moon, she’d arranged her living room, laid out the ingredients and chanted until her throat was sore.

It didn’t work.

She tried again. Nothing.

She thought she felt something. Maybe…but she must have been wrong. Because no tall red demon appeared in her circle.

Rick wasn’t coming back, she realized. He’d left her just like everyone else. Just like her dead parents, all the horrible exes that got together to curse her, the professors that watched her struggle and didn’t give her any leeway and let her fail out of college.

Just like the lawyers who held her inheritance from her, watching her without pity as she had to foreclose on her family home and watch some flipper turn it into a modern farmhouse nightmare.

Stephanie felt the tears gather in her eyes, making the floor of her condo blurry and indecipherable.

“Come back, Rickaderonian,” she whispered. It was her last-ditch effort. If he was telling her the truth – that his name was the most important thing he could give her – then this would work. “Come back to me, Rickaderonian,” she repeated, louder this time.

Her condo remained empty except for her.

Stephanie leaned against the wall in her living room, sliding down it until she was sitting. She pulled her knees to her chest and cried into them.

That’s what she got for falling in love with someone she couldn’t have.

Chapter Twenty-One

Rick was losing his mind.

The cell was empty of any sort of entertainment. There were no windows, so he had no idea how much time had passed since he’d been thrown back in. They didn’t feed him. No one even visited him since his sentencing.

Could anyone even visit him?

Were there posters of him plastered all over Anathamea making an example of him?

Would his execution be public?

These thoughts raced through his brain on a constant loop, usually going back to one awful thought: he’d never see Stephanie again.

What did she think of him right now? Leaving her after sex, just like Cooper did. Damnit, she thought he was just as bad as Cooper! That thought spiraled into another and another and another…

At long last the door to the cellblock opened and one of the enforcer demons strode in. He said nothing to Rick as he approached, avoiding Rick’s eyes. Rick didn’t want to look into them anyway. If he saw pity, he would lose it. If he saw hatred, he would probably go into a rage. To his immense relief the demon said nothing to him, just approached the cell and placed a box next to it, just outside of Rick’s reach.