Page 123 of The Devil and His Ghost

His dark eyes narrowed into icy slits. “Still crazy, I see.”

“I’m not crazy,” I cried. “Despite how hard you tried to make it seem that way. How much did you pay your doctors at Mountview to paint me as a lying lunatic? Or did you agree to ignore their mistreatment of drugs and patients in exchange for their help in covering up what you did to me in your home and even at the hospital?”

“Rant all you want, Kendyll,” he growled. “No one will believe you.”

“Yeah, you made sure of that, didn’t you? Just like how you made sure to never miss bath nights or time at home when Terrance and Mom weren’t there.”

His flat face suddenly lifted with wickedness. “You liked it. Trust me. I remember.” He inhaled deeply and closed his eyes in reverence, like sending a prayer up to his god. “I still think about those sounds you’d make, the faces you’d wear, the way you felt and smelled. If only you had stayed that way forever.”

Repulsion so deep, so fierce, it practically became one with my veins filled me. More bile churned and rose while the invisible filth crawled along my skin. My phone buzzed once in my hand, and when I glanced down at it, the new text from Xander made the feelings recede like the tide rolling back.

On my way

I squeezed the phone tighter. Knowing my demon was seconds away emboldened me with the confidence to face this disgusting pig once and for all. I wanted to take him down, and I wanted to destroy him. I wanted him to know I ruined his life, just as he ruined mine.

“You’re a vile excuse for a human being,” I snarled as I hit stop on my recording. Fixing my venomous glare on the man, I waved my phone, my evidence, at him. “You won’t get away with what you did. I’ll make sure everyone knows! You thought you could hurt me, could break me, but I won’t let you!”

Another text came through from Xander, asking where I was.

He’s here!

I quickly typed out my location to him while continuing my rant. “Everyone will know what kind of sicko you are! You’ll lose everything! You’ll—”

A hand suddenly grabbed my wrist and yanked me forward. The rage-fueled words cut off in my throat as the beast glared down at me while squeezing my arm in a bruising grip. Catsper floated through the air to swat and claw at the man’s face, but it was no use.

“You’ve always been a lunatic, which is why no one will bat an eye when I tell them my mad, estranged daughter jumped, too jealous of her brother and the life she couldn’t have.”

“Wha—”

I gasped as he smacked my phone out of my hand and shoved me hard. The world blurred as my body tumbled over the railing, open air rushing past me. His malicious face peered over the railing as I plummeted fourteen stories down, my scream and desperation all that followed me.

But I should’ve known. I was right. I knew my story didn’t have a happy ending.

Chapter 42

Kendyll

(Present Day)

I GROANED AND SLOWLY PEELED my eyes open. My blurry vision couldn’t focus on the chipped and old ceiling above me, and a quick mental assessment of my face told me it was because my glasses were gone. Out of habit, I went to reach for them on what surely had to be my bed, but horror hit me. My wrists and ankles were tied down.

“What?” I gasped and lifted my head only to find I’d been strapped to an old patient bed. “What the fuck?”

My breath quickened, and in my panic, I tried to remember how I’d gotten here. I’d fallen down the elevator shaft, but unlike how something had saved me from the fall from the hotel balcony, something else had apparently captured me this time. Something hovered at the foot of the bed within this dark room, lit only by a flickering and dying golden light overhead. The thing in front of me was something that, even without my glasses, I could see staring at me with round black eyes that took up too much of their pale face.

I whipped my head around to get more of my bearings, and alarm filled me when I spotted all of the imprisoned spirits floating around the edge of the room like they were trying to stay away from where the monster and I were in the center. I looked past the Monster of Mountview and saw the doorway with golden demonic bars across it.

I was in the demon’s ghostly prison with one way in and no way out.

I ground my teeth and fought against the tight restraints, but it was no use. I arched my back and let out a loud scream, hoping Xander would hear it from wherever he was in the hospital above us.

A malevolent masculine chuckle sounded from somewhere behind my head. “Ohh, I do love that sound.”

A man appeared above where I laid, and he stared down at me with a malicious smirk. Though, man wasn’t the right word. I froze with a sharp inhale as recognition sparked.

“You,” I growled, baring my teeth at the blue-haired demon I’d run into on my first night at Hell’s Gate.

He laughed and slipped my glasses onto my face, bringing his golden eyes and tall, black horns into better focus. “The name’s Riddle. I told you we’d meet again, Ghost Speaker.” He waved a clawed hand at the creature hovering nearby. “Did you like my welcome committee? I know the two of you have had a lot of fun while you were staying at my hospital.”