Page 66 of The Devil and His Ghost

“Better?” I probed gently, wondering if this was my entry into her world.

She met my eyes again, but instead of answering, she pressed her lips together. Silence sat heavy between us for countless moments until she slowly laid back down, curled on her side. She slid a shaking hand across the mattress toward my side of the bed. “W-Will you hold my hand?”

I didn’t hesitate. I laid down on my side to face her, but it wasn’t her hand she held out to me. It was a single pinky. I swallowed hard and wrapped my pinky around hers. She was ice cold, and I hoped my own warmth would reach her soon.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I whispered into the dark.

She didn’t say yes, but she also didn’t say no. She stayed quiet, her eyes locked on where our pinkies intertwined, though I knew she couldn’t actually see it in the dark the way I could.

Licking my lips, I tried again. “Are they nightmares about Mountview?”

Her eyes closed. Like earlier, I didn’t think she was going to answer me. I thought exhaustion had pulled her back under, and this time, I was prepared to stay up all fucking night to make sure I kept the darkness away the minute I sensed it crossing into her dreams.

But she broke the silence in a tiny whisper. “About why I was there.”

I frowned. As far as I knew, she was there because her family put her there for seeing ghosts. They thought she was mentally unwell and in need of psychiatric intervention. I could only speculate now about the horrors she must’ve experienced before being admitted and maybe even during her stay. Was she tormented by friends and family for having this gift? Was she forced to endure radical treatments to “cure” her? Had someone hurt her?

My lips nearly peeled back in a snarl. The idea that anyone would fucking hurt her, would push her to the point where she screamed in terrified agony in her moments of rest, made me want to rip the perpetrator’s fucking body apart.

But I knew asking for the details now wasn’t right. She couldn’t give an explanation in this moment, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted her to. Whatever she’d just lived through in her head was enough torture for one night. I didn’t want to make it worse by making her recount anything painful from her nightmare or her past.

So I stayed in place and squeezed my pinky tighter around hers to let her know I was right here, and I wasn’t going anywhere.

The memory of waking up to find her gone the last time we’d been in this situation felt fresh in my tired mind. I watched her drift back to sleep with her pinky still wrapped with mine.

“Please be here in the morning,” I whispered into the still night.

But, of course, I should’ve known better. I should’ve stayed awake all night. I should’ve held on tighter. I should’ve made her talk to me.

Because when my eyes fluttered open with the morning sun streaming through the windows, she was gone.

Chapter 22

Kendyll

(Present Day)

I’D HEARD ABOUT THE INFAMOUS Hell’s Gate more times than I could count. Xander had frequented the place when I lived with him as a teenager. Despite all I’d heard about the establishment, I’d never been to the demon club within Hell myself. As I stood near the bar and looked around the heavily packed club, it … wasn’t what I’d imagined.

I’d expected corpses hanging upside down from the ceiling, perhaps even suspended by their exposed entrails. I’d envisioned fires raging around the room, chains with claimed souls bustling the tables, fights with “my dick is bigger” energy breaking out at every turn, and orgies galore.

What I hadn’t expected were sparkles, glitter, feathers, and pink.

Xander chuckled beside me, and I looked up to find him studying my perplexed grimace. “The club didn’t always look this way. It recently fell under new management, and Eden, well … she went a bit crazy redesigning the place.”

I squinted my blurry eyes and spotted some blobs that had to be demons getting handsy with each other and some dancing naked. Even with my shit eyesight, I knew that blurry body part wouldn’t be bouncing around if its owner had on pants. Despite the very free atmosphere, I still felt a bit underdressed in my oversized nightshirt, which only reached mid-thigh. Not to mention, I’d left my glasses behind since Xander had brought me directly from the closet to where we stood now on the outskirts of the bustling dance floor and seating area.

Just as I was worrying about all of this, Xander held my glasses out to me with a soft and knowing grin. I accepted them and put them on just in time for him to hold out a pair of shorts and shoes for me to slip on.

“You think of everything,” I mused, tugging the shorts on and beneath the hem of my shirt.

“Only when it comes to you.” Instead of giving me a chance to respond in the dismissive way I typically did to such a statement, he gestured at the vibrant club and continued, “I hope this is okay. If you’re looking to get away, this place will certainly be a good distraction.”

I nodded. “It’s perfect.”

I wasn’t lying. In the past, whenever I showed such a horrible side of myself to Xander, I often went into flight mode. I wanted to run from the truth of the nightmare while simultaneously running from the demon who was everything I wanted yet couldn’t have. But tonight, I was too tired to run, so a distraction like this place, full of creatures I felt more at home with than my own kind, was exactly what I needed.

“Xandy,” a sing-songy voice called.