Page 47 of Just One Little Bargain

“You’re very stubborn,” I observe.

“You’re very presumptuous.”

“Would you rather hop?”

“I’d rather not have twisted my ankle in the first place.”

Her hand closes around the front of my jacket. She probably doesn’t even realize she’s doing it. She probably has no idea her head has drifted closer to my shoulder, either.

I’ve never held anyone like this, never had reason to, yet somehow I know exactly how to keep her secure. I adjust my grip until she’s secure against my chest, surprised by how natural it feels to carry her.

And I’m thinking two things at once.

The first is that I hate seeing her hurt. If I could extract the pain from her ankle and relocate it to my own body, I’d do it without hesitation. A dangerous impulse for a demon whose job description includes collecting her soul.

The second thought is uglier.

She needs me right now. And because I’m still the kind of demon Hell trained me to be, part of me immediately calculates what this could mean. If I’m careful, patient, useful, maybe I can earn enough trust for her to consider a bargain.

Chapter 14

Evie

The exam table paper doesn’t stand a chance against my current mental state, and the pile beside me keeps growing. Little white pieces that used to be a perfectly functional crinkly sheet, before I decided to channel my existential crisis into arts and crafts.

I should stop. The responsible adult who lives inside my head and keeps everything running smoothly, and definitely doesn’t believe in the supernatural, is begging me to leave it alone. But my thumb finds another perforation, and the paper separates with a faint tearing sound that echoes in the sterile silence of the room.

Because stopping means thinking. Thinking leads to processing. And processing ends with me confronting the fact that a man revealed actual horns on his head in front of me fifteen minutes ago.

I pinch myself, thumbnail digging into my wrist. The skin blooms red, and nothing about this room or this day dissolves into the comfortable haze of a nightmare. I’m still here with a throbbing ankle, in a doctor’s office that smells of rubbing alcohol, industrial floor cleaner, and the faint ghost of someone’s lavender hand cream.

Not a dream, then.

Two hours ago, I was blissfully in denial. I’d placed Milo in the category of odd but harmless, right between the woman who reads tarot to her cats, and the man at the hardware store who insists he was abducted in ninety-eight. Milo was a strange guy with a peculiar story, and I was handling it with the appropriate amount of polite disbelief.

That was a nice place to be. I’d like to go back there.

I’ve been going through every rational explanation I can think of: body modification, prosthetic, some kind of extreme cosplay commitment. But none of them hold. Not when I picture the bases of those horns, the skin gathered around each curve with no seam, adhesive line, or visible trick.

My first thought was . . . oh.

Just that. A small, quiet recognition. As though some back room of my brain had already done the math and was waiting for the rest of me to catch up. The correct reaction to horns is screaming. Possibly fainting. At minimum, a full-body recoil. Not a calm, settled oh that felt less alarming than finding out the dairy supplier raised prices.

I’ve been trying to manufacture the appropriate horror ever since, but it won’t come. I keep reaching for it and finding that weird, inexplicable stillness instead, sitting right where the fear should be.

But I refuse to be the person who sees one unexplained thing and throws out her entire understanding of reality. That’s not how I work. I need evidence, logic, and probably a peer-reviewed study before I’ll even consider changing toothpaste brands, let alone accepting the existence of the underworld.

I tear off another strip of paper and add it to the pile.

Milo hovers near the window, no horns in sight. He hasn’t stopped fidgeting since he carried me through the door, scanning the counters, testing drawer handles, and reading a laminated poster about cholesterol like he’s preparing for finals. The overhead fluorescents catch his glasses whenever he tilts his head.

I keep track of where he is without meaning to, and I don’t know when that started. When he wanders toward the far wall, tension winds through me until I’m almost compelled to call him back. When he drifts within reach again, it loosens.

I don’t understand it.

I don’t like it.

And I can’t make it stop.