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ILSA
It’s usually me. I’m the one to walk out after anything intimate. But having it done to me? That wasn’t sitting well, grating against me like nails on a chalkboard as I stayed exactly as she had left me, too stunned to move for several minutes.
Still tasting her on my tongue.
What the hell did Ray think she was doing? Simply proving a point she held some power over me? That the entire time I wasn’t a threat to her?
In the beginning, I wanted to take her down. Hell, I had every intention of it. I had literally stabbed her. The realization the silver was nothing but a painful inconvenience to her only served to solidify my resolve she shouldn’t be here and needed to be stopped.
So, why had her fear of killing someone innocent shaken me so much?
Ray had exposed herself to me, a part of her that cared for the innocent, as bizarre as that seems for a demon. Too often I had seen the other side of the coin—people who viewed collateral damage as a necessity to war, casualties which, while unfortunate, couldn’t be avoided because there was a bigger picture to consider. They didn’t see it as another human life lost, as a person with parents, perhaps children, and someone who loved them.
Then there was this demon, displaying more humanity than I had seen from a lot of people.
It didn’t make any sense.
After Ray left, my body fought me, and I couldn’t get back to sleep, spending a restless night tossing and turning in bed before giving up and curling up on the floor. A habit I had tried to work myself out of since coming back, but sometimes the unforgiving floor felt more like home than a mattress ever could.
On the floor, I had managed to sleep through most of the day. My sleep pattern was all fucked-up anyway from too long of sleeping through the daytime and going out at night demon hunting. Because apparently, that’s a thing I did now.
Hours of broken slumber were interrupted by thoughts of yellow eyes with black slits for pupils, bright red hair, and lips to match. The nightmares haunted my sleep until the images slipped into recent memories of flesh on flesh, lips on skin, fingers on her, and of wanting to be in her. I had tried to shift Ray’s face from my mind, replace it with Kelly’s or Alex’s, or any other number of women I had been with.
But I couldn’t.
She was a force within me now.
And I hated her for it.
Deciding I needed to dunk my head in a bucket of coffee, and not the shit I kept in the apartment, but actual proper coffee, I dressed without showering and began to wander down the street in the fading light of late afternoon to a local café I had decided to call my regular. The barista was a young man who always looked like he had a world of questions to ask about my injury or my story, but he never did, and I respected that. But he’d hold the door open for me as I left, and whether he was doing it because I was a veteran, because of my injury, because I’m a woman, or simply because he was being nice, I wasn’t sure. But whatever the case, the gesture didn’t go unappreciated.
On my way back, I hadn’t even had a chance to sip the brown gold in the cup when someone said, “Tell her to back the fuck off.”
I spun on my heel, shifting my stance immediately into defensive. As I had passed an alleyway, a man had stepped out and into the light. Quickly, I did a double-take of the street—it was empty. He was talking to me, but why?
“What?” I responded, letting the aggression slide in my tone. Keep them on no uncertain terms—I’m not afraid of you, and I can protect myself.
“Tell her…” he approached in three swift steps, grabbing my wrists when I went to step back from him, the hot coffee I had planned on throwing in his face falling to the ground, “… to back. The. Fuck. Off.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I continued to try to pry his grip from my wrists, using all the weak points I could think of, but he wouldn’t budge, and it was starting to get painful.
“That fucking demon bitch is more trouble than she’s worth, and if she doesn’t stop, she’s going to find herself in a worse place than Hell.”
I froze. Was this the person who had shot her? Why was he confronting me?
“I don’t know what you want, but I’ve got nothing to do with her, so let me go.”
When another, equally as tall man came up behind me, my attempts to move into a more defensive pose was hindered by the first man’s grip on me. I’m capable, but even I’d have collapsed to the ground after the two punches to my kidneys were it not for the strength of the man still holding me up by my wrists. Gritting my teeth against crying out, I kneed the first man in the groin before flinging my head back and catching the other in the nose with the back of my skull.
While the crunch of the cartilage was audible, the second man simply laughed a deep and dangerous sound that sent a chill up my spine.
The man in front grunted, his knees bending, but he didn’t let me go.
His eyes flashed yellow.
Oh shit.
There was nothing I could do as I was forced to my knees, the second man kicking behind my legs and the first pushing down until I was on the ground between them, arms stretched up with my wrists still firmly clasped in his hands.
“Please, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I kept my voice as steady as possible.
Not steady enough.
Screaming wasn’t me and wasn’t something I did often—in fact, I can’t remember the last time I screamed. But after he shifted both my hands into one of his and slapped me hard enough my ears rang, fear crept up my spine, tickling the back of my throat in a need to release it. Because these men weren’t really men, and I had no idea if they held themselves to the same rules Ray had talked about.
Worse, they seemed to think I was involved in what she was doing, and apparently, I was about to pay the price for her sins.
“We’re going to leave you with a message for her…” the second man said, leaning in next to my ear and tickling his fingers down my ribs, “… and I’d remember the message if I were you. Because next time, it’ll be worse, and you’ll be naked.”
As they dragged me into the alleyway, I screamed before a hand was slapped over my mouth.
