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The silence that rung out after my response was magnified by the grin that lit Emrick’s features, somehow darkening his face further as though he had successfully dragged someone else down with him and was proud of it.
He released Ilsa, pushing her forward so she landed on her hands and knees on the floor. She looked up at me, her eyes wide and pleading. “Ray, you don’t have to do this for me.”
She’d have noticed I couldn’t quite meet her eyes—she wasn’t stupid. But my mind was made up. “I’m not doing this for you,” I muttered.
This was followed by a whoop of laughter from Emrick, and Ilsa stared at me as she pushed herself to her feet, crossing the small room to me as I was released by the guard as well. “What are you saying?”
“I’m not accepting his offer for you, Ilsa. I’m doing it because it’s a good deal.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Why not? I get to keep doing what I’m doing, but without consequence, without having to worry about stepping on the wrong toes and having people come after me, or you, for that matter. What’s the downside?”
“What’s the downside?” she whispered. “I thought you understood.” Her voice was small, and I stared at the ceiling, rolling my eyes upward to avoid looking at her where I’d have to face the truth. “There are always consequences, Ray. Remember… collateral damage.”
When she moved to touch my arm, I wrenched myself from her grasp, unable to take her sensitivity and understanding right now. Ilsa withdrew her hand, looking at me as though the contact had burned her too.
How could she understand? She was only human. I had needs and instincts I absolutely had to get out to keep my demon under control. I didn’t want to go back to Hell, not now I knew the pleasures and fun Earth could provide. Emrick was offering me a solution to all my problems, and if all I had to do was be a hired gun, I didn’t see the problem.
Ilsa couldn’t understand, and I avoided looking at her. Even if I sat her down and explained it to her repeatedly, but she’d never get it. I’d seen her struggle with the morality of my actions since we met, so how could she not see this was basically the same thing? She was judging me by human standards, by her standards, and by the image she had built of me in her mind over the past few days. But it wasn’t me, not really. I had fallen into the illusion myself, but it couldn’t last.
Because I wasn’t human, I was a demon.
I didn’t have a soul to save.
Except hers.
And maybe Ilsa was better off without me around. Everything that had happened to her was because of me. She was in danger because of me, and she’d had a knife pressed against her throat because of me.
This would solve everything.
Except the ache in my chest, which I assumed would go away with time.
“I can’t condone this,” she whispered. Perhaps she was hoping the audience in the room wouldn’t hear.
“What has the world done for you, Ilsa? Used you and tossed you to the side.”
“There are still innocent people that need protecting.”
I finally met her eyes. I expected to see hurt, but I wasn’t prepared for the rage that burned in them.
“I thought you understood,” I said. “I’m a demon, I’m not like you.”
“Pathetic woman, thinking a demon needs her approval.” Emrick scoffed.
“Fuck off, Emrick. This doesn’t involve you.”
He didn’t seem at all bothered by the way I talked to him, although one of his guards raised his lips in a sneer at my tone, the one with blond hair cracked his knuckles. Emrick simply continued to smirk, apparently thriving and joyful at the exchange between Ilsa and myself, engrossing himself in the breakdown of what we had built.
Humans and demons—we were too different.
“Are you sure this is what you want?”
Ilsa was offering me an out, one last chance to leave this behind and go with her. But where would that leave me? If I chose her over myself—if I chose us—I’d have to find another way to unleash my demon, to satiate that part of me so I could function in this world, and she’d be in danger again. I didn’t know how I could soothe the need for violence without her disapproval. There was no better way than working for Emrick—an income and the freedom to get violent—and Ilsa couldn’t offer me that.
“Yes.”
Her eyes darted to mine, her jaw clenched against whatever it was she was holding back, expressions or emotions I couldn’t predict and probably wouldn’t understand anyway.
“Goodbye, Ray,” she said, turning on her heel and leaving, throwing the bouncer by the door a glare as he shifted to the side before she disappeared down the stairs.
ILSA
What the fuck just happened?
She went in there with me, figurative guns blazing, ready to take down the bad guy and reclaim her freedom and what she had recognized of her soul, what I had seen in her eyes when she shared my memories, and all the things she had learned about what it meant to be human. I didn’t expect her to be human—she was a demon, I knew that—and although the doubts occasionally still swirled in my mind as though I was constantly sorting reality from a dream, I think I had done well accepting her for who and what she was. I had seen her change in the time we were together and had seen snippets of what she was beyond the demon, evidence there was more to her than fighting and fucking.
There was a cheeky, intelligent, funny woman. Confident and sexy, protective and yes, even vulnerable at times.
But all she saw of herself was a demon, and Emrick’s offer had been too much of a temptation for her to turn down.
Part of me understood, but I couldn’t accept it. She knew how I felt about what she was doing from the start, and while I’m aware there are many shades of gray, being in the employ of someone like Emrick was running a mile backward.
Whatever. It wasn’t my job to change her mind. She’d figure it out soon enough when she came across the consequences of her work. It might not happen straight away, maybe not for months, but one day, she’d see it, and on that day, I’d not be there to tell her I told you so.
Because I would be long gone, gone from her life and this city.
She’d tainted it for me. I had found purpose in searching for her these past few months, and when we were thrown together through circumstance, I had found meaning and comfort in her presence with me as we learned together about acceptance, boundaries, and being more than we thought we could be. I had started to like what I felt and who I became when I was with her—someone who wasn’t broken beyond repair, but simply someone who needed one who understood them.
Someone who, as she had said, could read them like a book.
But all of it had been an illusion, part of her seductive nature, and I obviously meant nothing more to her than a convenience at the time.
Ray had chosen her nature over me, and that was okay.
I was okay with it.
Really I was.
Liar.
