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I want to clasp my hand against my mouth but the plastic is pressing against my nose and I can’t fucking breathe at all. I feel Mal’s hand between me and the plastic. He’s not being gentle, he’s pushing me away from it, but at least I feel like I can breathe again.
Not that I want to when the sound of copper is so overwhelming I can feel tears stinging my eyes.
Or maybe that’s blood. I don’t know if I’d be able to tell at this point.
“Breathe,“ he says, pulling me away from the airbag. I don’t know how he does it, or how quickly it happens, but he’s pulling me toward him and I can feel my arms scraping against the plastic of the airbag. It’s still inflated and barely letting me through, but Malon is pulling me hard toward him. Then it’s my legs that are scraping against the plastic and that hurts like a bitch because of the tiny cuts peppering my skin.
I want to scream, but it’s hard to scream when I feel like I can’t breathe.
I can’t even open my mouth.
“You’ll be okay,“ he says. If he wasn’t trying to save my life, I’m sure this would feel like a huge violation. “Just breathe through your nose.“
I do as he tells me, my heartbeat steadying a bit. It takes me a few seconds to realize that I’m sitting on his lap. In the darkness, he seems unscathed, his eyes wide with fear. “What are you?“ I ask.
“I guess you’d call me a demon,“ he says. “But I promise you. I’m here to help.“
“And why should I believe you?“ I ask.
“Because if I hadn’t helped you a million times already, you’d already be dead, Trine,“ he says softly. “And if I wanted to kill you now, I definitely could.“
I don’t like to hear it, but I guess he has a point.
I want to jump off his lap, but it’s not like I have anywhere else to go. His airbag didn’t deploy. Getting out of the car seems like a bad idea.
“Don’t,“ he says. “You don’t know what’s out there.“
“Stop that.“ The fact that he’s reading my mind makes me uncomfortable, but if he’s in my dream, I guess he just…lives in here. Everything about this is so fucking weird, I’m probably going to spend the rest of my life figuring it out.
He grimaces. “Sorry. Bad habit,“ he says. “Look, do you just want the headlines? We can catch up out there, if you want to.“
“Yes, that’d be great.“
“Okay. So I’ve been here for a long time, and I sorta…have a soft spot for you,“ he says.
“You do?“
“Yes, but it’s not the time to talk about that,“ he replies. “Look, if the exorcism works, they might end up expelling me without expelling some of the lingering presences in your body. And they have no interest in doing anything but using you. They don’t care about hurting you. Your mom, she got lucky. They’ve found a way to keep using her until she…“
“What?“
“Dies,“ he says, furrowing his brow and running his hand through his hair. “I don’t know if I was supposed to tell you that, but fuck it. I wasn’t supposed to be the one protecting you in the first place.“
“So the sex dreams were to protect me?“
He smiles, his green eyes shimmering. “Hey, you set the terms,“ he replies. “It’s your party. I’m just there, trying to talk to you.“
“So you didn’t want to sleep with me?“
“No, I did,“ he says. “But I’m pretty sure that’s an ethics violation of some sort.“
“You’re not funny.“
“Then why are you smiling?“ he asks, then his expression sobers. “Seriously, though. I didn’t sleep with you, not because I didn’t want to, but because I knew we needed to talk first. And I thought my best bet was finding you in the real world. When you came to me to talk about your dreams, I was…I think ecstatic might be putting it mildly.“
“But you still didn’t tell me that you were in my fucking head.“
“Because I needed to ease you into it,“ he says, his breath hot in my ear. “I needed you to trust me before I revealed anything to you.“
