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“What the hell do you want?” I said. I should have shot him right then and there, but something kept me from doing it, something I didn’t fully understand and definitely couldn’t explain.
“You.”
That simple word felt like a block of ice had been dropped on my stomach. He leaned down, and again, I could have pulled the trigger. I should have. Perhaps some bizarre curiosity kept me from doing it, but it wasn’t fear.
The thing was, if he’d wanted to kill me, he would have done it by now.
He leaned down and whispered in my ear, “I’ve made my intentions clear. Now it’s your turn. When you’re sick of running, come find me. Until then, stay alive, little wolf. I want to play with you again.”
I drove through the night in silence, the radio off, the windows up. My rage was growing, slowly, the pressure building until it burst. My pussy ached, my clit throbbed with lingering ecstasy. I slammed my fist against the steering wheel. “God fuckingdamnit!”
I’d done a lot of risky shit in the last few years, but tonight took the cake. I’d grown so numb to danger and risks, sometimes the fairly obvious ones went right over my head: like fucking a stranger in the middle of the woods at night. Most people would balk; I’d begged for it.
I hadn’t even brought up a goddamn condom, even though I always had a few stored in my glovebox, just in case. I spent too many long nights in bars and clubs to not come prepared, not that it had done me any good tonight. When I reached the next town, I stopped at the first 24-hour pharmacy I could find and picked up a pack of morning-after pills. The last thing I needed was to get knocked up with some demonic baby, if that was even possible.
He’d been following me. He’d followed me all this way from Abelaum. How many places had I encountered him, without even knowing? How many times had our eyes met? How many times had he gotten close and I’d been none the wiser?
It should have been terrifying, and yet, he didn’t scare me. Not in the way I expected.
It was only in daylight, as I reached the next city and finally slowed the Jeep’s speed, that I noticed a small white scrap of paper tucked against my dashboard. I pulled into the next gas station, and as it was pumping, I plucked up the paper and found words scrawled messily across it.For business or pleasure. When you’re ready to make a deal, call me.
A phone number was scribbled beneath it.
A deal with a demon. A deal for anything I wanted, in exchange for all that I had left. I should have thrown that scrap of paper away. I should have forgotten all about him and kept running. Running, like I always had.
But I kept the paper. I tucked it away in my wallet, and when the nights were darkest and I was drunk and alone, I thought about it. I thought about what would be worth a deal with a demon.
I thought about his taste, his smell, his tongue, far more than I should have.
I thought about revenge, and I thought about home — the place I swore I’d never go back to.
But I would go back. A lot sooner than I thought.
5
The hospital room felt stagnant, stuck in a loop of the same soft sounds: the steady beep of my heart monitor, the tap of the rain on the window, the shuffle of the nurses’ shoes as they walked through the hall. They rarely came in to check on me anymore. They were quick and silent when they did. They gave me pills to make the nightmares stop, pills to help me remember what really happened to me.
But the nightmares didn’t stop, and my memories didn’t change.
If I could just talk to the police again, they’d believe me. They had to. If I could just talk to another doctor, they’d realize I wasn’t imagining this.
I jerked my head toward the door, but it wasn’t a nurse who had just walked in. It was Marcus, his hands shoved into the pockets of his windbreaker, hesitating before he walked any closer.
“Hey, bro.” My voice sounded so weak. I needed water. I’d needed water for the last hour, but no one responded when I pressed the call button.
“Hey.” He came over to the bedside, his eyes roaming around like he didn’t know where to look. He’d always been a good kid: quiet, studious. Nothing like me. When Mom yelled, he didn’t yell back. There was a chair behind him, but he didn’t sit down.
“I’m surprised Mom let you come.” I tried to smile, to lighten the statement, but it still felt as heavy as brick. Mom hadn’t been here, not since the first day I’d woken up. Not since I’d overheard her conversation with the doctor in the hall, and heard her say desperately, “Well, how the hell am I supposed to afford that? Just having her here is putting me into debt, now I’m supposed to keep her medicated?”
“Mom doesn’t know.” He glanced back toward the door. He was only thirteen; he’d probably ridden his bike here. “Are you feeling any better?”
“Getting there.” I scowled down at the IVs in my arm. “I’d be a lot better without all these fucking needles.”
He was shuffling his feet as he pulled his hand out of his pocket, handing over a snack-size bag of Hot Cheetos. I grabbed it as if he’d brought me a bar of pure gold. “Nathan said that they wouldn’t let him have Hot Cheetos when his appendix was taken out, and I know how much you love these things…”
“Holy crap, yes!” I tore open the bag, tossing several of the puffed, spicy snacks into my mouth. “Oh my God. You’re a lifesaver.”
He smiled tightly, finally sitting down, perched right at the edge of the seat. “So, uh...are you...I mean…” He swallowed hard. “Are you feeling okay to come home?”
