AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Nathan kissed me, right on the lips. I caught my breath. “I’m slower than the other two. I’m going to be…nervous about pushing you too far because I’m so odd. But, they don’t want you more, they just don’t know how to savor the beginning.” He smiled. “Go get Ryker. See how cool I am? Meg was right.”
I laughed. I’d never been so happy to go do an exorcism.
Chapter
Fourteen
Iwalked toward the demon infesting my best friend’s body with my spine held straight. I didn’t have a lot of experience with exorcism, but I was good at it. My success rate so far destroyed the average. My demon left my body unexorcised, so she was still able to possess. I couldn’t let her do it again. She needed to be gone.
“Hey,” I shouted over the crowd. Ryker turned to look at me but stayed silent. He stood next to the leader of the so-called hunters—Gordon Fleece, the asshole who led these fuckers into thinking they had the right to exorcise. He had them take away their rights to decide what did or didn’t happen with their bodies. With a one percent success rate, he killed more than he healed, acting like it was somehow okay for him to slaughter the possessed because they didn’t matter anyway. I was very glad to be done with my demon, but no one else should get to decide whether people should die or live with their demons.
He was deplorable, and although there was nothing I could do about him personally, I hoped bad things happened to him. Maybe that made me a horrible person. The crowds roared and cheered as they chanted about death to demons. I could respecttheir dream; at least. I would love to be there on the day that happened.
But they were fooling themselves. Exorcisms were complicated, obviously, and few of us could do them. If the demons targeted angel blooded people, then it was for that reason. Things could be done, maybe they could be improved.But not like this.
“Hey,” I shouted again.
Nathan ran up beside me. “Hold up a second.”
Now he wants to hold up?He kissed me a minute ago and told me to get to it. “I’m not afraid to do it in front of these people. Maybe if they all actually see a real exorcism take place, they’ll stop their lunacy.”
“That’s not my concern. This crowd can go fuck itself.” I lifted an eyebrow. It was quite a statement for Nathan. He was the sweet one. Most of the time. “I’m not sure what I’m getting from Ryker.”
What did that mean? “What?”
“I think we should wait for Cruise.”
Where was he? “I don’t want to stand around waiting. I don’t want to risk him disappearing. Besides, Cruise can’t do what you do. What are you getting from Ryker?”
“He’s crying.”
I hated to hear that. Ryker was absolutely not a crier. “I’ll get it out.”
“He says…I mean, he’s talking to me.” Nathan winced and looked at the ground and then back at Ryker. Even with the crowds carrying on, it felt like a quiet moment. What was happening?
“Nathan?” The chanting got louder, the sound drilling into my head like a knife.
“He says please help him, Addalee. Please help him right now.”
Okay. Then that’s what I would do. I grinned at Nathan’s handsome face. “That is a useful skill you have right there, Nathan. Hearing what the human inside the possessed is saying? I didn’t know I was communicating with you like that.”
“It was different with you. You were more unconscious about it, but Ryker had the beginning of training. He knows what he’s doing.”
Interesting.A ton of questions came to mind, but I could ask them later. At the moment, I had to save Ryker. Gordan waved his hand and the crowd parted. I ignored their organization, even as a car screeched to a halt behind us. I didn’t turn to look at it, keeping my gaze focused on Ryker.
“Cruise,” Nathan called out.Well, at least he finally made it here. What had he been doing? I stepped closer to Ryker, wondering how close I could get before the demon would see me.
“I see that you’re welcoming me inside.” I threw my arms in the air. “Did you miss me that much?”
“I want you to know, it didn’t have to be like this.” There was something surreal about hearing my demon speak with Ryker’s throat. He sounded the same, just like, but different, too. The tone was wrong, and it was as though I could hear her in my head. Maybe others would hear only Ryker, but I could hear both of them—two voices at once.
I wanted to punch her, hard. I could almost hit her when we last wrestled for power in my mind. It would hurt Ryker now or I would hit her just for nostalgia.
“It didn’t have to be like this, Addalee. You could have just done what I told you. I would’ve kept you alive. I never abused you too much. We could’ve gone on a long time like that, but you had to get pushy. You had to interfere. You had to start this nonsense.” He gestured vaguely to the crowd before he looked over at Gordan. “She exorcises our kind. She’s one ofthem.”
The hunters’ leader glared at me. Okay, so he was possessed, too. He wasn’t, when last we met, unless my demon hid it from me. It seemed more likely the possessed had taken over the hunters. That was interesting and one way to handle the exorcism problem.
But I wasn’t going to leave them alone.
