Page 19 of The Devil Takes

“You don’t want to do this, Percy,” Tommy insisted.

“I do.” It was like he wasn’t even listening. Or maybe his comments were hitting too close to home. Either way, anger tingled inside me as my hands began to shake.

“No, you don’t. You don’t. You just want to please your dad.”

Alright. Now I was officially done with the conversation.

“I’m officially done with this conversation,” I repeated out loud, shoving my laundry aside as I turned around to glare at Tommy. He was standing just like I’d thought he’d be, legs spread, his hands on his hips. His stupid purple boots that I kinda love-hated were tumbled haphazardly half under his bed.

“Percy—”

“I’m serious, Tommy. Fuck off.” I glared at him, my temper erupting as I stomped my way to our shared coat rack and tore my jacket from it. My movements were jerky and uncoordinated as I put it on and then shoved my way out into the hallway, Tommy’s words still ringing in my ears.

* * *

I found myself at the graveyard.

Again.

It was just as cold out as before, and I idled in my car for a whole five minutes before I decided to say fuck it and head toward what I’d privately dubbed Haden’s bridge. Maybe he was the devil from the stories—maybe he wasn’t. But his memory had been haunting my dreams for weeks now and I figured the least he could do was suffer through my black mood with me.

My unfinished bond was quiet as I approached, stepping around graves out of politeness, my worn hand-me-down army boots crunching on the still-dry, fallen leaves. It hadn’t snowed yet. But there was still time.

Winters in this part of the north were always full of dry wind and blistering cold, even after the first snow had fallen. It was pretty though, even if it was uncomfortable.

When I found the grasshopper grave I’d dug, I sat beside it, soaking up the darkness beneath the bridge, listening to the drip, drip of water droplets as they made their way to the cobblestones.

“Why’d you bite me?” I asked the quiet, because it was something that had been bothering me since that night.

I’d searched my dreams for answers, but all I’d gotten were glimpses of the alpha who had left me behind. In the bath. Eating dinner. Sitting alone in the dark. Peeks at a future that didn’t exist, a world that wasn’t real, a man that didn’t want me. “Why do it, if you didn’t know what it meant?”

Maybe that wasn’t it though. Maybe he’d known. Maybe he just hadn’t cared about the very real repercussions his bite would instill upon me. “I was never gonna mate anyways,” I told the dark, my heart in my throat, “but if my dad sees he’ll—” The words choked on the way out so I shoved them back inside me, keeping them safe in the gaping hole where my heart lay dormant.

“Whatever.” I snorted to myself, kicking at a rock, careful to rearrange the makeshift cross I’d laid across the grasshopper grave so it was upright once again. Stupid because the grasshopper didn’t give a shit. But I had to do it anyway.

I sat there for a long time.

Long enough I had ignored at least seven of Tommy’s buzzing phone calls. Long enough the sun had set and the bitter cold had swept in once again. Finally, I rose to my feet and made my way back through the graveyard toward where I’d parked, my anger gone, Tommy forgiven.

I didn’t have any more answers.

And somehow, I knew Haden would be visiting my dreams again that night, and I didn’t know how to feel about that.

No matter where I hide, he finds me.

Sunlight is not something I knew I could yearn.

He chases me though I’ve turned the lights off.

There is no darkness he leaves unturned.

And I am forced to welcome him.

Lest I be the last shadow burned.

“You’re back again,” Haden’s voice echoed through the quiet, and I startled, shifting around till my eyes adjusted to the dark and I could make out his shadowy figure in the corner of what looked like…a library? The vague scattering shapes of bookshelves lined the walls, and pillars dipped in indigo so dark it was nearly black rose toward the ceiling to support a glass dome that bled red instead of blue like a starry night sky should.

It took me longer than it should’ve to reply to him.

---