Page 42 of Their Demon

We sat in silence for a moment, but just as the first time I met her, it wasn’t awkward. It was peaceful, and I felt at ease hanging out with her.

“Oh shit,” Mavis said as she stood. “I almost forgot!”

She disappeared into her room and returned with a medium-sized black dog in her arms. Only, this was not a typical dog. This dog had three heads, all panting with large, slobbery tongues hanging to the side. Each head had a set of beady, red eyes. Its tail wagged so hard, half its body wiggled, making it harder for Mavis to hold it still.

“This is Spade,” she squealed. “I’ve been hiding him in the bathroom so Mom doesn’t find out. She’d kill me if she knew about him. I couldn’t let the neighbors keep him chained up all day outside like that. He needed somewuve,” she murmured into his fur, making him wag even harder.

She placed him on the deck, and he immediately pranced over to me. After a lengthy sniff-down, I got Spade’s approval with a wag of his tail and multiple licks on my legs from all three heads.

“Aren’t you just the cutest thing I’ve ever seen?” I said to him in my sing-song pet voice.

“He likes you.”

I smiled down at him, still shaking from all the excited wagging he was doing.

“He is adorable. You’re so lucky.” I patted each of Spade’s heads.

“Have you ever had a pet?” she asked me.

I shook my head. “My mom would never let me have one. She could barely feed me, let alone an animal. She probably would have sold it for drugs, just like she did me.” I winced, having said way more than I intended to.

I hadn’t told Mavis much about my life on Earth, especially regarding my mom. I didn’t want her pity. I wanted her to be friends with me because she liked me, not because she saw me as a broken toy who needed attention.

“I hope that bitch got what she deserved.” My head jerked to face her. “Shit.” She grimaced. “Do we like her? Was that the wrong thing to say? Fuck, I am so sorry. I never know what to say in these situations. I know she was your mom, but she sounds like a piece of garbage, and I wanted to be—”

Laughter exploded from me, and I swung my hand up to cover my mouth.

I was shocked by her reaction to what I’d said. No one so far had picked that path. I usually got pitiful eyes or ‘I’m so sorry’. Mavis was straight-up honest, and I appreciated that more than anything.

Mavis was stunned bymyreaction too, watching with the most confused look on her face while I laughed so hard, tears spilled down my cheeks. Once I finally calmed down enough to speak, I apologized.

“You’re not the one who should be sorry, Lil,” she said as she refilled our glasses from the bottle we’d brought up with us.

“We left her tied up in her bedroom, alone,” I stated, as if it was nothing. “Dead bodies all over the place too.”

Mavis handed me back my glass. “Seriously?”

I nodded. “Yep. The day I came here, I stopped by the house to say goodbye or maybe ‘fuck you’, but I never got to decide which. I got inside, and there were men there waiting to grab me. Turns out, she owed more money than she could scrounge up, and she wanted me to pay the price.”

“For Satan’s sake, I am so glad you left that behind. So what happened next?” She leaned on the arm of her chair, curious.

“Keir and the twins barged in and saved me. Keir was ready to kill her for me, but I wanted to leave her there, helpless. So that’s what we did. She was screaming, and we just… walked out.” I shrugged my shoulders, feeling a bit lighter than before. This was the first time I’d talked about this to someone.

“Good riddance,” Mavis grumbled. “I’ll never complain about my mom ever again.”

I choked on my wine as I laughed. “Ida is great. I like her.”

“She likes you too, you know. She talks about you all the time. You may as well be her other daughter.” Her eyes got wide. “We’re basically sisters!” My chest tightened. She wanted to consider me her sister? “If that’s okay…” she carried on with uncertainty in her voice.

“Are you kidding me?” I flashed her a huge smile. “Of course that’s okay. You have no idea just how okay that is.”

I stayed for a couple more hours. Keir gave me multiple warnings of needing to head home, but surprisingly, he didn’t come to drag me out of her room. Instead, he waited until I camedownstairs, over half an hour after he said we needed to go the first time.

“How was that?” he asked once we were on the road.

I was so afraid our ‘click’ had been a one-time thing, but it was so much better than before. Mavis was the missing piece I needed here in Hell. She listened, never judged, and always made me laugh.

“It was amazing. She called me her sister,” I said with more lift to my voice than I intended. Embarrassment overtook me. He wouldn’t understand. In fact, he’d probably call me silly and say I couldn’t choose my family.

---