Page 57 of The Secret Life of a Witch

“Are you taking me underground so the demons can drink from me or whatever?”

He chuckles. “Not even close.”

“Are you going to hurt me?”

My body jostles as he jumps over a rock.

He laughs darkly. “If I wanted to hurt you, I would’ve done it already.”

“What about my sister …? I mean, Ryleigh? You said you were going to get her body back.”

“I did.”

My heart leaps with hope. “Then where is she?”

“I dropped her off in your basement.” His hands wander to the back of my thighs, and he grips them tightly as he makes a sharp right turn up a twisting brick path. “Right before I took you.”

“Why have you taken me?” My fingers curl into fists. “This wasn’t part of the deal.”

“It wasn’t not part of the deal, either.”

I frown. “I can’t bring Ryleigh back to life if I’m here with you. And my time is already running out.”

“Don’t worry; time here moves much differently,” he assures me. “You may be here for a while, but when you return home, you’ll probably only have been gone for a few hours.”

“Where is here?” I wonder, lifting my head to peer around at the grassy hills, trees, and brick path. “It looks like a magical forest to me.”

“You’ll find that out soon enough,” he replies with a shrug.

I grimace, beyond frustrated. “Can’t you just tell me the truth? I really need some of that right now.”

“Patience, my little rainbow trout.” His grin is evident through his voice.

I sigh. Damn demons. They love getting their kicks and giggles by playing mind games.

Technically, don’t you, too, since you’re kind of one of them?

“Who are you, anyway?” I ask, trying not to think about what I may or may not be. Otherwise, I might start crying. And while I’m not super in tune with my demon knowledge, I know better than to cry in front of one.

Again, with the one, Eva, as if you aren’t part of their kind.

He gives a drawn-out pause, then, “For now, you can call me Max.”

“Is that your real name?”

He doesn’t answer, leaving me to come up with my own conclusions about who he is, what he is, where in the magical kingdom he’s taking me, and what he’s going to do with me once we get there.

EVALEE

Do you ever wonder if your life has been a complete and utter dream—or a complete and utter nightmare, depending on what kind of life you have? Or have you ever had one of those moments when you question if you’re dead and what you’re seeing is the afterlife, but you don’t realize it? Or do you sometimes question if you’re trapped in a coma and your mind has created a delusional world when you wake up in a demon lair with rap music booming through the stony walls? No? Huh. Well, I guess it’s just me then.

Just in case you ever do find yourself in these sorts of situations, take my advice: you’ll question if anything is real.

“What the hell happened?” I mutter, clutching my head and blinking around at what I can only assume is a demon lair. Well, either that or I’ve stumbled across a very high-tech bear cave.

I immediately shake my head.Seriously, Evalee, a high-tech bear cave? What the hell is wrong with my brain!That is the million-dollar question, isn’t it?

I rack my mind for how I got here, trying to put together the pieces of how I ended up lying in a bed, in a cave, with lantern lights covering the domed ceiling, a stereo with a pretty great base system, and the largest flat screen television I’ve ever seen.

---