Page 57 of The Devil's Dilemma

“He’s fine. Nothing will happen to him.”

“Why did you go to see him?”

“I needed answers. You didn’t have them, and I knew of no one else.”

“I could have come with you. Instead, you locked me in here.”

“Because people are after you, and the fact that they found you within minutes suggests we were right to leave you here. Now will you please stay put?”

He sat on the sofa, shoulders slumped, fidgeting with the ring on his index finger.

“Here, I brought you some clothes and your laptop.”

“I can’t stay here.”

“You can and you will. I can take the sofa or stay downstairs in the other room.”

I could have moved him back to the room in the basement, but it didn’t feel like the right thing to do.

The compulsion to keep him close to me and not let him out of my sight drove that home.

Whoever wanted him would stop at nothing until he was dead at their feet.

“Now.” I sat in the chair opposite as I’d done that morning. “You said you saw your mother. Tell me what happened.”

He sighed and leant back, his shoulders still tense.

“I’ve seen her twice now. The first time in the shower earlier today. She told me I had to trust in myself and—”

“And what?”

“And to trust you too.”

A strange thing to say, but who was I to argue with an angel? Not strictly true. I’d argued with many an angel, which was one of the reasons I was down here on this sorry excuse for a planet.

“And the next time?”

“When you killed me. She read me a story in my childhood bedroom.”

“Oh, and did we have naptime afterwards?”

“I didn’t need to. You killed me, remember?”

Touché. I had indeed taken his life, but in my defence, I’d brought him back from the brink too. He should be grateful, except judging by the look on his face, I doubted he was.

“What was the story?”

He seemed reluctant to talk, but when he did, the story about the dark prince and the boy with the light in his heart sounded like something I’d heard many, many, many years ago. So long ago, in fact, I’d forgotten it, tucked it away in the recesses of my mind, only for it to come to light now.

Surely, it wasn’t referring to me, and no way the boy was Austin.

Too fucking far-fetched for words.

“Well, it seems clear cut to me.” I’d forgotten Conrad was in the room.

“Why do you say that?” Austin asked him.

“It all makes sense. Dante is the dark prince or prince of darkness, and you were born to an angel. The angel that told you, you were the boy.”

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