“Oh, the demon,” I hummed nonchalantly. “The soul reaper waiting to claim my soul.”
“What are you talking about?” She looked at me like I was the crazy one.
I stood. “I’m going home, and if you’re smart, you’ll leave me alone.”
I walked over to the demon’s book and picked it up from beside Max’s dead body on the floor. With my notebook and demon book clutched to my chest, I turned and came face to face with the pistol aimed at my forehead. “This wasn’t how it was supposed to turn out for me. I was meant for more. Instead, you stole it all!” Liz yelled at me, spit flying from her mouth as she did. Her blue eyes were larger than normal, pupils dilated as they darted around the room. The pistol was shaking in her hand. She looked frightened yet crazy all the same.
Liz was beyond the point of understanding how wrong she was, but I couldn’t stop myself from saying, “You’ve never been anything but mediocre. The worst mistake you made was casting me aside. You would have gotten everything you wanted with me, but you chose to steal and cheat your best friend. All for nothing.”
“Shut up!” She pressed the pistol against my forehead harder.
My heart pounded, but I showed no fear. Even the moment I thought I might die a little sooner than I was supposed to was short lived by the demon who appeared like a mirage behind me. Because I felt it—that chilling presence that haunted and now saved me. My back stiffened as the cold wafted over me, making the hair on the nape of my neck stand on end. I didn’t need to turn around to know what was there. His presence slithered around me in the form of dread. Liz’s face was brimming with fear, eyes widening and crystallizing into disbelief and utter terror as she lowered her gun and stared behind me.
“What is that?” Liz blinked, lips trembling, and stepped back. “Ruth, do you see it?”
“My biggest mistake,” the dark, velvety voice spoke behind me, and my eyes widened. The adrenaline that raced through my veins was not from fear but familiarity. “Was not killing you for making Ruth cry the first time.” I was hit again with that achingly familiar voice and authority.
Now I was afraid. For a very different reason. I was afraid to turn around. I felt like two very different parts of my life were about to collide. I held my breath and told myself there was no way.
Liz’s screams would be short lived. The second she started, the demon was already slipping through her body. She sucked in a breath, eyes pointed to the ceiling as her body toppled and smacked the ground with a loud thud.
I wasn’t even sad about it. Liz had every intention of killing me. I didn’t doubt that when she had the gun pointed to my head. I just accepted it.
It was the voice that I didn’t know how to accept. I had no clue whose house I was in or where I was at, but as I looked around the brightly lit room and tall ceiling, I searched for the demon who sounded like the man I had fallen for.
It had been so long since I heard the demon talk. Did he sound like that the first time? Was I losing my mind? Or was I already there? My mind was such a mess lately. Maybe I imagined the similarity between the voices.
I froze. The demon formed in front of me. A dark shadow over the last ten years of my life was once again right in front of me. I stared back at the blood-rose-colored eyes of the otherwise smoky form.
“Are you here to kill me now?” I whispered. When he didn’t answer, I asked a different, more pertinent question. “Is that your only form?”
Still no answer.
“Can you look like a human?”
More silence.
“Answer me, damn it!” I screamed. My hands and heart shook as I took a deep breath. “Just speak. I need to hear your voice again.”
He left me. I looked over at Liz’s and Max’s bodies and gripped the books tighter to my chest. I had to get out of here.
The moment I turned around, fear and love collided. Amit stepped through the doorway and in doing so, I knew he had every intention of letting me piece the clues together. Dropping the books, my terrified gaze met his steely one as he approached. With a slow, steady gait, his gaze darted toward the bodies lying on the floor, unaffected, confirming everything I wished weren’t truth.
In his truth, tears fell down my cheeks, and I was hit with the ultimate betrayal, far worse than what Liz had ever done to me. I was tricked,fuckedand kissed and lured in by the monster who sunk his teeth into my life and controlled it for the last decade. All for my soul that he planned to eat.
The man I was so enthralled by was the demon who planned to kill me.
I didn’t want to believe it, but the truth stared back at me with gunmetal eyes
Holy shit. What had I let inside my body? Inside my mind and heart?
“Don’t come any closer!” I warned him. He listened, coming to a stop several feet away from me, but it did nothing to soothe the betrayal and confusion that bled through me.
“Ruth…”
“You’re the demon. You’re the one that’s killed all these people around me.” My voice shook.
Please, please, tell me I’m wrong.