Page 96 of Death Wish

I shouldn’t care.

I didn’t care. Nope. Not at all. Not even a little. Cole had been working against me the entire time. I had been his job. His mission. A part of some cockamamie plot with Azrael to keep me distracted and out of the afterlife while he did who knows what.

Keeping secrets. Telling lies. Manipulating me. Using me.

That made him a grade-A asshole in my book.

But even as I went over it again in my head, my insides twisted at the lie.

It shouldn’t bother me in the slightest that he had been captured by a demon and was now hanging above a Hell pit, but it did and I hated myself for it.

I’d had sex with him, too. Had that been all part of this charade, a way to gain my trust completely?

I wanted to punch myself for that one. How could I be so stupid?

The moment I had seen him rise out of the ground, my chest had constricted with a new kind of fear. Dammit! I barely knew the guy. Why hadn’t I just done my assignment, like Simon had said, and not gotten involved? I could have avoided this entire thing.

Now, seeing the two people I cared for the most dangling feet above a Hell pit, my stomach was in knots.

“Let them go,” I shouted, my voice shaking. Power buzzed across my skin, jumping across my knuckles like an electric current. I curled my hands into fists, scrambling to think of a plan to save them. If I blasted Xaver back to Hell, would Kay and Cole disappear, too? I could lose them forever.

What was I going to do?

Think, Jade. Think. How are you going to get out of this one?

I scanned the backyard, looking for something that could give me a leg up or trigger an idea. I not only had Kay and Cole’s lives to think about, but I had Laurence’s and Wyatt’s and Sean’s, too. Whatever I did, it had to be enough to protect them all from Xaver.

Annoyance pinched Xaver’s ugly features. “So, what’s this deal?” he pushed. “You said you had a deal for me. Out with it, then.”

Deal?

Oh. I had almost forgotten I had offered him a deal to get to Kay. Problem was, I didn’t actually have one. It had been just something I’d said to get one step ahead of him. I’d been hoping it would have bought me some time, and instead, it had revealed Cole as Xaver’s other captive, causing more of a mess.

But maybe there was a way a deal could get everyone out of this alive. If that was what he wanted, that was my only option.

What could I offer a demon? I had nothing.

“Well?” Xaver growled.

“Let them both go, and crawl back into the hole you crawled out of. Leave us all alone.” I rolled my next words on my tongue. I had to save my friends. They were all I had.

Xaver waved his hand, and Kay and Cole’s unmoving bodies began to descend back into the crater.

Panic clawed up my throat. “Wait, wait!”

They continued to fall.

What was I going to do?

Cole’s blond hair disappeared past the ground line.

“You can have me!” I yelled, my heart hammering. “Take me in their place!”

Xaver’s eyes widened in surprise.

The gravity of what I had just offered hit me like a ton of bricks, but instead of regretting it, certainty flooded me. Yes. This was what I had to do. The choice was easy.

But would my soul be enough for not only Kay and Cole’s, but for Laurence, Wyatt, and Sean’s, too? I was a nobody. All I had going for me was being a newbie reaper and this new white light I had. Would that be desirable to a demon?

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