Page 20 of Infernal

Miles away from Hollow Hills, I pulled out my cell phone and checked to see if I had any service. I let out a lungful of relief as one lone service bar appeared at the corner of my screen.

Opening my contacts, I immediately pulled up Dominic’s number, but something stopped me from calling it. Lucifer’s words were replaying in my head, despite every effort to block him out.

It daggers his heart to see you two together.

I hit the back button and pulled up Taylor’s number instead. Thirty minutes later, Taylor’s white Beetle pulled onto the shoulder of the barren road I’d given her the coordinates to, with her music on full blast. After making sure she wasn’t followed, I pushed through the brushwood I was hiding behind and ran up to the car.

“I seriously owe you for this,” I said as reached over and trapped her in a hug. “Now please get me the hell out of here!”

She put her foot on the pedal and floored it. “What are best friends for if not for picking up the other one on random roads in the middle of nowhere?” she said with a playful wink. I could always count on her to be there for me without question. One of the many reasons why I loved the girl.

I glanced over my shoulder again to make sure no one was following us. After a few minutes of shallow breathing and compulsive rearview mirror checking, I finally relaxed in my seat.

“Sooo…are you going to tell me what’s going on, or should I just keep gunning it Thelma and Louise style?”

“I don’t even know where to start.” I shook my head as though that might shake the right words loose from my mouth. This wasn’t the kind of thing you just spit out. This was…insanity. It was the kind of thing they locked people up for.

“Alright then,” she said with nod. “Thelma and Louise, it is.”

“I’m serious, Tay. Everything’s a mess. He’s gone or trapped or…I don’t even know. And it’s all my fault.”

“Okay, you’re officially wigging me out.” She looked over at me, inspecting me as she raced down the winding road.

“I’m wigging myself out.”

“Namaste, babe.” She picked up my hand and squeezed it. “Take a deep breath and start talking.”

Digging deep for any semblance of clarity or composure, I went on to tell her about everything that happened from Angel’s Peak right up until my stint with Lucifer at Trace’s cabin. And surprisingly, she didn’t completely lose her shit. I’d hoped that the more I talked, the better I would feel, but unfortunately, it had the opposite effect. Saying it all out loud just made me feel emptier and more alone, because I knew this was all my fault, and worse, I had no idea how to fix it.

I shook my head and glanced out the window at the blurring mess of trees. “I should have listened to Nikki and stayed the hell away from him.”

“No one should ever listen to Nikki. Are you even listening to yourself?”

“Well, she was right, wasn’t she? All I did was hurt him and now look where he is. Look at what I did to him. It’s no wonder he hates me.” Recalling Lucifer’s gutting words put the blade right back in my stomach.

“That isn’t your fault, babe, and I’m sure Trace knows that,” she said as she reached over and took my hand. “You didn’t do this to him. Those three bitches did! And he doesn’t hate you,” she continued, squeezing my hand again. “He could never hate you. He loves you, and you know that.”

My eyes were welling up faster than I could blink the tears away. “All I’ve ever done is hurt him.”

“That’s not true,” she said, but the truth was, she didn’t know what she was talking about. She was just being a good friend and trying to say the right things to me. But I knew what I was, and I knew where I was going because of it: straight to hell with the devil.

And apparently, it was exactly where I belonged.

“Come on, Tay. I’m bonded to Dominic—to a vampire! Even Lucifer was disgusted with me. God knows what he saw—what he showed Trace when he was riffling through my brain.” I dropped my face into my hands as I tried to wipe the images clean from my brain.

“I don’t know, babe. If it was me, I’d be more concerned with what hedidn’tsee,” she said cautiously as though wary of adding any more weight to my already full load.

I lifted my head and looked at her. “Meaning?”

“You know…what he said to you about memories being hidden…” She trailed off like she was too nervous to finish the sentence. “Aren’t you worried that Dominic’s messing with your mind?” she finally said. “I mean, it’s not like he hasn’t taken memories away before,” she said and dramatically pointed to herself as evidence.

“He wouldn’t do that to me.” Wait. What the hell was I talking about? This was Dominic. He totally would, and the worst part is he wouldn’t even be remotely sorry for it. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God.”

“Exactly.”

The world felt as though it were crashing down on me again.

“I’m going to kill him. I’m going to end his freakin’ existence!”

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