Page 56 of Infernal

I hadn’t realized I’d lunged at her again until I felt Dominic’s arm yanking me back out of thin air.

“Oh please,” she said as she clumsily pulled herself back to her feet. “Don’t pretend this is about that when we both know it’s about me and Trace.”

“You and Trace? Are you deranged?” I practically laughed in her face.

She dusted off her jeans and then gave her head a little shake. “I told you he would come back to me.”

My back stiffened at her words. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Like you don’t know. Like it’s some big coincidence that you decided you wanted payback exactly one day after me and Trace hook up. Give me a break. You’re not that good of an actress, Jemma.”

The room no longer had enough oxygen.

“You hooked up with Trace?” I couldn’t get the foul words out of my mouth fast enough. “Last night?”

An evil grin twisted her lips. “Twice.”

“Oh, my God.” I threw my hands over my eyes as images of her with devil-Trace pummeled through my consciousness, threatening to knock the ground out from under me.

“You little hellion,” laughed Dominic as I nearly threw up in my mouth.

Nikki’s eyes thinned as she took in my reaction. “Wait…you really didn’t know?”

I was still trying not to throw up when I said, “I’m so disgusted, I can’t even look at you right now.”

A pleased smile brushed across her face as she realized this was brand-new information to me and she had just gotten herself a front row seat to my reaction. “Look, no hard feelings, kay? It’s not like I didn’t warn you he’d come back to me.”

“He didn’t come back to you, you dumbass. That wasn’t Trace!” I gnashed my teeth together to keep from lunging at her again.

“Oh, okay, then who was it?” She half scoffed, half laughed and didn’t bother waiting for me to respond. “Believe me, it was all Trace. I would know.”

“Obviously not.” My fingers were itching to smack that whorish grin off her face. “Trace is Lucifer’s vessel.”

“Lucifer? Luciferwho? The devil?” She burst out laughing as though anyone in their right mind would ever joke about something like this. “You really are a freak, Jemma. Only you would come out with something as ridiculous and desperate as this.” She tried to walk passed me, but I stepped in front of her, blocking her exit.

“If you would’ve bothered to get to Temple on time you would know the Hellgate’s been opened. Lucifer is earthbound, and Trace is his vessel.”

“Riiiight,” she said and rolled her eyes at me, as though I’d make something like this up.

“I watched it happen with my own eyes.”

“Yes, I’m sure you did,” she said and patted my head before trying to walk off again.

Obviously, I wasn’t getting through to her at all. The delusion was strong with this one.

“Dammit, Nikki. He wouldn’t choose you over me,” I said, stepping with her so that she couldn’t walk away from me—from this. “And deep down you already know that.”

She paused, squaring her shoulders in an attempt to hide the impact of my words. “Well, apparently he would, because he did,” she said, scowling at me now. The deathly look in her eyes let me know she was out for blood. “Trace is over you, Jemma. Maybe you should try getting over yourself too,” she spat and then pushed her way passed me.

Dominic, my last line of defense, stepped out in front of her. “When you decide to remove your head from your ass, you can find us here,” he said and slipped a piece of paper into the palm of her hand.

She quickly turned the paper over and read it. “Wow. Shacking up in a hotel, huh? That’s low, Jemma. Even for you,” she said and then threw the piece of paper back at him before storming off.

“Well, that went super well,” I said bitterly as I watched her disappear around the corner.

Leave it to me to try to kill the one hope we had of saving Trace. Literally.

Not that it mattered now. She didn’t believe us anyway.

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