Page 14 of My Soul Is His

Giso walks along the path until she’s at his side, her long blonde hair coiffed. She offers me a small smile.

“When will what start?” Marla asks in a soft voice next to me, touching her fingers to her lips. “What did you do, Sebastian?”

“A few days at most,” Berimund says. “We’ve redirected the camouflage shadow demon to train his sights on you. She’ll be free from it within a week. I hope you know what you’re doing, son.”

“Thank you, sir, ma’am.” I tip my head at both of them before guiding Marla away.

She bombards me with questions, her words a relentless volley. I continue our walk home.

“What the fuck did you do?” she asks, tears well in her eyes. My dove’s grip tightens on my shirt.

I grasp her shoulders, the warmth of her skin searing through my fingertips, pulling her close. “The best I could,” I whisper.

“Sebastian?”

“I pled our case. This place is unfair as it is. However, I barely qualify with the sad-ass demon that chases me. I visited theLords to demand they give me one of yours, but also to ask about the portal and how other realms work.”

Marla pulls back, her eyes wide with an anguish that chills me to the bone, and I can’t bear to look.

“The window I watch the other realm from?”

“It’s not real. It has never existed. Your shadow demon devised the sick joke. There are alternate realms, but none you can see from Cavum Terra,” I tell her.

We’ve reached the outside of the treehouse. Footprints in the dust leading inside confirm that Sid and Chloe must have gone in. I pull Marla’s hand to enter.

Orange and red light, like stained glass, streams through the canopy, illuminating the makeshift house in warm hues.

I swing the door open for her to the first bedroom and see how she’s created cozy spaces for us with old hoodies and bark.

She lays her head on my chest as we lie against the soft clothing. I would, without a second thought, carve a space inside my body, a sanctuary within my skin, to keep her safe from the world.

“What did they mean by the camouflage demon?” Marla pulls at a loose string on my collar, a nervous tic of hers.

“I took him on. You’ll be free from it in about a week, I guess.” I stroke her hair as sobs wrack her body, and the warm tears soak my shirt.

The decision was effortless for me. I’ve always had tunnel vision with her. If easing one of her demons after decades of torment means she might breathe a little easier again, at least I can save her a small amount, even if it has to be in the afterlife.

“Why?”

“I told you, pain doesn’t mean shit to me. Witnessing you in the grips of torture day in and day out? I can’t do it.”

“How will I ever repay you?”

A humourless chuckle escapes my lips, a dry, rustling sound in the room. However, I’m not able to go back and kill the people who tainted her mind again. The family whose love seemed conditional, laced with criticism and expectations. I shake my head.

No, she deserves to know, deep in her heart, that she is enough, capable and worthy of devotion and happiness.

“Your affection has always been abundant, my dove. The way you look past my flaws and choose the soul attached to my body is all I need.”

“Thank you,” she murmurs against my chest.

“My dove, I’d do anything for you. Forever, you are mine to protect, love, and cherish.” I hold her closer before exhaustion takes over.

Seven

Marla

Despite being somewhere new, the unsettling voice of Jess still finds me, a phantom sound that seems to scratch at my sanity, carries on the wind through the trees.

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