Page 66 of Demon's Desire

I pursed my lips as I glanced out the window. “Damn… I’m glad no one got hurt.”

“That’s quite lucky,” Soul pointed out. “A fire like this, in such a populated building? A lot of people probably should have gotten hurt.”

“Should have?” I frowned at him.

“Logically,” he clarified. “Logically, people should have gotten hurt. It’s a wonder no one did.”

“Right.” I glanced back out the window, then down at my phone. It didn’t show any Ubers in my area. Normally, there were options—this car can get you to your destination in ten minutes, this one in fifteen, this one in eighteen. Right now, there was nothing. “Huh…”

“What’s wrong?” Soul asked.

I sighed and showed him my phone. “Nothing’s coming up. There might not be any Ubers in this area. I’ll give it a few more minutes.”

We waited for a little bit, but after five more minutes, nothing was coming up. I stood up and closed the Uber app on my phone.

“What are you doing?” Soul asked.

“No one’s coming.” I shrugged. “It’s Halloween. People are probably all at parties or out with their kids or something. All the drivers are busy. Let’s just walk home.”

“Are you sure?” he asked as he stood up.

“Yeah.” I headed for the door. “It’ll be less than half an hour. Not a big deal. I knew I’d have to get used to walking since I came to the city without a car.” There was probably a train stop somewhere around here, but I hadn’t learned where all those lines were just yet, so I wouldn’t even know where to get off. It would be easier just to walk.

“If you say so,” Soul said, following me. “I don’t mind walking.”

“Yeah, we’ll be fine.” I nodded. “It’s not like anyone can get me anyway, not with a big scary demon following me.”

“You flatter me.” Soul smirked as we stepped out onto the dark street.

I smiled at him and took a deep breath as we headed into the night. Walking alone at night was one of those things my mother specifically warned me about before I moved here. She was always terrified of what could happen in such a big city. And honestly, the idea of walking home in the darkness should have made me much more apprehensive, but it didn’t. Not when I had Soul by my side. He made me feel safe.

Of course, the fact that no one else could see Soul at my side left me more vulnerable than I thought…

15

We were walking for a bit when I got a notification on my phone and opened it up to see a text from Kelly. “Oh, Kelly’s spending the night at Molly’s so they can watch movies and stuff.”

“Hm?” He glanced at me. “Why aren’t you with them?”

“No reason.” I shrugged. “Molly and I just never meshed. She’s nice, but we don’t have a ton in common. I’m glad Kelly and I each have other friends. We don’t have to be attached at the hip.”

“Like me?” he asked.

“What do you mean?” I looked up at him.

“I’m your friend, right?”

I paused internally when he asked that. It was a bit of an odd question. I mean, coming from a demon. For a second, I wasn’t really sure how to respond. I didn’t know him that well. I’d kissed him the night before. For the foreseeable future, we couldn’t be apart from each other unless one of us died, and there was a demon hunter out there who was trying to make that happen. He’d been so much trouble since I arrived in Chicago—possessing my friends, scaring people, just generally putting me on edge.

But… I liked his company. For the first time in a long time, I wasn’t feeling as lonely. And I don’t mean the physical, ‘no one else is around’ kind of lonely. I mean the internal one. The ‘I’m in a room full of people and no one in here really understands me’ lonely. I hadn’t noticed that feeling since he’d shown up. He made me coffee in the morning if he woke up earlier than I did. He made me laugh. And he genuinely enjoyed my presence…

“Yeah.” I smiled slightly. “Yeah, Suldeargan. You’re my friend. I hope I’m your friend too.”

Soul returned my smile. He opened his mouth to say something, but before he did, something slammed into my shoulder. I stumbled back a few steps and stopped walking, looking around to see what I’d run into.

“Oh, sorry, sweetheart,” a man said beside me. “You should really watch where you’re going.”

I looked him up and down and frowned. He was a few inches shorter than me, he was fairly scrawny, and he had this sort of sleazy look about him. I would not have been surprised if someone told me he was a used car salesman.

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