Page 59 of Run Like the Devil

In short? She’d proven herself someone to not underestimate.

And yet there were times like this where she appeared entirely unguarded. She sat across from Hale, a man I would leave no one I treasured with alone, and she showed no signs of fear. Instead, she smiled so sweetly, as if truly enjoying herself.

“If anyone could accept a person for whatever they were, I think Loch would be that person.”

“Just because she can doesn’t mean she should. Perhaps some people don’t deserve that kind of acceptance,” Tyrus said.

I turned my gaze from Loch and Hale to Tyrus, but he didn’t look at me. Instead, he stared down at his own hands.

Ah. This isn’t about Yazmor.

Instead, it was about Tyrus and his own self-hatred. It seemed none of us were exempt from our own doubts, and it made me realize, I wasn’t sure if I had ever seen his demon form.

Despite fights he’d been in, despite showing how capable and vicious he could be, he always did so in his human form. Hale had changed before, and I’d seen his in the past, but never Tyrus.

It seemed we all hid parts of ourselves we didn’t care for.

“The way a person appears does not change who they are,” I said.

“Is that why you hid your true self for so long?”

“That was out of necessity, not self-hatred. Do you truly believe anyone in the Chasm would follow me if they had known? Would they submit to an angel’s authority? Even if I took the form of a demon there, if they had known what I was at my core, would they have ever accepted it?”

Tyrus pressed his lips together before letting out a sigh. “I suppose you’re right. Was it hard to leave the Plains?” He asked that last question softly, as if he hated to admit to his own curiosity.

“Not really. Do not mistake me, there were many times I missed it. With my demon form, I could not return anyway, and there were times where I so desperately wanted to see it again. Or, perhaps it was better to say I wished to revisit the way I had felt there, as if I belonged. The Plains is not the haven it is made out to be. In many ways, it is no different than the Chasm, just with prettier wrappings.”

“My wife and children are there.”

I brought my gaze up to Tyrus, surprised to hear him utter something so personal. I knew nothing of his past, nothing of how he came to sell his soul or die. The thought of him having a family struck me as strange. He always acted alone, as if untouchable by anything else. I couldn’t picture him having a wife, of going home and tucking children into bed.

I had no idea what to say, and I had the feeling he didn’t expect a verbal response. Instead, I allowed him to continue at his own pace.

“I wonder if I’ll see them when we get there. I don’t know if I’m hoping for that or not. A part of me wants to know they are well, that they’re happy, that they‘ve lived well in the Plains all this time. Another doesn’t want them to see what I’ve become.”

He let out a strained, empty laugh. “Don’t get me wrong—I was far from a good person when alive. In a lot of ways, I suppose I’m the same person. Still, the years in the Chasm have pushed me further, have had me doing worse things than before. Not only that, but if they’ve existed in the Plains, away from me, all this time, perhaps they realized just how bad I was. If they saw me, if they hated me, I don’t know how I would react to that. Sometimes it’s better not to know.”

He didn’t speak again at first, and I could have let the conversation drift away. I could have let his silence stand as the end of this talk, but I couldn’t bring myself to.

Why?

My gaze shifted over to Loch once more, to the source of so much change, so many things I couldn’t understand within myself. She had broken apart the familiar life I’d had before, the comfort I’d had with myself, with understanding who and what I was.

Now, that had all changed. She had opened my eyes to more. My life wasn’t just my duty, just my work, just motions toward an end where I existed entirely by myself. She’d bridged that gap, and when she’d done it, she made me crave it from others.

No matter how pathetic that felt.

“I understand,” I said, bringing my gaze to the fire before me. “I spent a very long time in the Chasm. When I returned to the Plains, I stood outside the main city, unsure what to do. I couldn’t return to the Chasm, had no wish to be on Earth, but I didn’t know how to return to the place I had come from, the place that had been my home for so long. No, not just the place, but more the people. The souls there, the angels I had spent so many days with, even Hubis. Seeing them all again, after I had spent so much time away, so much time changing, made me uneasy. Time passes and people change and the idea that we may change in ways that drive us apart is quite an unwelcome thought.”

I let out a soft sigh and shook my head. “Not that I had anyone important waiting, so perhaps I don’t understand fully. I made no real connections in the Plains, had no one waiting for my return, no one who would care if I came back or not.”

Tyrus moved his gaze from me over and past, to where Loch sat. Again, I found myself thankful to never have had to go up against Tyrus in a real way. He was far more observant than anyone should be, too good at picking up a person’s weaknesses.

“Perhaps it was more similar to when you returned the Chasm. You may not have been gone so long, but you did have someone you had to face, after the two of you had both had time to grow.”

And yes, right there, Tyrus proved again why he had gotten and held his position in the Chasm.

Worse? I had no argument, so I offered him the truth. “If you’re right about that, then you should take heart—it worked out for me, and I have a feeling I did things far worse than your family could ever levy against you.”

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