When Devils Sing(91)

“Should you really be going back to his house?” Isaiah asked. “I don’t know if it’s safe.”

“He’s not gonna hurt me,” Neera said.

Isaiah didn’t look convinced. “How do you know that?”

“Because I’m Grant Langley’s newest investment.” Bitterness coated her words.

“Even still, I don’t know if—”

“I’ll stay the night with her,” Sam interrupted, peeling away from the wall. “I can keep Neera company until morning. That’ll give her some time to figure out what she wants to do.”

Neera nodded. “I’d like that.”

“Fine,” Isaiah conceded. “We can discuss any moves tomorrow.”





CHAPTER 37NEERA




44 HOURS


It was past midnight, and Neera couldn’t sleep.

She was in a daze. Her strumming hand was cut to pieces from breaking the glass case that had held Ajay’s guitar pick. She didn’t remember breaking it—only seeing it through the glass, and then it was in her hands. The time between those two moments was lost.

A summer storm had since returned to Langley County, thunder rumbling overhead. She couldn’t bring herself to let the pick go, cradling it in her hand.

Ajay had been a man who lived by a code of rock ’n’ roll and superstition. Some were old ways learned from her grandparents, carried over from Punjab—never keep a chipped piece of dishware, as it causes ill fortune. Only wear white to funerals. Then there were others, learned from a life of music. He’d taught Neera to always keep a piece of luck on her. The object could be anything, but it must always be present.

A metal kara on her left wrist, a gift from Nani, was hers.

But the guitar pick was his.

It had a marbled, emerald-green design that matched her birthstone. She hadn’t seen it in three years, yet there it was now, in her bandaged palm. She studied it in the spare light from her phone’s screen, illuminating the plastic sheen of its surface. When she tilted the pick a certain way, she thought she saw some sort of engraving embedded in it. But as she looked more closely, the etchings vanished.

Must be a trick of the light, she thought.

Sighing, Neera crawled out of bed and padded into the living room.

Sam’s voice came from the dark, “Can’t sleep?”

Neera fumbled for the nearest lamp, then flicked it on. “Nope.”

On the couch, Sam sat up, clearing away space beside her. “I can’t, either.”

Neera joined her. “Why not?”

Sam was quiet for an uncomfortably long time. “Can I tell you somethin’?”

“Go ahead,” Neera said. She angled herself on the couch, studying Sam’s face in the spare light from the lamp. Their feet were just barely touching, side by side, on the couch cushion.

“The night I made my bargain with the … my little brother had been with me. Ben was in my car because I was trying to protect him. He’d called me from a sleepover that night. You see, even at ten, he has a problem with wetting the bed. He was afraid to fall asleep in case he did it in front of his friends. My daddy gets so angry when he does it. He only makes it worse for Ben—more shameful. Life’s funny that way. Ben only wets the bed because he’s scared. He’s scared of our daddy and that fear bleeds into his dreams.”

The lamplight flickered as the power surged from the storm. “So, of course, Ben called me to pick him up. We were on the way home when the other car hit us. It was bad. I knew Ben wasn’t gonna make it. When the devil appeared, when he offered me a chance to save my brother’s life, I didn’t hesitate. No matter the consequences. And now, my daddy made it so that I can’t even legally see my brother, much less protect him. Because that’s what Ben truly needs—protection from our daddy.”

“Because he’s a dangerous man,” Neera observed in a low voice.

Sam nodded. “My daddy is a bad man whose job is to do bad things. I’ve known this for a long time, like the way you know the sky is blue. But I didn’t understand the truth of it until three years ago. I was fifteen when I knew it for certain. Middle of the night, and I knew he was at work. He didn’t like us eating past suppertime, but I was in the kitchen anyway. He wasn’t expecting anyone to be up when he walked in.” Fear and memory flashed in her eyes. “But I was. All I saw was blood seeped into his clothes. Stained them black. He didn’t yell. Nothin’. Just told me to go to bed. When I saw him the next morning, there wasn’t a scar on him. Not even a bruise. The blood had been someone else’s.”

Neera let Sam’s story settle in the air. Her gaze was drawn across the room, as the storm battered the window, sending waves of heavy rain slanting sideways against the glass. She watched the droplets fall in a steady rhythm as she began to understand the weight of Sam’s words.

“Sam,” she said quietly, “when exactly was this?”

“Sometime around early May,” Sam said. “I remember it was around finals.”

Neera’s blood went cold. “May fifth?”

Sam wouldn’t look her in the eye. “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

There was a ringing in Neera’s ears. “And you’re certain of what you saw?”