Was I Mortana—and I’d forgotten?
Deep down at my core, under the lies I told myself, what if I was truly evil?
I ran and ran until I saw the moonlight in Osborne. I slipped into the shadows, my feet pounding along the waterfront. I sprinted past the brewery, the Cirque de la Mer. I didn’t know where I was going, just that I needed to move.
But I could never outrun what I was really fleeing.
Chapter 38
I leaned back on my bed in my basement apartment, staring at the wall. I poured myself another paper cup of cheap red wine, no longer caring that the spiders were crawling all over my bedspread.
Let them crawl.
I’d been down here for nearly a day, and I was on my second bottle.
If Orion wanted to come find me and throw me in prison again, it wouldn’t be hard. I hadn’t bothered to hide. I’d just come back to where I’d started—the mildewed basement I shared with six other people. Now, I had less fear but a lot more self-loathing. If Orion dragged me back, I’d go dressed in old leggings and a David Bowie T-shirt covered in wine stains. And I’m not sure I’d put up that much of a fight.
My gaze wandered around the room, then landed on the fire extinguisher. I broke out into a sort of hysterical dark laughter and spilled some of my wine on the duvet.
Guess I could get rid of all the fire safety equipment now.
My phone buzzed—another text from Shai, desperate to know what was going on. I hadn’t been answering, because frankly, I had no idea what to say.
I was a demon, yes. But I wasn’t going to deliver that news over text. Still, I should let her know I was alive.
I flicked open my new, extremely cheap phone. Unable to come up with anything better, I texted her a smiley face and a bottle of wine emoji.
That should cover it.
My head was swimming, and I was starting to feel faintly nauseated. When had I last eaten?
The room seemed to be wavering. Apparently, being a demon made you faster and stronger, but it didn’t raise your alcohol tolerance.
And yet, I didn’t want my head to clear. I couldn’t face the possibility that my own fire magic had killed Mom.
When my phone buzzed again, I found a frantic all-caps message from Shai:
ARE YOU OKAY??! WTF IS HAPPENING? TWO MORE DUKES ARE DEAD?? I saw Legion in the Sathanas Ward. I got up the courage to ask him where Mortana was. He said no one had seen you, and rumor was that you’d burned two dukes. ARE YOU OKAY?
I dropped my cup of wine on the bedside table and started typing back to her.
I’m fine!
You know what? Fuck it. I was always so worried about what people would think or that I’d make them uncomfortable with the darkness I carried with me. I never wanted to burden anyone with my most disturbing thoughts. Maybe I could actually learn a thing or two from Orion. Maybe I could try…just coming out and saying things.
With a strange feeling of giddiness, I typed:
Turns out I’m a demon. I have fire magic. And a star mark. What if I’m the one who killed Mom? What if I’m evil?
I watched as the dots moved on the screen while she wrote back to me, and my heart pounded as if the judgment of St. Peter awaited me.
Evil people don’t worry that they’re evil, Rowan. They don’t care.
My chest unclenched, and I dropped the phone. Holy shit. Of course she was right.
Why hadn’t I been able to think clearly enough to consider that? A psychopath doesn’t worry that she’s evil. She doesn’t feel anxiety. And me? Even as a demon, I had plenty of that.
I rose from my bed and yanked open my basement door. Orion described someone who at her core did not care for other people. And what I’d said to him was true—my emotions rose to the surface when I felt like I desperately wanted to protect him.
And I couldn’t be Mortana.
I mean, I remembered being a kid. Crying in the ball pit at Chuck E. Cheese and peeing my pants in the second grade. Mom sending me to school with waffles for a year because I refused to eat anything else, and other kids laughing at my bony knees. The nights Mom spent petting my head because I had nightmares and kept asking for water.
I remembered being the fastest kid in my gym class but never being able to climb the ropes, and having a crush on Matt Logan even after he told me I was annoying. I remembered watching The Price is Right with my mom over early lunches and getting excited at the prizes.
I remembered getting Communion when I went to church with my friend Amy, even though I wasn’t Catholic. I’d immediately puked over a statue of Santa Lucia.
And…now I understood why I’d puked, I guess.