I rubbed a hand over my face. I knew why she wanted to go back. I knew humans got attached to places and things, and that leaving all the sights and smells that had grown comfortable for her was hard. I knew she thought finishing school was important, and I knew she loved that cat. I knew humans did best when they had some semblance of normalcy. Of home. Of safety.
I knew whisking her away and forcing her to leave everything behind wouldn’t work, or that perpetually moving her from hotel to hotel was going to stress her out.
“I don’t know.” That was the most honest answer I could give. “I don’t know what the Libiri will do now that Kent is gone. And with or without the Libiri, the God still wants you.” Fear flickered over her face, and was swallowed down with a heavy gulp. “Its servants will still come after you. The monsters will still stalk you.”
The way her face fell and the way all that tense hope went out of her, felt similar to a hammer crashing against my ribs. I sat down at the edge of the bed, motioning her over. She stood in front of me, the new metal in her nipples pressed against her shirt, her fingers fiddling with her pajama pants. I brushed my fingers over her lips, her cheek, through the soft strands of her hair. I wasn’t good at being gentle; it made my fingers twitchy. But it was worth the self-restraint to feel her lean her face against my hand.
“Do you want to go back?”
She nodded. “I’m not really any safer here, am I? The monsters don’t care about city limits. It’s not like I can go out after dark here, or walk around by myself.” She sighed. “I mean, I…I still…I need you with me.”
“You’re mine,” I said simply. “I’m not leaving.”
“I think about it every day, you know.” She bit her lip, eyes staring off so she wouldn’t have to meet mine. “The deal you offered. I think about it. It’s just…” She tried to turn away, but I kept a grip on the nape of her neck. I wanted to see her face, her eyes. I didn’t want her hiding her fears from me. “It’s a big decision, Leon.”
The way I ached for her soul was nearly unbearable. It was a constant pressure on the back of my mind, an itch I couldn’t reach. The need to possess her, wholly. We demons had the power to take nearly anything we wanted, but a human soul?
That had to be given willingly.
It was fucking torture.
I got up from the bed, kissing her forehead as I tugged her head back to look up at me. “I know. I’m waiting, Rae. I’m not going anywhere. You’ll give it to me eventually.” I smirked, and shrugged, as nonplussed as I could manage to fake. “Pack up, baby girl. Let’s get you home.”
Even at midday, thick fog obscured Abelaum. The streetlights were still on, glowing pale yellow, and cars drove slowly along the narrow suburban streets. The town lay blanketed in the damp, as if it had gathered the fog close and held it there, like a cloak to hide its secrets.
I’d hoped to feel some kind of weight lift, but my unease was growing; partially because Leon was clearly on high alert. He was rigid in his seat as he drove the truck down Main Street, his eyes flickering along the sidewalks, watching every passerby, narrowing at every car.
Kent’s death didn’t hit the state news, but it got a spread in the town’s tiny newspaper. HEAD OF LOCAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY DEAD IN AN APPARENT SUICIDE was the headline on their website. Suicide.
“No,” Leon said firmly, when I read the headline aloud. “That man was too self-righteous to ever end it himself. His killers just knew how to cover their tracks.”
We stopped at Inaya’s apartment first to pick up Cheesecake. He purred in my arms, rubbing against my chin as Inaya leaned against her doorframe and said worriedly, “I haven’t been able to get a hold of Victoria at all. Jeremiah said she went to stay with her grandparents, and I know I should just give her time, but…” She chewed at a pink-polished nail. “It’s just so awful, Rae. I never thought Kent was struggling like that. His poor family.”
My natural inclination was to agree with her. But Kent being dead meant he wasn’t trying to kill me. So while I put on a sympathetic face as I hugged her good-bye, all I could really think was, Thank God he’s dead — thank whatever God is on my side.
The cabin was cold when we walked in. After just a few days without a human inhabiting it, the place already felt a little less friendly. It was strange, after spending so much time in old abandoned places, I knew the feel of them, the scent of them, the way the air felt stiller in them. It hadn’t taken long at all for the cabin to start feeling like that.