It felt like cold water dripping down my ribs. I didn’t want to hear him say that, but I couldn’t prevent it. I couldn’t say the words that would make him stay. I couldn’t say anything at all. I could only let the decisions I couldn’t bear to make form a stranglehold around my lungs and squeeze until it hurt.
Maybe he thought I would say something. The silence stretched out between us, and he pulled his hand away from my face. It was cold. So cold. He leaned his face down, the gap between our mouths so small, but somehow it was a chasm.
“Go inside,” he said softly. Such a simple dismissal. He’d taken all that passion, all that desperation, folded it up and tucked it away as neatly as if it was never there. My stomach twisted, tighter and tighter. My lungs squeezed, smaller and smaller.
“I don’t want you to go,” I said. He frowned.
“Then make me stay. Properly. Not with petty magic tricks.”
Give up your soul.
Terrifying, alluring. Everything I wanted and was terrified of having. A weight so heavy it crushed the words inside me.
Leon smirked.
“Go inside, doll. For tonight, I’ll watch. In the morning, I’ll go.”
“That’s not fair.” My voice sounded petulant. Desperate.
He shook his head. “No. It’s not. I’ve yet to find fairness anywhere on Earth.”
I had to walk away. Had to. So I turned and trudged back through the trees, refusing to look back. Why look to see if he was following or if he’d vanished already? Why pretend he was some mortal man whom I could convince to stay for just a little longer, until things got too serious and everything was too stifling and I wasn’t worth the effort?
Why pretend he hadn’t offered exactly what I wanted, and I’d refused it?
The days rapidly grew colder as Halloween approached. One day it started raining, and simply didn’t stop. The downpour went on for hours, and even when it lessened, heavy droplets still tapped against the windows and created a tiny river system across campus. Inaya and I would eat lunch together indoors, huddled close on the wooden benches in the big dining hall, laughing and sipping hot coffee to warm our hands.
Victoria and Jeremiah frequently joined us.
I’d been able to make friends in my classes, and Inaya had introduced me to more of her own group, so I tried to make a point of inviting other people, but the Hadleighs turned up even when I least wanted them there. It was almost like they knew I was trying to get some distance from them, so they were drawing closer than ever.
Their presence made me anxious, Leon’s warnings about them echoing in my head. Sometimes, knowing they’d be there in the dining hall was just too much, so I’d find a place to eat outside so I could avoid them. I wanted to warn Inaya about them, but I didn’t know what I could tell her. The things I was worried about would sound ridiculous to anyone who hadn’t seen the things I’d seen.
It would sound ridiculous to anyone who hadn’t learned to trust the words of a demon.
There was a courtyard behind the library where I’d sometimes eat, seated at a bench tucked into a little alcove against the building. It was cold, and my fingers felt numb as I ate my sandwich, but I was determined to tough it out. Victoria had been texting me all day. The number of events she’d invited me to over the past week was absurd. Every time I turned one down, she’d come up with another one.
It would have seemed so innocently friendly, but I believed Leon’s warning. I wasn’t safe with the Hadleighs.
“There you are.”
I nearly dropped my sandwich. Jeremiah stood there, his hood pulled up, smiling. The rain was dripping from his coat, and I scooted over quickly as he took a seat on the bench beside me. I knew his last class was all the way on the other side of campus. There was no reason for him to be back here – unless he’d been looking for me.
“Aren’t you cold?” He looked at my shivering hands, and before I could say a word, he enfolded my hands in his. I tensed up, instinctually wanting to pull away. His fingertips were cold, and he blew on my hands to warm them.
I tried not to shudder. “It gets too stuffy inside,” I said. “Sometimes it’s nice to just be alone, with my thoughts.”
He paused, his eyes locked onto mine. “Alone with your thoughts…yeah. I get that.” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Victoria was worried you didn’t text her back. So I figured I’d look for you.”
I’d felt my phone buzz. I hadn’t even bothered to look. “Oh. Well. Here I am. Totally fine. My phone died earlier, so…” I shrugged. Please go away. Go away, go away.