She jerked like I slapped her and folded her arms across her chest. “You were in my head?”
I nodded and gave her a very brief explanation of what I could do. I made sure to leave out the part about Cole asking me to do this.
“Those were my private thoughts.” Her face actually flushed. “You had no right.”
“I had to know if you loved him.” I pushed away from the railing and stood tall. “He’s my brother. I can’t stand to watch him hurt.”
Her shoulders slumped. “You can’t tell him.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’ll throw it all away to be with me. He can’t do that. He has no grasp on what eternity really means, of how long it is.”
I shrugged, pretending it didn’t bother me. “If that’s his choice…” I let my words fall away.
“You would let him give it up, then?” Gemma asked not unkindly.
I sighed. “I don’t know.” Gemma looked triumphant so I added, “But I think he should get a say in how he spends eternity.”
“I could leave right now and never come back.” Gemma warned.
The idea hurt me. She cared about us all. I hadn’t understood just how much until I felt it—heard it—in her own words. Cole wouldn’t be the only one to miss her. I would too. Sam would.
“We all feel the same, me especially,” I said.
“What?”
“The way you feel about us, we feel the same about you. You’re family.”
She didn’t seem to know how to react to that.
“You could go, but we’d still feel the same way.”
“He would be better off.”
I shrugged. “Maybe. What about you?”
“I don’t matter,” she said quickly.
“I think you do,” I said, stepping closer. “You deserve to be happy too. I think you belong here just as much as the rest of us.”
Gemma just stared at me with her wide, unblinking gray eyes.
“Look, I don’t know what’s going to happen between you and Cole. That’s for you two to work out. He isn’t the only reason I want you here. My mother’s soul is trapped in hell. I’m going to need all the help I can get to set her free—to set all of them free.”
As I spoke, an idea, a purpose, filled me. “If we could find and set all the souls free, we would diminish hell’s power; we would diminish Beelzebub’s power.”
Gemma nodded. “And all those poor tortured souls would be free.”
I grabbed her wrist. “Oh my God, Gemma. I think I just realized what I have been meant to do all along.”
Gemma smiled. “I don’t want to, but I like you, Heven.”
“I like you too.” I smiled
Gemma shook her head and started to walk by me, assuming the conversation was over. It wasn’t.
“You keep saying you have nothing,” I said softly, but she heard because she stopped in her tracks. “But that is so far from the truth. You have everything. My brother loves you. I’ve never seen him this way about anyone before. And you have me… me and Sam, who consider you family. Please don’t take that away from Sam. His parents turned him out; they pushed him away. Please don’t take away the family that he’s finally found. Even Riley cares about you.” Gemma snorted and I held up my hand. “You know as well as I do that Riley is meanest to those he cares about most. He’s afraid to get hurt.”
“I’ll think about it,” Gemma said and went to the door. I knew I won her over when she looked over her shoulder and said, “I can’t promise anything about Cole. There’s too much at stake and I love him too much to take away his eternity.”
“Tell him that. You owe him at least that much.”
She didn’t seem convinced, but I let her go. I was tired and dropped down onto the step for a moment of rest. I had found the answer my brother was looking for, but I was very afraid it wasn’t going to be the answer he wanted.
I had also found my purpose.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Heven
“Oomph.” Riley jerked from his sound sleep when I hit him with a pillow.
“Get up,” I ordered. Part of me was even surprised he hadn’t left. According to everyone, Riley only cared about himself. Riley was cursed; he had a mean and angry streak inside him. Sam was convinced he was only here because he wanted something, because being here would somehow get him what he wanted.
I hadn’t believed any of them.
But I was starting to.
Ever since I saw Riley’s reaction to the things Gemma was saying and how he seemed to enjoy killing the demons, I began to doubt him. And then he picked a fight with my brother. I never denied Riley had a mean streak, that he had done some very bad things and not shown an ounce of remorse. But I never really thought he was bad—evil. I caught glimpses (as fleeting as they might be) of another side to him. A softer side—a nicer side.
Two sides of the same coin. The words Airis spoke the last time I saw her floated through my mind. They jolted me. And just like that, I understood why I liked Riley, why I never wanted to believe the worst in him.
Because he was just like me.
We were both one person, a whole body, but there were two sides to us. The side that was connected to darkness and the side that fought that darkness. I was better at fighting that darkness—maybe because I wasn’t entirely sure how I was connected to it. But Riley, he knew. He was cursed. He was a hellhound and he was indebted, thanks to his grandfather, to someone who would ask him to do heinous acts. But there was that good side to Riley—that light. But I think he sometimes forgot it was there.
“What are you staring at?” Riley demanded, his eyes narrowing.
I shook myself, not wanting to give away what I was about to do. “Sorry, I’m still not feeling that well.” That, at least, wasn’t a lie. It was getting harder and harder to calm that beast living inside me. It was only a matter of time until it shredded my insides. I needed a way to get it out.
But first I wanted answers.
“Where is Sam?” Riley asked.
“He had somewhere he had to be.”
“While the cat’s away the mice will play?” Riley took a prowling step toward me. I did not back up. “Hmmmm?”
“Something like that,” I said as he stepped closer. “I wanted to talk without Sam around for you to fight with.”
Riley shrugged. “You can’t blame the guy for being jealous.”
“You are so arrogant.” I rolled my eyes and smiled.
“You like it.” Riley leaned forward.
I shrugged. “Maybe.”
Riley’s eyes narrowed. “I know damn well you didn’t suddenly decide to ditch the love of your life. Tell me what you want to talk about.”
It was now or never. I reached out and grabbed onto his wrist. “I want to know what you’re hiding,” I asked, my eyes locking on his, which flared silver before widening with guilt.
And that’s when I saw his answer.
Sam
I stripped off my shirt and dropped it on the ground. It was soon joined by my shorts, shoes and socks. I stood there, at the edge of the woods in the deepest cover of night, staring out over the inky dark lake. There was a breeze that moved the water; it rushed toward me, lapping at the bank, almost calling to me, begging me to come in.
I wasn’t scared. Very few things scared me anymore. At the top of the list was death. But not my death. Death of those I loved. I could pretty much take anything as long as I knew the people I loved more than myself would still be there.
Which is one of the reasons I was here, at this lakeside at night. I had someone to set free. There was a group of loved ones who mourned because they didn’t know if the person they loved was safe.
I tossed my boxers with the rest of my clothes and then I dove into the water. Icy liquid rushed over my skin, but I wasn’t cold. My eyes blinked, adjusting to the darkness, and a line of bubbles floated from my mouth. I wouldn’t need to breathe down here. I began pushing my arms and legs thro
ugh the heavy water, remembering exactly where I needed to go.
I wouldn’t ever forget this place. The place where I hid a body.
It didn’t take long to find her. Or rather, what was left of her.
Andi. It seemed important to remember her name, to give her that respect of identity, because to my shock, there really wasn’t any physical identity left to her.
I will help you. I told her as I treaded water just over where she lay.
She wasn’t in good shape. I hadn’t given much thought to what she would look like. I’d been so focused on setting her free. But now reality was sinking in. It was probably good that I didn’t need to breathe right now, because I probably wouldn’t have been able to anyway. Being sentenced to a dark, watery grave hadn’t been kind.
When I first left her here, I had wrapped the vegetation growing from the lake floor around her ankle, securing her body to the bottom. But those plants were not what held her here anymore. No, she was basically reduced to a pile of bones that lay partially concealed by the plants and matter of the lake bottom. Her skin was no longer covering her bones, but I did note there were some patches here and there. Those patches were being slowly eaten away by hungry fish.
Her clothes were nowhere in sight and most likely had been carried away by the current. I realized there was really nothing left to identify her by… except her teeth.
It was a gruesome sight. I thought of all the movies and shows on TV that portrayed dying and death as something that wasn’t ugly and scary—but it was. It was horrible and stomach turning.
I wanted to shut my eyes, but I didn’t. I needed to see what I had done. This girl, once full of life and beauty, was a girl still missed and loved by many. She had done nothing wrong, but I punished her by trapping her down here, essentially making me no better than Beelzebub.
I hadn’t chained up her soul, but I had chained her body to the floor of the lake.
I wanted to make it right. I shook my head. There was no making this right, but I could at least, hopefully, bring some peace to the people involved.
I swam closer to her remains and reached out to take her hand, to lift her body up, but her hand was gone. The bones from the wrist down were missing. I looked at her other arm and that hand was still intact.
I realized then that I couldn’t just grab her body and pull her to shore. There wasn’t much left holding the bones together. Her body would break apart and pieces of her would be lost.
God forgive me.
It seemed like an even worse crime to disturb her further. It seemed disrespectful somehow to break apart her body, to drag her to shore, all because I wanted to feel better about what I had done. There was no feeling better. There was no way to make this go away. Yes, I wanted her family to know peace, but dragging her bones to shore suddenly felt like it would only make things worse.
I didn’t know what to do.
Slowly, I sank back into the depths of the lake and swam away, leaving her body where it lay. Once back on shore, I dried and dressed, still pondering what I should do. I needed to do something. I pulled out the disposable cell phone that I bought on the way here and I dialed.
“9-1-1. What’s your emergency?”
“I-I’ve found a body in the lake,” I said, using my palm to cover up the end of the phone.
“Where is your location?”
I quickly gave the location and then I hung up the phone and wiped my fingerprints away with my towel. It was easy to crush it in my grip. Then I opened the towel and let the many pieces fall into the water and slowly sink from sight.
I didn’t know what the police would say when Andi was found or even if they would find her. I only hoped they would and that it brought some peace to her family. China and her stupid quest for that scroll. The scroll that I had foolishly helped look for.
I made my way through the forest toward where I parked. It was a long walk because I didn’t want my truck to be too close to where I would be. As I walked, I remembered, I thought…
I realized.
Riley once practically admitted that he knew what China was looking for. He once practically told me he wanted it too. Heven told him that she had it when she found him… That was the reason he had come back.
Pain seared through my middle, causing me to double over and gag into the grass. The hound in me began to fight and I gave in, changing right there on the forest floor. Heven. That thing inside her was riled up. Something was setting it off.
I had a feeling I knew exactly who it was.
Heven
I was sucked into his memory—his confession—hard and fast. I almost jerked back because of the brutality of it, but I held strong. This would be the only shot I had to get into Riley’s head. I shied away from thinking about what Riley would do to me when he realized what I had done.
I blinked, focusing, not on what I saw, but what he did. Because I asked him what I wanted to know, the answer—the thoughts—were in his mind for me to see.
He was standing outside, on a dock. The ocean was rough that night and the moon was the color of blood and it reflected right off the water, giving everything the shade of death. He was angry, beyond anger… to the point of shaking. He wanted to shift, to morph into the strong hellhound that he was and rip him from limb to limb.
But he couldn’t.
He wasn’t sure what was worse… his body unable to shift because of some stupid amulet or the knowledge that even if he could, he wouldn’t be able to kill him.
The invisible bonds of a curse, a curse he was born with, were heavy. He felt them every single day. They might be concealed to everyone around him, but to him, some days they were all he could see. Even when he tried to ignore them, he felt their pressure; he felt them squeeze. It was as if they wanted to wring out every last drop of humanity he had so he would become an empty shell—a robot. A controllable being.
But Riley would never allow himself to be controlled.
So he turned himself hard—cold. He learned how to turn off his emotion so he didn’t have to feel and he did things… just enough to keep the evil at bay… to keep him satisfied.
But this time he wanted more.
He watched the dark surf turned red from the moon. He watched as it lapped against the dock, coming in rougher and rougher with each passing moment. And then there was the wave… It crested high, it rolled closer with a threatening roar and just when he thought it was going to crash overhead, it split in two and out stepped his controller… his puppeteer.
Beelzebub.
He stepped onto the dock and the wave dissolved and the ocean went back to what it was before, erasing all evidence of his dramatic entrance.
“You’ve been hiding from me,” he intoned.
“If I had been hiding, you wouldn’t have found me.”
“Don’t talk to me that way!” he screamed. It was basically his natural tone.
Riley resisted the urge to laugh. He wouldn’t kill him. Not today anyway. He wanted something. As long as Riley was useful, he would remain alive.
“What do you want?” he asked, like he was bored.
“I want the Treasure Map,” Beelzebub snarled. “Something you failed to deliver the last time I sent you looking.”
“That’s because you put a woman in charge. She was too busy killing people and trying to prove herself to you to actually do what you wanted.”
“Then you should’ve killed her!” he roared.
“Didn’t have to.” For once, someone else did the dirty work.
“You underestimated that boy… the young one. He’s the one who has my Map!”
Riley tried not to react. But this was an interesting turn of events. “Who?”
“You know who! The young hellhound, the one with the girl. The girl who is mine!”
So he staked a claim on the girl and Sam had the Map? That kid was as good as dead.
So why don’t you take it from him?”
“I have contained him. But the girl… she’
s been a problem. She hides it and she wears a key that only she can use to open the scroll.”
Riley wasn’t sure what it meant that Sam had been “contained,” but he didn’t bother to ask. “What does this have to do with me?”
“Go there. Entrust yourself to the girl. Steal the scroll.”
“No.
“What did you say to me?!” he screeched.
He didn’t bother to repeat the word; he heard just fine.
Tirade Page 29
