Reaping Willow

by D. N. Hoxa

  I opened my mouth to tell him that I already knew about his deal. I already knew what he and his brothers had done, but then I thought better of it. I wanted to hear what he had to say, and if that made me naive, so be it.

  “Go ahead,” I said, and he turned to look at me in surprise. “What? I’m all ears.”

  He nodded, but it was only to reassure himself. Then he spoke.

  “A year ago, my dad was very sick. Bone cancer. The doctors gave him a couple of weeks,” he said. I felt his pain, even though I didn’t want to. Fathers were a sore subject for me. It always would be. “One night, I had this dream—the strangest dream ever. I was there with my brothers, Alan and Murdock, but there was another guy there, too, and he said he’d heal our father and let him live for seven more years if we agreed to work for him when he needed us.”

  A dream. I’d always imagined it differently. When my father told me about the people who sold their soul, I kind of pictured a meeting with the devil down in the fiery pits of hell for whatever reason. I’d have never guessed something like that would be done in a dream.

  “It was ridiculous, just a stupid dream. A dream—not reality,” Adrian said through gritted teeth. “I said yes because it was a fucking dream.” He slammed his hand on the steering wheel with all his strength.

  I tried to read him again. Why didn’t he feel like his brothers did? Why wasn’t he empty?

  “My brothers had the same dream, too. We all said yes. When we woke up, my dad was…okay. He was just okay. We found him in the kitchen, making breakfast. Eggs and bacon—our favorite.” His laugh was heartbreaking. It almost made my eyes tear up. “He couldn’t speak—hasn’t said a word since, but he’s healthier than the three of us combined because that dream was real, and before we knew it, we’d sold ourselves to the Devil and we had no choice but to do what he asked.”

  When he told the story like that, it made me pity him.

  For a second.

  “For a year, people came to our doorstep with all kinds of requests: to beat people up, to steal, to spy—and no matter what it was, I couldn’t say no. It was impossible. Until four days ago.” He turned to look at me for a second, as if searching for a reaction. He wasn’t getting one—not yet. “The man who came to us said his girlfriend was obsessed with her daughter, that she refused to marry him because of her. He said he just couldn’t take it anymore, that he’d tried everything to get rid of her, but nothing had worked. His girlfriend wouldn’t even let the daughter get her own place.”

  A lump formed in my throat. Why did this sound so…familiar?

  “He said he wanted the daughter gone for good, to make sure she never came back so he could finally start a life with his new wife.” He sounded angry, but I felt empty.

  “No,” I said because he was a liar. He was a fucking liar, that’s all.

  “The man’s name is George, Willow. And the daughter is you.”

  “No!” I slammed my fists on the dashboard so hard, my whole body shook. This had been a mistake. I should have just run away on foot from that motel, take the fucking bus if I had to.

  “Willow, I swear to you, it’s the truth. I know how it sounds, but it’s all true,” said Adrian, and if he wasn’t driving, I would have slammed his head to the steering wheel long ago. For being such a fucking asshole. For lying through his teeth.

  “Stop the car,” I demanded. We were on a highway somewhere, but I’d walk the whole night if I had to, just as long as I was away from him.

  “No,” he said and hit the gas instead. We were going too fast. If I opened the door and just jumped out, I’d be too hurt to walk—and that’s if I didn’t die.

  “If you don’t stop the car, I’m going to jump,” I warned him. If it came to it, I really would.

  “And do what?” he asked, raising his voice. “My brothers are after you. They won’t stop until you’re dead. They can’t stop.”

  “You’re lying,” I spit, unable to think about anything else but those words. “You’re a liar. You’re lying, you fucking prick.”

  “I know how it all sounds. Trust me, I was shocked for an entire month after that dream, but it’s the truth. The devil is very real. I swear, I’m not making it up!”

  “George is a good man. I felt him! He never would have done something like that. He never would have asked you to kill me, or I would have known. I would have fucking known!” I’d have felt it if George had sold his soul, too. I’d have felt it as soon as I stepped into the apartment, as soon as I looked at him.

  Except he hadn’t been there. He’d been away on business, and I hadn’t even seen him in three days.

  But…no. It just wasn’t possible.

  “What do you mean, you felt him? How would you have known?” asked Adrian, as if that was of any importance.

  “I don’t know what sick game you’re trying to play, but you need to stop. Stop lying and stop the fucking car!”

  “Fine!” he shouted so loudly, my ears rang. He squinted his eyes like the sun was in his face. “Fine,” he repeated, much calmer now. “We’ll stop in the next town, and you can go wherever you want to go.” Really? “On one condition.”

  I should have figured. “What condition?”

  “You tell me why you believed me.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Any other person would have thought I was nuts for talking about the Devil and the deal me and my brothers made, but you weren’t even surprised. You believed me when everyone else would have really jumped out of the car. So tell me why.”

  Oh, shit.

  “I’m not telling you anything.” He was better off not knowing, anyway.

  “Tell me why, Willow.”

  “I…” I couldn’t speak. For the longest second, my brain became all mushy, and I couldn’t find the words to send him to hell, right where he belonged. Because he’d done it again, he’d said those words like they were an order, not a request. And again, I couldn’t help myself.

  “Because I know,” I said, cursing myself in my mind for caving so easily. Whatever it was about Adrian that got to me the way it did, it was no fun. “Because I’ve known since I was eleven, about the Devil and the deals and the demons. I know.”

  “Demons? What demons?” he said. “And how did you know?”

  I considered that he was just fucking with me, but it didn’t seem like it. He sounded genuinely curious. Could it be that he really didn’t know about demons?

  “That guy I went out with, then tried to kill back in Manhattan. Who do you think he was?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Really?” I was trying to be sarcastic, but he didn’t get it, or he didn’t want to.

  “I swear, I don’t know who he was,” Adrian said. Could I believe him? “So who was he?”

  My, my, he really didn’t know.

  “A demon. A shape-shifter, to be exact. He can take the shape of any person so long as he has ingested a part of that person’s body.” It felt so weird to say all of this out loud. I’d never talked about demons or anything else of that nature with anyone except my father. It had been four long years since the last time I’d said that word out loud.

  “And you know this, how?” Adrian said.

  Yes, it was weird to tell another soul but also very relieving. The problem was, Adrian didn’t have a soul. He’d signed it off to the devil to save his father. Mine didn’t know as much about his kind, not as much as he knew about demons, anyway, but he didn’t hunt them down. He didn’t kill them. But he didn’t trust them for obvious reasons.

  And I couldn’t trust Adrian, either. As much as I wanted to spill my guts and talk about all my secrets, I couldn’t.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said, fearing I’d revealed too much already. “What matters is that they’re after me.”

  “My brothers?” he said, and suddenly, what he’d said came back to me like a slap. I’d let myself forget because I refused to believe it was true.

  I mean, George?
! Come on! That guy was a fucking saint, and not only because he had the nerves to put up with my mother. He wouldn’t have asked for my death. He just wouldn’t!

  Damn it.

  “Is it true?” I whispered, even though half of me begged me to just shut up. “What you said about George. Is it true?”

  It was stupid to ask him that because I couldn’t believe him, even if he said yes.

  “He gave us an envelope with a picture of you in it, your phone number, address, where you worked, and your schedule.” I bit my tongue to keep from crying. “Why would I be lying to you about this?” Why? I could think of a thousand different reasons. “Willow, look at me.” Like hell I was going to. “Fuck, Willow, just look at me!”

  My head turned before I could even think about what I was doing, and my eyes met his. The frozen blue in them melted and spun around in a circle, enveloping me completely.

  “I am not lying to you.”

  His words seemed to be charged with invisible energy, and they slammed onto my chest repeatedly until I forgot how to breathe. As badly as I wanted not to believe him, the truth was that I did. I believed that George was capable of asking for my death, simply because it’s what people do.

  “So how come you’re here?” My voice shook as I desperately tried to hold onto whatever doubt I could find. “If he asked you to kill me, why didn’t you?”

  “Because I’m done,” he said through gritted teeth, and again, his eyes squinted almost completely shut. “I did what he asked for a year, but I’m not a murderer. I’m not going to kill anyone just because some guy thinks he should be more important to a woman than her own daughter. I broke the deal. I’m done.”

  “But you can’t. That’s not how it works.” Dad said that once a person sold their souls, there was no way they could take it back. It was impossible.

  “Well, I don’t know how any of it works, but I’m not going to kill you, Willow. No matter what happens, I won’t do it.”

  “And your dad?” Had he thought about that part?

  His chin quivered for just a second, but he gathered himself quickly. “My dad is the first reason why I’m walking away from it all. If he knew what we’d done…God, if he knew,” he whispered, making me flinch.

  “You really didn’t want any of it, did you?” I asked because I needed to understand. I’d always pictured people like him a certain way, and Adrian was nothing like it. He didn’t feel like it, either.

  He shook his head slowly. “I made a mistake, but I’m never going to make it again.”

  “But it’s too late.” I hated to be the bearer of bad news, but he needed to hear it. “Your soul is gone. You’re already doomed.”

  I expected him to send me to hell, but instead, he smiled. “That’s a pretty good reason to try to make up for all I’ve done for the rest of my life here, don’t you think?”

  I thought he was out of his mind no matter how beautiful his face, but that wasn’t the point.

  “Is that what you’re going to do now? Try to make up for it?” It all sounded very noble. Also, very unrealistic. There’s no way you could make up for that kind of thing.

  “That’s the plan,” he said with a sigh. “What about you?”

  Me? I thought I had options. Turns out, I didn’t have shit. “I’m going back home to my mother, wait for George to show up, kill him, then take it from there.” That was my plan.

  “My brothers aren’t going to stop, not unless he makes them.” It sounded like a warning, and we both knew who he was.

  “I’ll deal with them if they come for me again.” It was about time I got that gun I’d planned on getting. In fact, I just might get a pair. I didn’t exactly know how to shoot because a bullet couldn’t kill a demon, so my father had thought it useless to teach me, but it couldn’t be hard. Take aim, pull the trigger, bam! Man down.

  “You mean you’re going to kill them, too?” My silence was his answer. What else could I do? “I can’t let you do that, Willow.”

  “You can try to stop me.” He’d end up dead, too. Or so I thought.

  “Or, I can try to stop them. If I could break out of that deal, so can they.” So very optimistic of him.

  “But they didn’t want to. Didn’t you hear them?” I had, loud and clear. They valued their father’s life more than mine.

  “I’m still going to try,” he said through gritted teeth.

  “Or you can save yourself the trouble and just get out of here while you can.”

  “Or, you can stop being such a stubborn brat and let me handle my brothers my own way.”

  Brat? He couldn’t be serious.

  “You expect me to…what, call you while they try to kill me, so you can stop by and try to talk them out of it?”

  “They’re my brothers, for fuck’s sake!” Again he slammed his hands on the steering wheel.

  “And this is my life! And my mother’s life. You can’t expect me to—” But he cut me off.

  “Be a decent human being? Yeah, sorry I made that mistake.”

  He drove into the town like a maniac and stopped the car so suddenly, I almost met the dashboard with my face.

  Adrian turned to me, angrier than I’d ever seen him before. “I’m not going to let you, or anyone, hurt them.”

  “And I’m not going to let them or anyone hurt me or my mother.”

  The sudden smile that stretched his lips was full of malice. “So what’s it gonna be, Willow?”

  My knives were in my bag. How fast could I get them out? Because if he wanted to settle things right here, I was down for it. I could fight him, kill him if I had to, and go back to Mom before the sun was up.

  Except he’d saved my life.

  And we were talking about his brothers.

  Had the roles been reversed, how would I feel? If he wanted to hurt my mother because she’d done a bad thing—an unforgivable thing, really—would I have said, sure, knock yourself out, do what you want?

  No, I wouldn’t have.

  “Nobody made you make that choice,” I said, so angry I could explode. He was giving me no choice here, and I hated not having choices. If I fought him, if I killed him, I’d never be able to forgive myself because I understood his motives. If I let him go, he could come back and bite me in the ass later—together with his brothers.

  What to do, what to do, what to do, I wondered, but there was no divine answer to that question.

  “Nobody’s making you choose to kill them, either. If you can get that pretty head of yours out of your ass and listen to me for a second, maybe we all get to live another day,” he said, but I could tell he wasn’t any happier about it than I was.

  And, yes, I did notice that he called me pretty. Just a thing to think about in the future. Preferably in the distant future.

  “What makes you think that I trust you?” I asked. “In fact, everything you told me basically screams at me not to. You’re the kind of man who makes deals with the fucking Devil. Don’t tell me you don’t see the red flags.” Slowly, I pulled the zipper of my duffle bag open. With any luck, I’d be able to grab at least one knife, and if it came to it, I would use it. I would—I had no other choice.

  He closed his eyes for a second, and when he looked at me again, he seemed softer.

  “You’re right not to trust me, but I sold my soul to save my father. I’d do anything to save my brothers, too. You can trust that,” he said. A near perfect answer, damn it.

  I sighed. “I’ll listen to you on one condition,” I said. If he could make demands, so could I. “George needs to be out of the picture, and you’re going to help me make that happen.” That man had messed with my mother. No way was I showing him mercy. George was going to die.

  “Deal,” Adrian said without missing a beat.

  “You just love that word, don’t you.” It wasn’t a question, and he knew it. He rolled his eyes at my grin.

  “No more than you love to be right all the damn time.” He had me there. “Now, about the plan…”


  Chapter Nine

  Just as I suspected, Adrian’s plan was for us to stick together. I didn’t mind, and it had nothing to do with the way my stomach turned when he looked at me a certain way. But it had everything to do with George.

  The plan was for us to go back to New York, wait for George to show up, get rid of him, then Adrian could take me and my mother out of the city where we would lie low until he said it was safe to show our faces in public again, meaning he’d managed to talk his brothers out of working for the Devil. Not the ideal solution, that second part, but considering everything that had happened, I could use a couple days to relax, think, and try to come up with an explanation for the many, many questions that filled my head.

  Once we agreed on that, Adrian basically interrogated me about demons. I had no idea so many questions even existed. I wondered if I’d annoyed my dad with the same ones. Probably not. He was a sucker for telling others about all the things he knew. He always knew best, my dad, bless his soul. And if/when I saw him again in the afterlife or whatever, my greeting was going to be a punch to the face. I’d introduce him to my favorite hobby: nose-breaking. He was going to love it.

  When Adrian was done with the questions, I began to wonder. We’d stopped to get some food on the way back to Manhattan. It was already three in the morning, but I had no desire to sleep whatsoever. If there was a demon, was—

  “So they just eat people, like they’re food. Like in the movies,” said Adrian while he chewed on his pizza.

  Let me rephrase that: when I thought Adrian was done with the questions, I began to wonder.

  “Pretty much, yeah,” I said in a rush.

  “And you can literally feel it if people are good or bad.”

  “Generally speaking, yes. I can tell if someone’s more good or bad.” Which wasn’t as fun as it sounds, or it hadn’t been before I’d learned to tune it all out.

  Adrian thought about it for a second. “After killing all those demons, how do you stay safe?”

  “Because I take them one at a time and I never let them escape after seeing my face—until you showed up in that alley.” And now there was a demon out there who knew what I did.