Reaping Willow

by D. N. Hoxa

  “Sorry about that,” he mumbled, but it didn’t sound like he really meant it. It didn’t matter anyway. It was already done, but I had a question for him, too.

  “So you’ve seen the Devil. Like, he was physically there, in person.” He’d told me this before—I just wanted to make sure.

  “I don’t think so, no. It was a dream, and I guess he could have taken any form he pleased.” He grinned. “Like a shape-shifter.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You think talking about the Devil is funny?” I didn’t.

  “Oh, no, I just like to see you rolling your eyes is all. It’s very romantic,” he said, stifling a laugh. I threw the napkin I’d been using to wipe the grease off my fingers on his pizza. That’s what you get for making fun of me.

  His grin grew brighter. “Thanks. I’ve been dying to know what your fingers taste like.” And he simply took the napkin out of the box and continued to eat. I smiled before I could help it. He was an asshole but a somewhat funny asshole.

  “Back to the important stuff. Since you’ve seen the Devil, or at least a form of him, what about…you know, angels and stuff?” It made you wonder, didn’t it? If there were bad guys, there had to be good guys, too, and if the devil was real and could come and talk to you in your dreams, then where were the angels?

  “Angels?” He raised his brows and looked up at the sky. “I haven’t thought about it, to be honest.”

  “But there has to be another side, right? To keep the balance.”

  “If there are any angels out there, I haven’t seen them,” he said and closed his pizza box. Finally. I was itching to get back on the road. I hadn’t called my mom because I didn’t want her to freak out, but I couldn’t wait to see her. I couldn’t wait to see George and kick his evil ass all the way to hell. “Do you believe in the story of creation, Willow? In God, in heaven?”

  It was a question I’d asked myself a million times. I had yet to figure out the answer.

  “I have to, don’t I? I kill demons, I see them, I feel them. They’re here, whether we like it or not.”

  “Are you sure about that?” he asked when we got in the car. “I mean, how do you know they’re demons and not just the mythical creatures our parents used to scare us when we were kids?”

  Uh… “My father said they were demons.”

  “How could he be so sure?”

  “Because he was!” I snapped, then regretted it the next second. I couldn’t lose it, not now when we were so close to Manhattan. I needed to be able to think straight, and Adrian planting doubt in my mind wasn’t helping.

  I felt like I hardly even knew my father but to consider that even the little I knew about him was a lie? It was too much. I’d never doubted a single thing he said because there wasn’t exactly a book I could get in the library to tell me about these things. And more importantly, why would he lie to me?

  “Now, for a more serious question,” Adrian said, clearing his throat. “Why Willow?”

  “My dad grew up in Wisconsin, and there was this huge weeping willow in his backyard. It was his favorite place in the world. He spent all his time on it, away from everybody else. It was his oasis. His refuge.” Those had been his words. At the time, I thought it had been beautiful, but now, I wasn’t so sure. “Why the snake?” I asked. I’d been meaning to ask since the first day he came to Cece’s shop and I saw his tattoo. I also still wanted to see the head, really badly. Just to appreciate the art, obviously.

  “There’s a forest right out the back door at our house back in New Jersey, and—”

  “Wait, you’re from Jersey?” I’d been pretty sure he was from New York.

  “Yep, and the forest is one of the most beautiful places in the country. Full of all kinds of oaks. I like to be away from people, too, so I spent most of my time in it. When I was sixteen, I was lying on the ground, cooling down from a run, when I heard this hiss right next to my head. I jumped up so fast, I almost hit my head on the tree trunk.” He chuckled, like the memory of running into a snake was a nice one. “It was a copperhead, and he was going about his own business, but right where I’d been lying, so very close I still get the chills when I think about it, was a black widow, the biggest one I’d ever seen, just sitting on a leaf like nobody’s business.”

  “Fuck,” I whispered, my skin suddenly crawling. I didn’t like spiders. In fact, I hated spiders with a vengeance.

  “Yeah. If it hadn’t been for that snake’s warning, the spider would have gotten me. I probably wouldn’t have died or anything, but it would have hurt like hell. I’d always wanted a tattoo, anyway, so I decided to get a snake to remind myself that even things that seem bad at first can be good for you.”

  I grinned. “I didn’t take you for such a sentimental guy.”

  “And I didn’t take you for a tree,” he said without missing a beat. “No, wait. I did. I did, the second I heard your name. Just this giant tree with lots of leaves and branches like tentacles. Yep. That’s how I pictured you.”

  Not the best time to laugh, but to hell with it. There was something about having someone to talk to, someone other than my mother and George. Or Cece. I liked it, even if I wouldn’t admit it to myself yet.

  “Who knew that a tree was going to make me grow a pair and get my life back,” Adrian said in wonder.

  I’d always imagined the people who made deals with the Devil to be…not like him. I still didn’t trust his sense of judgment, but it was nice to know that he’d made it, that he’d jumped to the other side, and he did it because of me.

  “I’m special like that.” It was meant as joke, but he didn’t laugh.

  “You are, Willow,” he said, looking at me instead of the windshield, but at that moment, I didn’t care. “You really are.”

  We parked the car at the beginning of the street to my mother’s apartment. I could see the entrance perfectly, but she wouldn’t see me, unless she looked our way. And she wouldn’t because her way to work was on the other side. She was a math teacher at the local elementary school, which was close enough that she didn’t need a car. George always walked with her before he took the subway to his insurance company. That’s where we were going to take him, get in the car, and far away from the city to finish the job.

  “Are you sure this is the right thing to do?” Adrian asked me. We’d been sitting there for the past fifteen minutes, but it would take another half an hour before my mother left the apartment.

  “Yes, I’m sure.” Without a doubt. George needed to go before he hurt my mother even more than he already had, even though she didn’t know it yet.

  “Maybe if we just scare him away?”

  “He’ll find a way to come back. He thinks my mom is obsessed with me, but he’s the one who’s obsessed. He cut a deal with the Devil for her. He’s not just going to forget about her because we threaten to kill him.” It was amazing how fast I’d jumped from I to we. Maybe having Adrian around hadn’t been the best of ideas. It was going to suck to go back to I after we were done.

  “I don’t like the idea of killing,” he said through gritted teeth, almost like he wished he hadn’t. But it was okay. I actually admired that about him. I’d been killing demons for so long that I no longer thought much about it. It was going to be hard taking a life—a human life—but I was going to do what needed to be done. The fact that this was my mother we were talking about probably made it easier for me, and I was thankful for that. I didn’t need to second-guess myself now.

  “What if it doesn’t work?” I asked him, and he knew very well what I was talking about.

  “It has to.” It sounded like he really believed that. “I just have to be very convincing.”

  “But what about your dad? Are you ready for… what’s going to happen?” Because his dad was going to die—if he hadn’t already—if his brothers broke the deal, too.

  “No one can be ready for death,” Adrian said. “But I’ll deal. I’ll have to.” I felt the pain in his words like it was mine. He was right. Not
hing could really prepare someone to deal with a loved one’s death. It was a punch in the gut, the kind that took your breath away for years to come. I know mine did. They said you knew you were healed when the memories no longer hurt. I guess I just wasn’t there yet.

  “How much longer, Willow? It’s only a matter of time before they find us,” he said then, looking in the rearview mirror.

  “Just a few more minutes.” I didn’t want to fight his brothers any more than he did, but we’d already agreed that this was going to be our priority.

  We didn’t say anything else as we waited, but it was a comfortable silence. Adrian’s presence didn’t suffocate me. Though he still felt like nothing I could understand, it wasn’t an entirely bad feeling once I got used to it. It was just…there.

  “Is that her?” he asked a second after my mother left the building in a beautiful red dress. It was such a relief to see her, to see that she was okay. She looked perfect, just like always, and I hadn’t even realized how much I’d worried that that asshole had already done something to her. He hadn’t. She climbed down the stairs in a rush and headed for work without looking back.

  “Shit,” I whispered, my eyes still stuck to the entrance. “Shit, shit, shit.” George wasn’t with her.

  “Where is he?” Adrian asked, but I had no answer. Instead, I took out my phone and dialed her number.

  She answered after the second ring. “Willow?” Her voice was light as a breeze, which meant she was trying really hard not to freak out.

  “Morning, Mom,” I mumbled. It was nerve-racking how much guilt I felt to talk to her like that.

  “Oh, honey, I was so worried!” she cried. “You didn’t call me yesterday.”

  “I know and I’m sorry. I was just busy because, uh…I got a new job and I was trying to leave a good impression.”

  Adrian put his hand over his mouth to keep from laughing while I closed my eyes and slammed my forehead to the window, just a little. What a stupid lie. A new job? Come on, I could have done better than that!

  “Really? What happened to Cece?” Mom said, completely unsuspicious.

  “Cece’s fine. My new job is much better. Mom, I—”

  But she cut me off. “Well, let’s hear it! What is it?”

  “It’s, um…it’s…it’s…” Fuck! I turned to Adrian, panicked because my mind was suddenly blank.

  Construction, he mouthed, even more panicked than me. Construction company.

  “It’s, uh, in a construction company.” Lord, smite me, now.

  “Construction company?” Mom’s voice was high-pitched. “Honey, what do you know about construction?”

  I’m going to kill you, I mouthed to Adrian, but he was back to trying not to laugh.

  “It’s just…I’m just a secretary, but the pay’s good, so…” Oh, God, I sucked at this. “But listen, Mom, how are you doing? Is George back yet?”

  “I’m okay, Willow. Don’t worry about me. And, no, George is still away. He won’t be back until Wednesday.” Wednesday was five days away.

  “Really? Where is he?” It wasn’t like him to go away for more than two days at a time.

  “In a convention in San Francisco,” she said. “Why do you ask?”

  San Francisco? Shit, that was too far away.

  “I just worry about you, that’s all,” I said with a sigh.

  “Let’s meet for lunch, then. You can tell me all about your new job. I just can’t believe it. I never knew you were interested in construction,” she said. Figures that she’d believe me about a made-up job in a construction company, but she wouldn’t when I told her that I was just going to grab a drink with friends and I was going to be safe. Granted, I never really went out for a drink—I went out to kill demons—but still.

  “I can’t today, but I’ll call you tomorrow, okay? I just want to leave a good impression in my first days here.”

  “I miss you, honey,” she said, suddenly disappointed.

  “I miss you, too, Mom. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  The first thing I did when I hung up the phone, I hit Adrian on the shoulder as hard as I could.

  “Okay, okay, I deserved that,” he said, laughing. The asshole.

  “Construction company? I mean…construction company?” And why the hell had I even listened to him? Couldn’t I just say retail or something? Where were the ideas when I needed them?

  “My brothers own one. It was the first thing that came to my mind. I’m sorry, okay?” But he couldn’t stop laughing.

  I wished I could join, but instead, all I could do was sigh.

  “George is in San Francisco, and he won’t be back until Wednesday.” Five days suddenly felt like a lifetime.

  “Then we’ll get him when he comes back,” Adrian said. I turned to look at him. Was it just me, or did he sound relieved?

  “That’s five more days of life he doesn’t deserve.” I was sure he could see my reason.

  “Hey, I made the damn deal, too.”

  “To save your father, not to have someone killed,” I reminded him, and I realized, that there was a difference. A huge difference between the two of them.

  Maybe I was judging Adrian too hard.

  “So what now?”

  It sucked to have to wait for George, but at least I wasn’t going to sit around, doing nothing. I had an address for Trappers, Inc., and that was exactly where I was going to go.

  “I’m going to Brooklyn to check something out, then I’m going to find a place to stay until George comes back.”

  “Except you keep forgetting that my brothers are out to kill you,” he reminded me.

  “I’ll stay low. I won’t attract any attention, I promise.” And I actually intended to do just that. “What about you?”

  “What about me? I can’t do shit until you take your mother and leave.” He was suddenly angry.

  “You can try to talk to your brothers right away.”

  “No, I can’t.”

  “Sure you can.” It was barely eight in the morning. The day was long.

  “No, I can’t. It doesn’t work that way,” he insisted.

  I narrowed my brows. “Why the hell not?”

  “Because it doesn’t. Because it will be impossible to talk to them while you’re here, but if they don’t know where you are—that’ll be different.”

  “But Adrian, they won’t…” I stopped speaking.

  I was going to say that his brothers wouldn’t know where I was, that he could just tell them he sent me away, but I realized, it wasn’t me he was worried about this time. It was them.

  Adrian didn’t want to go talk to them because he didn’t think it was going to work. I didn’t think it was going to work, either, but they were his brothers. And he didn’t want to deal with it just yet. It’s why he’d agreed to help me with George first—to buy himself some time. And now that he had no time, he was angry. I’d have been, too.

  “You know, you have a car, and I need a ride to Brooklyn,” I said and shocked myself all over again. Was I glad that Adrian would be with me for two more days?

  It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t—it was just my imagination.

  “You also need somewhere to sleep, and I rented an apartment close to Treat Yourself,” he said in a rush.

  “You did?”

  “I had a week to watch you, to figure out a way to get you to leave without having to kill you, so I needed to be close to you just to save myself some trouble. It’s the deal I made with my brothers before you decided to run away.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I didn’t run away.” I did, but no way was I going to admit that to him.

  He smiled, not half as angry as he was just a second ago. I liked that.

  He turned the ignition on and cleared his throat. “Consider me your chauffeur, Mrs. Robinson.”

  But I was screwed because I already considered him to be more than I should have. I just hoped it didn’t turn out to be the biggest mistake of my life.

  Chapter Ten
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  The address I’d found online for Trappers, Inc. was wrong. It had to be.

  “This doesn’t look like anything,” Adrian said, eyeing the building in front of us. “In fact, I think it’s closed.”

  The building was only one story high, which was unusual for the neighborhood, and the windows were covered in white foil. Every shop around the street had a sign, except it. It had nothing, just a door, and it was closed.

  “Maybe we should check around back.” There had to be window somewhere, where we could see inside.

  “Or maybe we just try the front door. What’s the worse that could happen?”

  “I don’t know.” I had no idea who these guys even were, and the fact that I’d gotten their name from a freaking demon wasn’t very reassuring.

  “The longer we stay out here, the better the chances of my brothers finding us,” Adrian said.

  I understood that he was worried about his brothers finding us. I was actually thankful because I didn’t have to worry about them at all, but I wasn’t sure if going in there was the best idea.

  “Come on. If we see something suspicious, we’ll just say we have the wrong address.”

  It was going to have to do. We certainly didn’t look like anything to ring their alarms—Adrian wore a black shirt and jeans, and I a white shirt and jeans—so there would be no reason to suspect us, I figured.

  “Let’s go,” I said, and taking in a deep breath, we made for the white door.

  “It’s locked,” Adrian said when he tried the handle.

  “Really?” I said, enough relieved that I tried to open it myself.

  And I did.

  I had no idea what to expect behind those foil covered windows, but it definitely wasn’t a completely white room with a single white desk in the middle, and three armchairs to the left. The cool air that rushed outside covered my arms in goose bumps, and I regretted having left my jacket in the car. The man standing behind the desk wore a white button up and black trousers, and he stood up when he saw us. The double doors behind him, also white, were closed.