Reaping Willow

by D. N. Hoxa

  “Hello, Willow,” he said, and those two words alone were enough to send me running.

  I turned away from him and ran like my life depended on it. I couldn’t see where I was going, but darkness was so much better than him. I needed to get as far away from him as possible, and I wasn’t going to stop until I did.

  Unfortunately, I had to stop when the man and the candle simply appeared right in front of me as if they’d been there all along. The sound of my heavy breathing was the only sound in that place, wherever I was. And he didn’t seem to be breathing at all.

  “There’s no need to run, Willow. I just want to chat, that’s all,” he said, showing me his white teeth that looked a million times worse than Loretta’s fangs, though his were square. “I take it you know who I am?” he asked, his voice as melodic as terrifying.

  Yes, I knew who he was. I’d thought about it a thousand times. I’d thought about what he would look like, what he’d sound like. What he’d feel like, and now I knew.

  Now, I was standing face to face with the Devil.

  “What do you want from me?” I asked because it was useless to try to run. He’d catch me, no matter how far I went.

  “I think it’s you who wants something from me, in fact.” He let go of the candle. It didn’t fall to the floor like it should have. Instead, it stayed there, suspended on air like that place didn’t care about gravity, while the Devil stepped to the side and put his hands in his pockets like it was the most natural thing in the world to do.

  “I want nothing from you,” I spit, putting all my hatred in my voice. He was the reason this had happened. He’d made that man slam into Adrian’s car and pull that trigger. He was the reason for every bad thing that happened in the world, and now he was in front of me.

  “Sure you do,” he said, still smiling, as if he knew what the sight did to me. How much it scared me. “You want Adrian Ward not to die, right? You want him to live.”

  Tears in my eyes. “How dare you speak his name? You killed him! It was you!” I shouted. I was probably going to die anyway, so why not make him do it quicker?

  “I did no such thing,” he said, bringing his hand to his chest. “But if anyone asks me, I’ll say it was you.”

  I put my hands in front of my face. This was not happening. This was not real. Just like I’d thought I saw that angel twice, I was imagining the Devil, too. It wasn’t real—I was just in shock. Or maybe I’d already died.

  “Not real, not real, not real,” I whispered to myself and squeezed my eyes shut, imagining the world as it was around me, hoping with all my heart that that’s what I’d see when I looked again.

  “You were always good at lying to yourself,” he said, his voice settling on my shoulders like it wanted to keep me in place. And when I did open my eyes, he was still there, right next to the floating candle. “If you can manage to stop the drama and listen to me, I believe we can come to an agreement.”

  My heart stopped beating. “Agreement?”

  “We both know that Adrian Ward is going to die. In fact, it’s only a matter of seconds now. I can feel it when they take their last breaths, you know,” he said in wonder. “It’s the most wonderful feeling.”

  He took a step forward, and I fell back. “Stay away from me!”

  “He’s dying, Willow, but he doesn’t have to.”

  My whole life hung on those words. Tears streamed from my eyes as if my body already knew what I didn’t.

  “He was shot in the chest. I saw it,” I said, my voice breaking.

  “Nothing that can’t be undone,” the Devil said, waving his hand like it was no big deal at all. “Things disappear all the time—like bullets, for example. And wounds close.” Then he pointed his fingers at his face. “Believe it or not, I can make that happen.”

  No, no, no, no, no. I wasn’t going to fall in that trap.

  “I’m not going to give you my soul.” It was the only thing that was truly mine. The only thing any of us really had.

  The Devil laughed, making all the hairs on my body stand at attention. “Don’t be a fool, Willow. I don’t want your soul. I’ve got plenty of those.”

  He was lying, wasn’t he? What more could I give him that he’d want? I doubted very much he needed money.

  “Liar,” I whispered, half of me hoping he didn’t hear me. But he did. Of course he did.

  And he grinned. “But I’m not lying. I don’t want your soul. What I want from you is much simpler,” he said, tapping his two index fingers together. “You get in the car and you leave.”

  “Leave? Go back there so I can do your dirty work for you?” It wasn’t going to happen.

  “Nope—no dirty work, no soul. All you have to do is leave.”

  “The car is ruined. I can’t—” But he didn’t let me finish.

  “The other car.” The Devil rolled his eyes. He actually rolled his freaking eyes. “You get in the other car, and you leave right away. No stalling.”

  “I’m not going to leave Adrian, if that’s what you’re saying.”

  “Not even if it saves his life?” He smiled like he knew he had me. Because he did.

  Seeing Adrian on the ground, bleeding, barely even breathing, was like being stabbed in the chest repeatedly while standing on fire. Everything was forgotten: the deal he’d made, his brothers, his father. My father. All that remained was him. And now here I was, looking the Devil in the face, thinking about what Adrian’s life was worth.

  The answer was as clear as day: everything.

  I’d been lucky to get a glimpse into what hid behind his beautiful face. Most people go a lifetime without a taste of that light that could turn night into day. He’d made me a better person. He’d given me the gift of trusting in my own thoughts, in my own experience. He showed me that there was so much more out there in the world than just right and wrong.

  And I could drag this out for an eternity, but it would still make no difference. Who was I kidding? I was going to say yes even if the Devil had asked for my soul.

  He knew it, too. It’s why I was there.

  “If I do this, you’re going to heal him. He’s going to be okay,” I said, my voice shaking.

  “He’ll be as good as new,” he said.

  “Exactly like he was before,” I said, just to make sure. Adrian’s father hadn’t been able to speak after he and his brothers had made the deal to save him. Now I knew exactly what that was like: to give up everything for someone you love.

  “Exactly,” the Devil said, still smiling because he knew all along that he’d win. “But, Willow, you can’t go back looking for him. You can’t let him find you, no matter what. You leave and you don’t look back.”

  “But why?” I asked because it made no sense. Why would he want me away from Adrian? What would he get out of this? “And why are those people after me?”

  “No, no, you don’t get to ask questions,” he said, waving his finger at me. Then, he pretended to look at his watch, even though he didn’t have one. “Time’s a-wastin’. What’s it gonna be, Willow? Do we have ourselves a deal?”

  No amount of tears was going to save me now. I looked at the candle, the small flame dancing on top of it like it wanted to lure the words right out of me.

  “We do.” I was no longer crying. Everything was already done.

  “Excellent!” the Devil shouted and clapped his hands. “My work here is done.”

  White noise turned on in my head. I squeezed my eyes shut and put my hands over my ears as if that was somehow going to stop it.

  It did.

  Suddenly, there was light. There was sound. There was life around me again.

  “I killed him,” Cirko said, and he sounded like he was crying. “I killed him. I killed a man.”

  I opened my eyes, but I couldn’t look at him. All I could see was Adrian.

  His eyes popped open, his pupils completely dilated. I put my hand on his chest and felt it rise and fall steadily. He was breathing. He was alive. And he was go
ing to be okay.

  I took his face in my hands once more. “Adrian?” I whispered. “Adrian, look at me.” His eyes moved slowly to my face. He was terrified, but he didn’t have to be. Not anymore. “Adrian, don’t come after me.”

  Saying those words out loud killed a part of me no bullet could reach. His mouth opened, but he couldn’t speak, and I was glad for that. I don’t know what I would have done if he asked me to stay. With every passing second, everything became more real, and the weight of it all pressed against my chest, taking my breath away.

  No stalling, the Devil had said, but wasn’t it enough that I was leaving?

  “Don’t come looking for me, okay? Not ever,” I whispered, each word holding a piece of my broken heart.

  His lips opened and closed like a fish out of water, but I couldn’t allow myself to wait a second longer. I kissed his forehead for one last time and tried to forget that I was never going to see him again. I knew what I was doing this for, and that had to be enough to keep me going. There was no other choice now. No time for regrets.

  I stood up on shaking legs and looked around for a second. No one was out there except for us. Cirko was on his knees in front of the body of the man who’d shot Adrian. He’d shot the stranger in the forehead, and now Cirko was crying.

  “I killed him, Willow. I had no choice. I killed him,” he said when I touched his shoulder. Call me coldhearted, but I didn’t have it in me to feel bad about the dead man. He—and the Devil—had ruined the only good thing in my life.

  “Get in the car, Cirko,” I said and stepped over the body to get to the driver’s seat.

  “What?” Cirko was completely out of it. If I left him there, he was going to wait for the police to find him.

  “Get in the fucking car, now!” I shouted because I needed to get his attention.

  “We can’t leave him! He’s dying!” the demon shouted, pointing back at Adrian.

  “He’s not. He’s going to be okay—if we leave,” I said through gritted teeth. “Now, Cirko!”

  I got in the car and closed the door. The keys were in the ignition. The tank was full, just like I suspected. Cirko got in the car, shaking even more than me.

  “I killed him,” he repeated. “I killed a man. I took a life.”

  “I heard you the first time,” I said and backed away from Adrian and his car. It was like stabbing myself in the gut with my own hands, but I needed to keep going. I didn’t allow myself to look at him, but he was still lying right where I’d left him. He was going to be okay. I had to trust in that.

  I had to trust in the Devil.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered while Cirko tried to get over the fact that he’d killed that man. I was sorry for dragging Adrian along in this, for getting him shot, almost killed because of me, and I was sorry for all the time we would never have.

  But I wasn’t sorry we’d met.

  I hit the gas with all my strength and drove away.

  “Willow, we left Adrian. Why did we leave Adrian?” Cirko said. “Answer me, damn it!”

  “Because we had to.” I surprised myself by how calm I sounded, but I had to be. I had to be calm if I was going to get out of there and save Adrian.

  “But why? What’s going on, Willow?” Cirko demanded.

  Before I could say a single word, something heavy dropped on the hood of the car with a loud thud.

  I pressed on the brake pedal with both my feet and pulled on the wheel as if that was somehow going to help stop the car. How could I have hit someone? Was I so out of it that I hadn’t seen anything, even though I’d been looking out the windshield all the time? Because I could have sworn that there was nothing there!

  But when I blinked the blur away and got enough air in my lungs, I saw the legs. Just two legs on the hood of the Jeep. And the wings behind them.

  I froze in place and watched him jump back on the ground in front of the car. Then…

  I finally saw his face.

  He was a big guy, about six feet six inches tall, with arms that looked like he hit the gym every day. His face was kind of rough, and I wouldn’t have recognized him in the dark, except for his eyes. His dark blue eyes shone even in the darkness, and that’s how I knew that this was the same guy who’d been at the club. Probably the one who’d killed Loretta. And he’d look like any other guy, if it wasn’t for the wings. They were made of a million feathers, some of them pure white, some of them grey and black. That’s why they’d looked grey from afar.

  “Are you seeing this?” Cirko whispered, and I nodded. Yes, I was seeing him. He was there, and I hadn’t imagined him. Not the first time or the second. I hadn’t lost my mind. There was really an angel in front of us.

  And he spoke.

  “Where is he?” he said. I remembered his voice, too. He’d only said a word to me that night, but it was hard to forget a voice like his. And I knew exactly who he was talking about.

  So I shook my head. Angel or not, I hadn’t just made a deal with the Devil for nothing. “You can’t take him,” I said, holding onto the steering wheel for dear life. “He’s alive. He’s going to be fine.”

  The angel was here for Adrian, but he couldn’t have him. Heaven could wait for another few decades. Adrian was going to grow old first.

  “Oh, he’s not going anywhere,” the angel said with half a smile.

  I don’t know why I believed him. Maybe because he was an angel?

  Before I could ask what he meant, the angel stretched his wings and pushed himself up. In the blink of an eye, he was gone like he’d never been there in the first place.

  I couldn’t make myself move for the longest second.

  “An angel,” Cirko whispered, as mesmerized as I was. “What does an angel want with Adrian, Willow?”

  “I don’t know,” I said and got my shit together. I put the car in drive and pressed on the gas.

  After seeing Adrian almost die, I could honestly say that I didn’t care what an angel wanted from him. I only cared that he was alive. Besides, it was an angel. It couldn’t be anything bad, could it?

  “What the hell is happening?” Cirko asked, but he wasn’t expecting an answer.

  I asked myself that, too, as I drove away from Adrian with nothing but hope that he would remain alive.

  There was no scale for how much my life had changed in the past week. I had no idea where I was going after I was done with George, but I knew the only two things that mattered: I was going to spend every day of my remaining life hunting down demons, and I was never going to see Adrian Ward again.

  If you liked Reaping Willow, please consider leaving a short review on Amazon/Goodreads.

  Book Two in the Trappers, Inc. series is already up for preorder! You can find it here: Finding Willow (Trappers, Inc. #2)

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  Also by D.N. Hoxa

  VICTORIA BRIGHAM SERIES (COMPLETED)

  Wolf Witch

  Wolf Uncovered

  Wolf Unleashed

  Wolf’s Rise

  SCARLET JONES SERIES (COMPLETED)

  Storm Witch

  Storm Power

  Storm Legacy

  Storm Secrets

  Storm Vengeance

  Storm Dragon

  STARLIGHT SERIES (COMPLETED)

  Assassin

  Villain

  Sinner

  Savior

  MORTA FOX SERIES (COMPLETED)

  Heartbeat

  Reclaimed

  Unchanged

 

 

 
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