Something inside of Beck jerks, like a match struck but too stubborn to catch. “What the hell’d you say to me?”
“I said you’re goddamn selfish.”
Dylan lets his words hang in the air between them. The only sound is their breathing, each chest heaving with agitated pants. When Dylan speaks again, his tone cuts like a razor. “You didn’t think, Beck; you just did. I was in the way of that car, not you. It should have hit me, but you shoved me away. It shouldn’t have been you, but you died anyway, and I had to live with that. Did you think about Mom and Dad? About me? About all of us? No, not for a goddamn second!”
“Our family can survive without me!” Beck spits back, feeling his temper flare. “You know Mom’s got nobody else except you, so don’t act like what I did—”
“How much do you think we’ve all been mourning over you?” Dylan demands. “Do you think we took you dying fine? Do you think we’ve just moved on, like you were nothing? You haven’t even called them, Beck! How does your family feel?”
“I don’t know,” Beck retorts.
“Mom cried for a week straight. She couldn’t even stand up at your funeral. Dad started drinking again. Uncle Cliff had a heart attack. Molly waits at the door every day just crying, because she doesn’t know when her owner’s gonna come home. They’ve got your picture all over the house. Now all Mom does is sit at home looking at our baby albums and watching those old videos of us as kids. She doesn’t even cry anymore.”
Every word hits Beck like a bullet to the chest. He recoils, even as his brother takes another step forward. “Did you know any of that? Did you?”
“I didn’t know!” Beck spits back, fire lacing his tone. “I didn’t know, because nobody tells me goddamn anything!”
“Maybe that’s ’cause you’re not supposed to be here!”
This is all he can take. Beck snaps. He lashes out, shoving Dylan with enough force to make the smaller man reel back. He catches himself against the kitchen counter, hands swinging up to steady himself. Beck’s vision is red. He can feel each breath entering his lungs, labored and furious; his skull is roaring, his heart is pounding, and the realization that he’s come this close to hitting his own brother infuriates him more. What the hell is Dylan’s problem? How dare he accuse Beck of being in the wrong here, like he asked to die, like he asked to come back? “I saved your life! You can’t just be grateful, you’ve gotta be a brat about it! Like always, Dylan, right? Like your entire life!”
“Don’t act like you know who I am now!” Dylan hollers back. “You’ve been gone for seven goddamn months! A lot’s changed, Beck!”
“Don’t you think I know that?”
“Maybe you don’t!”
Beck’s head is screaming. He’s screaming. Everything is screaming. “If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t be alive!”
Dylan lunges forward, aimless and desperate. “Well, hell,” he shouts back, words amplifying in Beck’s head like he’s hollering them over a loudspeaker. “Maybe I’d rather have died than be the one who had to deal with killing you!”
Suddenly, Beck’s vision explodes. The pain in his head goes from agonizing to blinding; the static turns into a shriek; alarms sound, storms rage, and his knees hit the ground hard as he can no longer remain standing. A strangled moan tears from his throat, hands flying to his head.
It hurts, dear God, it hurts, he can’t stand it.
(We’ve been here before. This is how it must be. This is the only way.)
No, thinks Beck, and that’s all he can think—all he is able to think, all he has time to think—because a single noise cuts through the cacophony of chaos and pain. It is a sound Beck has heard a dozen times before, in a dozen different circumstances, but none as awful as this.
He hears Dylan gasp.
Beck forces his head up just in time to see a shadow—swirling, writhing, pulsing with tiny flashes of electricity—force its way through Dylan’s open mouth.
His brother slumps forward. For one awful moment, he is motionless as a marionette with its strings cut. Then he jerks. His arms sway, his neck twitches, and he exhales in one massive breath.
Beck’s lungs have turned to stone. He can taste his heart in his throat. Even before Dylan lifts his head, he knows exactly what he will see.
Dylan’s eyes have always been a warm brown—filled with all the life intrinsically tied into everything that he is.
When Dylan lifts his head, his eyes are pitch black.
Chapter Ten
“DYLAN,” BECK EXCLAIMS. Another moan is drawn from him as the pain in his head spikes once more. Dylan steps forward, feet heavy on the tiled floor. His breathing echoes through the dim kitchen, until he is right above Beck.
Dylan crouches down until he is level with Beck. Dark hair hangs in his face as he peers down, lips pulled back in a blood-curdling sneer. His skin looks washed out in the shadowed light, making the emptiness of his gaze all the more prominent.
“You thought you could save him,” Dylan—or the thing that is inside Dylan, but is not him—says. A low laugh crackles from his throat. “How sweet.”
When he stands up, it is sudden. Beck doesn’t realize he’s no longer looking into Dylan’s face until a foot catches him square across the mouth.
He sprawls across the floor, reeling from the blow; he tastes blood.
“Humans do such things for each other because they are naive,” the demon says in Dylan’s voice. “They are the most selfish species, but they so ardently try to deny their own nature. They are vicious, then kind. They kill a man, then show him sympathy. They stab, and then bandage the wound they inflict. Humans are a futile species simply because they cannot accept their own natures.”
Beck tries to pull himself from the floor, but the pain racketing through his head leaves him slumping back down with a groan. The demon laughs again, like gravel running through a compressor.
“You’re fighting spirit is charming. You care for this human. He is your friend.”
“Don’t hurt him,” Beck grinds out, spitting blood onto the floor. “Don’t.”
“Why have I taken his body?” asks the demon; his tone implies the answer should be obvious. “Do I want to have a conversation? No! If I had my way, I would go into the next room, kill every breathing flesh sack there. I would go downstairs and do the same. Then, I would plunge this knife…” Deliberately, he pulls a steak knife from the block on the counter; it glints in the faint moonlight. “Into this body’s heart. I will feel the lifeblood seep out of him, wait to the last breath…and take his soul down. That is the goal of We, the Righteous Legion. Destruction of the human race, at any cost. I am a soldier, fighting for the superiority of my species, and any human or demon who dares stand in the way will feel the wrath of the Righteous upon their heads.”
Great, Beck thinks. He’s gotten his brother possessed by a member of the demonic Übermensch.
“I can’t do that,” finishes the demon. “I won’t have the time, or the chance. I only have the time to bring down one tonight, and it will not be you. You are far too great an asset, Deathwalker.”
Beck hears the sound of the kitchen drawer opening, and the clink of metal rings through the air. Panic surges up his throat, forcing him to struggle once again. His mind flashes with visions of Sophie’s blade. Sure enough, when he looks up, Dylan has a large steak knife clasped in his hand.
“How fitting,” the demon says, a smile cut from glass playing on Dylan’s young face, “that the downfall of the humans will come at the hands of their own dearly departed.”
Beck needs to get up. He needs to push himself to his feet and wrestle the knife from his brother’s grip, but once again Beck is paralyzed. It is not the desire to stay still that now immobilizes him; it is the utter inability to do anything. He tries to force his limbs to move, but they have turned to stone. His veins are filled with lead. He is tied down, frozen, powerless. All he can do is watch his brother be forced to kill himself.
(This
is the way it’s supposed to be.)
No! He died saving Dylan. He has to be able to save him now. Beck screams out in his own head, trying to force himself to move, but he is helpless. Dylan raises the knife; it glints in the dim light.
“You have been a great asset to us, Deathwalker.”
The knife swings towards Dylan’s chest.
“Not so fast!”
Dylan goes down at the hands of a linebacker tackle, and it’s the greatest thing Beck has ever seen. The demon does not have the chance to react; James is on top of him, pinning him to the ground, before he can realize what hit him. James lunges for the knife and manages to wrestle it from Dylan’s grip. Spitting, swearing, he tosses it aside and keeps Dylan down.
Dylan is half James’s size, but he is possessed by an unnatural strength—whether it is supernatural or desperation, Beck has no clue, but he thrashes in the grip of his restrainer. Unholy howls tear from his throat, curses and condemnations mixed with venomous taunts.
“Shut the hell up,” James snarls, smacking Dylan hard across the head. Stunned, the demon falls silent for a second, which is all the time James needs. “Dana!”
As if on cue, the lights flick on, and the spell is broken. Suddenly Beck can move again, he can breathe, and he can think past the screaming in his head. As he scrambles to his feet, he catches sight of Alyssa, wide-eyed as she watches from the living room, but she is blocked by Dana charging forward, crumpled piece of paper in hand, wielding a sharpie like a sword.
“Hurry up, come on,” James urges, swearing as Dylan lashes out at the sight of the newcomer. Unintimidated, Dana hits her knees at her possessed friend’s side and yanks up his shirt to reveal the bare expanse of Dylan’s scrawny chest. She doesn’t hesitate for a second before she begins to sketch out the sigil.
Dylan’s howls grow louder, as if every stroke of the pen burns him. It’s killing Beck to see him in so much pain; instead of getting in the way, however, he helps to pin Dylan’s legs down. Satisfied with her work, Dana rises and stands over the chaos, peering down at her paper.
“Impius spiritus,” she recites, “exorcizamus te, in nomine Domini et beatus mundi! Et abierunt! Cessa decipere humanas et revertatur ad te mundi diaspora—”
“Diabolica!” James hollers over the sound of Dylan’s shrieking. “It’s diabolica!”
“Fuckin’ diabolica then, do I look like I speak Latin?” Dana hollers back; then, eyes narrowing in focus, she finishes. “Diabolica! Hic non receperint vos! Ut mittatur foras, te rogamus, audi nos!”
A rush of black smoke bursts from Dylan’s mouth in a deafening scream, tearing like severed nerves from a ravaged throat. His back arches in his friends’ iron grips; veins bulge from his forehead, bloodless face twisting in an expression of agony. Beck’s ears fill with a roar that drowns out the rest of the world.
And just like that, it’s over.
The sudden hush of silence that falls over the room is such a relief that Beck could cry. Dylan—the real Dylan—looks very small as he slumps back, limp as a ragdoll, into James’s arms. James immediately cradles him to his chest like a child, and hovers over his unmoving body. One hand cups Dylan’s cheek; the other gently rubs his back. When James looks up, his face is pale, and Beck feels his stomach drop.
A tense second passes before Beck notices Dylan’s chest rise and fall. His mouth is partially open; a tiny wheeze escapes him. “It’s okay,” James gasps, sounding choked. “He’s all right, just passed out.”
“Oh thank God,” moans Dana, burying her head in her hands as she slumps forward. Beck huffs a half-hysterical laugh.
It only takes a minute for Dylan to revive. His head stirs against James’s chest. A groan slips past cracked, bleeding lips.
When he opens his eyes—bruised, shadowed, but clear and perfectly human—he squints up at the group around him. “What the hell happened?”
Beck can’t help it. Throwing himself past everyone—even James, who he’s sure will fight him for a first look at Dylan—he throws his arms around his baby brother’s neck.
For a long moment, Dylan is tense. He doesn’t move; he doesn’t even seem to breathe. Beck squeezes even tighter, clutching Dylan as if he never wants to let go.
Finally, Dylan’s arms come up, and he hugs Beck back.
The rush of euphoria is almost overwhelming. At once, any residual trace of the fury of earlier melts away. Beck pulls back, conscious of the tears running down his face, and finds Dylan in the same state. This is who Beck died for the first time, and he would do it all again.
“I’m sorry,” he says, but Dylan only shakes his head.
“No, man, you—you’ve got nothing to be sorry for. It’s me—”
He cuts himself off, inhaling a shaky breath, and the two embrace again.
There’s no reason to say any more. They both understand. The wounds they tore in each other’s skin knit themselves back together with a whisper. In a single second, seven months of hurt is healed, and Beck whimpers even harder as he feels the weight melt off his back.
Their friends give them a moment before they butt in—which they do, of course. “What’s with the waterworks?” Dana finally interjects, throwing her arms around Beck and Dylan at the same time. “Come on, kids, it’s okay.”
“Yeah. Quit actin’ like something bad happened,” James says, but he’s grinning as he pulls the small cluster into a hug. “Everything’s peachy. We handled this. We can take on anything now.”
Allowing himself to be engulfed by the warmth of his friends—his family—Beck feels a sense of wholeness that he’d been missing since he woke up. With Dylan returned to them again, it truly feels like things are back to normal.
Of course, they aren’t. A spike of pain in his head reminds him of this, and Beck wiggles out from the dogpile as his face clouds over. The last thing he wants to do is hurt his friends—but he has, and the knowledge of that isn’t something he can bear again.
He turns and comes face-to-face with Adam.
Standing in the doorway, Adam observes the chaos with a look of measured focus that Beck has become familiar with. His eyes scan the knife on the floor, the discarded sharpie, the chaos of overturned chairs and crumpled rugs. They turn to the tangle of friends on the ground. Finally, they land on Beck.
Adam has been here the whole time, Beck realizes. He stood back, watching, as the rest of the group handled the exorcism—but he’s been here. He saw, and he heard.
“Adam,” he says, realizing that he no longer has anything to hide.
Very slowly, Adam turns to look at Beck. There is a new light in his eyes, a spark of victory that renders Beck speechless. “I got it,” he says. His voice is low, but not with anger; he sounds victorious. “I figured out the answer.”
“WAIT, OKAY—SO what are you saying?”
Sighing, Adam slumps forward. One pointed finger slams repeatedly against the counter, as if he’s praying to shatter either marble or bone. Beck can’t blame him for his exasperation, but he also can’t blame his friends for asking the same questions that are swirling through his head. Adam’s explained this three times, and it still doesn’t seem real. “I’m saying the only way to get here from the demon world, besides being summoned, is through an opening. That could be anything that breaks the demon-human barrier—a tear, a weak spot, an open door. What I’m saying is, Beck and Alyssa are open doors.”
Dylan’s face is squished against his palm, fingers twisting in dark hair. His struggle to process this is obvious. James just looks constipated, biting down on his lower lip so hard that Beck’s amazed he doesn’t chomp it off. Dana looks ready to walk away from the conversation entirely.
As for Beck, he’s feeling every emotion at once. Relief that Adam has finally figured out what’s going on is mingled with horror. He’s the one who’s been hurting his friends the entire time—he didn’t mean to, but that’s what happened. As great as it is to know what’s happening to him, he almost wishes his friends didn’t. At least
then he wouldn’t have to worry about them fearing him.
In the chair next to him, Alyssa shifts. Her bony shoulders knock against Beck; she casts him a wary look and inches away. He offers a smile he hopes she’ll find reassuring but knows the skittish girl must be having an even harder time dealing with this than he is.
(After all, he might have gotten two friends possessed, but he saved them both. Alyssa and Sophie were not that lucky.)
“What they’re doing is basically channeling demons—like a medium can channel spirits. The demons are using their energy to get into the human world, and that’s how they’re possessing people. It’s not their fault, and they’re not possessed themselves—they’re letting the demons through without even meaning to.” Adam leans across the counter, staring at the two no-longer-deceased individuals intently. “Isn’t that right?”
Beck is the first to nod. Next to him, he sees Alyssa bob her own head, hiding behind a curtain of dark hair.
“I also,” Adam continues, after he is met with a round of stunned silence, “think I’ve figured out when possessions happen.”
“Oh really?” Dana crooks a dark eyebrow, looking torn between being impressed and worried. “When’s that?”
Beck already has a clue, but hearing Adam put it into words validates everything he’s been feeling all along. “Possessions are triggered by someone feeling strong emotions. Joy, sadness, anger. Any of this stuff in extremes can open a window for a demon to come through.”
When James got possessed, he’d just finished telling Beck how happy he was to have him back. Sophie was upset with Alyssa. He and Dylan were in the middle of an argument. Chaos led to even more chaos, and created the perfect opportunity to let something awful in.
The realization makes something in Beck curdle. This means he can’t be around people anymore. He got his own brother possessed, for crissakes. If he can’t keep from channeling demons, how’s he supposed to go on living? How can he ever hope to reconnect with his family, his friends again, if he can’t control this wicked thing inside him?
The Cost of Living (ARC) Page 15