I found myself locked in the obsidian gaze, my nose almost touching his. I wanted to say something to wipe the intensity that swelled like an oncoming tsunami, but I was at a loss for words.
“You, Nora Fuller, are of demonic blood.”
I don’t know what made me do it, but before I could fully process what he’d said, I started to smile.
The fear snapped like guitar strings with a twang.
The smile slipped Damien’s fingers free. I suppose he could have prevented it. His hand still poised as if he were gripping my face; it was only his eyes that moved.
The gargling laugh escaped in a hiccup, and I slapped a hand over my mouth. The absurdity of the sound charged the hysterics that lingered on the edge of that single laugh.
The tears in my eyes weren’t from laughing, and the heave of breath was almost a choking sob, but I was laughing anyway.
Demon blood. Holy crap, I must be dreaming. Or insane. That would be the more likely.
“That’s why I popped back into the tower.” I giggled, clutching my stomach. In the first Challenge, I woke up in the tower away from my friends. Could I pop in and out like that? I could have escaped that whole time?
Damien just watched me.
“In the last Challenge.” I almost choked myself on the next wave.
Oh, this was too funny. This was rich!
Clutching my stomach, I emitted a partial laugh/sob. The crude sound confused even me.
Demon blood. Of course that would make sense.
Knees buckling, I wheezed, giggled, and teetered on my feet.
Who the fuck would have carried that gene? The thought was as dangerously furious as it was hilarious. Could it have been my mom? Maybe my dad? The thought made me laugh even harder. There were points in my youth I might have believed it, though for purely selfish reasons.
Attempting to right myself, I slapped my hands over my mouth. Hot tears rolled down my cheeks, and I wasn’t sure if they were out of hilarity or a sense of damnation.
Wiping them away from my eyes, I saw Damien’s sardonic smirk.
Wiping my nose with the back of my hand, I sniffled. The edge of the hysteria was a bubble in my throat, ready to burst.
“I hope you don’t expect me to believe you.”
“I hope for nothing. It’s the truth.”
“I’m still human. I could never be like you.”
Damien’s eyes narrowed. “Human is part of the requirements for an Erebus.”
“You’re human.” I motioned to him, unconvinced.
“Part.”
Now it was my turn to narrow my eyes. “How much?”
He canted his head.
“How much of you is human?”
“Quarter. My mother was half.”
To picture Damien having a mother drained the humor. “You’re kidding.”
“I am not.”
“Who was she? Was she here once?”
“An Erebus?”
“Yeah…”
“No, this is my burden for my mistakes. The Demon’s Grave is meant for those with demonic blood. We can manipulate it because demons are far more diverse than other species.”
“I’m not like you.” I felt the hysteria subside. The laughter held back only one thing—the fear. Primal, shattering fear. My world rocked, and within it, I found the girl I once knew. She was an imposter.
“I never said you were like me,” Damien cajoled. “I said you had demonic blood.”
I paused, weighing those words’ worth and trying to squash the delirium that wrung my guts.
“I can’t. That would mean I have a relative that.”
“Your grandmother unwittingly gave birth to a half demon, half human,” he interrupted.
“Unwittingly?” My voice squeaked. It was as if a giant hand wrapped me up and began to squeeze. I thought of Aunt Nell and asked, hearing the quiver in my voice, “So my dad?”
He tilted his head to the side and sighed heavily. “I didn’t bring you here to discuss your family dynamics. I brought you here because you cheated.”
“No.” I raised my hands to stop him. “Answer me. My dad is a half demon?”
The man who stayed out late. The man who supported us though he was always absent. What was he doing outside of our family? What if he was evil and none of us knew? I remembered Mom accusing him of cheating. How many times? What else had he done?
“No,” Damien said slowly to distract me from my thoughts. He waited until I looked at him before continuing. “The child produced from the union was a girl.”
If I had demon blood then that would mean…I stopped breathing and clutched my shirt over my chest in a fist.
He was lying; he had to be. He was trying to make me believe this because it was part of his stupid Challenge!
I knew my question would be answered in the negative, but I asked it anyway. “Is it my mom?”
“Naturally,” he answered and bridged the gap between us. “Nora, look at me.”
“No!” I stared at the empty darkness to my left instead. It was easier to imagine than to see someone—even Damien in front of me. Somehow it created an illusion that this wasn’t real.
“No, I mean is it Wendy Fuller who’s half demon?” Licking my lips, I knew he was closer, but I didn’t dare look at anything but the darkness. “Please don’t say it’s Nell.”
My stomach twisted and churned.
“Look at me,” Damien said.
I realized it was harder to breathe. Pressing my fist to my chest, I doubled over in case I might puke. Rolling my eyes up, I asked huskily, the darkness in my own voice frightening, “Was it Eleanor Fuller?”
Damien blinked slowly. He didn’t need to answer.
My entire body shook from the inside out.
My parents were my parents; I wasn’t the product of that crazy woman locked in the insane asylum.
In the first Challenge, when the spiders and scorpions were all over Aidan and me, I had wished them away. Poof, they were gone. When I wanted Joel to wake up and the Freeze-Tag Monster to go away…the crystals and the strange warmth I always felt in my belly. It was only here that I felt that power surge.
Power… the word hung in my head suspended and frozen.
Hugging myself to stop the quivering, I asked numbly, “What is a demon?”
“What did you imagine one to be?”
“Well, you look nothing like one,” I said, straightening. The shuddering within quieted as I allowed everything to settle into place. Babbling seemed to stop the thoughts. “And I’d assume that my grandma wouldn’t have…you know with a regular-looking demon.” I touched my forehead with the heel of my palm. “I can’t believe I’m thinking about this.”
“How are we supposed to look?” Damien inquired, a single eyebrow rising. “You never questioned my credibility before now.”
“Well, in our world, a demon looks different, and you look…” I didn’t dare give him a compliment. He was beautiful, but it seemed too feminine a word, and he was much more than just handsome. Too perfect to be considered human but I wasn’t going to say it out loud. “You look like a person,” I concluded.
“Of course,” he said as if it weren’t a peculiar idea. “What do your demons look like?” At least now he sounded amused rather than angry.
In that moment, I wished for a drink, something stiff, something to make me heady and irregular. I didn’t drink much, but I’d be damned if I didn’t want one now.
Running my tongue over my teeth, I decided to indulge Damien. “Well in the pictures, demons have claws for hands and horns on their heads.”
Damien began to chuckle and brought his normal five-fingered hands up for me to see. “What else?”
“A spiked tail and goat hooves for feet sometimes.”
“You’re making this up.”
I shook my head and couldn’t conceive why he’d think I was lying to him, unless he was teasing me. “No.” I eyed him incredulously. “That’s the generalized idea
of a demon. Sometimes they’re covered in fur or their skin is all red.”
At this, Damien tilted his head back and barked a laugh that nearly had me jump out of my skin. “I suppose this is all possible. Thousands of years ago, it wasn’t restrictive to allow creatures from other worlds, including demons, into your realm.”
“You mean that these pictures aren’t demons?”
“More than likely, they are. Demons are mixed blood. Those of different species if they breed and can produce offspring will create what we call a hybrid. If a hybrid were to mix with another hybrid, for example, they produce a demon. Demons are unpredictable and can take many shapes depending on their parentage.”
Part of me couldn’t believe that this made sense. “What kind of species?”
Damien waved me off as if it weren’t important. “You cheated,” he reaffirmed.
“Unintentionally,” I argued, feeling braver. This man and I were on more even ground somehow. I was certain I still couldn’t take him on in an arm wrestle of power, but I had it.
I took a step forward, a move so bold that even Damien appeared on his guard. “I didn’t know I could manipulate the Demon’s Grave. How could I?” Taking another daring step forward, I said, “You can’t punish me for something I have little control over.”
He tilted his head, breaking eye contact first. “Yes I can. There will be further restrictions. Next time you try to manipulate my Challenge, I will be watching. I can put a stop to your influence.”
He stepped up to me, his face next to mine and his body so close I felt a shiver of anticipation.
Being so close to another human, I’d feel body heat, but not off of him. He wasn’t cold, warm or anything. It was only my eyes that told me he was there. His acidic words came next. “I am the Erebus here. Remember that.”
I nodded. “How can I stop myself from influencing?”
“I will help prevent it,” he assured. “But if you force it, there won’t be mercy.”
I wondered if I could force it. Could I actually overpower him if I could figure out how to force it? I found myself watching him, gauging him while he did the same to me. This was why he was always staring; he was sizing me up. If I could be something that stayed here, I could be a rival. An equal.
I let the thought drift to focus on what was important.
“What about this punishment?” It didn’t matter whether I had intentionally tried to sabotage Damien’s world or not. To him, I had committed a crime and the verdict was: Guilty.
I had seen what he did to the two men who were sacrificed to him.
His arm snaked up to the other side of my head, trapping his lips to my ear. His fingers curled into my hair and gripped it as if he thought I might jerk away.
If he were meaning to drive home the seriousness of what I’d done, he was doing a heck of a job.
His mouth tickled goosebumps up and down my right side. “Because of your ignorance, this is a warning. You’ve already changed things you shouldn’t have. Events have been set into motion. Events are out of place.”
“Events?” I asked.
“You created a loop when you woke the man. Your emotions in that moment will make him suffer.”
I let the words roll around in my head, scrutinizing them. “How do you know he will?”
What if I could stop it?
“Because I’ve already seen it. So have you.”
Damien’s cheek brushed against mine, cool and smooth, just before lips brushed the edge of mine, testing.
I stopped myself from the curious temptation to turn my head to meet his mouth. He was gorgeous, but to kiss him again would be a betrayal. It would be malice and…wonderful?
“I need to ask.”
His breath tickled my jawline, but he didn’t speak.
Screw it.
My eyes rolled first to meet his, feeling the moment rising. He was so close my gaze reflected back to me. Demon, I thought, just like me. The thought pained me, but somehow I knew it was true. I knew that it ran through me, tainted me. How could I call myself a friend to the people who were trapped here?
I thought of Phoebe and how she was still there when she shouldn’t be. What would I do without her? Maybe I’d be dead instead of her. She’d stood in front of the doorway that pulled her in. If she hadn’t, I’d have been the one.
There was a spark in Damien’s dark eyes and a quirk to his crooked smile that made me aware that he’d expected this.
Something about his expecting it made me resist. It was like he’d planned it. As if these actions weren’t my own and he was tricking me. But I wanted to be here, didn’t I?
The thought made me feel offensive. Like I were the leper at the ball pretending to be a diva and he could out me.
At my mid-motion pause, Damien’s smug smile stayed in place. He didn’t move in to finish my erroneous start.
“Heh,” I breathed, realizing my glass pride was cracking. I was far too comfortable around him sometimes.
He chuckled, not sounding the least bit ashamed. The haunting sound echoed in my head long after I felt his grip loosen and the darkness fall in on me.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
I stumbled at the sudden difference.
I was no longer in the darkness, and Damien wasn’t there.
My skin still tingled, and I found myself brushing my hair with my fingers, loosening the tangles in a nervous twitch.
In an instant, I was back in the center of the zoo. I stood in the archway of the Mangy Monkeys on the other side of the hotdog stand where Joel was pacing, his back to me.
Phoebe was on the bench, her injured leg extended in front of her as she watched Cody step toward the shiny red stand. Somehow, it looked shinier than before.
My gaze lingered on Phoebe before drifting to the Egyptian decor. Of life and death, I thought grimly.
Cooper lifted the lid where Phoebe had found the wieners. Peering inside, I realized he was speaking, but I couldn’t hear him. It was like the damn dreams all over again. Dreams where Phoebe hadn’t technically been alive.
Joel stood to the side, bulky arms crossed over his chest as he glared at Cody in his usual fashion. I didn’t think Joel had many pleasant expressions.
Opening my mouth, I tried to speak, finding that my voice was a rasp, barely audible.
How was I supposed to tell Phoebe? Wait…should I tell Phoebe?
I reached for my throat, feeling smooth skin without anything that might mar it.
I glanced down to see I was a solid form. I took a step forward, and my socked feet sent the dust up in a crazed flurry.
Looking up, I saw Cody reach into the hotdog stand when Joel shoved him to the side, shouting something.
This time, I could make out a distant noise that mimicked the movement of Joel’s lips, but I couldn’t quite make out the words.
Cody stumbled back, surprise drawn on his face.
He caught the side of the hotdog stand before falling back.
Phoebe flung her leg over the side of the bench. I could hear her say words, but it was almost like I was listening to her under water. “It’s not a competition. We can share, assholes.”
Taking another step forward, I neared the unsuspecting Phoebe.
Cody struggled to stand before he shoved his arms out in front of him and used his meagre body weight to drive the football player back.
Joel had his arm submersed in the hotdog stand when Cody ran into him. Though it didn’t throw Joel off balance, it surprised him. He reeled back, his hand slick from rummaging around in the compartment. He closed his hand into a fist and took a swing.
“Hey!” My voice paused Cody’s dodge.
He turned to see me just as the fist collided with his angular cheekbone.
Wincing at my unintentional diversion, I rushed forward, past Phoebe.
“Where have you been?” Phoebe demanded, though I didn’t have time to respond.
Cody had staggered away from Joel, clutching his cheek. He st
opped the moment his back touched the bars of the cage, and he looked up. Rage flashed like I’d never seen before, especially in Cody Lewis’s eyes.
Joel was ready for it, poised with his fists up like a boxer.
Cody pushed himself away from the bars just as I stepped between them. Upon later contemplation, I realized that it wasn’t the smartest move. If Joel or Cody decided to close the gap, I would have been the prime target for that first punch.
Luckily, Joel had turned to the hotdog stand the moment his eyes locked with mine. Lowering his fists, he snorted, no longer finding Cody a threat. “There better be food in here,” he grumbled, submerging his arm once again into the darkened compartment.
I opened my mouth to protest. There was something about that hotdog stand I was supposed to remember. Biting my lower lip, I stared at the shiny edging. The memory tickled but wouldn’t jangle loose. The sides of the sparkling red hotdog stand had dust kicked up on it from our race into the center.
Something about the stand, I thought.
Phoebe hobbled toward Cody and me. “What the hell? Are we ten again?” she snapped, glaring at Joel, mostly.
Either way it went, if this wasn’t the real Phoebe and just a copy brought back from the dead, she sure seemed the same.
“Cody, are you okay?” I asked softly.
His pride seemed shaken by my question, but he nodded.
“What happened?” I asked.
Joel opened the first compartment. Instead of reeling back like Phoebe and I had, he plucked a healthy hotdog bun from it.
Phoebe distracted me. “I was just going to get something to eat from the stand.”
Again, something nagged at me. I found myself staring at the dirt at our feet, searching for something. I wasn’t entire sure what, but it was important.
I touched my forehead with my fingertips. It was right there!
Phoebe continued, unconcerned with my distraction. “Well, this jerk decided that he would get first dibs and then one thing led to another, Cody tried to help me, and bam.” She slapped her fist into her palm. The sharp slap jerked my attention back.
How would we get out of here with him tagging after the way he was? He would hinder before helping. Readying myself for several opening arguments, I never got to relay them when Joel began to scream.
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