I stare at the bloodshed before placing the picture of Asmodeus on top. “You might be trying to use this to scare me off, but I already knew this.”
Mother snatches it and then shoves a photograph at me of a dead teenager whose eyes are missing. “What about this girl, Ellison? You still think this is okay? You think letting him in your house is okay? It’s not like this happened twenty years ago. This happenedsix yearsago.”
I immediately push it away. “Why do you care? You’ve never cared about anything in my life, so why do you care about this?”
“He is a psychopathic murderer, and this is who that cursed superhero organization sends to protect you?”
“You act like I’m a good fucking person myself. Have you not hated me my whole life for what I’ve done?” I ask.
“You make it hard to love you.”
“Then get the fuck out of my house!”
“I will expose him. I will show the world what Superheroes United has brought into their lives, has paraded before the public?—”
Anger rips through me to the point where I’m afraid I can’t control it, but I manage to tamp it down at the very last second. “If you expose these photographs, I will never speak to you again. You will have no hope of me continuing the business or ever being in your life, do you understand?”
She shoves the photographs at me again. “You just can’t stop hurting me, can you?”
“I don’t think I can,” I say as she rushes out. The photographs fall to the ground, fluttering around everywhere. I start to walk away from them before I decide that I don’t want Asmodeus to see them. Hastily, I gather them up, but as I’m picking up the final one, the one of a younger Asmodeus, I realize that it’s not vibrant blue eyes staring back at me but brown ones. Brown eyesthat seem to have no life left in them. Does it have something to do with his power that they’re now such a vibrant blue?
I glance up at the room Asmodeus disappeared into. What secrets does he hide from me? How can I blame him when my own secrets hold me prisoner?
I don’t want him to find them in the trash, so I carry them up to my room and hide them with the plan to throw them out when I can. Then I turn to Asmodeus’s room, afraid he heard what she was saying.
My hand hovers, hesitating, because what exactly am I supposed to say?
Then I think about how he never hesitated to come to my aid earlier today. So I let my hand fall and knock on the door.
“Asmodeus.”
Silence.
“How’s this work? ‘I’m going to beat down this door if you don’t answer.’”
The silence continues.
I push the door open but he’s nowhere to be seen and Pocket Lint is curled up, sleeping on his bed. The door to the bathroom is open, so I step inside but he’s not there. I send my illusions out, but he’s not even perched on the roof like he normally would be.
Instead, he’s nowhere to be seen, and neither phone call nor text gets through to him.
Is he gone?
No… there’s no way Asmodeus would leave me unwatched… no… he’s hiding from me.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
DEUS
I stare through the scope even though I don’t need it to see that my sights line up with the back of Beatrice’s head. She’d have no idea what was coming. Then she’d keep her fucking mouth shut and Ellison would still like me.
“It wouldn’t take much to kill her, to end her miserable existence. Ellison might even thank you.”
Ah, the voice in my head is back. “I’ve enjoyed my time away from you, old friend,” I say, realizing that the voice beating me down, tearing me apart has been quieter and quieter these days.
“No matter what you do, you’re always going to be a monster.”
I’m well aware.
