If I’d been fully asleep, I’m not sure I’d have heard it… the lightest step… but because sleep had eluded me, I hear it right away.
I jerk awake and see the shadow moving toward me. Fear and anger and desperation keep me pinned to the bed while his shadow grows closer and closer.
“Please… go away,” I beg.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
My stomach tightens and my head hurts. I try to get out of bed, but it’s as though I’m paralyzed.
“Did you really think you could just… forget about me? Ellison… I’m never going away. I’m going to push that man and push him until he can’t take any more, and then I’m going to?—”
“Get away from me and leave Asmodeus out of this. Go the fuck away!”
He grabs me by the throat. “You know that’s not going to happen. Now that I’ve found you again, I’m not going anywhere.”
His hand tightens, squeezing my neck so hard that I feel like I can’t breathe. I shove against him, knowing he wouldn’t kill me, but the panic of having my air cut off is too much. I begin to struggle. He likes it when I struggle.
My illusions tear him back and he simply laughs, like he thinks any part of this is funny. Then the man stills and looks toward Asmodeus’s room, and I’m stricken with fear that he’s going to go for him.
I’m coughing, struggling to gain breath as I try to scramble to my feet. My illusions separate him from me while I stumble out of bed, desperate to get away from him and protect Asmodeus. The door opens and Asmodeus is on me.
“What’s going on?” he asks.
I shake my head when I see my attacker is gone. Of course he’s gone. He doesn’t want to go after Asmodeus now. Not when he can steadily push us to the brink. When he can rip my life apart and remind me that he can take Asmodeus from me. He wants me to feel the fear and knowledge that he can take everyone from me.
If I tell Asmodeus, he’ll never let me step away from him. He’s going to watch me even closer, and it’s going to put him in more danger than he’s ever been in.
“I think I fell asleep at my desk and just like… fell. I didn’t mean to wake you up,” I say.
He’s staring at me, and I know that look is telling me that he doesn’t believe a word I’m saying. I don’t blame him. I wouldn’t believe me either.
“You were talking.”
“Yeah, ridiculing myself since my mother wasn’t here to do it for me.”
His eyes are calculating. He’s trying to find the fault in my words, but he can’t seem to identify what is what. “Ellison,” he says, and I know he’s going to say something that is going to require more lies, but I have to do it to protect him.
Instead, Pocket Lint comes barreling into the room, running so fast that when she goes to stop, her feet slide on the hardwood floor and she rolls and tumbles into my leg. And then becausemy leg seems to have been the reason for her downfall, she starts hopping toward it before latching right on to my Achilles.
“Ow! Fuck! Get your fucking rodent under control.”
“Well, you stepped in her path!”
“I didn’tmove.”
Asmodeus scoops her up. “No, Pocket Lint the Third, Esquire, we are nice to Ellison. I know sometimes I want to bite and nibble on him too, though.”
She sniffs around on his fingers and then licks them all lovingly, sated by her taste of my flesh.
“Can I sleep with you?” he asks.
I waver because I need to get him as far away from me as I can, but how can I protect him if I do?CanI even protect him?
“Just for tonight,” I settle on.
That pleases him and stops his questions as he rushes off to his room. I assume he’s grabbing a pillow, but instead, he brings back three guns and pet steps. He arranges the guns on my bedside table and along the wall before crawling in and patting the covers.
Pocket Lint gallops up her steps and settles in on my side of the bed.
