My gaze narrows on him. “Why would that have anything to do with Sable?”
He shrugs. “She’s hot.”
If he calls her hot one more fucking time…
I grab the back of his head and push him to the side to walk with me. “We have missing limbs of various humans scattered around here, thanks to you. Help me and I’ll let you stay a bit longer.”
He huffs, but ultimately, because he’s a total wanker, we go hunting for the rest of the remains. I try to avoid bumping into Sable so Tony doesn’t get the chance to flirt with her again.
Once we find every body part, including a damn half-chewed thumb, Tony helps me bury the evidence before we push the van into the nearby lake and watch it sink until it vanishes.
Pressing his hands to his hips, he grins at me. “I had one of these vans before I died. It wasn’t as techy, but it drives all the same. Hey, I just realized something.”
I roll my eyes.Here we go. “What?”
“Did you ever get your license?”
My brow arches. “What do you mean?”
The laugh he’s trying to hold back is confirmation enough that he’s trying to push my buttons.
“I question every day why we are friends,” I tell him. “I must have been desperate for companionship in Hell because you really are annoying on Earth.”
He winks at me. “You still love me anyway.” Then he pauses, glancing around, brows denting deep. “Something’s wrong,” he says, edging away as a ripple opens in the ground.
“Wait. Where the fuck are you going?” I grab his arm before he can leave.
“Stay close to your girl.” He yanks himself away. “I’ll fish for info and report back.”
Then he vanishes, and the portal closes.
What the fuck just happened?
The hairon her face draws my attention. There’s a dark strand caught between her slightly parted lips, ruffling with every breath as she sleeps, blanket tucked up to her chin because I couldn’t help myself. I want to pull it free, to know how her delicate skin feels beneath my fingers.
If I pressed my mouth to hers, would she gasp against it and kiss me back?
Knowing my luck, she’d punch me across the face and knee me in the balls.
I inch back, lowering onto the chair beside her bed. The draw to her is so fucking strong now that I can’t even sleep. I can’t rest unless I’m near her—what the fuck is happening to me?
Am I bound to her soul by a yearning that consumes me with every breath, even when I find her unbearable? I want to strangle her, but I also want to be deep within her walls, to see her smile at me, to laugh at something I say without it beingatme.
This house. It’s screwing with me. Ican’tcare about Sable. None of it is real.
If I kill her again, will it stop?
With one snap of her slight neck, I could be rid of this new curse. A curse far worse than my current fate—actually caring about a dead girl, wanting her, needing her, not being able to fucking breathe without seeing her.
It’s a lie. A trick. A fucking game.
The Devil is laughing at me from deep in the flames of Hell. It thinks I escaped only to be trapped in a different type of hell.
One I’d like to break out of sooner rather than later.
But killing her has done nothing.
Maybe we need to fuck again. Maybe we need to do it during a ritual or in the middle of another summoning—I don’t know. I could have her bending over the runes drawn into the floor while deep inside her, chanting the words I don’t fully understand.
