There’s that swoop in my belly again. The one I tell myself is nausea even though there’s no mistaking the flutter of wings.
This time, the silence isn’t calm or peaceful. It’s weighted. Like there’s a knife above my head and at any moment it’s going to drop.
I shouldn’t want a demon, but I was never good at following the rules of the living. Let alone the dead.
I’m stiff against his expanse of hard muscle. I don’t know what to do. I’ve never cuddled before, and I’m scared that if I move, he’ll leave, but I can’t sit here with this building tension.
“Want to play a game?” I blurt, wincing the moment I open my mouth.
“Not particularly,” Lynx rumbles, his chest vibrating against my back.
I inch away to lean against the cold brick wall so I can think clearly, but his arm stays wrapped around my shoulders. “Two truths and a lie.” I clear my throat, angling myself to look up at him.
He arches a brow. “That sounds like a bad name for a brothel.”
“I’m sure it’s less fun too.” I snort, tucking my fidgeting hands beneath my thighs so he doesn’t see what his presence is doing to me. “One person says two true things about themselves, and one lie. The other person has to guess which is a lie. It’s a game we’d play at school to get to know one another better.”
It’s an almost jarring realization that I want to know every possible thing there is to know about Lynx. I want to know the things that made him happy, the struggles he might have faced as a child, all the times he sat in Hell questioning what it meant to be human.
I want to know everything because somewhere along the way, I’ve forgiven him for everything he’s done to me. I haven’t forgotten about it, but I’m not constantly using it as an excuse anymore. It was just easier to blame him for everything.
If I really think about it, there’s no one else I’d rather be trapped here with than him. Helping me bury my body, searching for my missing limbs, nursing me back to health—it’s his way of quietly calling a truce. Apologizing.
“What happens when you guess incorrectly?” Lynx asks, fixing my robe so it better covers my legs.
And the butterflies swoop again. He doesn’t know I’m not cold as long as he’s touching me.
“Nothing.”
He huffs, tugging me closer to him. “It sounds pointless, then.”
Lynx’s small action makes my brain short-circuit, and I scramble for something to say.
“It sounds like we’re either stuck here for eternity, or a soul-sucking demon comes back to kill us.” The wound on my stomach yells at me when I shrug. “Either way, it’s a lose–lose situation, and it’s not like I’ve got anyone to share your secrets with.”
Other than Tidus.
He’s silent for a long time. “I used to get a skin reaction whenever I ate bread. I worked the railroads.” Lynx stops like he’s going through a Rolodex of memories to pluck out the single perfect one. “I once poured sand into Tony’s mouth because he was snoring too loud.”
Railroads? Would he have…? No, the world isn’t that small.
They’re all oddly specific, but there’s no doubt in my mind that the last one is true. “You never got a skin reaction,” I guess, feeling myself slowly relax into his arms. It’s like we’ve sat in this position a hundred times before, and it’s as natural as breathing.
He nods. “My mother would get sick whenever she had the scraps the baker gave us. She still ate it because it was often our only option, and we couldn’t afford all the medicine. The alternative was starving.”
I had no idea just how bad Lynx’s life was before he became a demon, but it makes sense now why he hated my family just for having money.
“Our scientists call it celiac disease. It’s when you can’t eat gluten—the thing that’s in bread that would’ve made your mother sick. My sister had it too.”
“Is there a cure for it?”
I shake my head.
“Do you think it’s what might’ve killed her?” He hesitates. “She was unwell for a long time before I found her dead when I came home from work.” Anger laces his voice.
My heart squeezes for him and I hear thetick, tick, tickof the clock in our apartment; see the paleness of Ella’s skin. I reach out before I can think better of it, squeezing his hand in quiet understanding.
“It could’ve been anything,” I say softly, recalling all the times I’ve blamed myself for Ella’s death. I tried my best to cover her medical expenses and always thought if I somehow did more she would’ve been cured.
