Cade had started trembling again, the sign of weakness fromhis body in stark contrast to the hardness of his expression. His face had gone blank and cold, and he was keeping his eyes shut, probably so he didn’t have to look at me and face the truth. I placed a hand gently over the gauze on his chest, my other hand clenched around the bandages. I’d need him to sit up to wrap it, but right now, I couldn’t draw my eyes away from his.
Under his eyelids, his pupils were darting wildly around as though he were asleep and having a nightmare.
“Cade?” I prompted.
I was pushing him.
I knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t stop.
I had to know.
“I only met your father a year ago.”
Confusion welled up in my gut, churning quickly with the stomach acid and creating anger. “What? What are youtalkingabout? He died three years ago!”
Now his lip was twitching, every motion exposing his teeth more.
I had never noticed his teeth were sharp before. How did I not notice that?
When he didn’t speak, I scoffed. “Please don’t tell me you think you’re some sort of psychic medium or something.”Nothing.“If you come back to me with that… ifall of thisis because of somevisionyou had or some bullshit, I’m going to blow my fucking top.”
“I met him inHell.”
Numbness washed over my limbs, and now I didn’t even knowwhatI felt. Pushing myself away from the couch, I stood, pacing the room. “You better start making senseright fucking now,Cade, or I swear to God—”
“Youswear…”
My back was to him when the words came, but it wasn’t Cade, not the Cade I knew. The voice was darkness in a soundwavethat drifted through the air and touched my eardrums, sending shivers cascading down my spine. Dropping the bandage, I ducked my chin against my chest, my shoulders trembling. I didn’t want to turn around and see why he had spoken in such a voice that sounded as though it consisted of two tones at once. I didn’t want to know what the cracking I heard was or why it sounded like his clothes were being shredded from his body.
The wall in front of me was obscured by a shadow larger than the man I had left on the couch.
Heart thumping a drum beat in my chest, I slowly turned around.
CADE
It wasn’t news to me that I was weak.
I was weak in Hell, unable to be enough of a demon to earn the respect of others. Then when I came to Earth, I thought that would change until my weakness was exposed all over again in the form of a human I cared about—Nikki. I simply couldn’t keep myself from seeing her, even though I knew she probably needed some space, if she wanted to see me again at all. None of that was enough to keep me from her front door when I was in pain as the wounds inflicted to destroy my pentagram healed slowly. Beyond the physical pain was the emotional torment that plagued me, guilt that cut deeper than the claws that had shredded the skin on my chest. Every step I had taken had only made things harder for Nikki when all I wanted to do was release her from her burdens.
I was weak.
And I was too weak to keep my demon form containedwhen all the pain came to the surface. When the physical and emotional trauma rose, I had to grit my teeth and clench my jaw against the feeling that I was being attacked from the inside, a thousand dangers working their way through my heart, lungs, and gut.
Once the transformation started, I couldn’t stop it, and my shoulders shook with the pain of seeing Nikki there, her back to me, trembling with the adrenaline that ran through her body. She was reacting to the sounds and sense of me, feelings she couldn’t explain. Darkness and foreboding filled her home that can only be brought on by the presence of a demon.
I should have run before she turned around, but the pain was still tearing through my body, shooting up and down my limbs and settling the heaviest on my chest. The transformation, additionally painful because I continued to fight it, had ripped open the wounds that had only begun healing, and the red lines of demonic power that marked my skin blurred into the blood that stained my chest.
I didn’t think I’d ever be able to erase from my mind the terror in her eyes when she saw me.
There wasn’t a scream, no sound escaped her, although her mouth fell open as though she wanted to. All the terror was caught in her throat, and only a weak squeak escaped, a murmur of not understanding.
Leave,my mind was screaming at me.Run before you do any more damage.
“I’m sorry,” I said in this form, unable to control the sound of my voice. She flinched at the tone, all gravel, fire, and darkness wrapped together with an ethereal quality.
“C-Cade?” The stuttered whisper shattered my already broken heart, and when I reached for her, Nikki flinched again, wrapping her arms around her chest and backing against the opposite wall. I dropped my hand, the claws and barbs makingme sick simply to look at myself.
Still, I felt I needed to explain. I couldn’t leave her like this. “Your father wasn’t a good man, and in the afterlife, he came to me.” Nikki squeaked out a weak protest, even faced with me in my true form, her streak of stubbornness made itself known. “I’m sorry,” I said it again but knew the words would never be enough. “I wish things had been different.”
