I want to say,“Why? Jealous?”but refrain from the snark and just answer the question, my voice emotionless. “No. Coworker. What did he say?”
Kit grunts. “He’s wondering where you are. Asked if you’re okay. Want me to say family emergency?”
I would love for him to tell Matthias exactly what’s going on, but I know that’s pointless. I answer, still with little emotion in my voice, “Yeah. Say tiny family emergency. But that I’m fine. He’ll probably ask if I need anything and you can say: ‘No, but I’ll let you know if that changes.’”
“Got it.”
I watch as he types the reply. The exhaustion weighing me down amazes me, because I simultaneously feel like I’ve beenasleep for a year. He’s wearing me down, and I know I need to keep trying, keep pushing. Pushing for information, pushing for a way to escape.
When the phone is out of my eyeline, I tap my pointer finger on the window and ask, “So, what’s your endgame?”
A beat passes. “What do you mean?”
“With me. What’s the scheme?Whyare you possessing me?”
He shrugs. “Wrong time, wrong place, babe, that’s all.”
I wrinkle my nose at the continual use ofbabeand say, “Really?”
“Seriously. I need a host in order to survive up here. You happened to be lurking around a spooky house. Simple.”
“So, I was asking for it?”
“No. But you were convenient. And pretty.”
“Jesus.” I avoid the urge to slam my head against my window.
“Not quite.” He chuckles, unable to not laugh at his own jokes.
I keep prodding. “So, you can’t survive without a host?”
“On the surface level, yeah. I could in the nether region, but…but I guess I’d rather be up here.”
“I really hate that you call it that. That cannot be what Hell is called.”
He chuckles. “I think I’m the only one who calls it that.”
“Unsurprising.” I backtrack, what he said before of interest to me. “So, hold on, youcansurvive without a host in Hell?”
He groans, eyes moving to stare at the ceiling. “Yeah, but I don’t want to.”
“Why not? Leave me, go down there, then come back uphere and find someone else.”
“No,” he says with a surprising finality. “I won’t go back there. I haven’t been back since…” He trails off.
I bite my lip to keep from prodding him, seeing if he’ll continue talking if I’m quiet.
“It’s not…fun. It’s not the same as living. If I’m in Hell without a host, I’m existing as this weird yellow, hazy shadow thing. I’m not corporeal. It doesn’t feel real, like I’m existing in a plane between life and death.”
I open my mouth with another question, but he answers it without me having to ask.
“I could go to Hell with a host, most demons who need them do, but that’s not what I want to do. It’s better up here. A lot of demons wouldn’t agree with me on that. We’re sent here to be general troublemakers, but most go home every now and then. I don’t. I…I hate it down there.”
I purse my lips, despising the sympathy for him rising in my chest. “They call it Hell for a reason, I’m sure.” Every answer he gives makes me want to ask more questions. The more I learn, the more I perk up. Not because I’m seeing anything he’s saying as useful to me, but because itmightbe. The more information I have, the better. And the more questions I ask, the more comfortable he’ll get with answering them. He may let something slip. Something that could help me escape. “So, Hell is full of hazy yellow demons and demons in human hosts?”
“Oh, no. I mean, Hell has hazy yellow demons and demons in human hosts, but there are different tiers of demons.”
“Like Dante said?” I had to readParadise Lostin high school.In all honesty, I absorbed none of it, reading comprehension and myself are not always friends, but August took the time to explain it to me.
