“He certainly wouldn’t choose me as a successor,” I add.
I told you.Those were the only words on an otherwise blank sheet of creamy stationery left on my pillow, when I finally got home from the hospital and then the police station when I was fourteen. After “the incident.”
My father despises my decision to survive on scraps. No, more than that, he despisesme. Sees me as weaker for it.
“You’re Death’s daughter,” Devon says, with more gentleness than I would have expected. “His only direct spawn.”
In other words, his only choice.
Suddenly the air feels too warm to breathe. I stumble deeper into the room, tripping over discarded game controllers, toward the window on the opposite wall. I yank up the lopsided blinds, but the window latch won’t move. “Come on, damnit,” I say, panting.
From behind, Devon reaches around me suddenly, flipping the stuck latch with ease and pulling the window open. His chest bumps against the back of my head as he does. He is just as tall as I thought.
He steps away, and I lean forward to suck in cold air, curling my fingers on the window frame and pressing my forehead against the dusty screen. Little bugs, desiccated roly-polies and lightning bugs, have collected in the corners. For some reason, I can’t stop staring at them.
Death. Me, the new Death? I don’t even know what that would mean. Would I have to hang around cemeteries and hospitals andold sites where ancient people once made human sacrifices? That’s how he met my mother, after all.
Actually, that’s not true—I do know what being Death would mean. If Devon is telling the truth, then this is the end of any hope for a normal life. Staying at Beecher to finish out my degrees. Having friends.
Not killing people.
It’s all over. Everything is over.
“I never agreed to this. I never said yes,” I manage, struggling to draw air into my lungs.Shit. I can’t… I can’t…
The whisper of movement warns me of his approach just a second before Devon’s palm, warm and solid, rests reassuringly between my shoulder blades. A reminder that I’m not alone.
“Just keep breathing,” Devon says. “It’s a panic attack.”
I jerk my head to give him an annoyed glare, one that is severely tempered by my current inability to slow the explosive rate of my heart. My hands and feet are tingling. “I… know.”
I’m a psych major, I want to add, but my lips have just gone numb.
This is also not my first panic attack. The last time, it landed me in a hospital emergency room, on a tranquilizer drip and handcuffed to a bed while the police waited outside.
“Will you let me help you?” Devon asks.
I want to say no, to tell him I can manage it myself, but find myself nodding frantically instead. Anything to make this feeling go away.
He pries my hands from the window and turns me to face him. “Just look at me, keep your eyes on me,” he instructs, green eyes serious. “Breathe in for a four count, then hold it for four.”
“I know… box breathing.” And I know that it won’t be enough. Not right away anyway.
“How lovely for you. Hush.” He smooths my hair away from my face, his thumbs running over my cheekbones. His gaze holds mine, and it feels like falling into him. His even white teeth sink into his lower lip in concentration.
The heat from his hands caressing my face seeps into me, and the tension in my shoulders eases, the muscles going loose like warm honey. My heart rate slows, steadies, and my breathing, though still too rapid, smooths out.
But the heat continues to spread through my body, down my arms and through my core, until… itchanges, flips a switch inside me.
My breath catches in my throat, but not like before. Arousal swirls through me, heady and electric. I want his hands slipping beneath my clothes, worshipping my bare skin. Those warm palms sliding up over my ribs to cup my breasts, to catch my nipple in a pinch that rides the line between pleasure and pain…
Devon lowers his hands and steps away. Automatically, I start forward to follow him, to chase that sensation, but stop myself, barely. I am in control. Hot, bothered, but not out of my mind with either lust or panic.
So it worked. But now embarrassment rises up to obliterate everything else. He can’tmakeme feel anything; we established that last night. So my reaction was a very clear indication of my own willingness.
There are all kinds of ways to have power over someone.
I clear my throat, face flushed. “That’s a handy trick.”
