Page 33 of In Between Death and the Devil

How did I get to the middle of my fear?

As if in answer, my hands started to glow, and this time I felt the light flowing from the center of my chest. Instead of a deluge, it was a steady flow.

The Devil let go of me as if he’d been burned.

My light split the dark mass in front of me, a hole opening up around the hand I had submerged in it. Through the opening, I saw something moving. I leaned in, trying to see more.

“Maeve. Stop.” His voice resonated with a command I felt as a compulsion.

The flow of light slowed, my hands dimming, and the hole I’d opened started to close. The jagged dark mass in front of me started to shrink. My shoulders tensed. I needed more. Shaking him off, I instinctively wrapped a mental hand around the light and yanked.

“Maeve.”

My hand lit up like a star. The dark mass around it pulsed once. Then it spiraled outward until it exploded in a blinding flash.

When I opened my eyes, I was standing in the back garden of my family home. My eyes stung as I took in the familiar sight—the manicured lawn, my mother’s flower beds along the sides with my favorite irises brighter than the rest, the tall trees screening it from the outside, the back of the house in the distance, and the graveled area in front of my father’s office where I stood next to Colt.

I looked down at my glowing hands and then back up in confusion. I was looking at another version of myself. A younger version. My heart sank as I realized what I was watching.

“I never expected you to be this gullible and naive, Maeve. You thought someone like me could be interested in someone like you.” Colt eyed her with disgust. “Your father’s merchant ring was the only thing I wanted.”

“Maeve,” the Devil said. “You need to let go. You’re not ready to watch this.”

I felt a tug at the center of my chest, as if the light I was holding was trying to wriggle out of my grasp, but I clamped down. “I am ready.” I’d replayed this memory many times, but I’d never seen it like this. I couldn’t look away. I wouldn’t flinch from what I’d done.

I turned my attention back to the vision, watching the younger version of myself clench her hands at her sides.

“You weren’t faking it when you were inside me, or every time you came back for more.” Her words were sharp, her tone tart. “You were quite eager.”

He shrugged and took a swig from his flask. “I had to find something to keep me going for as long as it took. There’s nothing wrong with your cunt, Maeve, but that’s all you were. A willing amusement to help pass the time.”

“You bastard.” She pulled her arm back to punch him, but he grabbed his chest with a gasping groan. She doubled over, too, a mirror image of him.

I clenched my jaw, remembering how my heart had seized, the pain rippling through me, stealing my breath.

“Maeve,” Colt shouted, or tried to. It came out strangled. “What have you done to me?”

A man poked his head out of the office door, shouting at the sight of them hunched over in pain. He called back into the office for help and then ran toward them.

“I’m not doing anything,” younger Maeve said, gasping for breath.

Colt fell to his knees, arms flailing until the man came to help him.

Another man ran from the office to the house, calling for help.

I shuddered, knowing what happened next.

“Maeve.” There was desperation in the Devil’s voice, and the tug in my chest grew more insistent.

“No.” I tightened my mental grip on the vision, even as I trembled.

“You’re killing me,” Colt said through gritted teeth.

Younger Maeve fell to her knees, still clutching her chest. “I’m not.”

“Maeve.”

Tears sprang to my eyes at the sound of my mother’s voice. I had started to forget what it sounded like. My eyes locked onto her form, sprinting across the grass. I desperately traced the lines of her face before doing the same with my father and brother who were only a few steps behind.