Page 53 of Against All Odds

They turned to glare at each other.

Panic rose in my chest. Maybe it was the panic on their faces, or the fact that this felt too real to be a dream – but somehow, I didn’t doubt the demon told the truth. I had thought I was ready to die, but was I? I had died by this demon’s bite hundreds of times throughout my life, and it never grew to be less painful. Was his bite the gateway to an afterlife of pain?

“Clock’s ticking,” the demon interrupted my train of thought. “You have ten seconds. Nine… eight…”

I swallowed thickly. After one good look at both Serens, I closed my eyes and concentrated.

Whoever told the truth, I knew what she wasn’t telling me. I had been forced to play this wicked game too many times, but now I had one advantage I otherwise didn’t: Seren’s probability manipulation. She had explained that she couldn’t manipulate my conscious choices, but this was a subconscious one – she only had to increase the probability of me choosing right.

The knowing started small, right above my eyes – where the third eye was supposed to be. After a lifetime of clouding my intuition with distractions and substances, I was finally learning to listen to it – and that’s how I knew.

My eyes flew back open, and I knew my answer as if I’d never been so sure of anything.

“Time’s up!” the demon roared. “Choose!”

“Her.” I nodded to the Seren on the left.

She smiled at me. I let out a sigh of relief and smiled back at her.

Then she dissolved into dust.

My laugh faded.

“NO!”

The other Seren – the real one – screamed, a sound that chilled me to the bone. She lunged forward – but as she threw herself at me, the clouds grouped into a tornado of black smoke, grabbing her legs and pulling her backwards, away from me.

I blinked, unable to form the words.

“You know what happens now,” the demon growled. “Finally, your soul will be mine to take.”

I couldn’t see him, but I felt the heat rise behind me. I closed my eyes, and as the demon’s sharp teeth sank into my neck, sucking the life out of my body with every passing second, I realized those childhood dreams were never dreams.

They were a prophecy. It was always going to end like this.

Chapter 23.

Seren

The seething tornado closed in on me, cutting off my breath. Gasping for fresh air that didn’t reach my lungs, firmer than the breeze were my thoughts.

What was happening to Raya? Was I being sent to the lower realm? I needed to get to her; I couldn’t leave her like this, thinking she wasn’t worth fighting for. I’d intended to set things right with her, not feed her to the claws of whatever that thing was. I saw it loom behind her for a fraction of a second, just before the tornado swept me off my feet – a growling mass of fire, six eyes, all teeth. I was glad Raya didn’t have to see what was coming for her, though maybe not knowing was worse.

The clouds closed in on me like a smack in the head – disorienting, nauseating. Instead of waking up burning in hellfire, like I expected, I sat straight up in my bed in the liminal realm, clutching my chest.

I sucked in the air with big, desperate gasps – eyes burning, my entire body trembling. I blinked myself back into vision, and a shock ran through me.

Jurrian sat beside my bed, watching me with a deadpan expression.

“You’re awake.” He spoke before I could fire my questions at him. “Good. I figured—”

“What the fuck happened?” I interrupted. Agitation had me stumbling over my own words, and I swung my legs over the bed. “Raya got—” I paused for a breath, realizing I was about to confess to multiple cosmic sins at once – but it probably no longer mattered. Judging by the look on his face, he already knew. “I don’t know what happened, Jurrian. I projected myself into her subconscious, and then she got snatched by a—and he said that her soul would finally be his to take, but how… and why the fuck did my probmanu not work?”

Jurrian stayed silent for a moment. If he didn’t already know what I’d done, I sure had fucked it up right now. But then he let out the heaviest sigh I’d ever heard from his mouth, and I realized I was right. Of course, he knew.

“Your probmanu did work, Seren,” he said calmly. “You set the probability of her choosing right to ninety-nine percent, but never hundred. I explained this to you in the beginning, didn’t I? Odds can be manipulated, but fate ultimately decides. If you manipulate the odds a hundred times, you’ll get the outcome you want ninety-nine times, but not every time.” He paused, skeptically eyeing me up and down. “It seems fate chose an unfortunate moment to roll the dice the other way.”

“What the fuck!” I yelled out, then stopped myself as his brows rose further. “I mean, what? Why? Why this fucking moment?”