Page 20 of The Devil Takes

This was a dream, after all. Wasn’t it?

He could wait for me. He had no choice.

Still though, I didn’t want to be a total dick, so instead of admiring the mahogany desk Haden sat behind or the piles of books that toppled like ancient buildings stacked along the floor, I turned to him.

“Back?” I asked because I wasn’t sure what he meant.

Sure, I’d been dreaming of him for weeks, dreaming of this place.

But it had always felt murky at best, the details foggy, like I was stretching, stretching, stretching toward something and never quite reaching it. Like there was a veil between me and what lay before me, thick as molasses, waiting for my fingers to rip it to ribbons so I could push my body through.

“You’ve been here before,” Haden stated plainly. I blinked.

“Is this…a place?” I gestured around me, encompassing all of the dream with curiosity I probably shouldn’t have had. But he made me curious, and I couldn’t help that fact.

“It is a place, among other things.” Haden didn’t rise from his seat and as my eyes adjusted more, I noted he was back in his skeleton garb again. What lay beyond his skull mask was nothing but mystery, though his lips looked soft, yet stern. A longing flickered in my chest that I swiftly rubbed away.

Maybe this dream was actually a nightmare.

Something I’d conjured up to punish myself for giving in all those nights ago.

“I didn’t know your people possessed magic such as this,” Haden added, his own voice curious now. Obviously, I was an enigma to him. Our first encounter had gone much the same way. A lot of “I didn’t know your people did this, and that.” A lot of wonder and trepidation aching through the rippling tones of his voice.

“Magic?” I scoffed. “I’m not magic.”

“I beg to differ.”

Cute, but weird.

Was he flirting?

Did that mean I was flirting with myself?

“Where are we?” I asked because I wanted to interrupt my own annoying thought process. Also, because I was curious. Curious, like he was.

“My office.”

Well, that was obvious.

I glared at him.

“Your office?” I glanced around, scanning the piles of books, the littered paper, the wall sconces that should’ve been lit, but instead, were as dry and dead as old bones. Dubious, I narrowed my eyes on him again. “Why are you at an office? What are you?” I folded my arms. “You don’t look like an office drone.” Not that this looked like your typical office drone’s office. Oh no. I wasn’t sure what this looked like.

A dungeon maybe?

A dungeon if it had banged a library, and this was its very dark, very gothic baby.

“I assure you, an office drone I am not.”

I stared at Haden for a long moment, waiting for him to continue, but he didn’t. He just shuffled the papers on his desk, his head tipped down. I hadn’t noticed before, but his hair was shorn close to his scalp. An almost military style haircut that perfectly matched the uniform he obviously had a whole closet full of. The hair was pearly white all over and looked soft as puppy fluff, though there was a curious stripe of black that ran from his hairline all the way to the back, almost like a reverse skunk stripe.

I’d yelled at a skunk once.

Not because I wanted to.

I’d been feeding him scraps at the edge of the trailer park for months and when Dad caught wind of it, he’d made me scare him off. The look on his little face, so confused by my betrayal, still haunted me.

That was the last time I’d cried. You had to do what you had to do to survive in my house growing up and sometimes that meant others getting hurt. My heart still tore when I thought about it. I rubbed the spot where it ached as I turned my attention away from Haden’s hair and took a cautious step forward.