Page 72 of Demon's Desire
“And now that she does know?” he hissed. “Who’s to say she won’t let him in again so he can slit my throat?!”
“She wouldn’t do that!” I insisted.
Kelly scoffed. “Maybe I would. There’s a fucking demon in my apartment terrorizing my best friend and we don’t have any other solutions. Give me one good reason that I shouldn’t just call Mrs. Halston’s phone and tell Jackson the Demon Hunter to come back.”
“Kelly!” I cried, looking at her in disbelief. “You can’t do that!”
“You want to side with a fucking demon over your best friend?” She crossed her arms and gave me an incredulous look.
“I’m not siding with anyone, you’re both being assholes!” I barked.
“I’m being an asshole?” Kelly scoffed. “Whatever. Fuck this. You two have a great day. I’m going to go to work so I can get screamed at by middle-class soccer moms all day.”
“Kelly, wait!” I sighed as she grabbed her jacket and her keys and headed out the door. She slammed it shut behind her.
I groaned and pressed my hands against my face. What the hell was I supposed to do here? Kelly hated Soul. Soul thought Kelly wanted him dead. Which, maybe she did, but they both wanted me to agree with them. All of this and I hadn’t even had a chance to think about what happened with Soul last night or what any of it meant, or if it meant anything at all.
I expected Soul to blow up at me as well, since that seemed to be the theme this morning, so I braced myself for the worst. Instead, after a moment, I felt his hand on my shoulder.
“Mia, it’s alright. Kelly will get over it,” he assured me in a gentle tone. “She was being dramatic… I was too.”
I sat on the edge of the couch and dropped my hands. “Yeah… I guess if there was someone trying to kill me, I’d be pissed that someone let them into the apartment too. But you shouldn’t have blamed her like that. She didn’t know. And I don’t think she’d really try to get you killed.”
He chuckled as he wrapped his arm around my shoulders. “That’s mildly comforting.”
He said that, but I could sense how tense he was. He was nervous, and I understood why.
“We need to figure out a plan to keep Jackson off of us,” I mentioned. “Do you think I could reason with him? I mean, I have some money in savings. I could pay him to back off. Or I could just tell him that you’re not a bad demon and that you don’t really hurt people.”
“It wouldn’t work.” He shook his head. “It’s his life’s purpose to kill demons. It’s what he is. He might leave us alone for a bit, but that would only be to give us a false sense of security. Then he would return and make it hurt.”
“Oh…” I bit the inside of my lip. “So what do we do?”
“There’s only one way to stop him,” Soul said simply. “We have to kill him.”
“What?” I looked at him with a shocked expression. “Soul, that’s not–”
“He won’t stop until he kills me, Mia,” he reminded me. “So it’s me or him. And if he takes me down, he might take you too. I won’t let that happen. So I need you to make your peace with that. It’s the only solution.”
“No!” I stood up quickly and started to pace. “No, there’s got to be another way. You aren’t a killer.”
“Anyone would kill in self defense.” He stood up as well, but stayed in place. “Mia, I know this world. I know what it needs. I know what it craves. You can’t reason with someone who wants you dead. Blood is going to be spilled. It won’t be mine. It won’t be yours either. That means it has to be his.”
“I…” I shook my head and pinched the bridge of my nose. “How am I supposed to make peace with that?”
I started to pace away from him, but he stopped me by wrapping his arms around my shoulders and resting his head on top of mine. “We all want to think that life can somehow stay easy and safe, but that doesn’t always happen. There’s a moment in life where the world tilts on its axis and it will never go back to the way it was before. You still think this will pass. You think that somehow, I can sever the tie between us, or I can act like a normal human boyfriend, or that no one has to die. And I would truly give anything to keep your world as perfect as it can be… But the Earth is tilting, little one. And I need you to adjust to your new state of balance… That’s the only way this can work.”
I closed my eyes as he spoke, nodding slowly. I wasn’t sure I agreed with him. Honestly, I didn’t. But… that was his point, wasn’t it? There was a part of me that still hoped, somehow, my life would return to normal, whatever that meant. But my normal wasn’t so great in the first place. My normal was lonely. It was apathetic. I had no aspirations, very little company, and for the past few years, my only real desire was to change… Now, change was here.
“All right,” I whispered. “But… not yet. I just need a little bit of time to adjust, to get used to this… new axis.”
Soul slowly turned me around before leaning down and kissing my lips slowly. When he pulled away, he stroked my hair. “Take your time, Mia. I’ll be here every step of the way.”
I nodded quickly. “Okay. Um… Maybe we should just try to relax for a bit. Jackson’s gone. You can’t argue with Kelly. We’re safe for now… Right?”
“Absolutely.” He leaned down and kissed the top of my head. “Do you want to watch some of those videos you like?”
“That sounds nice.” I was relieved when I went to sit on the couch and opened YouTube. I didn’t want to think about anything else for a bit. I turned on a longer video from a podcast that I hadn’t listened to in a while.