Kelley Armstrong - Personal Demon

More like super-chump. I’d discovered that my new life was built on a lie. I wasn’t protecting the innocent; I was delivering them to the Cortez Cabal. My self-confidence took a beating that it still hadn’t recovered from. But with Karl’s help I’d bounced back and became exactly what I thought I’d been before-a council operative.

Now, with a single bullet, my world had shattered again. This time it wouldn’t heal.

Paige had believed me. I said I’d needed her help and she’d taken me at my word. How many times had I heard the council tease Paige about her impetuousness? They told stories of her running headlong into danger, mind fixed on a soul that needed saving. But such tales were rooted in the past, and even Paige laughed at them. She was older now. More experienced. More cautious.

Yet hadn’t I seen the worry in Lucas’s eyes when she set out on a dangerous assignment? I’d always told myself he was just concerned for his wife. Now I realized that Paige was, at heart, the same person she’d always been, one who’d throw herself into a bullet’s path to save a friend.

I’d called for help. She’d listened.

I’d begged her to tell no one. She’d listened.

After arriving, she’d had misgivings, but I’d played it so cool she’d told herself she was wrong. And followed me to her death.

She’d trusted me. She was dead. It was my fault.

Benicio Cortez would chase me to the ends of the earth, now, convinced I’d been part of the conspiracy against his family. Who would I turn to? For justice? For mercy? Lucas? The council? I’d killed Paige. No one would help me now.

I would not recover from this. Could not.

And yet, even as I thought the words, they were only words. I didn’t care what happened to me. All I could see was Paige’s face. Her dead eyes staring at me.

My greatest fear had been that, faced with the death of a friend, I’d be so overcome by the chaos that I’d stand by and watch. Now I knew I’d been wrong. I’d faced the chaos and overcome it. I’d tried to stop Jaz. Tried to save Paige. Did it matter? No. Because I’d still been responsible for her death…and I didn’t even have the demon to blame.

I LAY INthe back of a car. I had no idea how long I’d been there, trapped in my thoughts, smelling vinyl and vomit, feeling the rumble of the tires, hearing the sharp words of an argument. It all washed over me, muddled by whatever drug sloshed through my veins.

Even when the voices became coherent, I listened, aware that what I was hearing was important, connected to me, but unable to make that connection. Just disembodied voices floating through the ether.

“You have to do something about her.”

“Everything’s fine.”

“Fine? Look in the mirror and tell me everything’s fine, Jaz. She attacked you-”

“I shot someone she liked. What’s she supposed to do? Run over and kiss me?”

“Kill you more like.”

“She wouldn’t do that.”

“No? Well, judging by those scratches, she sure as hell tried. I hate to see what you’d look like if you hadn’t shot her with the sedative.”

“You don’t understand.”

“No, Jaz, I don’t.”

Silence.

“I need her, Sonny.”

“Need? You met her a few days ago. Days! And now, all of a sudden, you can’t live without her. I’m starting to wonder where that leaves me.”

“Right where you’ve always been. My brother. Nothing is more important to me.”

“Nothing?”

Silence.

“You want me to choose, Sonny? Is that what this is about? You’re feeling threatened so I need to make a choice?”

“I never said-”

“Here, take this.”

“What the hell are you-?”

“Go on. Take it.”

“For God’s sake, Jaz. Stop being such a fucking drama queen. I-”

“Take the gun. Fire it. Because if you’re going to make me choose, you might as well put a bullet in my brain right now.”

“Goddamn it! You’re crazy, you know that? As screwed up as-”

Silence.

“As Mom?”

“I didn’t mean that, Jaz. You know I didn’t.”

“At least I come by it honestly.”

“I didn’t mean-”

“It’s okay, bro. Maybe I am a little fucked up. Maybe a lot fucked up. But you know what’s really nuts, Sonny? I know that, and it doesn’t make any difference. I look at Hope back there and I think ‘Goddamn it, man, what are you doing?’ But it doesn’t change anything because I feel it’s right. It’s what I’m meant to do. Just like all this.” Pause. “Have I ever steered you wrong?”

“No, Jaz.”

“As crazy as my ideas are, have they ever been something we can’t manage?”

“No.”

“Then trust me.”

“I do.”

“I know you’re tired of this, bro. I know you want it over with. Me and my mad dreams. But we’re almost there. Remember when we were little, and Mom would say we had to move again, and you’d cry and cry. What did I promise you?”

“That someday we’d stop running.”

“And when you were older, she’d say we had to move and you’d try to reason with her, and you’d get so mad because she never listened. What did I promise you?”

“That you’d stop it.”

“The only way to stop the Cabal-really stop them-is to become them. We’re close, Sonny. So close. Just a couple more months, then, when everything’s in place, you can go back to being you. Free.”

“And what about you?”

“I’ll be fine. I’ll get used to being Lucas and I’ll have Hope.”

“What if she doesn’t…come around?”

“She will. This is a lot for her to absorb. You can’t blame her for being freaked out. But she loves me. I know that. She’ll come around.”

“Not like she has much choice now.”

Silence.

“That wasn’t how I wanted it.”

“I know, Jaz. But now she’ll have to see what it’s like from our side.”

When all went quiet, my thoughts folded back into themselves, and I was lost again.

I GROANED ANDclutched my stomach. Jaz caught me by the shoulders, steadying me as I sat on the seat edge. Another seat, another car. Sonny had dropped us off in a parking garage, where a second vehicle waited, then he’d left to ditch the first a couple of blocks away.

“Just crawl in and lie down,” Jaz said.

“I-I-” I heaved, slapping my hand over my mouth. “Oh, God. I need air.”

He hesitated. It was safer with me in the car. “The air’s not much fresher out here. Worse even. All the carbon monoxide.”

I looked into his eyes. “Please.”

A pause. Then, “Yeah. Okay. But just for a minute.”

Mission accomplished.

He led me over to a pillar near the railing, far enough back so I wouldn’t be seen, but close enough to catch the breeze.

“Sonny’s going to come out right over there. Any minute. Then I’m getting you back in that car before he finds out.”

I nodded. He kept one arm around my waist, the other holding my arm, supporting me as I leaned against the pillar.

“I’m sorry, Hope. I really am. It was a helluva thing to do to you, but I had to. If I’d let you know what I planned, you would have been an accomplice in Paige’s death. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

And you think I’m not an accomplice now? I brought her to you.

He fingered the gouges on his cheek. “I deserved every one of them. And more. But once you get past this, you’ll see there wasn’t any other way. She’s gone to the other side now, and she’s okay. All those good deeds she did here? She’s in the best place they’ve got. And Lucas will be with her soon, and they’ll be happy. Do you think she’d really prefer it the other way? Kidnapped, terrified and alone, finally rescued only to discover that the man she loved has changed into someone she doesn’t recognize? She’s better off.”