Jenna Black - Speak of the Devil

I shuddered, thinking that, with Abraham’s callous disregard for human life, the boy was lucky to be alive. Certainly he wouldn’t have survived once his mother had completed her mission. Nor would his mother, for that matter. I remembered how “Abraham” had held onto Jessica’s ankle, supposedly to keep her from getting away. I should have realized how strange that was at the time, seeing as Jessica was pretending to be so out of it she could barely move, much less make a run for it. If Lugh had gone through with it and stabbed Jessica, Abraham would have used that physical contact to transfer into Susan.

“Jessica had a child, too!” I gasped as I suddenly remembered.

Adam nodded. “But luckily she was visiting her grandparents for the week, so Jessica didn’t have to deal with her.” Because we both knew exactly how she would have dealt with such an inconvenience.

And now for the biggest question of all. “I assume Jessica was exorcized while I was out of it?” I shouldn’t have cared what happened to her. After all, she was a killer herself, or at least she thought she was. But no matter what the human host was like, I couldn’t help feeling sympathy for someone who’d had Abraham rampaging around in her head. “Is she one of the lucky ones?”

Adam’s face was hard, his expression stony. “Three different exorcists tried to cast Abraham out, but he was too strong for them.”

Horror stabbed through me. “Oh, no.”

His lips tipped into a smile, but his face retained that feeling of hardness. “It was poetic justice, Morgan. The only exorcist in the country—possibly even in the world—who could have cast him out is under suspension by the U.S. Exorcism Board because of the lawsuit Abraham himself put into motion.”

“ Was poetic justice?”

He nodded. “Yeah. He was executed this morning at around eight, when the third exorcist failed to cast him out.”

“And so was Jessica,” I murmured, feeling cold.

Adam shrugged. “I can’t get too worked up about that,” he said. “She was no innocent bystander.”

Even though I saw his point, even though she’d kinda had it coming, in an Old Testament, eye-for-an-eye way, I still wished I’d been available to do the exorcism myself. I hated the idea of anyone being incinerated to destroy a demon.

My eyes slid closed, and I realized I had used up my meager strength. “I’m going to go back to sleep now.” Maybe when I woke up, things would look brighter.

I had the vague feeling that Adam stayed at my side until I fell asleep, but that was probably just my imagination.

I managed to fight my way out of the hospital the next day, against medical advice. Although I was feeling much better, my doctor still wanted me to stay for observation, because she had no idea what was wrong with me. She never would, either.

Dominic picked me up at the hospital to take me home, but since it was around lunchtime, and I was eating again, he took me to his and Adam’s place instead so he could set me up with some nourishing Italian food. Adam wasn’t home.

“It’s just leftovers,” Dominic said apologetically as he seated me at the kitchen table.

“After you were nice enough to come pick me up and to feed me, I can hardly complain about leftovers. Especially not if you made them.”

As usual, the praise made him blush. I lavished more on him when he served me the most delicious stuffed shells I’d ever eaten. I almost cried in gratitude when he put together a care package to take home with me.

When I say I almost cried, I mean it literally. Now that the crisis was over, the emotions I’d been holding at bay with a vengeance were eroding away my shields. I felt like there was an aching hole in my chest where Brian had once been. Even when I tried to summon some anger to bolster my defenses, I failed miserably. I couldn’t blame him for finally giving up on me. I just wished with all my being that he hadn’t. Or that I could go back in time and force myself to open up to him, to tell him the truth. To trust him, because he was right, and I’d often withheld my trust even when I knew in my heart he deserved it.

“Do you realize you’ve been staring off into space for almost ten minutes?” Dominic asked, startling me out of my reverie.

I blinked, then glanced at my watch. However, since I hadn’t thought to check the time when I spaced out, it didn’t do much good. “You’re shitting me.”

He smiled and shook his head. “Nope. Do you want to tell me what’s wrong?”

I can’t count how many times in my life I’ve answered the “what’s wrong” question with “nothing,” even when the sky was falling. I almost did the same now by sheer reflex, but the words died in my throat.

“I need help trying to figure out how to win Brian back,” I blurted, and I don’t know who was more surprised, me or Dom.

He blinked at me like I had to be an imposter. “What kind of drugs do they have you on?”

I tried to laugh, but it was a pathetic effort. “If desperation is a drug, then I’m overdosing on it.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I love him too much to give up on us yet, but I don’t have a clue what to do.”

Dom looked at me long and hard. I couldn’t read the expression on his usually open book of a face. “I’m pretty sure I know what the problem is between you, but will you put it into words for me anyway?”

It was so unlike me to talk about my feelings that I almost wondered if I’d been brainwashed or put under hypnosis. But I kept talking anyway. “The problem is that I have major trust issues, and I’ve given Brian every reason to believe I don’t trust him to look out for me, to look out for himself, to make the right decisions …” My eyes blurred with tears. What an unholy mess I’d made of everything!

“So to have a hope to win him back, you’re going to have to prove that you trust him after all.”

“Just like that, huh? How can I prove it? I tried promising him I’d—”

Dominic cut me off, meeting my eyes and capturing me with an intense gaze. “Ask yourself why you’re asking me how to win Brian back.”

“Because you’re the only one I know who wouldn’t laugh at me, or patronize me, or tell me I was reaping what I sowed.”

He shook his head. “That’s not it, Morgan,” he said in a gently chiding voice.

“What do you mean? Of course that’s it!”

“I’m not going to do all the work for you. If you can’t dig the real reason out of your subconscious, then I can’t help you.”

I swallowed the next denial that wanted to spring to my lips. I had a funny feeling a part of me knew exactly what Dom was talking about—a part of me that wasn’t always on speaking terms with my conscious mind. A part of me I wasn’t sure I was willing, or even able to acknowledge. A part of me that had some inkling of what gesture I could make to symbolize my trust.

Despite the sudden panic that screamed through me, I started putting the pieces of my own thoughts together. Brian had dropped me for my lack of trust. The only way I could hope to get him back was by proving that I did trust him. And the person I was asking advice from was the M half of an S&M relationship, a man who routinely made himself completely helpless before his lover and liked it.

“Oh shit,” I said in a near whisper as the tumblers in my mind lined up and the safe opened.

Dominic smiled. “I believe you’re beginning to get the picture.”

My only response was a loud gulp of fear. Brian and I had danced around the edges of some fairly kinky sex—thanks to Lugh giving Brian some pointers—but what I was thinking of now wasn’t dancing around the edge anymore.