Jenna Black - The Devil You Know

“I need to talk to you,” I said.

My tone of voice must have been pretty brittle, because Andy paled. “Why don’t you have something to eat first?” he suggested.

“Now!” I jerked my thumb toward the guest bedroom. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Adam and Dom share a significant look, but I ignored them.

Doing his best condemned-prisoner impersonation, Andy slowly rose from the table and trudged toward the bedroom. I gave everyone else my most quelling glare.

“You three stay here and stay out of it.”

One corner of Adam’s mouth lifted in a hint of grin. “I wouldn’t dream of interfering.”

Neither Dom nor Brian seemed to think it necessary to make similar declarations. But then, I wasn’t worried about them so much.

I followed Andy into the guest bedroom and closed the door behind us. The dirty clothes were back on his chair, and he didn’t bother to move them off. Instead, he stood with his hands clasped behind his back and his gaze fixed on the carpet.

“I suppose you already knew Dr. Neely treated me when I was in the hospital,” I said.

He didn’t raise his eyes, but his chin dipped slightly in what I took for a nod.

“And you didn’t think this was something important that you should tell me?”

He shrugged. “I figured it would lead to a conversation I didn’t want to have.”

I tried to control my temper, but I didn’t have much success. I wanted to cross the space between us and slap him so hard his teeth rattled.

“It’s been pointed out to me more than once that there’s way more than my own life at stake here,” I growled between clenched teeth. “That’s true for you, too. So I’m sorry you don’t want to talk about it, and I’m sorry you’re scared of Raphael, but you’re just going to have to get over it.”

Now he did meet my eyes, and for the first time, I saw a flash of fire in his gaze. “You have no idea what you’re talking about! You don’t know what I’ve been through. It’s not something I can just ‘get over.’”

That was true, but at this point it didn’t matter anymore. “Tough shit, Andy. You may have been through hell, but so have I. And I didn’t volunteer for it.” He winced, but I pressed on. “You volunteered to host because you wanted to be a hero. So be a hero. Tell me what you know.”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “I can’t do that.”

Internally, I let out a sigh of regret, even as I continued to give him my hardest glare. I’d hoped to shame him into talking, but I could see that wasn’t going to work. That left only one option. “You either talk to me, or you talk to Adam,” I said, figuring I’d hate myself for this later. “Adam won’t ask nicely.”

Andy’s eyes widened in shock. “You went out of your way to protect Cooper from your buddy the demon, but you’d turn your own brother in to him?”

My heart ached at the hurt in his eyes, and at the knowledge that I was capable of doing something so cruel. But I couldn’t afford to let sentimentality stop me from doing the right thing—especially when I knew Adam was going to come up with this idea on his own the moment he heard what I’d learned. I was pretty sure this wasn’t going to be any more than a scare tactic. I couldn’t imagine Andy standing up to Adam’s threats, no matter how much he feared Raphael. I refused to think about what would happen if I was wrong.

I was preparing as diplomatic an answer as possible, but before any words made it out of my mouth, the bedroom door swung open. I hadn’t heard anyone approaching, so I jumped a bit.

“Actually,” Adam said from the doorway, “she’s just bluffing to scare you into talking. However, since I decided to eavesdrop, it becomes a moot point.”

“You bastard!” I said as Adam stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. “I told you to stay at the table!”

He gave a little snort of laughter. “And what made you think I’d do what you told me to?”

He had a point there. And as my mind scrambled to adjust to the changed situation, I realized he’d done me a huge favor by bursting in at this moment. Because I hadn’t been bluffing. I was pretty sure Adam knew that, and I was pretty sure his decision to interrupt at that moment had been deliberate.

Adam’s eyes had an eerie, demonic glow to them as he stared Andy down. “As Morgan has no doubt told you, I find inflicting pain to be quite an enjoyable pastime. Ordinarily, I would only play with consenting adults, but I’m perfectly willing to make an exception for you. Believe me, I have a good deal of experience, and I can make you talk.”

Andy was white and trembling. I wanted to cry.

“If I tell you anything, Raphael will—”

“Raphael isn’t here at the moment,” Adam insisted. “I am. We can keep him away from you. But right now, there’s nothing that can keep me away from you. Understand?”

Andy’s knees seemed to give out, and he sank down onto the edge of his bed. His eyes haunted, he nodded. A single tear escaped from the corner of my eye, and I wiped it away angrily. We didn’t have a choice here. We had to make Andy talk.

But God, how I hated this. How I hated the look on my brother’s face, the misery in his eyes. How I hated the realization that I had put it there, even if it was with a little help from my friends.

Adam shoved Andy’s clothes off the chair and sat down, making himself comfortable while still keeping an eye on my brother. I just stood there and brooded.

“I don’t know the full story,” Andy said, staring at his feet, his voice barely audible. “I only know the bits and pieces Raphael let me hear, and that only happened when he first possessed me and got careless every once in a while.”

“So tell us what you do know,” Adam prompted when it seemed like Andy was about to clam up again.

Andy’s hands gripped the side of the bed, his knuckles white. “Morgan’s real father wasn’t human, at least not exactly.”

“Huh?” I said intelligently.

“Like I said, I don’t know the whole story. I don’t know who or what he was, only that he was impervious to demons. And that the demons were very, very interested in him.”

I gave that a moment to sink in, but there wasn’t enough information for me to make much sense out of anything. I knew there had to be more to it. “Keep talking,” I said.

“When they found out Mom was pregnant by your father, they were really excited. They had high hopes that, because you were some sort of hybrid, you’d be able to host.”

I shared a puzzled look with Adam, but he didn’t seem to be making any more sense out of this than I was. “I don’t get it,” I said.

Andy shook his head. “I don’t, either. At least, not really. I don’t know what they wanted, other than that they wanted you possessed.”

I couldn’t suppress my shudder. “What happened to me at The Healing Circle?”

“I swear to God, I don’t know. I wasn’t allowed to visit more than once or twice, and you were out of it when I did. But I do know you didn’t have encephalitis.”

Not that big a shock, I suppose, but it made my heart skip a beat anyway. I found myself holding my breath as I waited for Andy to continue.

“Cooper gave Mom and Dad some kind of drug, and they put it in your orange juice so you’d have symptoms and they could take you to the hospital.”

My knees felt shaky, so I leaned my back against the wall for support. I didn’t know what was worse: the realization that Mom and Dad had drugged me, or my brand-new suspicions about what had happened at the hospital.

“They were trying to give me to the demons, weren’t they?” I asked in a scratchy whisper. Andy nodded, looking miserable.

They had tried to force a demon into my body, into the body of an unwilling, thirteen-year-old host. Something hovered on the edge of my memory. I knew if I concentrated, I might be able to bring it to the surface, but I couldn’t bear to try. I didn’t want to remember. If it was my own mental defenses that had locked up that memory and thrown away the key, then it was for a damn good reason.