the pictures of Sam. Tracing the frame with a shadowy finger, it sighed. “However time is running out. If I do not banish you from this body soon, you will suffer. I have no desire to see that happen.”
“What about Sam?” If the demon thought I was going gently into that good night, it had another thing coming. “What about how she’ll suffer if I’m gone?”
“She will not want for anything. Everything inside the cabin now belongs to her. There is untold wealth there. Items of great value from my past lives. Antiques the world hasn’t seen in ages. The paperwork was filled out long ago. She will be taken care of.”
“Money doesn’t mean shit to her!” I lunged forward, my anger getting the better of me. In my current state I wasn’t sure I could throw shade at a kitten much less tackle a demon, but I’d always been a determined fucker. As soon as my fingers wrapped around Azi’s shadowy throat, my foggy mirror image dissipated and reformed on the other side of the room, out of my reach.
“This is pointless, and you waste energy. It will only make this harder. I ask you to accept the inevitable.”
“You want me to basically roll over and let you take me out?”
“It will be easier on us both. I will not force you, though. It will be your choice. You can stay and fade on your own. It will be painful for both of us, and she will know that you are suffering. Or, agree to be terminated. I will allow you twenty-four hours of control before you die. You will have the opportunity to say good-bye.”
“Twenty-four hours? One fucking day?” For the first time, panic rose and settled like a boulder in my gut. I’d just gotten Sam back. “That’s not enough.”
“That is all you can have.” There was no emotion behind the demon’s words. “Do you not feel it? Your essence is already starting to fade. Time is short.”
And there it was. This wasn’t simply me feeling the burn from battling for control. Somewhere deep in the darkest, most unexplored regions of my mind, I’d known. My strength had been slipping away, little by little, but I’d done my best to ignore it. “I don’t feel shit. I’m not going any—”
The room spun. I stumbled upward and closed my eyes. As if to drive the reality home, I had to grab the wall to keep from going down. When I opened my eyes, I was back in the car. Sam stirred, still dozing against my chest. Her warmth was like an inferno, and as Azi wrapped my arms tight around her, the ache in my gut threatened to rip me to shreds. I couldn’t help worrying that I’d made a mistake in not taking the demon’s offer.
The demon lowered my head, lips lingering at Sam’s ear. “We need to leave,” it whispered.
She groaned and stretched against my body, slowly opening her eyes. “I can’t believe I fell asleep.” Twisting, she pushed herself off my chest and settled on the other side of the seat.
“You did. You snore.”
For a second, her smile was all there was, brighter than the sun and electrifying enough to make the hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention. It blotted out our current situation and made me forget that I couldn’t move as much as a fucking toe. Then, like a strike of lightning, it was gone.
“Azirak.” Sam reached behind her and opened the car door. In a graceful move, she extracted herself from the backseat and took several steps away from the car. The grass was wet, dew dampening her sneakers, and when she stopped, a leaf from the tree above her fell to the ground.
The whole scene—everything from the expression on her face to the uneven thump of her heart inside her chest—was all burned into my mind as a sharp pain spasmed through my body. The demon felt it but didn’t react.
What the fuck was that?
“That,” it said with a shake of my head, “was inevitability knocking.”
“What?” Sam’s brow’s creased and she bent down to peer back into the car. “What the hell are you talking about? Inevitability of what?”
Don’t. Don’t say a word.
And it wouldn’t. Her knowing wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t make this easier on either one of us. Sam would obsess and focus on a way to free me, and in the process get herself killed by ignoring the bigger picture. She’d blow off the