7. Never negotiate with a demon
NEVER NEGOTIATE WITH A DEMON
Lor
He’s stumbling along behind me, noisy scuffs in the quiet of night.
I can’t believe he’s here, the cute bartender.
That must have been him following me all this time.
My feet flatten the earth as I carve through the debris scattered by the impact of the fallen star.
I think he said his name earlier, but I can’t remember it beyond that it was short.
My mind was too busy swirling with panic over the thought that someone was about to murder me.
I might not know his name, but what I do know is that he’s infuriating.
An infuriating flirt who doesn’t understand the concept of boundaries, apparently.
He trips and I whirl around, wrath ready to lash out on my tongue, but it stalls behind my teeth when my gaze lands on his puppy-dog eyes.
His face is turned up to me with raised eyebrows and a crooked grin.
Those damning eyes are wide and bright despite the dark, made more stark by the eyeliner he always wears.
I scowl and wrinkle my nose. I am not going soft for the clumsy, hot bartender who followed me hours outside the city to the middle of nowhere.
“Tell me why you’re here.”
I try again to get him to spill his secrets. I’m afraid if he replies with more questions that my patience will run out and I might actually stab him. On that thought, I flip my knife closed and pocket it, confident I can land a throat punch and run if needed.
“I want to be,” he says.
Yep, good thing I put my knife away. It’s all I can do not to growl at him as I fist my hands at my sides.
“What does that mean?” I manage to get the words out, despite my clenched teeth.
He shrugs. “I’m curious about you.”
I roll my lips between my teeth, sucking in a deep breath through my nose. If I was religious, I might pray for patience. Or for a higher being to smite him.
“Who are you?” I ask.
“You’re not asking the right questions, love.”
“Don’t call me love.”
He shrugs again. “Okay.”
I pull back, having been about to let my anger out again when he agreed instead of fighting me. That’s not what I expected. I blink, then narrow my eyes on him.
“Just like that?”
“Sure,” he replies, a lazy grin on his face that I’m half convinced is only there to disarm me.
I won’t admit it’s working.
“Okay then, stop following me.”
“Ah, can’t do that one, unfortunately.”
I gape at him. This man makes less than zero sense.
“Why not?”
He waves a hand around, like that somehow answers my question. I shake my head and raise my eyebrows, my eyes wide with expectation as I make it clear that’s not a good enough answer.
“I can wait here though, until you get out of sight if you want,” he says.
Are we negotiating him following me? That’s absurd.
“How do I know you’ll do that?”
“You don’t, but if it means you’ll come into the club again tomorrow, I’ll do it. I always keep my word.”
I narrow my eyes at the hopeful glint in his.
“Are you… bargaining with me?”
His entire countenance lights up at the word ‘bargaining’ and it sends a warning prickle up the back of my neck, but his words deny it.
“I would never!” he says, placing a gloved hand against his chest as though to help convince me of his sincerity.
I scoff at his dramatics and hitch the bag of stardust higher on my shoulder. I stare at him, letting my eyes run over his face, across his dirt scuffed shirt and pants, down to his laced black boots. I search for any hint of a lie or deception, but to my consternation he continues to confound me.
I have no idea if he’s being truthful or not.
I turn and continue to stomp my aggression into the dirt as I make my way back to my bike. My mystery stalker scrambles to follow and I pinch my lips to prevent myself making any other sort of face.
When I reach my bike, I start packing everything away with vicious, jerking movements.
The hand shovel, flashlight, and other tools get shoved and zipped into a saddlebag.
I carefully fold the cloth bag of stardust into my backpack, which I zip and slip my arms through, then buckle across my chest. Even if I wasn’t planning on selling it, the remains of the fallen stars would still be precious to me.
It’s all I have of my true home.
My heart thumps a dull, mournful beat in my chest, but I’m distracted from the encroaching melancholy when the bartender rolls his own motorcycle out from behind a copse of trees.
Oh, hell no.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I call out to him.
“I thought we were leaving!”
“We are not going anywhere.”
“Ah, so you’re taking my deal then?”
“What? No—” I cut off my protest when he shrugs and swings a leg over the seat of his bike, flipping his helmet in his hands as he prepares to put it on.
This time, I do growl. Never have I felt so many emotions all in one night. It’s the worst sort of rollercoaster. I kind of want the numbness back.
Liar.
“Get off your stupid bike and come here. I don’t want to shout.”
To my surprise, he complies with a grin on his face as he saunters over.
“Yes, m’lady?”
“Ew, absolutely not.” The response spews out of my mouth before I have a chance to think on it. His smile grows even wider, but I ignore it. I think my eye might be twitching. In irritation, of course. It has nothing to do with how enthralling his easy joy is.
“What will it take to get you to stop following me?”
“Oh, I’m afraid that’s not possible. Otherwise I would have done it already,” he says, a contrite look on his face.
Is he being serious? I shake my head.
“Okay. Fine. You go first. Leave now, and I’ll follow when I feel like you’ve gotten far enough away.”
He glances at his bike, then looks back at me. His teeth fiddle with the lip ring on the side of his mouth as his dark eyes ping between mine.
“What?” I say, the ’t’ cutting off sharply as I start to lose patience.
“I mean…” he says, then shakes his head before continuing. “I could do that, but I’ll be honest. I’m just gonna pull over and wait for you.”
“Ugh!” I throw my hands in the air and whip around, storming away a few feet before I turn back to him. One side of his mouth is pulled down and his big eyes are full of remorse. It makes no sense, and yet… something draws me back to him.
“Right. I’ll leave first then. You wait three hours, then you can leave.”
“Then you’ll come to the bar tomorrow?” he asks.
I slump with relief. “Yes.”
“Ten minutes.”
“I—” I blink at him. Did he say ten minutes? “What?” I ask.
“I’ll give you a five minute head start.”
“You just said ten!”
I’m fairly certain my eyes are bugging out of my head. My adrenaline is starting to spike again too, a heady rush infusing my veins, although it doesn’t feel nearly as panicky as it did before.
“Ah, did I?” he says, holding his hands up in a ‘what can you do?’ gesture.
“Two hours,” I reply, gritting my teeth.
“Ten minutes.”
“You can’t haggle the same thing.”
“Okay. Eleven minutes.”
“Oh holy fucking shit! You are impossible.”
He grins with a mischievous glitter in his eye, and my lips twitch. The slightest upward tick, but I clench them back into a scowl before he can see.
“One hour.”
“Thirty minutes.”
I pause, eyeing him. Thirty minutes? That could be enough time if I really push it. I angle my head around him to check out his bike, taking in features that are comparable to my own. Nothing especially upgraded—or fast—from what I can see.
His grin reappears, looking slightly more wicked this time as he holds out a gloved hand. I stare at it a moment before searching his eyes again.
Guileless.
A guileless stalker.
I tip my head to the stars as I suck in a deep breath, certain I’m going to end up getting murdered, but what else can I do?
I reach out and take his hand in mine, sealing our deal.
He licks his lips then twirls the ring in his bottom one with his tongue as he slowly walks backwards away from me.
His eyes never leave mine, and I get that same prickly feeling of being watched that I’ve been experiencing all week.
Now I know who it was.
His black-lined eyes don’t leave me as I shoot across the field away from him, and my skin tingles with the memory of his gaze long after I’ve left his sights.
I check my mirrors and look behind me every few minutes, but there’s no sign of him.
Did he really keep his side of the bargain?
If so, that means I have to show up to the club tomorrow.
My lips tilt into a smile before I realize what’s happening. I feel like a fool, a silly girl crushing on the wrong boy despite knowing it won’t end well.
I guess that’s the draw, though. The danger, the excitement, the lure of the forbidden.
I’ve had plenty of danger in my life recently, what with my ‘boss’—I sneer as I think of him—threatening me at every turn.
I didn’t take him seriously at first, but then he had one of his masked goons shoot someone right in front of me.
I had nightmares for months, and his tactics to keep me in line only got worse, even though I didn’t need any more convincing.
I took him seriously after that. Although, I don’t think he’d kill me since he needs me too much, but he wouldn’t hesitate to hurt me.
My skin crawls as I think of returning to the dingy warehouse, then my heart hurts when I contemplate turning over more stardust to him.
He wanted double this time, and despite finding a good amount tonight, I’m still not there.
It feels hopeless, and I doubt it’ll ever be enough.
No matter how much of the magical substance I bring, he will always demand more.
As long as there’s a market for it, he’ll want it. Stardust is the kind of thing only the higher ups in bigger crime organizations know about. Everyone else thinks it’s a synthetic drug.