Chapter 21
TWENTY-ONE
Allison
The mind is a fucked up place full of repressed bullshit. I’ve been running from my past, hoping that if I just stayed away, all my problems would eventually disappear. I was wrong—so very wrong.
I’ve spent most of my adult life running from my past, running from who I was.
I thought that if I could just make the perfect life, with the perfect suburban house, and the perfect boring job, that all my demons would somehow disappear.
I could be nice, normal, pleasant. I fooled myself into believing that I wasn’t just another fucked up kid from the wrong side of town.
And yet, here we are—back to the one place I never wanted to return to.
I didn’t even realize I was driving here, to this town, the town I grew up in, until I was already taking the exit off the highway and pulling into the sad-looking main street.
It’s even worse here than I remember. Time and distance doesn’t heal all wounds—whoever said that was a fucking liar.
All time and distance did was make me believe I didn’t belong in this shithole, that I was better than this place and these people.
But I was wrong, so very wrong. I moved to a nicer town, got a college degree, and still ended up married to an abusive asshole, just like my mother. I just live in a prettier house.
The red mask glows in the low light of the overcast sunset, like a sinister demon who came to collect what is owed to him.
He takes another step up, inching closer to me, closing in.
My hand lands on the doorknob behind me, testing slowly to see if it’s locked.
It’s not. My eyes dart around, checking for any other route of escape, but I’ve cornered myself against the door.
I feel like a caged animal—every muscle in my body tensing in preparation to bolt.
It might be foolish to try to run from the Devil, but if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s running away from my problems.
“Run.” His voice is low and threatening.
I don’t wait for him to say more or explain. I punch in the door behind me, spin, and run.
Inside is a dark maze of cobwebs and shadows.
This place has clearly been empty for years.
Water is pooling around the windows, leaking from the corners and leaving bubbled trails of damage down the walls.
Windows are broken and boarded. Spray paint covers most of the surfaces.
What once was a crappy foster home for troubled kids seems to have become an empty shell full of ghostly pain.
I try to block out the memories of fights and agonizing moments from my past, instead focusing on just getting away.
“Run, run, pretty princess,” the Devil calls out from behind me, his large boot steps thundering through the emptiness of the abandoned home. “Don’t let your villain catch you.”
His laughter echoes off the wall, a sinister sound that sends a chill down my spine.
How did he find me? How did he know I’d come here?
No one knows I came from here, not even my husband.
Some part of my mind still remembers the layout of this house as I bound down the hall toward the staircase hidden in the back of the house.
I used to use the back staircase to sneak down and steal snacks late at night.
That was, before my foster mom found out and put a lock on the outside of my door.
After that, I had to rely on the kindness of a fellow kid, a boy my age, to sneak out.
The memory of him gives me pause. I trip, my foot catching on the lip of one of the steps. My hands fly out and I catch myself, but not before I hit my knee—hard.
“Fuck!” I shout out before I’m able to stop myself. I listen for his footsteps behind me, but there’s nothing—only horrifying silence.
Pain radiates through my leg, but I don’t dare stop.
I haul myself up and continue up the stairs.
I don’t dare turn to look behind me, terrified of what I’ll see if I turn.
Those glowing eyes are filled with sinister intent.
I have no doubt that if he catches me, it will be my undoing.
He will tear me apart, piece by piece, until I’m completely exposed.
Just the thought forces my body into overdrive, scrambling up the groaning wooden stairs as if he’s hot on my heels.
By the time I reach the landing, I’m breathless.
My sympathetic nervous system has completely taken over my body, putting me into flight mode.
My whole being is pumping with the urge to run, run, run.
“You can’t outrun me, Princess.”
His cold voice holds a hint of amused pleasure. Standing at the opposite end of the hallway, having beat me to the top of the stairs, is the glowing red eyes of the Devil. My Devil.
“You always did favor that sneaky back staircase,” he tells me as he approaches cautiously. The ancient wooden boards creak beneath his massive black boots. “What did you call it?” He pauses as if trying to remember. “Our secret stairway to snacks.”
He chuckles, but my blood turns to ice in my veins.
“Who the fuck are you?” I whisper in horror as my mind races to catch up with the truth I won’t let myself believe.
“You know.” He takes another step toward me. The red glow of the mask is the only light in the dark windowless hall. “You’ve always known, Ali.”
I shake my head. “You’re Gabriel Parsons. You own a cybersecurity company and started teaching at the school where I work. We met and had a brief fling, but then I found out you’d been stalking me for a few months—”
His cruel laughter bounces off the enclosed space around us, surrounding me with the Devil’s humorless chuckle.
He steps even closer, and I step back. My foot hits the riser of the stair and I flail, attempting to stop myself from falling.
I pivot. My back hits the wall behind me as his hand closes around my throat, pinning me to the cracked plaster and peeling paint.
“Months?” he repeats, his voice dripping with venom.
“Try years, Ali. Every move, every kiss, every tear, every laugh—I’ve been there, watching from the shadows for every single fucking thing.
You see, I thought you’d be happier without me, without my baggage weighing you down.
You were so determined to get out and to make something of yourself.
I needed to let you go…but I couldn’t.” His grip on my throat tightens.
My chest squeezes as I struggle to breath.
“I even came to your wedding, did you know that? I watched as you pledged your life to that fucking asshole, praying the entire time that you’d look up and see me, notice me, BE WITH ME. ”
His voice grows louder and louder as he speaks, but I can barely hear it over the ringing in my own ears. Black spots dot my vision but I try to hold on, try to focus.
I am not weak. I’m in control.
“He is such an evil, bad man, Ali.” He sounds wild, manic, unhinged.
My panic rises. “Why would you marry him? Because on paper he was safe? Because he offered a white picket fence and a boring life?” He leans in so close that I can feel the warm plastic of his glowing mask against my skin.
“I’ve seen the jagged edges of your soul—I know that you’ve been punishing yourself.
You let yourself believe you didn’t deserve better than that asshole, but you did, you do.
You deserve so much more than he ever gave you, Princess. You deserve the entire fucking world.”
A single tear slides down my cheek, the saltwater stinging my heated skin.
“Who are you?” I manage to choke out as my chest constricts.
His free hand reaches for mine. He pulls my left palm up to face him, so that it’s eye level with the Devilish glow of his mask.
“Do you remember the night I gave you this cut?” he asks as his thumb lightly traces the silvery scar along my skin. “You’d had the worst day. You were so little, so scared, so lost. Even then, as young as we were, I knew I was meant to protect you.”
My mind trips over memories and moments, trying to get back to the night he’s describing.
I think it was one of the first weeks I’d been placed here.
I missed my mom, but I didn’t miss the anxiety inducing instability of my home.
She’d lost custody after being caught with enough dope to catch possession charges.
They had a hard time locating extended family to take me in.
I’d been placed here in the meantime. I didn’t understand the rules, the structure of this place and these people.
I kept getting in trouble. Until a small boy with black hair and the bluest eyes I’d ever seen took pity on me.
He’d found me crying in my closet. It’s where I used to hide when dad and mom got into it.
It felt safe and quiet, so I hid there after being yelled at for taking a snack without asking.
I didn’t know. I was just hungry. The boy found me and made me a promise—a promise I haven’t thought about until now.
“You?” I ask incredulously. “You promised to protect me?”
He lets out a low sigh that almost sounds like relief and the grip on my throat loosens.
I suck in a deep breath as my lungs expand fully.
“Yes, beautiful, I promised you I’d protect you.
I let you down once when I watched you fall into Brody’s path.
And I’ve been trying to figure out how to make it right ever since. ”
“You said that you’d be my protector, that I was—”
“That you were mine and I was yours. And that I’d always protect you and take care of you,” he finishes for me as he leans down so that our foreheads touch.
The gesture would be intimate, sweet even, if he weren’t admitting to stalking me for years while wearing a Devil mask. “And I promised in blood.”
I sag against the wall as I catch my breath, attempting to calm my racing heart.
He holds up his palm showing the scar that matches my own.
His other hand digs into his pocket to retrieve something.
My fear spikes again when he pulls out a sharp knife.
The blade glints red in the light reflecting from his mask.
“I promise you, Princess.” He brings the blade to his palm, slicing along the pattern laid by the initial cut from so many years ago. Blood blooms across his skin and he hisses in pain. “I will protect you and keep you safe, always, every single fucking day. From here on out, I’m yours.”
He grabs my hand again, drawing it up toward him. Instinctively, I present him with my palm. I don’t know why I do it, why I let him bring the blade down to my skin. I could fight, could flee, could scream. But there’s still some part of me that’s the same scared little girl.
“And you’re mine.” He slices quick and fast across my skin. The sharp pain is fast but it swiftly grows into a dull throb.
He clasps our palms together. A blood oath. A pact, a promise, a plea.
“It’s not enough.” I hear myself say before I register the words leaving my mouth.
He cocks his head, assessing me as he squeezes our hands, our blood, together.
“It’s not enough,” I repeat, this time firmer, more certain.
“You say you want me, that I’m yours, but what have you done to show me that?
You’ve watched on the periphery of my life, stalked me, inserted yourself into my job—” I stop as a horrible realization hits me. “Did you make Celeste disappear?”
He doesn’t say anything for a long moment, watching as my anger simmers and rises. When he finally speaks, I can tell he’s dancing around the subject. “It’s complicated. We have a lot to discuss—”
I don’t let him finish. Wrenching my hand back, I shove him away, giving myself space to breathe. I pace down the hallway, needing to do something, anything, to get rid of this nervous energy. There’s so much happening, so much I don’t understand.
“You kidnapped my coworker and what—murdered her? All because you were too afraid to just fucking talk to me?”
His low growl is a warning. He doesn’t like what I’m saying, and maybe it’s dangerous to threaten a Devil in disguise, but I’m too angry to be reasonable.
“Because you made a promise when you were like seven? What the fuck?” I’m spiraling. I can hear it in my voice, but I can’t stop. “And then you just think that you can show up, plant yourself into my life, whisk me away, and I’d never notice?”
My anger is so raw, so potent that I can barely stand to contain it. I shove him again, and again, and again. My hands hit his chest, and I know I should stop and control myself, but I can’t. I just fucking can’t. I’m so sick of being calm and controlled and polite. I want to fucking rage.
“And now you think a cut on your palm will fix it all?! You’re a complete and utter psyc—“”
He stops me before I can finish. His hand wraps around my throat again. I’m thrown backward, pinned against the wall again. The blow shocks me; my complaint is lost on my tongue.
“Listen up, Princess.” He gets in close to me, so close I could feel his breath were it not for the mask.
“You have every right to be mad, to have questions, to rage. But don’t question my devotion to you.
” His hands fall to my thighs, lifting me up.
Instinctually, my legs wrap around his waist. “If you want me to show you just how badly I need you, more than with blood, more than with words…” He spins us and I shriek, grabbing onto his shoulders for support.
He kicks open a door, carrying me into an empty room.
“I’m more than happy to prove my devotion to you. ”
We stumble across the dark space. Gray light filters in through a dirty window.
The space is barren and just as run-down as the rest of the house.
All that’s in here is a pile of wooden palettes.
Moving swiftly across the room, he crashes us against the palettes, my back hitting the wood with a loud bang.
Looming above me, he brings back out the knife.
The steel is painted with our combined promises.
I swallow down my nerves as I stare at the bloodied blade.
He slides it under the fabric of my shirt and pulls.
I scream as the cotton tears and rips, falling down to the sides and exposing my pale skin.
Before I can even react, the sharp edge slides along the fabric of my pants, slicing the stretchy material with similar ease.
“You are mine, Princess. And now I want to hear you scream my name, my real name, as you come around my cock.”