Jasmine
No, no, no, no, no. This can’t be happening.
“Let me go,” I shout for the hundredth time, writhing against the vines that hold me down. My shadows break through them, but the demon I’m up against is strong. He drags me back down before I can do anything to help Jake.
When I meet his gaze, he knows.
“Let me go,” I yell a second time, but the two demons surrounding me don’t care. The one keeps wrapping me with his vines while the other tries to peer into my mind. He’s an idiot for thinking that will work, but at least I don’t have to worry about that.
Jake knows there’s nothing I can do, no matter how hard I fight.
The last demon near him has wrapped him in shadows, and no matter how hard I scream, Jake can’t hear me.
When he’s taken beyond the door, the other two men follow.
As the demon with elemental magic moves away, he loses enough concentration for my shadows to finally break free.
Except when I’m able to stand and fight back, the door slams in my face. Then it’s gone.
Fuck.
I have to find a new door. I have to get to the Underworld.
My dad must have found out about Jake somehow, found out about our plan, and wants to use him as bait.
This is the last thing I wanted. I didn’t want him in danger.
He knew that. I knew that. And we still decided it was smart for him to come along on the mission.
He never would have listened if I told him to stay back, but maybe this still could have been avoided. Was my guard down when I opened the door?
I palm the back of my neck as I stalk down the alley where the original door was, trying to sense another. There has to be one close by. I decide to check the next few alleys but come up short.
“Come on…” I groan, tilting my head up to the sky. After a deep sigh, I return my gaze forward and close my eyes. I need to quiet the anger, the despair, inside my head, and maybe then I’ll be able to sense a door that’s farther away.
Seconds tick past as I sort through all the surrounding noises, tuning each one out one by one. The birds, the random car alarm, a dog barking—they all fade into the background until I find the low hum of a door.
“Got it.”
I turn out of the alley I’m currently in and break into a light jog, not worrying if there are wandering eyes. The hum gets louder the closer I get to the door, which is five blocks away, behind a small pink building.
I barely think about what’s on the other side as I slide my key into the door; the only thing on my mind is safety. I need to be safe. I don’t know how I’ll reach Jake.
My shadows are at the ready, too, circling my wrists. They’re ready to attack whoever might be on the other side of the door.
As soon as I hear the lock click, I swing the door open and let my shadows loose. Swirls of black extend from both arms, protecting me in a shield in case someone is on the other side.
“Jaz?”
That voice. I know that voice.
Immediately, I lower my shadows and see Marisole on the other side.
“Care to drop the shadows and come in?” she asks from her bed with a book in hand. I want to laugh at how normal she’s acting about me coming through her closet.
I release my shadows, letting them slither back to me, and step out of the door. Once it shuts behind me, I know there’s no going back.
“Why are you so doom and gloom?” Marisole asks, not looking up from her book.
I’d be shocked, if I didn’t know her. I learned a long time ago not to take offense at Marisole’s lack of emotions. Would a normal person ignore a sister they haven’t seen in ten years? No. But Marisole? Clearly, she’s not too torn up about it, because she hasn’t moved an inch.
Regardless, I go to her.
I grab the book from her hands, ignore her angry mumbling about how she only had one paragraph left in that chapter, and hug her.
“Why do you always need to hug me? Didn’t we just do this?” Marisole groans.
I hug her tighter.
“That didn’t count. I was dreaming.”
“It counts. It was just like this.”
I pull away laughing and sit in front of her on the bed. “You sure you still want some of my soul?”
She narrows her brows. “You can’t back out of our bargain. You’ll die.”
I wave her off. I wouldn’t die if she accepted the change in terms, but clearly, she doesn’t care.
“Yes, I still want it. I’m bored.”
“Bored?” I ask, flabbergasted that her reason for wanting a soul is that she’s bored. “Were you bored ten years ago?”
She shrugs, then picks her book up from the bed, frowning when she discovers it on the wrong page. I watch as she flips the pages until she reaches the correct spot, then picks up a bookmark beside her and slides it into place.
Once she’s done with that, she continues her glare, but this time aimed at me.
“How am I supposed to remember my reasoning ten years ago? Let’s just go with yes.
I was bored. Now, can you tell me what’s going on?
Why are you here? And—” She points a finger toward me once I open my mouth. “Don’t joke about sisterly bonding.”
“I wasn’t going to.” Maybe. “Scouts took Jake.”
“Fuck.”
“Yep.”
Marisole throws her legs to the side, dangling them over the edge of the bed. I do the same.
“So,” she continues. “You came here? They let you go?”
“I wanted to go somewhere safe, Mar. You know how the doors work.”
“And you didn’t think to come here to begin with?”
I sigh. “I figured Dad would have had people staged here.”
“Oh, he has them staged in my other room.”
“You’re…In the other room?”
“Yes, well…” She drawls, then stands from the bed. “Technically, they’re in the bathroom.” She points to the door on the far wall.
I’m trying to put two and two together when she adds, “I infiltrated their minds, put them to sleep, and essentially put them in a simulation.”
“Oh.”
“I know.” Marisole smiles. “Pretty cool.”
I choose to ignore her ego-boosting comments and focus on why I’m here. “I don’t know why they let me go, by the way. But I need to find Jake.”
Marisole nods and heads to her closet to change into a similar outfit to mine. Black top, black cargo pants.
“Liam can help,” she says, then looks back at me. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you he was alive.”
I ignore the false sentiment because even if she doesn’t know what it’s like to be sorry, I know when something is weighing her down. Just because a demon doesn’t have feelings doesn’t mean they can’t understand them. It’s just hard for them to emulate them and return them to the other person.
“It’s okay. We can talk about it later.”
Marisole nods, then returns to getting changed.
I don’t tell her I haven’t had much time to think about Liam. He was as close to me as Marisole was, and when he died, I think part of me did, too, that day. It felt like the final straw, and I knew there’d be hell coming my way if I stayed in the Underworld.
I knew Marisole would help me escape because there was no life for me there anymore. Not that there was much to begin with, but I didn’t always have a terrible childhood. I had Mar and Liam, which had to count for something.
“Ready?” Marisole asks, dragging me out of my thoughts. This isn’t the time to go down memory lane anyway.
I stand from the bed and grin, knowing that with the two of us, we’re ready to unleash fury.
I extend my hand toward the door that leads outside her room, and say, “Let’s go.”