Chapter 17
CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN
Annie
The next few weeks spilled out in ways I never could have predicted: a collage of sun-drenched mornings, midnight snacks, and sex that got so good it was almost boring how often we ended up on the floor, the countertop, or the front seat of the GTO.
The days stopped keeping themselves separate. I learned the sound of Samiel’s walk, the way the floorboards groaned under his clawed feet when he was being deliberate, even, in his attempt to sound less like a beast and more like a boyfriend.
Was that what he was? My boyfriend? My fiancé? My… lover?
I learned the cat’s routines, which were as precise and occult as any demon: Fluoxetine liked a spoon of cream at dawn, and exactly two cubes of ice in her water dish or else she’d drag the dish to the bedroom and dump it on my socks, a warning shot across the bow.
I learned I loved waking up before sunrise, loved it so much it made my chest ache, because there was a blinding, still blue to the world at that hour.
And every time I rolled over, there was Samiel, looking like he’d been waiting for me to acknowledge his existence since time began.
It was domestic, but not boring. Samiel alternated between treating every day like a honeymoon and every night like a wrestling match.
We cooked together in the kitchen. Sometimes I’d find a recipe on my phone and he’d scowl at it, then make it from memory, better than the photo in the app.
He had a truly perverse love of breakfast casseroles—like, Midwestern church potluck level—and an actual knack for sourdough that I found almost offensive.
His hands were big enough to knead three loaves at once.
The first time I saw him braid a challah, I wanted to fuck him on the kitchen counter, and then I did, and then the only real problem was picking the dough out of our hair and from under my nails before the bread went in the oven.
We went to town sometimes, but never for long.
The world outside felt less real, less concrete, than the one we’d made for ourselves.
The first time we went to the grocery store together, he spent the entire trip glowering at the other customers, like he was daring the senior citizens in the produce aisle to challenge his right to buy spinach.
I made a game of it, seeing how many times I could get him to laugh in public before someone called the manager.
By the time we got to the checkout line, he was red-faced from trying to stifle his laughter, and I was heated with the rush of being able to undo him so completely, so easily.
One Saturday morning about four weeks in, Samiel drove into town.
He’d gotten weirdly obsessed with the farmer’s market—maybe it was the way the produce stands looked like offerings to a minor god, or the fact that every time he went, he picked up gossip about the demon and human sides of town and came back smugger than a cat in sunshine.
I watched him load up the GTO with empty baskets and every reusable bag we owned, then kissed him goodbye, tasting the anticipation on his skin.
“Don’t start any fights with the vendors,” I warned, and he just grinned, promising nothing.
He was barely gone ten minutes before the doorbell rang.
I froze. There was no reason for anyone to show up—no deliveries scheduled, no neighbors who’d ever come closer than the property line, not even an HOA dweeb with a bad attitude and a fresh stack of warnings. I padded barefoot to the window, peeking through the slit in the blinds.
It was Seth.
I recognized him instantly, even with the new mustache and the dumb black tie.
I’d blocked his number, never once replied to the DMs or the “hey you up?” emails, but somehow he’d found me out here on the absolute edge of the void, where even the cell reception had to be paid for in blood.
I watched him shuffle his feet on the front step, then check his phone, then look up at the house like he half-expected it to bite him.
He was carrying—no, this was unreal—a fucking bouquet of gas station sunflowers, already starting to wilt at the tips.
I thought about hiding. I could have bolted for the mudroom, texted Samiel to come home, or even just waited for Seth to leave, like a raccoon playing dead on the kitchen floor.
But the old me—every version of Annie that had ever existed—hated being cornered more than anything.
I put on the Hell’s Kitchen T-shirt, jammed my feet into Samiel’s slippers, and opened the door.
He almost dropped the flowers. “Annie?” He blinked, jaw agape. “You look… You look amazing.”
I ignored that. “How did you find me?”
He shuffled, looking past my shoulder for a glimpse of something I couldn’t imagine. “You never answered my texts,” he said, “so I called your mom. She said you’d joined a witness protection program or something. I thought she was joking.”
She was, but that didn’t matter. I’d have to thank her later. I leveled a glare at him, arms crossed. “You drove all the way here?”
“It’s not that far,” Seth said, and I could feel the lie in his voice. “I just had to see you. I made a mistake, Annie. I want to fix things. I’m better now. I’m in therapy. I got a raise at work. I—”
His voice trailed off as he stared at my neck, at the constellation of hickeys Samiel had left there like some kind of demonic Rorschach test. I resisted the urge to cover them or explain that last night had involved a very athletic session with the headboard.
Seth's eyes went so wide I half-expected them to fall out and roll across the welcome mat like cartoon marbles.
God, I hoped he wouldn't faint. I wasn't about to perform CPR on my ex while wearing my boyfriend's demon-sized slippers.
I didn’t move. “You need to leave, Seth.”
He tried to push past me, a hand on the frame, already invading. “Who did this to you?” It came out too loud, like he was auditioning for a role he didn’t understand. “Did he hurt you? Is someone here?”
I wanted to laugh, but it curdled in my throat. “No one hurt me,” I said, clear and cold. “I’m happy, Seth. You need to go.”
He shook his head. “You’re not safe here. This place is dangerous, Annie. There are, like, actual demons in this town—”
I smiled. “Yeah. And I’m fucking one of them.”
He shut up, mouth working soundlessly. The color drained from his face.
“That’s not funny,” he said, finally.
I stepped closer, tilting my neck like I was an actress in a vampire B movie.
"It's not a joke. Samiel has matching bruises, plus a bite mark that looks like Nebraska.
Turns out I'm into guys who can bench-press a Buick and don't need WebMD to find a clitoris.
Geography lesson's over, Seth—get in your sad little rental car and MapQuest your way back to Tampa. "
His eyes snapped up—stunned, almost comically, like it had never occurred to him I might be serious.
For a second, I could see all the old gears working, trying to fit what I’d just said into the shape of the Annie he remembered.
The one who rescued him from his own messes, who wouldn’t so much as jaywalk if it meant hurting someone else’s feelings. He didn’t get it. Maybe he never would.
“You’re… you’re not joking.” His voice was so small it almost made me feel bad. Almost.
I kept my arms crossed. “No, Seth, I’m not. And it’s none of your business.”
He took a step back, nose wrinkling like he smelled something bad. “Jesus, Annie. You’re in some kind of—what, a cult? Is that what this is?” He held up the flowers as if they could shield him from reality. “This isn’t you. You’re not this person. You hated the desert, you hated weird shit, you—”
I cut him off. “Don’t tell me who I am.” I was shaking a little, and it pissed me off that I still cared enough to be angry.
“I get it, okay? You showed up because your life is a mess and you can’t imagine a world where I don’t drop everything to fix it.
But that’s over.” I leaned forward, voice low.
“If you cared about me at all, you’d leave. ”
He looked at me, then at the bruises, then back up at the house, half-expecting some demon to pop out and drag him to hell. It would’ve been funny if I hadn’t wanted to do it myself.
“This guy,” he said, almost a whine, “he’s clearly not safe.”
I laughed. “Not safe for you, for sure. Which is why you should leave. He’d love to watch you run.
But he’d love it even more if you stayed, because then he’d have an excuse to break every bone in your body.
” I felt a little dizzy, like I was watching someone else’s hands punch out the words.
“I’m in love with him, Seth. And if you stay here, he’ll tear you apart. ”
The second I said it, I felt it land—in love.
I didn’t need to look for the recognition in his face.
It was in mine. I held the stare for a long time.
Maybe a minute. The silence got so thick you could frost a cake with it.
Seth looked like someone had smacked him.
Then, in the saddest little motion I’d ever seen, he tucked the sunflowers under his arm, nodded, and just… left.
I watched him get into a rental car that probably cost more than his month’s rent and pull a three-point turn so wide he nearly mowed down the mailbox.
The whole drive down the gravel, he didn’t look back.
I waited until the car was out of sight, then shut the door—hard—and leaned against it, breathing like I’d just run the obstacle course in the backyard.
My knees gave out and I slid to the floor, back pressed to the wood, head in my hands.
I knew I should tell Samiel. I knew if I did, he’d take it as a threat.
A challenge. Something to fix by force, or by fear.
The idea of that—of Seth mangled on the side of some county road, or Samiel pacing the living room like a caged animal—made something heavy thud in my chest. I sat there for a long time, thinking about it, about all the ways this could go wrong, about what happened to people who carried secrets in towns like this.
I didn’t move until I heard Samiel’s car in the drive.
By then, the kettle had boiled itself dry, and the cat had meowed herself hoarse at the pantry door.
I got up, wiped my face, and tried to look like I hadn’t just had a near-miss with my own bad patterns.
When Samiel walked in, arms full of produce, overheated and sweating, I met him with a smile and a kiss and a joke about how he’d forgotten the avocados, everything was just as it should be.
Except it wasn’t. Not quite. Not for the rest of the day, or that night, or the next week.
I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Seth to show up again, for a police cruiser or a neighbor or a demon in a cheap suit to knock on the door and say, “Hey, there’s a problem.
A human one.” I kept waiting to feel like myself again, but what I mostly felt was a kind of sick, sweet relief.
I didn’t tell Samiel.