Chapter Thirty #3
Maybe Remi was an idiot. A pathetic, love-sick human like the demons said he was.
Maybe Skye had just thoroughly fucked him up.
She’d wrapped him around her finger, and Remi would take it all for her.
Her abuse. Her heated, angry words. Her stupid games.
He’d let her toy with him, pulling him in and pushing him away for the rest of their lives.
He loved the misery they created with one another, and if that was all they’d ever do together, then he’d take it. He was hopelessly in love with her, every facet of her. Her cruelty. Her fake affection. He’d take whatever she’d give him. Even if, in the end, that was nothing at all.
But he had an unshakable sense he was missing something. Love, magic, the bargain—whatever it was—something threaded him and Skye together. Something that was unarticulated, a knowledge that he’d never learned but knew innately.
The only way Remi had been able to make it through the last six years of trying and failing and trying and failing wasn’t a steady, unwavering belief in himself and his band.
It was the relentless drive of something he couldn’t control inside him.
The thing that screamed he must continue to sing, to write, to perform, even when the outside evidence deteriorated his hope of achieving his dreams to dust.
Remi narrowed his eyes as that same relentless drive made the decision for him.
“I’ll sign the bargain,” he said, while holding Skye’s gaze. “But I want to change the conditions.”
She furrowed her brows.
Remi turned from her and walked toward the Devil.
“What do you want?” he said, drumming his fingers on the armrest of the throne.
“I want Skye.”
A squawk of protest came from behind him, but he continued, “I want her to not have to come back to Hell, no more soul bargains. She’s not beholden to you or anyone else anymore. She’s free to choose where she goes and who she stays with. She’s free, and her wings are safe.”
The Devil laughed. “She will not choose you, human. Are you really so daft as to trade your soul to purchase freedom for someone who will never possess humanity or morality? You will give your soul to someone who has tricked you, mocked you, and belittled you? Ruined your band and your only chance for fame and fortune?”
“Yes,” Remi said with a clarity and surety that made his limbs feel weightless. “That’s what I want.”
The Devil sighed and waved his hand around. The floating parchment’s words inflamed and rearranged. “Humans are so stupid, but what do I care? Just finish this.”
“Wait!”
Remi just smiled as he pressed the pen to the page and scribbled his name at the bottom of the contract, signing away a piece of himself for the second time.
Skye screamed, “Remi! No!”
His signature burned into the parchment.
Skye ripped the pen from his hand and threw it across the room, but it was too late. Her wild and panicked eyes flicked from him to the paper.
“No,” she cried out, reaching toward the parchment, but it vanished.
Skye grabbed Remi’s wrists, her warm fingers enclosed around them. Unbidden, he swayed into her orbit. Skye’s face crumbled as she screwed her eyes shut. His heart ached with longing as her bittersweet burnt marshmallow scent filled his senses.
“Remi,” she said. “I didn’t want you to do this.”
“I know,” he whispered. He held her hands in both of his and kissed her knuckles. “It’s okay.”
“Please,” Skye said, staring up at the Devil. “Take my wings. Take my life. I don’t care. Please don’t take his shadows.”
Remi furrowed his brow. “What are you doing? What are you talking about?”
Giving up her wings? Her life? For what? His shadow soul? He hadn’t missed it the first time they did the bargain, and he wouldn’t miss it this time either.
The Devil hadn’t done or said anything through the entire exchange. Remi couldn’t make out the expression on his smoke-outlined face, but he felt a sick amusement linger in the air.
Laurie wrapped his arms around Skye from behind. “It’s too late, Skye.”
Remi didn’t think, only reacted. “Hey! Let her go!” He lunged forward, pulling his fists back, ready to pummel Laurie for touching Skye, except an invisible force swept Remi’s feet out from under him.
Flames roared to life in the middle of the room, a bonfire so large it reached toward the top of the impossibly high ceiling.
Magic held like shackles around his ankles and wrists, drawing him into the air and toward the fire. He fought against the invisible restraints, but nothing he did loosened their hold.
“Remi!” Skye yelled. “Stop! Don’t do this!”
A blackened smoke filled the air and coated his lungs. Remi convulsed as he tried to cough, but found no air to inhale.
The flames licked his skin, burning him. Agony flooded his body. He thought he might be screaming, but he could hear nothing except the crackle of flames.
The scorching fire crawled up his skin. He was burning alive. Something heavy and oppressive entered him, like magic ripping at his bones, stripping him of his flesh. The flames jumped higher, swallowed him up, and consumed him entirely.