59. Summer
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Summer
A lice barely moves as I force her to drink the potion, but she immediately starts to improve. A rosy flush fills her cheeks, and she pulls Steve from his position over her eyes. She releases him, and he slumps away, crawling off the bed to slip back beneath it, his tail swishing as he goes.
Unknown
You’re welcome, princess.
Summer
It’s not an act of kindness if you ask for something in return, asshole.
I am still unhappy about the deal, but I’m glad Alice is feeling better.
Unknown
Says who?
Summer
Literally everyone.
Unknown
Not everyone. I don’t.
Summer
Because you’re an asshole.
I glance at Alice, who is now sleeping peacefully.
Unknown
You like that about me.
Summer
No. I don’t like anything about you.
Unknown
Little liar.
I relax back in Alice’s bed, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a deep sense of relief that nothing seems to have changed with the stranger since my messages last night. He seems a little more smug, but I can make that go away.
Summer
Can’t train tomorrow, training with Max and the headmaster.
Like that.
Unknown
That means our deal is void for tomorrow.
I frown. Void? Not broken?
Unknown
Language is so fickle with interpretation. The deal was that it would be in effect “so long as you train with me.”
Two can play at that game.
Summer
Fine. Then I will be sleeping with Alice for the foreseeable future. See you tomorrow evening, moronic asshole.
Unknown
Tomorrow.
I fall back asleep, but wake after a few hours. It’s the middle of the night, but I am hungry. Alice is snoring softly next to me, and she remains asleep as I climb over her to get out of bed.
Downstairs is in complete darkness except for a soft light coming from the kitchen. I walk in to see Rafe frowning into the refrigerator.
“You okay?” I ask once again, taken aback by this recovery.
Rafe jumps, obviously too lost in thought to have heard me. “Gah! What are you doing awake?”
“Wanted a snack. You?”
“You should be resting. You were drugged.”
I shrug. “So should you. You fell from Eden.”
He mimics my shrug. “I’m fine. Wanted to work out a bit,” he says, and goes back to searching through the fridge. He grabs a steak and moves aside to make room for me.
I frown, pondering my options before deciding on the leftover pasta.
“Rafe?” I ask, grabbing a fork and pouring myself a glass of water.
“Yeah?” he replies, chewing on a large chunk of cold raw steak.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” he says, looking away and wiping the blood from his mouth.
I sit at the table beside him. “You can talk to me.”
Rafe exhales. “I just?.?.?.” He looks down at the steak on his plate, frowning. “You know it’s not?.?.?. meat I’m wanting. Not this kind, anyway.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, drawing a rune on my plate to make the pasta hot and fresh again.
“I don’t want . . . beef.”
I quirk a brow, blowing on a forkful of pasta. “Are you telling me you want to eat me?” Demons do occasionally consume people, but most of them manage their diets differently because they enjoy being able to integrate into other societies.
“No!” Rafe says, a note of panic in his voice. “Not you. Or Alice.” He rubs the back of his neck in that nervous way I’ve only seen Luke do. It’s nice to see a similarity between them since they are opposites in almost every way. “You’re an angel to the demon, and Alice is undead. ”
I frown. “The demon?”
Rafe nods, still unable to look at me.
“I don’t understand,” I say, placing my hand on his arm, trying to comfort him.
Rafe sighs, sounding a little exasperated. “The demon knows exactly how many people walk past our house every day and imagines what they’d taste like.”
“And by that you mean you know exactly how many people walk past the house every day and imagine what they’d taste like?”
Rafe looks at me, a glimmer of frustration behind his eyes. “Isn’t that what I said?”
I squeeze his arm. “Rafe, you know this is normal, right?”
Rafe tugs his arm free, and I can tell he’s shutting down. “I’m Fallen. There is no normal anymore.”
“Well, there are records?—”
“Summer,” he warns.
I shrug. “Okay, well, there is the normal you make for yourself.”
“Which textbook did you get that from?” he asks, giving me an unimpressed look.
I shake my head. “Not a textbook. That I know from experience.” I wish it weren’t true, but it is. I’ve always had to create my own normal, and it often falls apart around me.
“That’s worse,” Rafe says. His words are sharp, and while they echo my thoughts, it somehow hurts more to hear them out loud and from him. “Normal isn’t a luxury you or I have ever had.”
I wince and look down at my hands braced on the table. “Right.”
Rafe’s hands flex, drawing my attention. “The demon wants to hurt people. A lot,” he admits, and the darkness inside me lifts its head, reacting to his words.
“So do I.” I say the words so quietly they are barely a whisper, but they feel so liberating as they pass between my lips.
“What?” Rafe asks, and I feel his eyes on me.
“I want to hurt people.” My darkness stretches, and another wave of relief rolls through me.
“You do?” Rafe asks, and when I meet his gaze, he obviously sees the truth in my eyes .
“You know, Stranger killed the person who drugged Alice and me,” I say, and I feel my lips curling up just a little.
“And the only thing I can think is?.?.?.” I pause.
The words are there. They are primed. Do I dare to release them?
Yes. “I wish he’d let me watch,” I say, and I can hear the evil in my voice.
It feels so deliciously exquisite to lean into that particular truth and embrace my darkness so completely that it shoves out all the light.
I meet Rafe’s gaze, and his eyes have turned completely black. His lips are parted, and his fangs have grown. The demon has come out to play, and he is reveling in my darkness, my aggression. My evil. I can’t stop it, and honestly, I really don’t want to.
“They drugged Alice and me, making us vulnerable. They made us victims.” I smile. “I hope it was slow. Painful.”
The table groans beneath Rafe’s hands, his claws slipping from his fingertips to splinter the wood beneath them.
The darkness rubs against me, its power intoxicating. Pain, sharp and bright, pulls me from my euphoric haze, and I look at Rafe’s hand around my forearm. Bright red blood trickles from around the claws he has sunk into my flesh.
“Sum?.?.?.” Rafe says, his voice flickering between demonic and his normal tones .
I shake my head, trying to tear my way free of the comforting hold of my darkness. Pain rips through my arm again, the intensity of it this time bringing with it a clarity I couldn’t obtain on my own. Blood wets my skin, pooling on the table, warm and thick.
What have I done?
“Rafe. Breathe,” I say, ignoring the pain. If I struggle even a little bit, it could send him over the edge, and I would never forgive myself if I made him hurt me.
His eyes flash between pure black and his usual dark blue. He closes them tightly and shakes his head, and I watch as his horn nubs begin to grow.
“Breathe,” I say, biting back my groan of pain. “Control it, Rafe.”
Rafe snarls, a bead of sweat dripping down his face. He digs his claws deeper, and I feel them scraping against the bones in my arm. The pain and the nauseating sensation make stars speckle my vision.
“Control it,” I growl.
His whole body is shaking from the strain, from the struggle, and I can feel myself slipping into unconsciousness .
“Rafe. Now,” I manage to grate out.
He snarls again, but when he opens his eyes, I am relieved to see they are blue and starting to clear. “S-Sum?.?.?.” his voice is once again his own. The pool of blood beneath my arm grows rapidly as he retracts his claws, leaving gaping holes in my torn skin.
He looks at me, his eyes full of panic, and I cup his cheek. I take deep, calming breaths, hoping he will follow my lead. He cannot be afraid of himself. This was my fault.
“I-I hurt you,” he says, his eyes trained on my arm, horror growing in his gaze.
I shake my head. “It was my fault. I went too hard. We’re going to have to work on this together.”
“Alice can make a salve,” he says, looking around frantically as if he expects to find her in the shadows.
I pull his face back to mine, making him look at me. “Rafe. I’m okay. I’m going to go clean myself up. You eat, and I’ll be back. Okay?”
Rafe swallows, but he nods. His hand is still on my arm, his hold almost too gentle, and I know he is reluctant to let me go.
“Rafe. I’m okay.”
Slowly, he releases me, and I smile softly at him. “I’ll be right back.”
I hurry up the stairs, leaving a trail of blood behind me.
Alice leaves her room as I approach her door.
Her hair is sticking out in all directions, but she looks like she just had the best nap of her life.
She inhales deeply and focuses on my arm, but despite the blood, she doesn’t look hugely alarmed.
I suppose this is a tiny amount of blood to someone who used to have a literal blood moat around her palace.
“I’m fine, promise. Just a slight mishap!”
She lifts a brow and pointedly looks at the blood trail that I’ve left on the floor. I smile placidly and slip into my room, but the minute I pass the threshold, I fall through a gaping hole in the floor. I try to scream, but the void steals all sound from me.