13. Chapter 13 #2
I’m aware of Evie beside me, arms crossed, letting the exchange play out with bored patience like she could recite the sales pitch from memory.
The honey touches my tongue . . . and rewires entire regions of my brain.
Everything I thought I knew about sweetness was wrong. This is layered and textured, sunlit at the front and gently smoky at the back, with a floral note blooming in between. My eyes fall shut, and a moan slips out that is, in retrospect, deeply embarrassing.
When I open them, Mindy is glowing.
But it’s Evie my attention snags on. Her arms have unfolded, her lips slightly parted. A peach-pink flush has crept up her throat, spreading toward her jaw. She’s staring at my mouth. Then she blinks and looks away, the color deepening.
“Oh,” I manage. “That’s extraordinary.”
“Ruth is going to love you.” Mindy folds her freckled arms across her chest, one gray braid slipping forward over her shoulder, and gives me the approving once-over.
“Could you set a jar aside for me?” I ask, with Evie still at the edge of my vision.
She’s examining a head of lettuce with too much intensity. “Actually, two?” I have zero dollars to my name, but I refuse to let that stand between me and this honey.
“You don’t need two jars of it.” Evie turns to Mindy, composure restored so quickly it’s impressive. “The usual for me.”
Her teeth catch her bottom lip while she considers it. She looks at me, then back at Mindy with a resigned exhale.
“Add a jar of the clover.”
“Of course, sweetheart.” Mindy bags it, slides it across the counter, and winks at me. “You come back when Ruth’s here next week. She loves a new fan.”
I grin so wide my cheeks ache.
“Wipe that look off your face. I’m only getting it because it keeps you from moaning in public again,” she says, averting her gaze.
“You just bought me a gift.”
“Stop looking at me like that. It’s ten-dollar honey, not a kidney.”
I know that. And yet I can’t stop staring at the jar because, for the first time in my existence, someone bought me something.
Evie grabs my sleeve and tugs me toward the bread section.
She lets go after a few steps, but I can still feel where her fingers gripped the fabric.
By all logic, the tether should be indifferent to everything except distance and contractual obligation.
Instead, it purrs. I’m choosing to ignore this development.
“We’re here for supplies.” She presses her fingertips against her temple. “I have a list and a schedule. I don’t have time for distractions.”
“In my defense,” I say, leaning the basket against my hip, “that honey was a spiritual experience. I think I glimpsed God. Which is complicated, theologically, given my situation.”
She stares at me. “Right . . . Because you’re a demon. Funny.”
“I’ll be faster,” I say, instead of all the other things crowding behind my teeth.
“You’ll be quiet.”
“That too.”
***
The gravel lot behind the market holds a handful of cars and one truck with a cracked tailgate. The air is still, and the only sounds are the distant hum of a tractor and the rustle of wind through the nearby trees. Nobody else is around.
Evie pops the trunk of a faded blue hatchback and starts loading bags. I hand them to her one at a time, matching her pace.
“Thank you for your help.” Her words are curt as she shuts the trunk lid with a decisive thud.
“I need to talk to you about the whole bargain thing.”
Whatever ease we found in the market disappears. Evie shuts down so fast I regret opening my mouth.
“We were having a normal afternoon, Milo.”
“I know.”
“A nice, normal morning, where you helped carry bags and didn’t say anything unhinged.”
“I appreciate that, but—”
“No.” She turns, keys clenched in her fist. “We’re done with this. I told you in the café, and I’m telling you again. Drop it.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because I truly am a demon.”
Her laugh lacks humor. “That’s not the truth. It’s a fantasy.”
“What if I could prove it?”
“Okay. Prove it, then.” She leans against the car, chin tilted up defiantly. “You have thirty seconds.”
I reach for my mortal form, loosening my hold on it.
“What are you doing?” Evie’s watching me, forehead creased. “Why do you look constipated?”
“I’m concentrating.”
“On what?”
“Just . . . give me a second.”
“This is your proof? Standing in a parking lot making faces?”
The mortal form slips, and my small, curved horns emerge first. Cool air hits them, and I resist the impulse to cover them with my hand.
“Okay.” I angle my head. “Look.”
Her gaze lifts.
“Is that . . .” She unfolds her arms and edges closer, squinting in the sunlight. “Is that a prosthetic?”
“No.”
“Then an implant. People get those. I’ve seen subdermal horn implants online. It’s a body-modification thing.”
“Touch it.”
She recoils. “I’m not touching your horn.”
“Just do it.”
“No!”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t go around grasping strange men’s head protrusions in parking lots! That’s not a thing normal people do!”
“Okay, fine, don’t touch it. But at least look at it properly.”
She does, studying the base of each horn for seams, glue, anything that would make them fake.
“This is insane.” Evie backs away, her voice unsteady. “You have . . . things . . . on your head, and there’s a reasonable explanation. I will figure it out, and when I do, I’m going to feel stupid for even entertaining—”
Her right foot comes down on the uneven lip where the lot meets a drainage ditch, and her ankle rolls sideways. Her weight follows before she can catch herself.
The sound she makes is awful, sharp and involuntary, cut short when her knee hits the gravel.
I force my mortal form back into place and drop to my knees beside her. She’s curled forward, both hands wrapped around her right ankle, her face frighteningly pale. When she looks up at me, her eyes are glassy.
“I’m fine,” she says through gritted teeth, and attempts to rotate her foot. A strangled whimper slips out. One tear spills over, cutting a path through the dust on her cheek. When she wipes at it, she only smears the dirt.
Her ankle is already swelling inside her sneaker, the skin above her sock flushing an angry crimson.
“There’s a clinic,” she whispers. “Around the corner.”
Before she can protest, insist she’s fine again, or do any of the stubborn things I’m learning are quintessentially Evie, I scoop her up.
“What are you doing?” Her voice pitches higher.
“Taking you to the clinic.”
“I can walk!”
“Your ankle disagrees.”
She glares at me through the pain, but she doesn’t struggle to get down, which tells me exactly how badly her ankle hurts.
“You’re very stubborn,” I observe.
“You’re very presumptuous.”
“Would you rather hop?”
“I’d rather not have twisted my ankle in the first place.”
Her hand closes around the front of my jacket. She probably doesn’t even realize she’s doing it. She probably has no idea her head has drifted closer to my shoulder, either.
I’ve never held anyone like this, never had reason to, yet somehow I know exactly how to keep her secure. I adjust my grip until she’s secure against my chest, surprised by how natural it feels to carry her.
And I’m thinking two things at once.
The first is that I hate seeing her hurt. If I could extract the pain from her ankle and relocate it to my own body, I’d do it without hesitation. A dangerous impulse for a demon whose job description includes collecting her soul.
The second thought is uglier.
She needs me right now. And because I’m still the kind of demon Hell trained me to be, part of me immediately calculates what this could mean. If I’m careful, patient, useful, maybe I can earn enough trust for her to consider a bargain.