It sounds like an oxymoron, like it’s impossible, but there it is.
That wasn’t even my biggest mistake. I can hardly believe I shouted at him and shoved him.
For the tenth time since I woke, I drop my head and press the heels of my hands into my eyes, as if I can erase the events of the night before if I just press hard enough.
I punched a demon in the face.
No. Scratch that. I punched a lord of Hell in the face.
Surely there was going to be repercussions for that, and I have no one to blame my own damn self. How could I be so stupid?
I should know better.
Though, even now, there is a lick of fury still simmering just below the surface of my regret, and it whispers how he deserved it. It whispers that I shouldn’t be sorry.
It’s a small part of me that still has the courage to be defiant. I thought I killed it a long time ago, but there it is, rearing its ugly head. It’s going to get me killed.
A double rap at my door makes me jerk my hands away from my face. My pulse skitters and a bolt of icy heat darts down my back, forcing my spine erect.
“Yes?” I croak, not daring to move. Hardly able to breathe.
I picture him there on the other side of the door. With an angry sneer and his fists ready to punish. What methods will he use to torture me?
“Uh,” comes a voice that is decidedly not Kincaid. “Miss? My name is Artemis. Master Kincaid purchased me from—”
I am on my feet and ripping the door nearly from its hinges with sloppy fingers. Before me in the hallway is the boy from the back of the van. The Nephilim boy who healed me. He reels back from me as though I might attack him at first but then just raises a brow. “Oh,” he says oddly with a strange little grin. “It’s you.”
Words escape me. I’m not sure what to say or what this means. Even after I attacked him, Kincaid made good on his end of the bargain.
I open and close my mouth several times before remembering how to speak. “You’re here.”
He narrows his bright blue eyes at me, his hair, somehow even more matted and ratty than before covers most of his forehead and part of his eyes. “The demon lord, he said you bargained for me.”
I grin and nod.
“I did.”
The boy fixes me with an incredulous look. “So,” he says, drawing out the ‘o’ sound in a way that drips with sarcasm. “You bargained to have me bought by the biggest, baddest demon in Elisium?”
I open my mouth, but no words come out.
I’d been trying to help him. I wanted to get him away from those awful Diablim women so I could…could what? Protect him?
“You made me the property of a lord of Hell to…help me?”
“Well, I—” I stammer, but the boy cuts me off with a laugh. A deep, hoarse laugh that starts low in his belly and morphs into a raucous, foot-stomping howl. He presses a hand to his gut as though the force of his laughter hurts. Twin tears carve clean paths through the grime streaking his cheeks.
He lifts a blackened and bloodstained finger to wipe one away, smearing his temple with re-wetted blood. “Oh man!” he says between fits of laughter. “That’s—I don’t even know what that is.”
“Look, maybe I can—”
He shakes his head and steps forward to pat me on my unbandaged shoulder. “At least this’ll be more interesting,” he says, still wheezing from laughter. “Maybe I’ll get to die epically, instead of on the sidelines of a fighting pit at The Freakshow.”
The…what?
The boy nudges past me into my room. “You got a bathroom?” he asks, taking in the space. Then he seems to realize something and pauses. “Wait…” he trails off. “Does Master Kincaid let you stay in this room?”
He whirls with an unreadable expression on his youthful, tarnished face.
“He does.”
The boy’s shoulders sag a little, and he looks like someone’s just smacked him upside the head. His eyes widen and he almost staggers. “Huh,” he says, blinking at me before his stare turns accusing. “I think maybe I underestimated you.”
I cross my arms, wincing when my shoulder injury smarts at the movement.
“Maybe you did,” I say, trying to seem more confident than I feel.
I can’t promise this boy I’ll save him, but I wish I could tell him my plan is to bring him back across The Hinge with me because that’s exactly what I intend to do. Instead I’m silently cursing myself that I didn’t also bargain for his freedom, only that Kincaid would bring him here.
See? Idiot.
“Who exactly are you? What are you?”
“Paige,” I tell him. “And I don’t know what I am.”
His thin brows lift at that, but he makes no comment.
“Artemis,” he replies, and extends a hand. He can’t be more than thirteen, but he’s nearly as tall as I am already. Only half a head shorter. I shake his hand, unperturbed by the bloodied, dirty state of them.
He makes no secret of studying my eyes. For once though, I do not turn away.
His mouth puckers as though he’s considering something very seriously. “There a shower in there?” he asks, jabbing a thumb in the direction of the bathroom.
I nod.
He looks like he’s ready to cry with relief, and I wonder when the last time was that he was permitted to bathe. He inhales shakily and grins. “When I’m finished, I’ll take care of that for you,” he says with a nudge of his chin in the direction of my still-bandaged shoulder.
“You don’t have to.”
He holds up a hand. “If you can get me something to eat, I’ll heal every tiny scratch you got.”
“That’s not why I brought you here,” I argue. “I just wanted to help—”
“I know,” he interrupts, a seriousness deepening his pre-pubescent voice. There’s a hardness in his luminous blue eyes that no boy his age should possess. I see a likeness in him. A shared understanding of the darkness.
We are the same, I realize. That’s why I felt the urge to try to save him before this broken world could twist him beyond repair. Like it twisted me.
“I know that,” he repeats. “But I want to.”
19
It takes me only a moment to draw up the courage to go downstairs and find Artemis something to eat.
Whereas I’d meandered in my room for hours this morning, too afraid to venture out, I’m emboldened by Artemis’ presence. The weight of his being here rests heavily on my shoulders. Inadvertently, I’ve made him my responsibility.
I brought him here, to the lion’s den, and now it’s my job to see he escapes it unscathed. Leaving this room to quell the hunger in my own stomach wasn’t worth it, but the boy asked me for food and the least I can do is oblige him. Especially after I just dragged him from one hellhole to another possibly more dangerous one.
Grumbling quietly to myself, I make my way through the house, ears straining for sound and heart fluttering.
Please don’t be home.
Please don’t be home.
A throat clears behind me only a second after I’ve entered the kitchen. I stop in my tracks, shoulders stiffening.
“Na’vazēm,” he says in a voice that manages to be both rumbling and soft.