Chapter Twenty-One
RUTH
I didn’t even get to finish my mental breakdown before my doorbell started going off again. I glanced over at the door as if it were a disease. If it was Amit again, I didn’t want him to see me like this. I needed to get a grip but needed to know how in order to do so.
I picked myself up off the floor and stood. I wiped my eyes and turned my expression into one of steel—heartless and cold. When I approached the door, it wasn’t Amit at the door though. “Max?” I said surprised. “What are you doing here?”
“Didn’t Jayne tell you?” He scratched his jaw and gave me a confused grimace. “Not sure exactly, but she mentioned some sort of papers you needed to deal with urgently.”
“Papers?” What papers? I frowned, tears momentarily forgotten.
He held up his hands. “Don’t ask me, I’m just the bodyguard.”
I tried to think of what kind of papers we dealt with lately and knew there weren’t any since I hadn’t done anything but go to the charity event since coming home from the tour. Could it be something from the lawyer? Was there a problem with my will? If that was the case, I had to make sure.
“I’ll call and see.” I pulled out my phone to call her, and he grabbed my hands.
“She said for me to take you to her.” I studied Max’s grip on me. Something wasn’t adding up. Jayne would call me. She’d never give information out to one of the bodyguards, even Rupert who we both adored. I gave Max a quick glance head to toe.
“Why would she call you?” I asked as I shut the door slightly so that he took the hint that I was onto him. Bodyguards were bodyguards. She wouldn’t get him, a new one at that, to come to me like this.
He dropped his head and sighed. “Ruth, I was hoping you would make this easy for me.”
“What are you talking about?” Just as I asked though, I got my answer. He pushed the door open and grabbed me. My knee connected to his crotch, causing him to grunt painfully.
“Fuck, that hurt!” He hissed as he tried to get a better grip on me.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I screamed in his ear. His hands were already upon me, twisting me around until my back was pressed against his chest. I didn’t make it easy for him as my hands flew out over my shoulder to his face until he slung his arm around my chest, gripping both my arms with his one. He was stronger than I realized.
“What I’ve been waiting to do.” He jabbed me in the arm with some kind of syringe. I didn’t even get a chance to fear what he injected into my body before I blacked out.
______
Something wet and cold pressed onto my forehead. Over and over. My cheek was hurting until my awareness came through enough to know that I was being slapped repeatedly. I tried to open my eyes, but something held them closed. “How much did you give her?” someone asked. The voice was familiar, making me even more desperate to open my eyes.
“Believe me, if I gave her anymore, she’d be out a lot longer. It’s only been twenty minutes, and she’s already coming to.” Max.
“Good.” The voice was female, and the nagging in the back of my head grew worse.
I finally opened my eyes, and they stayed opened, but it didn’t help when everything was spinning. Another minute or two, I could focus enough to see the familiar blues staring back at me. “Liz?” I croaked, giving my head a shake. I frowned. “Why do you keep stooping lower and lower?” I whispered sadly.
This was beyond unbelievable. She stooped lower than low.
The fact that I missed how cruel my childhood friend was growing up made me feel foolish. Maybe Liz and her father were right about me being her friend for money. Could it have blinded me from seeing what kind of person she really was? Did I envy her world so much that I gave myself the illusion that we were best friends?
No. Liz James had been my very best friend. The flowers that covered the moon tattoo that used to be on my ankle were proof of our friendship. Somewhere along the way, her friendship morphed into something else while I dreamed of us making it big together.
My eyes moved over Max behind her and glared. “And I’m guessing, you’ve been working for her this entire time?”
He sighed. “I didn’t want to resort to this, but how can I get intel or snoop when you don’t even let your bodyguards close.” He shrugged, scowling like it was my fault it came to this. “The entire thing was pointless. I’ve never once been invited up to the studio or even into your home.”
I was speechless. I wasn’t tied up, but I knew it wasn’t wise to make any moves. I had no weapons, and one of them might have a gun. “You were hoping to find some more songs to steal?” I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “You realize how stupid that is? There are plenty of exceptional song writers better than me. Your dad has the money to get anything you need, yet you still want to steal from me?”
She rolled her eyes. “I tried, Ruth. I tried being nice. You wouldn’t accept my apology. And I want no one else’s songs but yours. Your words were always meant to be mine.”
What the hell?
I was angry. No, I felt murderous. I couldn’t believe what I heard. It took everything I had not to jump her since she was sitting directly in front of me. “Do you honestly hear yourself?” My words weren’t cold, I was actually extremely calm—more like numb.
Liz smiled. “Don’t worry, Max found me this.” She held up my notebook that I used for my songwriting. My stomach lurched. “Looks like you have nothing but unfinished songs except this one.” She moved her hand across the page she was on. “Soul Food. Strange name, but I love the lyrics.”
That had me reacting.
I snatched the notebook from her hand and glared. “Don’t you fucking dare!”
“Ooh. I’ve struck a nerve.” She laughed, and my heart beat increased to the point that I became lightheaded. I suspected that whatever drug Max injected me with was still pumping through my veins.
“What the fuck?” Max hissed. “I know I didn’t bring that fucking thing here with us. How is it here?”
“What are you yelling about?” Liz frowned as she turned to face him. I caught sight of the demon’s book resting on the table. I shouldn’t have, but I calmed down at the sight of it.
“This creepy-ass book she always has next to her.” He pointed at it. “I’ve heard stories, you have too,” he told her. “Tell us, Ruth, did you kill those people?”
“Does it have lyrics in it?” Liz got up from the chair in front of me, ignoring everything else he had said in hopes of more words to steal.
I sat still and waited. “I wouldn’t touch that if I were you.”
She laughed, and I couldn’t say I didn’t warn her. “Must have something good. It’s a weird style though. Bring it to me.” She held out her hand.
Max looked uncertain before he walked over to the end table and picked it up. The air changed, and the shadowy figure I could never forget, leaped out of the book and ripped right through his chest. His kills never made a sound, just a sudden whoosh as he moved in. His victims always let out one final gasp before they fell to the ground. I wondered if that was the way he planned to kill me?
Liz stumbled back. “What was that?” she screamed. She was looking around frantically, but I never moved. I simply stared down at the ground then watched as she bent down and checked on Max. I didn’t have to observe anymore of it to know she was confirming that he was dead. “Ruth! What was that?” She raised up and swung around, heading my direction.
“What was what?” I asked her, enjoying this more than I wanted to admit.
“Don’t pretend you didn’t see that just now.” Her blue eyes widened like saucers as her skin beaded with sweat. I didn’t care.
“Oh, the demon,” I hummed nonchalantly. “The soul reaper waiting to claim my soul.”
“What are you talking about?” She looked at me like I was the crazy one.
I stood. “I’m going home, and if you’re smart, you’ll leave me alone.”
I walked over to the demon’s book and picked it up from beside Max’s dead body on the floor. With my notebook and demon book clutched to my chest, I turned and came face to face with the pistol aimed at my forehead. “This wasn’t how it was supposed to turn out for me. I was meant for more. Instead, you stole it all!” Liz yelled at me, spit flying from her mouth as she did. Her blue eyes were larger than normal, pupils dilated as they darted around the room. The pistol was shaking in her hand. She looked frightened yet crazy all the same.
Liz was beyond the point of understanding how wrong she was, but I couldn’t stop myself from saying, “You’ve never been anything but mediocre. The worst mistake you made was casting me aside. You would have gotten everything you wanted with me, but you chose to steal and cheat your best friend. All for nothing.”
“Shut up!” She pressed the pistol against my forehead harder.
My heart pounded, but I showed no fear. Even the moment I thought I might die a little sooner than I was supposed to was short lived by the demon who appeared like a mirage behind me. Because I felt it—that chilling presence that haunted and now saved me. My back stiffened as the cold wafted over me, making the hair on the nape of my neck stand on end. I didn’t need to turn around to know what was there. His presence slithered around me in the form of dread. Liz’s face was brimming with fear, eyes widening and crystallizing into disbelief and utter terror as she lowered her gun and stared behind me.
“What is that?” Liz blinked, lips trembling, and stepped back. “Ruth, do you see it?”
“My biggest mistake,” the dark, velvety voice spoke behind me, and my eyes widened. The adrenaline that raced through my veins was not from fear but familiarity. “Was not killing you for making Ruth cry the first time.” I was hit again with that achingly familiar voice and authority.
Now I was afraid. For a very different reason. I was afraid to turn around. I felt like two very different parts of my life were about to collide. I held my breath and told myself there was no way.
Liz’s screams would be short lived. The second she started, the demon was already slipping through her body. She sucked in a breath, eyes pointed to the ceiling as her body toppled and smacked the ground with a loud thud.
I wasn’t even sad about it. Liz had every intention of killing me. I didn’t doubt that when she had the gun pointed to my head. I just accepted it.
It was the voice that I didn’t know how to accept. I had no clue whose house I was in or where I was at, but as I looked around the brightly lit room and tall ceiling, I searched for the demon who sounded like the man I had fallen for.
It had been so long since I heard the demon talk. Did he sound like that the first time? Was I losing my mind? Or was I already there? My mind was such a mess lately. Maybe I imagined the similarity between the voices.
I froze. The demon formed in front of me. A dark shadow over the last ten years of my life was once again right in front of me. I stared back at the blood-rose-colored eyes of the otherwise smoky form.
“Are you here to kill me now?” I whispered. When he didn’t answer, I asked a different, more pertinent question. “Is that your only form?”
Still no answer.
“Can you look like a human?”
More silence.
“Answer me, damn it!” I screamed. My hands and heart shook as I took a deep breath. “Just speak. I need to hear your voice again.”
He left me. I looked over at Liz’s and Max’s bodies and gripped the books tighter to my chest. I had to get out of here.
The moment I turned around, fear and love collided. Amit stepped through the doorway and in doing so, I knew he had every intention of letting me piece the clues together. Dropping the books, my terrified gaze met his steely one as he approached. With a slow, steady gait, his gaze darted toward the bodies lying on the floor, unaffected, confirming everything I wished weren’t truth.
In his truth, tears fell down my cheeks, and I was hit with the ultimate betrayal, far worse than what Liz had ever done to me. I was tricked, fucked and kissed and lured in by the monster who sunk his teeth into my life and controlled it for the last decade. All for my soul that he planned to eat.
The man I was so enthralled by was the demon who planned to kill me.
I didn’t want to believe it, but the truth stared back at me with gunmetal eyes
Holy shit. What had I let inside my body? Inside my mind and heart?
“Don’t come any closer!” I warned him. He listened, coming to a stop several feet away from me, but it did nothing to soothe the betrayal and confusion that bled through me.
“Ruth…”
“You’re the demon. You’re the one that’s killed all these people around me.” My voice shook.
Please, please, tell me I’m wrong.
With those words spoken and my silent pleading ones, his gray eyes darkened until they glowed red. I sucked in a breath and stepped back.
“I am.” He didn’t deny it. He started walking toward me again.
“Don’t!” I held up my hand, but he didn’t listen this time. My cheeks were wet with tears. “How could you? You let me…We…” I grabbed my head and thought back to the three times I let him inside my body. My entire body warmed with remembrance, and I was disgusted with myself. The monster that plagued my life and planned to eat my soul… “You’re disgusting! Wanting to eat my soul wasn’t enough? You had to fuck me too?” I shook my head and glared at him. “I fucked a demon?” Then I whimpered. “Does it matter since you plan to kill me soon?”
“You came onto me,” he told me, and my entire body burned with the truth. He was right.
I was an idiot. How could I be drawn to him? Wait, was it really my fault? Did anything matter? Fuck! My head hurt with all these thoughts rushing through it. I couldn’t numb anything. I felt everything.
“You’re a demon. You probably lured me. How do I know it was really me, and what I wanted?”
I backed away, but he latched onto my arm and pulled me flush against his chest.
His eyes burned fiery red. “I’m a soul reaper. I eat souls. I do not have any power of compulsion or seduction. Know that, soul food, you came to me on your own accord.” His voice was menacing, a presence itself with how terrifying he sounded.
Was he angry for me accusing him of that after everything else he’d done to me?
I jerked away from him. “Soul food?” I laughed, then dropped my head. “God, I hate myself. How could I be so stupid to think that soul food was some sort of pet name you’d given me when in reality you were calling me your food?”
“I’m taking you home,” he ignored me.
I moved my arms away trying to avoid his touch, but he eventually grabbed me and slung me over his shoulder. “Stop touching me. Now that I know you’re not even human, I can’t stand your touch!”
I screamed when the room faded away and instead of pushing at him, I held onto his back until the darkness around us receded, and we were standing in my home. He placed me down.
“So be it. I won’t touch you, but I had to that time to get you home.”
I grabbed my shoulders in hopes of easing the chills I had on my arms. “What did you just do? How did we get back to my house?”
“I ported,” he stated, eyes and voice both monotone and stiff.
“Wait, what are you going to do? You killed two people.” I couldn’t be a part of any more shit because of him.
“Nothing.”
My eyes widened. Was he fucking kidding me? “I left my notebook, and your stupid book is there.”
He sighed and disappeared right in front of me. He was back a second later, shoving them both in my hands. I took my notebook and shoved his demon book back at him. “No, I don’t want that one.”
He dared to smirk that smirk that did stuff to my heart. Now it just hurt. “It will follow you everywhere.”
My nostrils flared. “Like you.” When he did or said nothing, I felt defeated. “Get out of my house. I don’t want to see you until it’s time for you to come for my soul.”
“Is that what you want?”
Why did he ask that even now? “What I want is for you to leave me alone for good, but that’s not going to happen is it?”
He loomed over me. Gray eyes no longer gray, burned crimson. “You’re mine. I’m not going anywhere without what belongs to me.”
So much for him looking sorry for hiding who…what he was. He wasn’t trying to hide anything now.
I shoved him. “I hate you.” I fought with my tears.
“Sleep instead of worrying.”
I sighed, frustrated that he was pretending to care. “Don’t worry about how I’m sleeping. I didn’t kill them. I’ve never killed anyone, you did!” I shoved him again.
“Souls are what I need to survive,” he murmured softly.
“I don’t care.” I kept pushing, but the demon never budged.
I finally gave up and walked away from him in the opposite direction. “Lars will stay with you like he always does, only now you’ll know.”
I paused at his words and turned. “Lars?” I peeked over my shoulder.
He nodded. “I’m going to reveal him now, just so you know.”
I had a bad feeling…
“Nice for you to finally see me,” an odd, small voice said in front of me.
I tensed up, but slowly swiveled my head forward. I didn’t see anyone at first until I looked down. Then I screamed and ran in Amit’s direction and away from the green demon with pointed teeth. He was scarier than Amit was.
“Sire, you did that on purpose, didn’t you? Now she’s more afraid of me than she is of you.” The small ugly creature dropped his head and shook it. I looked at how I was almost touching Amit and stepped back.
What the hell, Ruth? You ran from one demon toward another who was the nightmare of your last decade!
“Please, don’t leave that thing with me.” I didn’t care that I was begging.
“He’s always been with you. He looks out for you.”
Did Amit really say that?
“I don’t need looking out for. The only two things I need saving from are you and that.” I pointed to the green monster.
“Either he stays or I do,” he stated.
Unbelievable. I glared and walked away from him. “Leave,” I hissed at Amit. Building up my nerves, I peered at the other thing. “What’s your name again?” I asked the creature.
“Lars,” he told me.
“Don’t get close to me, or I’ll stab you with a knife.” I walked to the kitchen and grabbed the biggest kitchen knife I had then went to my bedroom. I shut the door and fell to my knees alone. And cried.
I hated the demon so much right now. And I hated that Amit was him. And the way my notebook fell open to the page of my new lyrics…
Soul Food. The name of the song taunted me as I grabbed the notebook and threw it across the room.
Lies. Lies. Lies. The first and last epic emotion I would feel before leaving this world would be built on lies. My love was nothing but food to him. And I gave up so much without knowing.