The minute I walk into the Turner Real Estate office, I know I’m in trouble.

There isn’t much to the small space. Part of Miller’s Plaza on the west side of town and right off of the street, it is basically a king-sized cubicle. A large desk rests against the back wall with two burgundy-cushioned chairs positioned before it and bookshelves flanking it. An area rug is thrown over old wooden floors, and a small hallway off to the side leads to whatever is kept in the back.

It’s not the office that bothers me. It’s the stack of papers fanned out across the desk.

I let my gaze slide quickly over the pages before dropping it to the floor.

Jeanine Turner, a tall, slender, raven-haired woman, greets me at the door, her smile a little too perky, her eyes way too sharp.

“Today is your day, Harper Sinclair!” She high-fives the air. “I just have one place we missed in the paperwork the other day that I need you to sign. Nothing serious. It’s mainly for my own personal records.”

My mouth turns to sawdust. “My aunt takes care of my paperwork.”

Jeanine waves away my words. “It’s one signature. We got the legal stuff in closing. This is for my records. I don’t know if the pages stuck together or if Eloise overlooked it. You can sign your name, can’t you?”

Her condescending tone stiffens my spine. I’m not illiterate, and she knows it. What she doesn’t know is what’s actually wrong with me. Because Jeanine is mortal, I’m not at liberty to discuss my demon-possessed writing skills.

Jeanine slides behind her desk, steeples her fingers, and says, “We can wait on your aunt, but I leave for vacation in,” she checks a clock on the wall, “ten minutes.”

I don’t check the time. Even though my abilities don’t seem to include a problem with numbers, I only look at them when absolutely necessary, and usually only long enough to keep track of the day.

As for Jeanine, she’s lying. I can smell it on her, and I’m not even a shifter. Technically, I am just as human as she is. Just with extrasensory abilities.

This is what I get for using a mortal agency. The Court has ways of working around my issues, which is why I’m still in Havenwood Falls. I can’t risk leaving.

I start to sit in one of the cushy chairs, and then decide against it. “I need this done now.”

I want this done now.

“Then I suggest you sign on the dotted line. I’d hate to hold the keys on a technicality.”

I make my living as a nature photographer. Vintage cameras. Old film. Hours spent inside a darkroom. Days spent hiking in the mountains. Jeanine reminds me of a buzzard, a scavenger reeking of decay. I’m the roadkill.

For business and financial matters, I gave power of attorney to my aunt, but I’m legally able to sign if necessary.

I don’t want to wait a week to move into my home, and because I’m terrible with confrontation, I don’t call her bluff on the vacation. Honestly, I don’t want to call her bluff. I want this home in every sense of the word. I want it to be mine. Something with my actual signature on it. Not my aunt’s or someone’s from the Court. Mine.

Sitting, I lock gazes with Jeanine. “I need a pen.”

The ballpoint she hands me feels foreign and heavy in my fingers.

Jeanine slides a sheet of paper in front of me, the signature line clearly marked by a red sticky flag. Words dance, and I try not to look at them, my gaze focused on the tab. It’s the color of blood.

I set the pen against the paper.

The world falls apart.

Dark energy rushes me, overwhelmingly tragic, the power turning my fingers into monsters. Words whisper through my head. Dreadful words. Death. Blood. Mine. I am a prisoner to the pain and the agony. The demons howl, each of them begging me to channel them.

If I could fall to my knees and beg them to stop, I would. A tear slips down my cheek, and I fight, sweat beading up along my brow as I try to drop the pen. Not fighting feels like giving up.

“Please,” I whimper.

“Write it!” One voice is more persistent than the rest. My hand spasms, the world going black. The way it always does.

Jeanine Turner screams.

When I come to, my hand remains poised over the paper, the ballpoint pen having left a line of frantically scrawled words. You will have a place in Hell, Lucas Fox. Cast and chained in the Infernum of darkness. Death to the messenger. Death to those who give her sanctuary.

I inhale . . . or try to.

An invisible vise grips me by the neck, cutting off my oxygen supply, and I claw at my skin desperately. It makes no difference. I belong to a world of darkness.

With little effort, the spirit attached to me lifts me off the chair and throws me across the room.

My head slams against the office’s glass entrance, my vision blurring. Adrenaline and fear pump through my system, dulling the pain. People move on the sidewalk beyond, and I panic even while gasping for air. I can’t let anyone see me like this. First rule of thumb: protect the humans.

Still struggling to breathe, I crawl back across the room, a trail of blood dripping behind me. Jeanine’s screams rise, shrill and deafening, the sound a jackhammer in my head.

The Court is going to kill me.

My knees and hands dig into the wooden floor, my heart racing as I lurch into the back hallway. Two doorways greet me, and I propel myself through the closest one, my body landing on a tiled bathroom floor. Slamming the door, I lock it.

The demon relinquishes me, and I drag in air through my lungs, his words etched into my brain. Death to the messenger. Death to those who give her sanctuary.

Death simply because I wanted something to call mine. Death simply because I wanted to be able to write my own name.

Tears mingle with blood on the floor beneath me. Red on black on white. The story of my life.