The Stars Never Rise

“What’s amazing?” His voice was a whisper, and though it was Jacob’s voice, it was Finn’s tone and resonance. Finn’s words.

“The differences. You look just like Jacob, yet somehow you look nothing like Jacob. And it’s not just your eye color.”

He smiled—a real smile—and I knew I’d said something right. Fortunately, it was also something true. “You can see me?”

“Yeah, I can,” I said, and his smile grew. “I can hear you too. The real you.”

“Well then…mission accomplished.” He sank onto the end of the twin bed, and I sat next to him, one leg folded beneath me, because there was nowhere else to sit. If Angela Reddy’s daughter owned chairs, she’d taken them with her to college. “So, you know him? Jacob?”

My brows rose in surprise. “You can’t tell? You can’t…see his memories? Or whatever?”

“Nope. Whatever you don’t want me to know about you and Jacob Gilbert is still unknown. I can’t see any of his memories of you or anyone else. Because I’m not a demon.”

“Of course not.” I could feel myself flush, embarrassed both by the memory I didn’t want him to access and by the fact that he’d seen through my question. “Sorry.”

“No need.” He took my hand, and I stared at his fingers folded around mine, fascinated to realize that Jacob’s was the third of Finn’s borrowed hands that I’d touched. They were each different. Yet they were each his. “Nina, I know that from the outside, what I do—what I am—looks a lot like demonic possession, but I swear it’s not the same. I can’t hear his thoughts. I’m not feeding from his soul. If I were to stay in here forever, his body wouldn’t start to degenerate. Not that I have any plans to stay here.”

“Glad to hear it. Jacob has a life and a family and a consciousness. You can’t just…take his body.”

“Obviously.” He gave me a perfunctory nod. “Still, for potential future reference, this is the general look you go for, right?” He spread his arms, giving me a good look at Jacob’s solid build, clear skin, and mass of thick, dark, wavy hair. “I picked him because he looks kind of like Maddy, and you seemed to like—”

“Finn!” I could feel my face flush. “Boundaries! You don’t have to say everything you’re thinking!”

He shrugged. “I have no body, Nina. Boundaries are kind of a difficult concept for me to grasp.”

“Well, try,” I insisted, but he only smiled. “So, now what? What happens when you…take Jacob back?”

“Nothing, really. He’ll just wake up, with no memory of what happened while he wasn’t in charge of his body.”

“He’ll be…okay? Will he know he was…possessed, for lack of a better term?” But Finn obviously didn’t like that term, and I couldn’t blame him.

“He’ll be missing about an hour of his life with no explanation, and I’m sure that will scare him. Worst-case scenario? Someone else could see him looking disoriented and unable to account for the past hour and decide he’s possessed. But I’ll make sure no one else is around when I give him back his body, and there won’t be any lasting side effects. He won’t be an empty shell,” Finn assured me. “Because I’m not a demon. You get that now, right?”

“Yes.” I nodded decisively. “You’ve gone to a lot of trouble to show me that you may have no verbal filter, but you’re not evil. Duly noted and appreciated.”

He frowned. “That’s the best I’m going to get, isn’t it?”

“What else do you want?”

“Can I kiss you?”

I blinked, surprised. “You didn’t ask last time.”

“Last time I was trying to keep you from fleeing the building. This time I just want to kiss you.”

I thought about that for a second and decided that one small indulgence wouldn’t hurtle me toward death or damnation any faster than the course I was already on.

I nodded.

Then Finn kissed me, and I was pleased to discover that he made much better use of Jacob Gilbert’s mouth than the original owner probably ever would.





“Hey.” Someone shook my shoulder gently. “Nina. It’s time to get up.”

I opened my eyes to find Grayson staring at me from less than a foot away, kneeling next to the couch. When I sat up, fighting disorientation, she took the cushion next to mine and handed me a glass of orange juice.

Bacon sizzled in a skillet on the stove, and my stomach growled. Only Reese’s lower half was visible while he dug in the fridge, but Maddock smiled at me as he stuffed cans from an upper cabinet into a worn backpack.

Grayson gestured for me to drink my juice. “You’re a deep sleeper.”

“I’m not normally.” I took a sip, and my mouth puckered.

“It’s your transition.” Maddock zipped the backpack and set it on a chair at the table. “I think you just slept off the last of it.”

“Thank goodness.” I drank more juice. The pulp was growing on me.

Devi came out of the nearest bedroom, carrying two more backpacks by their handles. “You snore, and you have bedhead.”

“I don’t snore.” Bedhead was a definite possibility.