“Gone,” I repeated. “As in, what? Dead?”
“I imagine so. It may sound cruel to you, but I assure you that it is the most humane outcome. If left to fester beneath the surface, the human fades slowly. Painfully.” It walked to the other end of the room, then turned to face me. “You were stronger than any other human I’d been born into. It wasn’t until your seventeenth year that I had the ability to take you.”
“Yet I’m still here.”
“I was about to take you. It was the night we—you—kissed Samantha Merrick. Your emotions for her were so strong, so distracting. I became resolved. I took control and sought out Zenak as his human slept, determined to end our exile.”
I couldn’t believe we were having this conversation. “You knew Zenak was with Chase?”
“I did. It was unclear at the time if the boy knew—he’d always allowed himself to be bullied by you—but I realize now that was simply part of Zenak’s ruse.”
“You didn’t kill it, though.”
“I intended to. But, again, your emotions were overwhelming. I’d never felt anything like it. I was intrigued, so I decided to hold off. To let you retain control and see what you would do. After all, you felt my hatred of him. It affected you as you grew. You’d harmed him dozens of times, and yet never badly. When you decided to leave all of them behind—to leave her behind—I was even more curious.”
“What you’re saying is that you could have taken control at any point during the last four years, and I would have just been…gone?” The room grew cold.
“I could have, yes. But you were an anomaly. As a Tainted, you had extreme darkness inside you, but unlike the others, there was light. It was, dare I say, intoxicating.”
There was a twinge of hunger in its voice, of desperation. If it weren’t for the filmy smoke churning around its body, I was betting I’d see the damn thing drool. “It had nothing to do with me. That light you obviously wanted to fucking freebase? That was all her.”
“She is the other reason I allowed you to stay for so long. And when you returned to Harlow and found her in danger, I was glad I’d made that choice to keep you. I was…happy to help her. To be reunited with her.” It leaned against the wall, next to one of the pictures of Sam. Tracing the frame with a shadowy finger, it sighed. “However time is running out. If I do not banish you from this body soon, you will suffer. I have no desire to see that happen.”
“What about Sam?” If the demon thought I was going gently into that good night, it had another thing coming. “What about how she’ll suffer if I’m gone?”
“She will not want for anything. Everything inside the cabin now belongs to her. There is untold wealth there. Items of great value from my past lives. Antiques the world hasn’t seen in ages. The paperwork was filled out long ago. She will be taken care of.”
“Money doesn’t mean shit to her!” I lunged forward, my anger getting the better of me. In my current state I wasn’t sure I could throw shade at a kitten much less tackle a demon, but I’d always been a determined fucker. As soon as my fingers wrapped around Azi’s shadowy throat, my foggy mirror image dissipated and reformed on the other side of the room, out of my reach.
“This is pointless, and you waste energy. It will only make this harder. I ask you to accept the inevitable.”
“You want me to basically roll over and let you take me out?”
“It will be easier on us both. I will not force you, though. It will be your choice. You can stay and fade on your own. It will be painful for both of us, and she will know that you are suffering. Or, agree to be terminated. I will allow you twenty-four hours of control before you die. You will have the opportunity to say good-bye.”
“Twenty-four hours? One fucking day?” For the first time, panic rose and settled like a boulder in my gut. I’d just gotten Sam back. “That’s not enough.”
“That is all you can have.” There was no emotion behind the demon’s words. “Do you not feel it? Your essence is already starting to fade. Time is short.”
And there it was. This wasn’t simply me feeling the burn from battling for control. Somewhere deep in the darkest, most unexplored regions of my mind, I’d known. My strength had been slipping away, little by little, but I’d done my best to ignore it. “I don’t feel shit. I’m not going any—”
The room spun. I stumbled upward and closed my eyes. As if to drive the reality home, I had to grab the wall to keep from going down. When I opened my eyes, I was back in the car. Sam stirred, still dozing against my chest. Her warmth was like an inferno, and as Azi wrapped my arms tight around her, the ache in my gut threatened to rip me to shreds. I couldn’t help worrying that I’d made a mistake in not taking the demon’s offer.
The demon lowered my head, lips lingering at Sam’s ear. “We need to leave,” it whispered.