Page 16 of A Demon’s Resolve (Demonic Tales and Adventures #3)
CHAPTER 16
I promise I will tell no one else.
It wasn’t what Daniel had said that had hurt Jennifer so deeply, it was the way he said it. She shouldn’t have been surprised by his reaction when no one else had ever believed her either.
So why did she feel as if she’d been punched in the gut when he’d gotten that same look in his eyes as everyone else had since her nightmares had begun? She wasn’t crazy. Sure, her story was hard to swallow but she’d actually believed Daniel was better than the others. That he would just dismiss her out of hand was heart wrenching.
It wasn’t as if the things that had been happening over the past few days were normal. Shouldn’t he have at least considered Jennifer might be right?
She dropped onto one of the chairs in her small living space in defeat. She was an idiot. Stupidly, she’d done the one thing she swore she’d never do again and Daniel didn’t have the courtesy to consider, even for a moment, that she might be right. Instead, he assumed she was crazy.
Although, to be fair, after all she’d been through, Jennifer wasn’t exactly sane. That would have been impossible after what she’d witnessed.
A shiver wracked her body as the images of her youth forced their way past the lock she normally kept on those memories.
At the age of fourteen, Jennifer and her best friend, Angela Ruiz, were inseparable. Residing next door to each other, they practically lived with one another by spending all their time together, even spending many nights at each other’s homes. Angela’s mom was single and didn’t stand on formality, insisting Jennifer have a key and could come and go whenever she wanted.
It had been summer and Angela was at her dad’s for the weekend but was due home soon. Missing her friend that was more like a sister, Jennifer went over to wait for her. As she entered the house, she’d stopped dead in her tracks. Too young to understand, her instincts were screaming at her to get the hell out. Jennifer shook off the unease she’d felt and headed inside.
Her only saving grace was whatever had caused her to hesitate going into the house, had managed to keep her mouth shut instead of calling out to Angela’s mom. There had been something in the air that made her nose wrinkle as she tiptoed from the backdoor, through the kitchen, and peeked around the corner to the living room.
Her stomach dropped as she stared in disbelief. There, on the couch was Angela’s mom, someone Jennifer considered a second mom, with blood and bruises covering her too still body. A part of Jennifer saw the blood that spattered the walls and floor, but she couldn’t tear her gaze from the sightless soft brown eyes that had always been so kind when Jennifer had needed a friendly ear.
Her stomach rolled. She slapped her hand over her mouth, fighting off the need to throw up and call attention to herself, for there, standing over Ms. Ruiz, was a man. He was covered in blood, but it was the look of manic glee in his eyes that had scared the crap out of Jennifer.
She started to take a step back, to run as far from this hell as possible, when Jennifer saw him turn to stare right at her. His eyes glowed an eerie red and Jennifer couldn’t stop the scream being ripped from her throat. No matter how much her mind yelled for her to run, her legs wouldn’t cooperate as she froze.
There was a noise behind her, but Jennifer couldn’t turn away from that malevolent grin that was directed at her. It was as if she could see her death in the man’s face.
Her body suddenly jolted as it was shoved out of the way. She tumbled to the floor. A part of her wanted to curl into a ball and hide from the world, but try as she might, Jennifer couldn’t stop from lifting her head to watch with morbid curiosity as another man faced the killer.
In hindsight, she should have run, maybe then her life wouldn’t have turned upside down. Jennifer hadn’t known it at the time, but that would be a fault of hers, that need to know, that would follow her through her whole life.
To this day, the image of those two men fighting sent shivers of fear through Jennifer. She wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing. What she saw wiped out most of the horror of finding her best friend’s mom ripped apart. Not that she didn’t have her fair share of nightmares about that, but the fighting was something she’d never been able to forget.
The man, not that he had been human, who pushed her out of the room, threw fire at the one who’d just killed her best friend’s mom. Before the flame had touched the murderer, he’d just disappeared.
Jennifer blinked. When that didn’t change what was happening before her, she shook her head, fearing she was what many would end up calling her, crazy. Wind whipped through the small home as papers, books, and even picture frames, flew in all directions.
It was surreal as the one who had thrown a ball of fire put his hand out with flames erupting from the tips of his fingers. The hand seemed to punch through the swirling air. The wind stopped as the killer was knocked to the ground.
Jennifer blinked again. Where in the hell had he come from?
This time, the need to puke couldn’t be stopped when the stranger who had pushed her out of the way, shoved his hand into the murderer’s chest and yanked his heart out. The next thing she heard was screaming. She had no idea it was her until the man, with blood dripping from his fingers, turned to her.
He strode towards Jennifer and she screamed even louder. He knelt before her, placing his non-bloody hand on her shoulder.
For the second time since she walked into her best friend’s house, Jennifer was sure she was about to die. But the man just started speaking. His voice was calm, even though Jennifer hadn’t heard a word he said over her screams.
“I am sorry you had to see this, little one. It would be best if you forgot everything you saw. Do you understand me?” he said when she started coughing as her throat hurt from overuse.
Jennifer didn’t understand but at that point she was willing to say anything if he would just let her live. Unable to speak, she nodded.
Hindsight was wonderful. Jennifer had wished more than once she’d listened to him. He’d only been trying to help her. He had known no one would believe her, but she hadn’t grasped that. Instead, she told just about everyone she knew what she’d seen that day.
Within a week, her parents felt they didn’t have a choice but to send her to a psychiatric hospital. Even then, she refused to recant her words. Someone had to believe her. Right?
Wrong.
Within a month, she’d found herself in a long-term mental institution often deeply drugged. She just couldn’t understand why no one considered she might be telling the truth. Stubborn by nature, Jennifer had refused to change her story, no matter what they did to her.
It had been nearly six months after that fateful day, that the man who had saved her, appeared in her locked room. Maybe it was all the drugs they were giving her, but Jennifer hadn’t been afraid of him.
He’d sat down next to her and told her all about his world. He’d visited her every day for a week and Jennifer had been grateful. His name was Tarak and when he’d told her he was a demon, Jennifer had been relieved. For one, it proved she wasn’t crazy as others claimed. Secondly, he was the one who made her understand no one would ever believe her. Humans tended to rationalize what they couldn’t explain.
He convinced her to change her story and she did. Why she trusted him, she wasn’t sure, but he seemed so honest. Over the years, he’d visited her from time to time. He treated her like a daughter, and since her own father didn’t want anything to do with her after her supposed breakdown, she looked forward to his visits.
He’d never lied to her or talked down to her like she was a babbling idiot. More than anything, she appreciated that, especially when everyone seemed to have abandoned her.
She had known the moment the reports came in of just about every natural disaster happening at once that it had been the demons. She’d studied all the data that had been collected but the one thing she couldn’t figure out was why did it appear demons were trying to destroy the Earth?
She needed to speak with Tarak but she had no way to get a hold of him. That had been the only reason she’d been stupid enough to take a chance and tell Daniel. Now, he thought she was crazy.
Maybe she was - after all, why else would she tell the story again when experience told her what the results would be?