Page 29

My knees burn with each step. Dead leaves are tangled in my hair, my clothes are damp from being pinned to the ground, and as I shiver traversing deeper into the woods, it is the best I’ve felt in—ever. My body is electric. I feel like I could scale the tallest tree, climb the tallest mountain, and scream at my mother for all she’s ever done to me.

Marcelo may have pinned me to the ground, fucked my mouth ruthlessly, and made an absolute mess of me, but by doing so, he has also shown me what it is like to be seen , to be cared for despite his intensity. Right after he came on me, he immediately pushed me back to the ground to examine my knees.

“These need to be cleaned,” he said, but I didn’t want them healed—not yet. I want to feel them. I want the physical reminder that he chased me, he caught me, and he claimed me. And if I get a few scars from it, oh well. Add them to the mess all over my back from belts over the years, the stretch marks along my upper thighs.

I did let him clean me up, using his jacket sleeve to wipe off the excess. He chuckled as he did so. “God, I haven’t come in fifteen years. Sorry, it was a lot.”

Resting my palm over his veiny hand, I smiled at him. “I wouldn’t have known the difference between a lot and a little, anyway.” Marcelo laughed again, and it took all my willpower—and my already aching knees—not to throw myself at him again. I’d happily suck his cock all night if he wanted me to, even if my jaw hurt, even if my knees bled, even if my pussy dripped down my thighs.

But once he pulled me to my feet, put my coat over my shoulders, and took my hand, I could tell by the shift in his body language that he was eager to keep searching for the cult. He left his mask on as he tread the woods with me, and I can’t help but feel . . . safe. As if he’s my superhero, he’ll fight all the demons that try to come for me. But more than that, I’m his now, and the cross on his mask isn’t letting me forget.

I want him to drop everything and really claim me, fucking me till I bleed, till I scream his name through these woods, till I come all over his cock—my pussy is begging for it as I feel how wet I am with each step.

But if my demonic oppression has taught me anything, it’s that I can wait to get off. Waiting sometimes is half the fun.

“How do we know we’re following his path?” I ask, trying to keep up as my knees burn.

“We don’t. Not really. But wherever he went has to be in these woods.”

The woods aren’t big. I can already see the light of another road at the far end beyond the treeline, and we haven’t been walking for all that long.

“Wouldn’t we have seen—”

Thunk . I yelp as my foot slightly gives way and grab onto Marcelo immediately, wrapping myself around his arm.

We both look down to see a metal hatch, large enough to look like basement doors. Leaves are brushed over it, almost too conveniently, as if they were placed there on purpose.

“Well, looks like you found it.” He pulls me off the trapdoor and sits on his haunches, examining it.

“Are you going to open it?”

Reaching in his pocket, he pulls out a small vial and dabs it onto the metal. Immediately, the metal sizzles.

“Acid?” I ask, crouching down too.

“Holy water.”

My mouth falls open, watching the liquid simmer into bubbles before completely dissolving as if being burned away. “So . . . demons.”

He nods. “And a cult. Fuck.” Marcelo stands, kicking the leaves around him as he scratches the back of his head, breathing deeply. With his back turned to me, he pulls out his phone, dials a number, and puts it to his ear.

“ Hola? Padre? Si—puta madre, es un cult . It’s a long story, but I just found—yeah. Okay. Tell Rowan I’ll call him in a bit.”

He hangs up the phone and turns back to me. His fist tightens on the phone, gripping it like it’s a stress ball. “We have to get out of here. Now.”

My eyebrows pinch. “We don’t have to go down there? What if we’re wrong?”

“We’re not wrong. But I told you I’d keep you safe, and that is exactly what I’m doing. I’m not taking you down there.”

I stand and step forward. “Keep me safe but also do your job. I don’t want to stop you.” I grab his hand. “You said you would stop me from having to see Daren. I highly doubt he’s down there—not when he’s probably still at the church with my mom.”

Marcelo clenches his jaw, his eyes lingering on our entwined fingers before moving to the metal hatch.

“The first sign of danger and I’m carrying you out. Got it?”

I nod, excitement pumping through me. I feel like . . . like Indiana Jones or something, traveling through caves in search of treasure—or in this case, demons.

Marcelo throws the hatch open, the leaves cascading around us as the smell of wet dirt and—

“Frankincense!” I blurt.

He turns to me, and I hear him smelling the air through the thick mask. “Does the church have a basement?”

I think for only a moment. “Not that I know of.”

Grabbing my face, he forces me to look at him, at the cross. “June, stay right next to me.”

Nodding, I say, “I will.”

Marcelo’s hand trails along the back of my neck, his thumb sliding between the rosary and my skin. Carefully, he pulls the cross out from my dress and lets it fall over my coat as he takes another deep breath, shrugs out his shoulder, and finally swings himself over to descend the ladder into darkness.

I follow right behind him, trying hard not to think about how easy it’d be for him to see my ass again, how all he’d have to do was look up. God, I want him to see my ass again.

Once he reaches the ground, his hands quickly find my waist, and he eases me the rest of the way. The underground path is lit by lanterns lining the wall, similar to that of old mines or caves. It’s narrow as can be, packed with dark dirt, and I can’t make out the end of the path—it just looks like it goes on forever.

Marcelo takes my hand again and guides me forward. I keep my free hand wrapped around his upper arm, just in case. It’s colder down here than it was in the woods, goosebumps lining my skin. All I hear are our footsteps on the packed ground and my beating heart.

It feels like one of the horror movies we watched last night, like something will run at us from the end of the dark hallway, sharp teeth ready to rip our faces off, eyes unblinking. I can’t shake the image, even as Marcelo rubs his thumb over the back of my hand, even though I know I’m safe with him.

At least, I hope I’m safe with him. I don’t know anything about demons—Hell, I barely know anything about Marcelo. How long has he been an exorcist? This isn’t his first case, is it?

Suddenly, my masked man is a total stranger again. In my soul I know he’ll do what he can, but . . . what can he do compared to a literal demon ?

“June,” he whispers, and I nearly jump out of my skin at the hushed sound. “I can feel your mind spiraling.” He jerks his arm, making me realize just how tightly I’m holding on to him. “We can still go back if you’re scared.”

He pauses to look over his shoulder at me, the jagged white cross illuminated as if it were backlit in this dark space. I can’t see his eyes, but I know they’re on me, waiting for me to say something—to answer him. I also know he’d do anything I ask him to do right now. But . . . with the cross on me like this, somehow I feel calmer. This isn’t just a stranger in a mask. It’s Marcelo , my masked man, my Salvation. He’s already proven to me he can protect me from demons when he pulled me from that hallway all those days ago.

“I’m fine,” I tell him. “Just a little scared.”

“We’ll just see where this goes, and get out of here.” Marcelo pats my hand and continues down the long hall. We walk for several long minutes before a door finally comes into view at the end of the hall. It’s large and wooden, with old, black iron decorating the door with a large symbol in the center.

Marcelo stops, tilting his head as he studies the symbol as well.

Slowly, we progress forward. The door is old—very old. Mold has grown within the cracks, making it weak, as the iron has rusted in some parts. Tentatively, Marcelo lifts his hand, but before he can even touch the wood, the door creaks open.

Almost as if it’s inviting us within.

“This is the part of the horror movie where someone usually dies,” I whisper, swearing I see the ghost of a smile tilt the mouth of his mask up.

“Shh, songbird,” he chides, his voice light.

We creep through the door, and on the other side is a room completely made of gray stone. Or, rather, remade .

This is definitely a basement, but not under the church.

Marcelo huffs, “Where the Hell are we?”

“We’re—we’re in the old convent.” I realize as the words spill from my tongue. “The one that burned down in the eighties. They’ve never built anything on top of it, and . . . maybe this is why.”

The room is vast and freezing cold; the stone clutching onto the frigid air like a vice. But it’s also completely bare. There’s no sign a cult would meet here—it looks like nothing has touched these walls in the forty-something years since the fire.

“Look,” Marcelo says, pointing out a set of stairs at the other end of the room. “A building that’s been abandoned for years wouldn’t smell as though someone was recently burning incense. Someone has been here. And I bet, whatever they were doing, it was up those steps.” He squeezed my hand. “Are you ready?”

I take a deep breath and nod. Then I follow him up the stairs and into the next room. As I climb the final step, a gasp lodges in my throat, my entire body being doused in imaginary ice water.

The room looks like a small chapel, filled with pews and a small sanctuary in the front of the room. But what surprises me isn’t the presence of a worship hall in the convent. But what’s inside. More symbols are painted on the walls, the floor, every piece of furniture—in what looks like blood. Half-melted candles line the space, an altar standing at the front of a room just before a bed of stone. Above the altar sits a painting—a silhouette of something . . . inhuman. Tall, red, with a hunched back and hoof-like feet, a crown of wire rests on the creature’s head, broken up by two large horns not unlike the black shadow figure I saw in the hallway the other day. Though, these horns aren’t curved—they twist into spirals, pointing straight up.

This isn’t the demon from the church.

“What—” I take a step and, suddenly, the air is tight in my throat—almost heavy and thick, as if it’s more like water than oxygen. My legs don’t budge, a weight thrown over my shoulders, rooting me in place.

I try to move, but my body doesn’t listen to me—my fingers won’t even twitch. All I can do is rapidly blink and look all around me, look for what is watching me, look for what is haunting me.

“I feel it too,” Marcelo grunts. “It’s the—”

A few feet away, as if my thoughts themselves summoned him, the shadowy figure emerges from the darkness— with the darkness—in the corner of the room. Like before, it’s tall with broad shoulders, and I once again see the essence of curled horns atop its head— very different from the one in the painting. But due to the shadows all around him, I can’t make out a single other feature. No eyes, no mouth, nothing—save for the fact this demon isn’t red. He’s made of shadow and darkness—charcoal grays and midnight blacks.

Marcelo’s hand tightens in mine, the rosary at my chest beginning to rattle. His body tenses, his shoulder slowly moving in front of me.

The black shadow shifts and flows, raising what looks like an arm, a long finger pointing directly at us.

A noise like nails on a chalkboard, like a metal fork on a porcelain plate, like metal rubbing against metal, screeched through the empty room.

“ GET OUT .”