Page 55

My throat hurts. My lungs are on fire. And I can hardly remember anything from the last five minutes.

I remember the demon standing before me as Marcelo ran for me. I remember before that, my cat turned into a literal demon, who saved my boyfriend, and then went to attack the rest of the cultists. I remember my priest had been the villain all along. And I remember stabbing my stepfather through the mouth.

But there was a gap. A gap in time, in memory, in vision—and as I see the black gore dripping from my lips, I think I’m glad for it.

“June?”

Marcelo is here, rubbing my back in slow circles, and the moment I sit up, he’s pulling me into his arms.

I don’t even clock when the tears start streaming, but the moment his arms are around me, I’m throwing myself at him.

“You’re okay,” he breathes, petting the back of my head. “You’re okay.”

“Is—is he gone?” I whimper, too afraid to look and see if the black puddle becomes anything more.

“Gone. For now,” says Dia— Bael . The demon pads up to us, a number of cloaked men laying at his feet, but it’s clear most had run away. “That was smart, Marcelo. You exorcised him from June alone. He’s still stuck here.” Bael crouches down, as though he really were a cat, and watches the black puddle.

“But he got away?”

Bael nods. “The coward always was good at running away.”

There’s silence for what feels like a long time. I feel like I’m still catching my breath and Marcelo holds me just as tight.

“You’re the he Asmodeus wanted me to keep safe?” I ask.

Bael sniffs. “I didn’t mean to deceive you both. I have been more cat than man for as long as I can remember. I prefer it. I do not like this long and cumbersome body.”

I shuffle, turning to face the demon. “So be a cat. Be our cat, if you like.”

His head perks, almost as if his ears are at attention—just like when he was simply Diablo. He turns those gold eyes to Marcelo.

“Are you going to try to steal June away from me?”

I can’t help but bite back a chuckle.

Bael turns his head to the side. “Yes.” Then his eyes fall to me. “But, not like that. I don’t . . . feel romantic feelings like that. June is simply my human. And you are the spare human.”

Now Marcelo chuckles. “Fair enough. You can stay.”

In the blink of an eye, the demon is gone and now only stands the large black cat with gold eyes and the white tuft of fur at his chest.

Bael blinks at us, long and slow, before prancing up to us and rubbing his head along my hand.

“I feel like I need a three-day-long nap,” I groan.

Chuckling, Marcelo slowly stands with me still embraced in his arms. “Fucking ditto. We’re not leaving bed until at least seventy-two hours pass.”

“Well.” I bite my lip. “Actually, we may have some phone calls to make. I sort of called Father Rodrigo on the way here and let him know everything that was going on.”

Marcelo pauses midstep. “Oh, fuck.”

“And he may or may not be sending every available exorcist here .”

“ Fuck . There goes our next three days, princesa. ”

As we descend the steps from the altar, a groan has me nearly jumping from Marcelo’s arms.

Daren still squirms, grabbing Marcelo’s pants.

“This fucker is still alive?”

Marcelo gently places me on my feet and then crouches down. “A promise is a promise, fucker.”

He pulls his knife from Daren’s chin, watching as the blood splatters from the hole. Daren convulses, but it doesn’t matter—he wasn’t trying to save him. As Daren finally bleeds out, I feel a rush of relief. Of freedom. And of safety. He’s finally gone .

Marcelo then takes his blade and carves a large cross, from Daren’s forehead to upper lip, and then across his eye lids. “And lead us not into temptation,” he mumbles, “but deliver us from evil. Amen.”

It has been days since the convent—days of speaking to Rodrigo’s officials, letting them sleuth out the rest of the cult members, days of finding a replacement for Callum, and days of rest. But Marcelo and I are finally packing up the Mustang, Bael in tow, and leaving Belmouth all together. I have no clue where we’re going. Maybe New York—he’s mentioned taking me to see Tisch in case I’d like to try applying again. He’s also mentioned Miami, to visit Rowan, Willow, and Rodrigo.

But, truthfully, I will happily go anywhere with him.

There’s just one thing left to do here in Belmouth.

“Ready?” Marcelo asks, closing the trunk and facing me. Bael already jumps into the back seat, curling atop a blanket specially laid out for him.

I sigh deeply. “As ready for this as I’ll ever be.”

Coming up to me, Marcelo takes my hands. “I’ll be right here. You can yell and I’ll come running. Okay?”

I nod.

“You sure? ’Cause you also don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”

“No,” I say, pressing my lips together. “I think I do have to.”

Marcelo squeezes once more before letting go.

Mass is just ending, people are streaming out in the sunlight, and there, with no one around her, is my mother.

Taking another deep breath, I walk up to her.

My mother’s eyes dart up to me, as if she sensed I was here. Her blond hair looks nearly white in the sunlight, and no amount of concealer can hide the bags under her eyes. Yet still, somehow, she manages to look at me with those daggers.

“Hi,” I say.

“What do you want?” She straightens, raising a brow.

“I’m sorry about Daren,” I lie. She doesn’t know about the cult. The official report is that he skipped town, leaving her behind.

“No, you’re not.”

She’s right.

“I’m not.” I meet her eyes, my back straight. “I’m leaving Belmouth with Marcelo. I wanted to say goodbye.”

“Skipping town with the priest,” she scoffs, rolling her eyes. “How did I raise a such a whore?”

I smirk at her. “Monkey see, monkey do, I guess.”

My mother scowls.

As I watch her, I realize something. My mother has always been so violently angry—and it took me twenty-five years, three demons, and a hot priest to realize that anger was never my fault. Jill Forester is a miserable person, through and through. She has no life save for what I gave her—and without me, she will be nothing. She is nothing.

I don’t need her. I’ve never needed her.

She’s the one who’s needed me.

“Look. I don’t know when or if I’ll ever come back here. But if you ever need me . . .” I pull the small slip of paper I had tucked into my pocket with my new phone number scrawled on it. It took me about four tries to get it just right, as my hand shook each time I tried.

Now, I held that little paper up steady.

“This is my number. You can call.”

My mother’s daggers drop to the little paper, and I’m thoroughly convinced she won’t take it. Or worse, she’ll snatch it and stomp on it.

But she does. She tentatively grabs the paper, almost as if she’s afraid it might poison her on contact. But she takes it. She reads it, and then she tucks it in her purse.

I could spend all my life hoping my mother would wake up one morning, wishing she’d been better. I could hope she’d try to be different, try to fix things, finally apologize.

But my expectations aren’t high, and I know the simplicity of that alone would be asking too much of her. So I will continue my life, knowing my mother’s daggers are really meant for her. I will spend my life slowly forgetting the tiny house we lived in, letting the scars along my back fade into nothingness, and forgive how little she cared for me.

She will become a piece of my history instead of my revolving present. And that’s okay.

I look at her once more, those daggers a shade so similar to my own eyes.

“Get home safely,” I say in way of goodbye, and after giving her one final moment to say something—she doesn’t—I turn from my mother and finally walk away.

I’m cuddled in the crook of Marcelo’s arm as Bael loafs on one of my thighs and Marcelo’s hand grips the other. The cat has been asleep for the greater part of an hour as Marcelo drives through the winding dark streets of Massachusetts at night.

We’ve taken turns picking songs to play as he tells me stories of his past exorcisms, as though they were only horror movies he’d seen and not atrocities he’s lived. He tells me of ridiculous times he spent in his youth with the twins and all the trouble they’d gotten in with Rodrigo.

“Look,” Marcelo gasps.

Now leaving Massachusetts.

“We’re in New York state,” he tells me.

“Is that where we’re going?” I ask.

Marcelo shrugs. “I honestly have no idea where we’re going, songbird. I figured we could decide when the sun rises.”

I smile at him, kissing his cheek.

“That sounds perfectly good to me.”