Devil's Plaything

A Friend

Happy Thanksgiving! Because I couldn't be more thankful for those who read and support my writing, here's a chapter to keep you company on your car rides with your family, or if you don't have much to do today. Have a wonderful day and know that I'm very thankful for you! :)

Mira tried to focus on her own breathing. His hand scorched against her wrist, his breath strong and even. She gasped from the heat and her mace clattered to the ground. She tried to lift up her leg to knee him, but he turned her so that he was flush behind her, holding her still against his body. She could feel his heartbeat as his chest pressed against her back, it was going fast and strong. She almost confused it as her own, but the beats of his heart were even faster than her own.

"You're alive," she observed aloud. Her voice trembled but she found satisfaction in being able to say anything at all in this situation. Be smart, like a scientist, she told herself, scientists approach the unknown without fear.

"Had you hoped that I would have died after our introduction?" he asked. His tone sounded condescendingly amused, but she noted a hint of genuine curiosity in the question. He, too, was at least remotely interested in what she has to say. It made her confident.

"I mean you have a heart beat and breath. So you're not the devil or a demon," she said. Then, for the sake of being politically correct, amended it to "you're not undead."

He was quiet for a long time and she ached to turn around and look at him almost as much as she longed to run away. He released her arm and she felt suddenly cold as he stepped away from her. She stayed frozen, stuck between her options. He was so quiet behind her that she wondered if he was still there. She felt her feet move her forward until she stepped back into the light, but then they slowed. She could not hear his footsteps coming after her. Slowly, she turned around.

She could see his silhouette in the shadows, but the bright street lamp did nothing to illuminate his features. She couldn't tell what expression he had on his face, but his tall, muscular shadow reminded her of the sheer size of him and she felt herself grow even colder.

"Well?" she said. "Am I right?"

He began walking and she took a step back before she realized that he was walking around her, not toward her. He stopped when he was beside her, closer to where the light shone. She could see the outline of his jaw, which was set determinately. "Were you in the library to investigate me?" he asked.

She narrowed her eyes. "If you have to ask, then you're not omniscient either."

He laughed. "You've given me a lot of credit. I must have made quite the impression."

"Well, you did suck my soul out of my body." Her voice had grown hard.

"Sorry about that," he said, not sounding sorry in the least. She stayed silent, still waiting for her answers. "The devil is not a demon." He finally spoke. "But, in some sense, I suppose I am." She waited longer, but he did not say anything else. Thoughts of trying to run diminished and she found herself wanting to reach out and pull him into the light. She wanted to see if he was still as handsome as she remembered.

"You're a demon?" she prodded. "And what's the devil if not a demon?"

"I can get in trouble if I tell you too much," he told her, his voice intimate and low. He didn't sound like he was being genuine.

"What, you'll get in trouble with your boss?" she mocked.

"Yes," he answered seriously. He stepped further away from her and began to walk around her, circling her like a predator. "I'm not supposed to interact with you after I've collected. But I'm sentimental."

She didn't know how to respond to that, nor did she know how to feel about it. Perhaps it was a good thing if he was sentimental. Perhaps it meant he had a conscience.

"You care about me?" she asked, sounding as skeptical as she felt.

She saw his bright teeth flash as he smiled. It was the first expression he had made which she could make out in the darkness. "You're valuable and I'm protective over valuable things." She hated the way her heartbeat lurched as he spoke. "It's not easy to come by a soul like yours, and I don't want to risk you bargaining it away to someone else."

"I can give it to someone else?" she asked, hopeful.

"You don't want to do that." He was not smiling anymore. "You can't get it back now that you've given it away. But you don't want to make another bargain with another demon who may not be as friendly as I am."

"Is that what you are?" she asked, bitter and curious. "Friendly?"

There was a long pause and then he stepped towards her, the light illuminating his features. God, he was beautiful. His jawline and cheek bones were sculpted like those of Adonis, his lips curved in a charming smile, and a few days of stubble that had grown since she had last seen him made him seem somehow more human and more attractive. His eyes, however, were so dark that she could clearly see herself reflected in them. She looked small, she noted, and stood up straighter.

"With me by your side, you'll never have to so much as glimpse at the vermin that plagues this world." He reached up and touched her cheek, lightly. His hand was comfortingly warm now, no longer so hot it burned her. "I'm a very good friend to have, darling." He spoke so confidently she was almost convinced. Then, she remembered what he had done to her.

She felt her heart grow heavy in her chest. "You took something of mine that I can't get back. I don't know what you plan to do with it, with me." She met his eyes and tried to see past her reflection, into whatever lay beyond his handsome, human mask. "But you're no friend."

His hand grew hot against her cheek but she stood strong, maintaining eye contact. His thumb grazed her jaw. "Around the corner is a man waiting to rob the next person who walks by." He motioned to the area a little distance from them she always passed on her way home. "Had I let you continue to walk, you would have been another one of his victims." He stepped closer to her, his hand angling her head up so she had to stare at him directly. "I would say that I did you a favor."

Her heart thudded and the longer she stared at him, at herself in his eyes, the more her resolve grew. She stepped back so that he was alone in the light. She reached into her backpack to find her wallet. He stared at her, silent and curious. Her hand grasped her wallet and she jerked it from her backpack before walking towards the corner he had indicated. As she approached, she took a deep breath, and spotted a stout man waiting for her there, a knife clenched in his trembling hand. He lifted it to her, but before he could speak she dropped her wallet at his feet. He looked down at it, shocked, then back at her. He was not frightening, she realized. He didn't seem to want to hurt her or even rob her. He clumsily grasped for her wallet before dashing away.

Mira glanced behind her at the man who forced her to redefine what "frightening" was. He was still standing in the same spot where she had left him, watching her like a hawk. She stared back. I owe you nothing, she thought, I won't let you do me any favors. As if he could hear her, he smiled.

She turned and her instinct to run away, which she had been able to repress until now, hit her as soon as she turned the corner and was out of his line of sight. She ran faster than she ever had before, her feet loud against the sidewalk. She reached the dorm in a quarter of the time it usually took her to get there. Her breath was coming in short gasps and the cold air had dried out her throat to the point where swallowing was painful. She unlocked the door to her dorm and stumbled into her room, slamming the door behind her and bracing her back against the door.

There was something about this which didn't feel like it was real. She briefly recalled the comment Charlie had made in the library, "there's no shame in hallucinating."

But, as she took in her room, she noticed the wallet she had just given to the robber set neatly on her bed. On top of it was a small notecard. Scrawled across it in messy cursive were the words, "From a friend."