What would you trade your soul for?
The answer is simple for Jessa: nothing. Life isn't perfect, but it's pretty good with her best friend Taylor at her side.
But everything changes when the Devil--disguised as an attractive high school girl--comes...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The creature Lana had morphed into opened its mouth and out of it came a loud cry, like the deepest growl from the throat of a lion.
Come and fight me! the Devil cried. The voice barely sounded like Lana; it was distorted and rumbling, and made my eardrums pulse in pain.
I took a terrified step back, realizing with horror what I'd done. "I don't want to fight!" I said desperately.
She laughed—a cruel sound. Oh,so now you want to act nice? The monster swiped at me and I had to take several steps backwards to avoid her claws. I'm done being nice.
"Lana, please! If I get hurt, I'll die. I'll be trapped here forever."
Lana hesitated, and for a moment I thought she was considering my request. And then, in a voice that made the hairs on my neck stand on end, she said: Maybe I want you to get hurt. Maybe I want you to know what it's like to be a prisoner in your own hell.
And she lunged.
I screamed and started to run, sneakers pounding on the wood floors. My gut reaction was to make a beeline for the elevator, but then I heard a banging from behind one of the closed doors in the apartment.
Billy.
I altered my course, lunging at the door, which was shaking from the force of Billy's fists. "Billy!" I cried, my arm catching against the lock. I heard a muffled "Jessa!" in response from behind the wood.
Get away from there! Lana cried, swinging a monstrous arm at me. I dropped to the ground, trying to dodge her blow, but her swing glanced against my shoulder, flooding my arm with white, hot pain. I was lucky that I didn't get the full force of her blow; the rest of her arm slammed into the door behind me, so hard that the wood immediately turned to splinters.
"Gah!" I screamed, covering my head as shrapnel rained down on me. But then I felt a tug on my arm, and when I looked up, Billy was standing over me, having climbed out through the rubble of the doorway. There were cuts on his face, and his eyes were wide with terror, but otherwise he looked unharmed.
"Come on!" he said, dragging me to my feet.
Not wasting another moment, Billy and I raced towards the front door of the apartment. Billy yanked it open and we nearly tumbled into the hallway, fingers outstretched for the elevator button. However, the elevator was no longer there. It was as if we had been yanked out of Hell and dropped into a M.C. Escher painting. We were surrounded by an infinite number of hallways, staircases snaking out ahead of us, leading to an infinite number of doors and mirrors, none of it quite making sense.
My reflections stared back at me, showing a frightened girl with a bleeding arm and a boy with wood chips in his blond hair.
You can't leave, Lana's voice came rippling through my head. This is my world.
