A Hand in Hell

Chapter 10

"You don't," she said flatly, eyeing me in confusion, half playing along and half utterly lost as to what the game even was. "You do it because you're selfish. You enjoy it."

"I don't," I whispered, and a tear finally spilled over, rolling down my cheek to leave behind a cool trail. "The only thing I enjoy anymore…" I reached up to brush a strand of nonexistent hair from her face and cupped her cheek gently. "Is you."

Still, she stared at me with total uncertainty. "What do you mean?" she asked in a breath. "What are you sa—" But I leaned forward suddenly, my lips meeting hers in a passionate crash that cut her short. Before she got the chance to close her mouth, my tongue snaked in, quick to take in the taste and warmth of the space. I leaned back before she had the chance to fight me — but she gave no sign that she ever intended to, even if she never intended to return it, either.

I stayed where I was, crouching before her, our faces inches apart and her taste still playing across my tongue. "You used the Velveeta?" I whispered passionately. "The Kraft was on the top shelf this whole time."

She shoved me away with a noise of disgust, and I straightened and caught myself with a hand on the counter's edge, throwing my head back to let loose a cackle as she began screaming at me. "You're such an asshole, you know that?! I can't believe you just did all of that!"

"I can't believe you let me," I laughed as I made my way back to the counter where my tequila awaited me, and I washed the cheesy taste away with a deep pull from the bottle. "Seriously, though. Kraft, the good shit; top shelf," I added with a gesture at a nearby cabinet, and she scoffed and rolled her eyes.

"I am so done with this relationship," she snapped as she slid from her stool and stormed to the sink beside me, bowl in hand.

The breeze of her passing sent a chill along my cheek, and remembering that single, solitary tear, I began to wipe fervently at my skin with the back of my hand. "You'll never be done with our relationship, you silly thing," I remarked lightly. "You know I'm far too fun to leave."

"Well, considering you tortured me, I'm not so sure." She dropped the bowl into the sink and turned on the faucet, and the smell of Velveeta cheese rushed to my nose.

I cringed. "What? Did you not have fun?"

"You're sick," she said darkly, turning off the tap and throwing a scowl my way.

The playful mood officially soured, I sighed and recapped the bottle of tequila. "Just hurry up and get some shoes on. We're already an hour late. The meeting's probably over by now."

"I sure hope so," she said over her shoulder as she headed into the living room, likely in search of her shoes.

"You won't when you see the alternative," I muttered to myself, and I made my way to the garage alone.

-?-

"You know I'm only going with you to stop you, right?" she asked after we'd been on the road for a few minutes, her gaze carefully focused out the passenger's side window.

"Yes," I said, nodding sagely, "but while there are many things you could do to influence the course of the night, none of them involve doing more than slightly inconveniencing me. There is no 'stopping me,' you know. Try too hard, and you'll wish you'd run when you had the chance."

She huffed. "I can still run, ya know. You can't stop me."

I rolled my eyes and blatantly ran a stop sign. "I'm sure you could, but the Demon Council would catch your ass before I even bothered to start looking, and they've got a lot more in store for you than my petty torture schemes." I watched out of the corner of my eye as she turned to me, a look of slight shock playing across her pretty face. "What? Did you think they actually wanted to keep you alive?" I chortled. "No, my dear. The only reason they've kept me from killing you is to spite me. If you became a threat to their precious species — i.e., if you ran off with a bundle of precious demon secrets bouncing around in your pretty noggin — they would hunt you down, and they would maim and murder you without a second thought." She swallowed, hard, and I smirked to myself. "They're not as different from me as they'd like to believe. They get the same sick joy out of killing helpless little humans as I do. They just don't actively seek it out."