I jump up, putting the bed between me and Justin. With the quick movement, my head sways. I grab the mattress for support.
Slowly, Justin gets out of bed on the other side, surprisingly giving me space.
As my head clears, so do my memories. I begin to piece them together. Justin took me from the bathroom at the bar. My soul went to Hell, and the masked demon came back with me to help me escape. I remember her fighting Justin and knocking him out. She left and I ran. I made it all the way to the living room, but the old woman shot me.
Oh, God. She shot me.
My hands fly to my abdomen. There’s a gaping hole in the center of my dress, and the lace is stained with dried blood. There’s dried blood all over my skin too. But I don’t see the wound.
“I healed you,” he says softly. “You’re fine now.”
I collapse, sitting on the bed. Nothing is fine.
Part of me wants to go back to wherever I was with MJ. But I can’t. I can’t go back to that dream, and I can’t escape this reality.
There’s no point in running now. In the best-case scenario, the masked demon will perhaps return and help me escape again. In the worst, I’m on my own until his compulsion wears off, if at all. MJ, the other Protectors, Elizabeth—they have no way of helping me.
Tears well up, and my vision blurs, but the tears won’t fall. I can’t cry. The house should be quaking from a storm matching what I feel inside me. But he’s taken that from me. My emotions are prisoners, just as I am.
Suddenly Justin’s standing in front of me. I flinch as he moves to touch me. He stops.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Mads. Never again.”
In a flash, his words ignite a fire inside me that I wish could burn around me.
“You expect me to believe that?” I hiss. “You do nothing but hurt me. You are a cold, cruel monster. I remember every single horrible thing you’ve put me through!”
“Do you want me to erase those memories from you?” He doesn’t even hesitate. And he says it so plainly, as if asking whether I’d like some ice cream.
A shiver runs through me as I answer him with silence.
“Thought as much,” he replies. “But don’t worry. I won’t do that—not unless you force me to. Your memories are part of what makes you, you. As infuriating as you can be sometimes, I’ve grown accustomed to you.”
I hold back the desire to laugh. He thinks he knows me. I don’t even know me. Every day, I slip farther away from who I was as I become someone unrecognizable.
But as I look into his soulless eyes, I see how sure he is of himself—and me.
“When I heard the gun go off and saw you lying there, covered in your own blood, I thought I was too late. I thought I’d lost you.”
My stomach quenches as phantom pains fill me. I try to ignore it.
“Yeah, well, don’t act like you did me any favors by healing me.”
“You don’t get it, Mads,” he says, shaking his head. “I thought I lost you. I took you to save you, and in the first couple hours, I nearly lost you. Forever.”
His voice carries that same something the masked demon’s voice carried when she told him not to use the blade on me.
“You’re unclaimed, Mads,” he says, his words heavy. “Neither Heaven nor Hell know of you. If you die, there is no peace, no afterlife, waiting for you. Just eternal nothingness. If even that.”
He reaches out, running his fingers through my hair, but I’m too stunned to even feel it inside or outside of me. Of all the things I’ve learned about myself.
Unclaimed.
Nothingness.
“That’s why there’s a contract—it’s a claim on you. It gives me the rights to your soul. I took you because I planned on making you sign it,” he says, still caressing my hair.
This is it, then. I can’t move. I can’t breathe. I’m powerless to stop him this time. My blood drains from me as if he has already pierced me with the feather pen.
“But I don’t want you to sign it. Not anymore.”
I stare at him in disbelief. He stares back with an expression I’ve never seen on his face before.
Silence lingers between us.
“Why not?” I finally whisper.
He bends down so we’re eye to eye. “Have you ever been to the circus, Mads?”
My eyes widen in surprise.
I don’t know if he actually expects an answer, but I cautiously nod. I’ve gone twice—once with my family, another time as a school trip. Both were happy memories. I cling to thoughts of my family and friends, doubting I’ll ever see them again.
“My mother took me to the circus when I was young,” he says. “There was excitement. Danger. And everyone was happy. It was a rush I’d never felt before. My favorite part was the lion tamer—seeing the most feared jungle animal be tamed by nothing more than a whip and a chair. As I watched on, I envisioned joining the circus myself.” His mouth forms a small smile, but there’s also a hardness to it.
I can’t stop myself from thinking of Justin as a little, innocent blue-eyed boy. As JayJay. But was his father already hitting him at that young age? Is that why he wanted to run away and join the circus?
“When the show was done, I snuck away from my mother and found my way backstage, to part of the circus the public isn’t supposed to see. I came across the ringmaster, lion tamer, and the lion in its cage. I was hiding behind some props, and I wanted to rush up to them, ready to join the circus right then and there. But I stopped when the ringmaster picked up the whip and slashed the lion tamer across the back.”
I wince, not expecting this turn in the story. I feel a memory of a sting on my back that I know he feels too. I look down at my arms and suddenly notice the scars are gone.
I kept them to remember. He took them back.
Justin grimaces. “The lion apparently hadn’t performed to the ringmaster’s standards. It didn’t act ferocious enough. The crowd wasn’t as scared as he wanted them to be. He threw the whip down to the tamer and ordered him to whip the lion. Whip him until he roared. Whip him until he bled. Whip him until he learned who was boss. And he did. I saw every lash.”
My heart sinks, thinking of that scared little boy witnessing such horror—not unlike what he himself endured at the hands of his father.
“After, the ringmaster left,” Justin continues. “I couldn’t believe it, but the lion tamer reentered the lion’s cage. I expected the lion would eat him—tear him to shreds for what he did. But he didn’t. Instead, the tamer held the bleeding, broken lion and cried.
“So I got out of my hiding spot, walked up to the cage, and just stood there in silence. He looked up at me and said, ‘To love someone, sometimes you have to hurt them to save them from being hurt by others.’ You see, neither the lion nor the tamer had any control over their fate. Only the ringmaster.” He pauses. “I never understood what he meant until now.”
His eyes bore so deeply into mine that I can’t help but lean away.
“I know I’ve hurt you, Mads. And I know I’m supposed to make you sign the contract. But if you do, then you’ll be the lion and I’ll be the tamer.”
My lips quiver. Terror builds inside.
“Wh-who is the ringmaster?”
Justin gently places his hand on my cheek. I cringe as his essence enters me again.
“He’s known as the Acquisitioner—he acquires souls for the Devil. He’s the leader of the Fallen. He wants to use your abilities to assure himself as the new ruler of Hell. But I will do everything I can to stop that from happening. I want us to be together—see the world. I want to make you happy.”
His thumb strokes my cheek. “I need to know, is there even a remote possibility you could ever love me like you love him?”
Instantly I think of MJ and how I’ll never get to tell him I love him. I whimper. I don’t mean to—it just happens.
Justin places his forehead to mine. “Please, Mads, don’t fight me. Let me love you, and love me back. That’s all I want. Can’t you feel how right we are for each other?”
I can’t reply.
Justin pulls back. He stares at me, willing me to answer him. But I just can’t.
“Tell me there’s a chance, Mads,” he begs. “Maybe not right away—I can understand that. But once I save you . . . and we’re free to be together, can you try to love me?”
Fear and heartache swell inside me, making it so I can’t answer him.
He sighs.
Then in one motion, he lifts me and slams me against the wall. He leans his body into mine and grabs my wrists, pinning my hands beside my ears. His eyes are deep crimson.
“No! Let me go!” I shout, clamping my eyes as tight as they will go.
“Answer me, Mads! Could you love me?”
“You’re a liar and a murderer! I’m not giving you what you want. Ever!”
“As you wish, Mads.”
His essence picks up—more of it flows into my head. For a moment, I struggle and fight against him, trying desperately to free myself. But then my eyelids start to open. I can feel myself losing the battle even to keep my own eyes shut.
My eyes now open, I try to turn away, but my head is still. I try to shove him off, but I can’t move my arms. His essence feels like lead inside me.
He leans over me, peering into me with his cold, black eyes. “You’ve left me no choice. From now until midnight next Friday, October thirty-first, whenever I ask you a question, you will answer it without delay. You cannot lie to me. You will learn to appreciate me and the things I do for you.”
He smiles. “You’re mine, Mads. Willingly or not. Do you understand?”
I want to scream and tell him to go to hell.
Instead I reply, “Yes.”