After three days in my tiny apartment, the false, mundane world shut out beyond my door, my denial made its pendulum swing to reckless acceptance. The obsessive ruminations, nightmares, and panic gave way to exhaustion until, in my depleted state, it became very simple: I could never return to my in-transit, post-divorce life. My life might never be normal again, but I could not keep to these sequestered shadows forever. I was tired of playing the specter in my own life, huddling behind the flimsy lock of my apartment door.
Lucian had the power to kill me—he had proven that much. And if that’s what he wanted, there was nothing I could do about it.
But I didn’t think that’s what he wanted.
For whatever reason, he desperately wanted to tell me his story. He wanted it written and published. And though I had no intention of doing either, I had the power to give him both.
Like a fever, my fear broke.
The next morning, I lowered my chin into the collar of my coat. I did not look into anyone’s eyes on the street, nor did I make my routine stop at the bagel joint near the T station. Even so, I half expected some stranger to hail me by name, to signal me in the front lobby of my office. To turn toward me on the elevator as the doors closed.
Nothing like that happened.
When I passed Sheila’s desk, she asked how I was feeling. She had circles under her eyes but gave a small smile that still managed to look attractive. She had always been like that—almost prettier when suffering. It used to tug at my heart, and it brought back the old envy I had felt toward Dan when he first started seeing her. Even when her mother died, she had been beautiful, a weeping Madonna at the funeral. Today, however, that trait struck me like a line repeated one too many times. I murmured something about the stomach flu and feeling better. I didn’t want to talk to her.
“Oh, Clay,” she called after me. “Your nine o’clock is waiting for you in your office. She came early.”
I hesitated. I hadn’t opened my calendar in three days and therefore had no idea who was in there.
No, I had one idea.
I veered off into the bathroom. The trembling was back in my hands. I heard again the hopping skid of tires against pavement, the thud of the collision. The back of my neck felt clammy despite the chill of the morning lingering in my fingers and on my cheeks.
So much for bravado. He had never let me escape him for long. The last time—the only time—I walked away from him, he had infiltrated my dreams. Breathing deeply, I walked myself through my conundrum to the conclusion that had freed me from my apartment prison: For whatever reason, I held the keys to something he wanted very much.
I reshouldered my bag, which was stuffed full of the same untouched proposals I had taken home with me last Friday, and walked resolutely to my office. The door was ajar, and a vibrant female voice seemed to fill up all the space behind it. I knew that voice, and it was no demon. Well, not technically.
“Clay!” Katrina turned from the window, clicking her phone off. Her coat was thrown over the chair in front of my desk, the upside-down Burberry tag staring out like the vacant smile of a doll. “You look good. Have you lost weight?”
I unloaded my bag as she told me about her train ride in, her new apartment in the city, her latest stash of exciting new proposals, her growing stable of up-and-coming writers. I unloaded my laptop but didn’t turn it on.
“I’ll take a look at whatever you have,” I said. Despite the fact that she tired me out, she never gave me shoddy stuff, and I needed some fast acquisitions.
She hesitated, and I realized she was weighing the stacks of proposals, queries, and boxed manuscripts on my credenza and bookshelf. I either was more backed up than usual or had grown in popularity.
“They haven’t hired a new editorial assistant, have they?” She sat down on the Burberry-covered chair with crossed arms, peering out at me over the fine arch of her nose—which was probably as designer as the rest of her. Her nostrils tended to look like slits—until she got excited about something, in which case they flared. “How are you doing, Clay, really?”
I sat down, sighed, and gestured at the paper skyline. “I’ve been sick. I’m behind. I could use about five solid projects right now to fill out our next season. I’ll never get through all of this in time. So anything you want to send when you get back—”
“You know I will.” She paused and then, on a seeming whim, reached for the bag covered with Coach’s trademark Cs. “You know I don’t bring a lot with me”—she pulled several packets from her bag—“but here are a couple that might trip your trigger.”
“I’ll read them this afternoon.” I meant it. I needed to patch at least one more project together this week or next to bring to committee. Still, I took them with the sense of one accepting aid from a questionable Samaritan.
She pulled another few pages from her magic bag. “And then I have this strange little orphan. Highly experimental. Frankly, I’m having some trouble finding a home for it.”
She handed me a mere two pages, too short for a proposal—a teaser. I added it to the top of the pile. And then my gaze caught the title: Demon: A Memoir.
My eyes slid down to the next line: A Novel by L. Legion.
“It’s dark, edgy—it’ll get in your head. Don’t read it unless you want to seriously question what you think is real.”
My heart accelerated, loud in my ears. “I’ll look at it as soon as I can—just back from being sick,” I murmured, already flipping to the sample on the second page. My blood iced over at the first words printed there:
Don’t stop reading. I need you to know.
“Well, let me know what you think.” Katrina gathered up her coat.
“Who—who did you say this author was?” I blinked up at her.
She gave me a blank look. “Someone my assistant discovered in the slush pile. I think it has potential.”
I don’t know what I said after that. I saw her to the door, the manuscript clutched in a sweaty hand. When she stopped to talk with Sheila, the voices of both women assuming a personal tenor, I shut my door and carried the pages to my desk.
Don’t stop reading. I need you to know. This story is about you, after all.
I sat down hard in my chair.
I know what you think, and it’s not true. Hear me out; I have nothing to gain by lying to you. You’re very important to me.
My fortitude, so carefully bolstered by my logic, cracked. Go away, I thought, my voice like a child’s in my mind. But even as I thought it, I knew that wasn’t really what I wanted.
I’ll tell you that thing you want to know, answer the question haunting you. You just have to hear me out—hear it through—first. Let me tell my story. All of it.
I am not a mindless monster. I do what I do for a reason. Question what you think you know about me. I’ve only told you the beginning. You don’t completely understand anything yet.
Time is failing us. Don’t let your natural instincts keep you at bay. You cannot trust them. They’re human, after all.
I promise you’ll get what you want in the end.
For now I offer you a rare gift. Take it.
I set the pages aside. Silently, robotically, I turned on my computer, logged on to the network. Opened my calendar. There was Katrina, at 9:00 A.M. That was all.
It appeared as I was staring at the screen:
9:30: Come outside. I’m waiting. L.
Insanity. It was all I had known these last few weeks.
I put on my coat.