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The rain fell in heavy sheets I could barely see through as her black smoke came back from where it hid. It wrapped around her like a cocoon, protecting her from the torrential pour, before it blew away to reveal nothing but empty space and a single moth that flitted up into the sky, unaffected by the heavy drops of rain.
Each breath huffed my chest as my eyes fell to the ground at my feet.
Protecting Eden had already been my mission, a mission I was now terrified I would fail. It annoyed me I could not recall exactly what happened when I went against Maledictia. I did not know if I cut her down easily or if she had made me work for my victory. It felt like something treacherous had wormed its way inside my mind, erasing things without my permission. One thing was for certain, all I had to lose when I went against her before was myself. There was no fear in that. I welcomed the embrace of death as just another adventure but now I had far too much to lose.
Eden.
My wife.
Our marriage had been a burden. Shackles wrapped around my wrists with a consequence I constantly felt weighing me down. Then she had evolved into a mere curiosity. I enjoyed watching the way her mind was a constant wave of emotion. It ebbed and flowed unpredictably. One moment she was drowning in fear and then she sat on the beach with her anger. All the while she dug. My eyes had been so glued to the storming seas I never noticed she dug her way into the depths of me. Burrowed herself under my flesh. Under the muscle deep into the bone.
My quarrel with the witch Maledictia was one I never thought about. Now I couldn’t be sure if that was all a part of their plan. I didn’t know if I was meant to forget Maledictia so her sister could lay out her little scheme. Corner me when I least suspected it.
Feuds between witches and demons were so common. The hate was there because it was meant to be. Her mind was wired to hate me merely because of the flesh I was wrapped in and the blood in my veins. Stealing from me — whether it be powers or whatever else was important to me — was the way she could claim victory.
My mortal clothes moulded to my flesh as the rain steamed against me. I stood there in the night wondering about the witch Maledictia and whether or not her sister would be just as easy to destroy.
22
EDEN
People could be funny when they were drowning in their thoughts and scared out of their minds. Some people tried to lay it all out. Look at every little bit of information and try to puzzle their way out of the problem. Me? I found myself at a grocery store.
Did I need groceries?
Nope. But I woke up still married to a demon so… here I was. Pushing a cart around the store looking up at stacked shelves. Seeing nothing as my mind screamed at me that I was two scenes away from being killed off by a witch.
I needed to get out of the house. That’s all this was. Normally I would go to one of my girls’s places or Gran’s or Abuela’s. I’d sit in the seats I knew well enough they pretty much had my ass print in them while I chewed on my thumbnail and bitched about life. Something told me this needed more than a rant session and the very thought of going to a place where someone I loved lived with a demon key in my chest and a witch on my ass made bile rise to sit in the back of my throat.
Sneaking past a demon and out of the house had been easier than I anticipated. As I stepped over him in the hall outside my bedroom, I expected his hand to reach out and grab me. Every second was suffocated in tension as I tiptoed out of my house.
To the grocery store of all places.
Hey. An escape was an escape. A win was a win.
The cart had a wonky wheel. It wobbled and creaked. My eyes dropped, looking through the empty cart to the wheel as I gritted my teeth.
Stupid wheel.
Stupid demon husband.
My hands tightened around the cart and I shook it. It lifted off its back wheels, rocking onto the front before it teetered on its side. Eyes squeezed closed, I shook it like my very life depended on it. Every breath I took felt hollow and shaky. My chest inflated as I peeled my eyes open.
A woman stood in front of me. She held a can of tomato sauce, her other hand clutched to her chest as she stared at me like I had just lost my damned mind.
I felt like I did.
“Sorry,” I whispered, forcing a smile as I pushed my hair back from my face.
She tossed the can in her cart before she hurried away without a word.
“Yeah…” I huffed a breath. “I’d stay far away from me too.”
Okay. I could handle this. I just had to—
What?
That was the problem. I had no idea what I had to do. I was someone who needed to know. I needed a list in front of me, all the tasks clear. The goal in sight. There was none of that. All I knew was maybes and even those were shaky. I wanted a blueprint for all this. There was a reason I went into architecture. I liked the definitive measurements. The math. Seeing it all laid out before me. Clean. Precise.
