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Prologue
NINE YEARS OLD
I was nine when I realized my father was a bad man, and it was all because I needed to pee.
My bladder woke me up somewhere between bedtime and morning, the time when darkness seems to stretch on forever. When the monsters come out to play.
But that night, they weren’t hiding under my bed or lurking in my closet.
They were at the end of the hall.
I called out for my father to take me to the bathroom. Once, twice. No response.
So, I crept out onto the landing, following the only source of light, the yellow glow from under the door at the end of the hall. The door I was forbidden from opening. I wasn’t a rebellious child, but if I was feeling bold, I’d wrap my tiny hand around the rusting knob, letting the adrenaline turn me dizzy. If I was feeling reckless, I’d twist it.
It was never, ever, unlocked.
But like time, a nine-year-old’s bladder waits for no man. Even if said man is busy slitting another man’s throat.
The door wasn’t locked like it usually was. As I crept closer, I realized the yellow glow wasn’t just coming from under the door, it stretched up the side of the frame too. It was ajar.
I followed the light and the gruff voices, and I watched silently from the safety of the crack of light from the door.
Even at nine, I knew I could have screamed and shouted and cried; my father would have still plunged the knife into the man’s neck.
Even at that young age, I knew it was wrong. I knew my father was a bad man.
But the figure in the shadows, the one with the glowing amber eyes, so bright they sliced through the darkness, and the cigar tucked into the corner of his mouth?
I knew instantly.
He was the Devil.
Poppy
FIFTEEN YEARS OLD
I saw the Devil when I was nine.
He claimed me when I was fifteen.
The six years that stretched between those two events were anything but peaceful.
The man with the amber eyes went from having a supporting role in the worst memory of my life, to taking a leading role in the soap opera that was my imagination. Like any character in a long-running show, he evolved with every season. He grew stronger, darker, scarier with every sleepless night I spent staring at my ceiling. His yellow eyes became more and more piercing with every sweat-drenched nightmare. His looming figure expanded, filling up more than the darkened corner of my father’s study. No. It filled the entire room, then poured out into every inch of my brain.
I was nine when I realized my dad, Marcus Murphy, was a bad man. But I’m fifteen when I realize he is a cowardly one.
His hurried footsteps grow louder and louder, that’s what wakes me up. His frantic voice accompanies them.
“Poppy.” My bedroom door bursts open so hard that for a moment, I think he’s ripped it off its rusting hinges. “You need to get up.Now.”
Most teenage girls woken up at the crack of dawn by their frantic father would expect the worst. That something had happened to a loved one. Except, I don’t have anyone to love outside of the four Barbie-pink walls of my box-sized bedroom. My mom was found swinging from the garage rafters when I was still in diapers, and both sides of the family severed ties with my father, and consequently me, after the funeral.
I tuck the bed sheet under my chin, recoiling at the sudden shock of light coming from the naked light bulb swinging above my head. “What have you done now, Dad?” I grumble, swallowing the annoyance that follows the initial shock.
Now.What have you done now.
It’s a valid question because my father has always donesomething.Thesesomethingsare the reason we have a baseball bat by the front door and the reason I have to tell the scary men who appear in our doorway unannounced that he isn’t home, even though he’s hiding in the linen closet.
