Chapter 19

She doesn't tell Miles,or even Jen, about David's late night visit. She doesn't tell anyone. Sometimes, it feels more like a bad dream than a memory; a trick of her imagination to keep her nerves strung tight. Sara knows the moment she puts what happened into words, is the moment it will all feel real.

Which, with finals and the holidays looming around the corner, is literally the last thing her sanity needs.

Shockingly, Seth doesn't push it. Perhaps—no. He must see the way she jumps at every sudden sound. He has to. Seth sees her flaws and vulnerabilities as easily as if she were wearing each one pinned to her sleeves.

She tries to push it to the back of her mind, bury it under all the things she needs to do and the tests she needs to study for, but it keeps wriggling free. Teasing her until she surrenders and finally brings herself to ask, "How do you know?" It had been bothering her all day, a thought she couldn't escape no matter how much she tried to swat it away.

"I'm old and therefore know a lot of things," he drawls. "I'm afraid you'll have to be a touch more specific." His chin rests on the heel of his hand, expression bored as he watches the tv. It's a hot dog commercial; Sara wonders how many times he must have already seen it today.

"That he—" she stops, forces herself to say his name, "that David would hurt me."

He stills, his gaze piercing. "Be careful of what you ask, Princess."

She stands, temper rising, and turns the tv off before setting her hands on her hips. "Why? Because you don't want to talk about it?"

Seth's glare is equal parts annoyed and exasperated. "Because you won't want to hear it." His voice is smooth but firm; leaving no room for her arguments. "Some things are better left buried."

"Yeah, well, David isn't buried," she snaps, hand gesturing to her front door. "He's very much alive!"

Seth's lips parts, a retort ready on his tongue, but he closes his mouth before it can escape him—his jaw straining from the effort of holding it in.

"What? What were you about to say?"

His jaw works, a grimace tightening his features as his words hiss past his lips. "His body is alive," he says. The syllables sound forced, as if they're being ripped from his throat. "There is a difference."

Sara stills, heart stuttering in her chest. "What does that mean?"

A growl, deep and guttural, slips between his teeth—knuckles white as his hands clench over the upholstery. Suddenly he's standing, towering over her and way too close for comfort, but the look in his eyes—the manic gleam—pin her in place. "It means we are more than just flesh and bone," he snarls, lips pulled back and teeth gleaming in the light. His long, tapered fingers splay over his heart. "It isn't our bodies that make us, you foolish girl. Just because that, that thing, wears your dear David's face doesn't mean they are one and the same!"

His words strike like a blade, cutting sharp and deep. "That thing?" she echoes, voice as thin as the air feels. She takes one breath, then another, but each one feels more empty than the last. Swaying, her hand reaches for the wall to steady herself, shaking her head. What he's suggesting… it's too terrible to believe. "No. You're wrong."

The curled sneer shaping his lips softens; melting until it looks more like a grimace. "Maybe," he murmurs, but the shape of the syllables are too soft, too heavy. Pity masquerading as acceptance.

"No," she snaps, finding her balance. "Not maybe. You're wrong."

Seth says nothing, but the expression he wears—the pity darkening his eyes—gives him away.

He doesn't believe her.

What he thinks shouldn't bother her. She should walk away, forget this conversation ever happened, and move on with her life. But she can't shake the heat in his gaze—the conviction—when he spat David's name like a curse.

"Take it back," she says, trembling with a level of fear and fury she can't find a name for. She wants to hear him say it, wants to hear the words from his own lips, so she can cover up the memory of the ones barbed in her heart (that thing). "You're wrong, so take it back."

He openly flinches; the muscle in his jaw straining. "You're asking me to lie," he says, the statement hissing past his clenched teeth. "So, terribly sorry, but no. I won't."

"Why?!"

"Because I refuse to lie to you for the sake of your feelings," he snaps. "If you don't wish to hear my opinion on the matter, then don'task."

It strikes her, as quick and as devastating as lightning. She thinks of the way he twists everything, how every answer he gives is as convoluted and vague as possible.

It's not that he won't take back the words.

It's that he can't.

The implication of what that means makes her stagger. She sinks onto the couch, her hand covering her mouth and heart hammering against her ribs. Her mind scrambles to recall his words, to catch some hidden loophole, but everything is blurring together and she can't recall his exact phrasing. And, with how carefully he words everything, she gets the sense that—if she wants a true answer—hers must be too.

"Do you really believe it's not David?" she asks, voice soft. Believe, because to exclude that one word would be to open herself up to certainties and she just can't. No matter his answer, even if her suspicions are right and he's forced to tell her only truths, she doesn't want to be left without hope.

Belief isn't the same as fact.

"Yes." The word leaves him in a hiss, as if it physically pains him to say it. If Sara had any doubts about her theory before, she doesn't now.

"You can't lie, can you?" The question is little more than a murmur, but his reaction is jarring.

He stills, face twisting into a soundless snarl and his hands, fisting, tremble at his sides. "No." One word, one syllable. It lands between them, heavy with bitterness and edged with fury. It clangs, metallic and sharp, in her ears, and Sara realizes what that one word has stripped him of.

His armor.

He can't hide behind twisted half truths if she knows how to ask her questions. Form them right, and there is nothing he can hide from her; no secret safe so long as she knows what words to wield to pry it from his lips.

Seth seethes, and it's the first time Sara has ever seen him without his carefully arranged mask of control and composure. The heat in his glare is savage. Feral. Sara has never seen a wolf in the wild, but she imagines this is what it would look like—this untamed storm of fury and fear—if she backed one into a corner.

It's at that moment she realizes what it means to hold power over someone. She's already drunk off the potential of it—of knowing she can find the truth so long as she listens for it. But there's a grimace, a vulnerability, hiding behind his sneer, and it's enough to make her stomach churn. "You have to answer."

A statement, not a question, and his answering silence is proof that whatever magic forcing his tongue has rules. Sara licks her lips, pulse fluttering in her throat. She rearranges the words, asks again, "Do you have to answer?"

Maybe it's the sympathy weaved into her voice, or maybe he's simply resigned himself to the situation, but he wilts. The hard line of his shoulders, the knuckle-white clenching of his fists, loosens. The jagged edges of his snarl softens until his expression is more frost than fire. "Yes," he fumes, looking away.

Sara expects him to blink away, to run—she knows she would—but instead he sits, slouching in his chair and cradling his temple with long, pale fingers. He looks defeated, and she realizes that she probably isn't the first (or last) to have figured it out. Still… she shakes her head. "I don't understand."

Seth scoffs, not bothering to look up. "Shocking."

"Shut up," Sara murmurs, without any heat. Her mind is still strung up on the implications. "Why do you have to tell me the truth? What's the point?"

A muscle in his jaw jumps. From where she's sitting, she can almost imagine the groaning of his teeth. "Why," he spits the word as if it's poison, "must you insist on asking questions I have no answer to?"

"That doesn't—"

"It does," he snaps, "If you would just listen."

Her breath leaves her. "You... you don't know?"

"Does that surprise you?"

"I mean, you're kind of a know-it-all. So, yes?"

He huffs, gaze sliding back to the window. He must hate it, being nothing but honest all the time. Suddenly she has a newfound understanding of why ninety percent of the things that come out of his mouth are steeped in sarcasm.

Sara shifts, hands twisting in her lap. "It's… kind of backwards, isn't it? You having to tell the truth?"

He frowns, his hand lowering as he sends her a baffled look. "I beg your pardon?"

"Just, I mean," she stumbles, face flushing the longer he pins her with that stare. "I just thought lying would be part of the whole demon thing."

Seth's laugh is sharp. "First, I'm a figment of your imagination and now I'm a demon." He shakes his head, a sardonic smile twisting the corners of his mouth. "You certainly know how to give a man a complex."

"But if you're not…" A thought dawns, her stomach sinking like a weight. "Oh my—you're not the devil, are you?!"

He slouches further into his chair, hands cradling his temples. "No."

The idea is stuck now, though. Snared in a way that's hard for her to untangle. She remembers the darkness surrounding him, the lure in his voice, when he offered to save David's life. "But the deals and, and the souls!"

He groans, eyes disappearing behind an elegant hand. "I can assure you, I am not nearly old enough to be considered biblical."

The knot in her chest loosens, unwinding the longer she measures the resigned slump of his shoulders. Of course he's not. That would be insane.

Except this whole thing is insane. How else could she possibly describe living with a man only she can see? That blinks in and out of her life like a ghost, but has the power to pull David away from Death's door? She swallows, mouth dry, because she knows now that so many of her answers are only a question away. "Then what are you?"

His hands slide away, and he casts a praying glance to the ceiling. "At the moment? A man sitting in a chair. Now, would you kindly turn the television back on? I'm looking forward to hearing how Juan plans to explain his illegitimate child."

It's not an answer or, at least, not the kind she was looking for. Maybe, if she wasn't aware of the power her questions held over him, she would let it go—turn on the tv and let him deflect their conversation. But she does know, and this isn't an answer she's willing to give up. Not so easily. Not yet.

"Are you human?"

He stills, his words careful. "I was. Perhaps I still am."

God, he makes her want to scream. "What does that even mean?!"

His expression hardens, a subtle warning written in the line of his jaw. "I was born human," he hisses. "Whether I still qualify is up for debate."

His anger is palpable—like smoke—filling the room and burning her lungs. A warning, maybe even a threat, darkening his gaze. Sara doesn't care. The weight pressing on her chest is nothing compared to the questions clawing at her heart. Somewhere, David is living a life without her in it and she has to know why.

She swallows, wets her lips. Finds the right words in the lines of his scowl, pries them from him like a secret. "Why aren't you human?"

Suddenly he's in front of her, so close she could feel the heat of him if she wished it—a towering form of fury and resentment. Teeth bared, the words hiss past his sneering lips. "I was cursed."

Sara's lips part, eyes wide and chest heaving. He doesn't wait for her to blink before disappearing.