Chapter 8

It'shours before she opens the door. Hours of sitting on the bathroom floor, her back against the tub, with her eyes flitting between her phone and the locked door.

Her search history is a horror show—a mismatch of supernatural and things like, ‘where can I buy sage in bulk' and ‘how to disconnect fire alarms'. There's no one-fits-all answer to her (very real) problem. Especially since she doesn't really know what he is, but one thing stands out.

Salt.

It's an easy remedy, and a hell of a lot cheaper than hiring an exorcist. She knows she has a large container in her cupboard—she remembers unpacking it—but she also has to get to it.

Sara doesn't really know if she believes in God, but as her hand folds around the doorknob, she mutters a quick prayer under her breath, anyway. Just in case. There"s a creak of the hinges when it opens. It's tiny, barely noticeable, but every sound feels twice as loud as it is, despite being masked by the drumming in her ears.

The kitchen. She only has to make it to the kitchen. The apartment is silent as a grave—he's probably not even there. What kind of lunatic would wait hours for her to come out of the bathroom?

Two steps into the hallway, she stills—heart in her throat. He's still in her apartment, studying the framed pictures hanging over the couch.

Before she can quietly retreat, he spots her—his dark eyes pinning her in place. "Ah, I wondered how long until you came out of hiding." The corner of his mouth twitches. "I admit, I hadn't expected you for a few more hours yet. Bravo."

Sara swallows, eyes flitting to the kitchen and back. The temptation to make a run for it is heavy on her chest, but she quells it with the memory of how he effortlessly blinked from one end of the room to the other. Outrunning him would be impossible.

She moves around him until the kitchen is at her back, each step measured. Careful. His brows raise, and she realizes he expects a response. She scrambles to find something to say, but the only thing that falls out of her mouth is, "You're still here."

"How terribly perceptive of you."

Her face burns. At her side, her hands fist—nails imprinting crescent moons on her palms. "I thought you left."

He hums, appraising her. "Yes, I'm sure you hoped for as much."

"I'm boring," she blurts. "You should find someone else."

"Come now," he croons, his crooked smile dimpling in the corner. "Don't be so hard on yourself. I'm certain you will prove quite entertaining."

"You should find someone else anyway."

"Souls are a tricky business, I'm afraid. The deal is done. There are no refunds, returns, or exchanges." His eyes gleam, wicked and dark. "You are mine, Sara. That truth will stand until you draw your very last breath."

She stiffens, hands trembling as she stares at him. "I'm not yours."

Seth's head tilts, his gaze traveling the length of her before meeting her eyes. "You truly have no concept of the value of what you've bartered, do you?" He shakes his head, smile cold—cruel. "Tell me, what do you think a soul is?"

Sara doesn't know. She has absolutely no idea what souls are, what they mean. Before today, she wasn't even entirely sure she believed they were real. But she isn't anybody's. Let alone some supernatural jerk that has the audacity to not only twist a flippant dismissal into acceptance and gift her with a curse instead of a miracle, but to insert himself into her life uninvited. She feels cheated. Used. "I hate you," she hisses, eyes burning with frustrated tears she refuses to let fall. "I'll never stop hating you."

It's supposed to be a threat; a reason in a long list of reasons for him to just leave her be. He only smiles as if it were a challenge.

"Oh, Sara," he soothes, a false pity curling around the syllables of her name like smoke. "That isn't the threat you think it is."

A retort—a scream—rests in her throat, burning hot, but before she can spit the words, he disappears. Gone between blinks without ever even having to raise his hand to snap.

Sara doesn't knowwhere he's gone, or when he'll be back, and the anxiety that comes with not knowing is almost as bad as him being there. She scrambles for the kitchen, pulling the container of salt out of the cupboard. It's full, only just opened to fill the little salt shaker on her little two person bistro table. She thanks whatever higher power that might be listening for small miracles (before cursing them for putting her in the situation to begin with).

Muttering under her breath, she takes the salt and lines the thresholds and the windows with a trembling hand. She has no idea what she's doing, not really, but she's careful to make sure the lines she pours are straight and uninterrupted—wall to wall, frame to frame—before pouring a fistful into her palm.

In theory, the salt should be enough to keep him from entering the apartment, but (in theory) none of this should be possible at all,so Sara doesn't push her luck. Pulling the ratty wingback chair into a corner where she can easily see the rest of the apartment, she sits. Her fingers close around the granules, adrenaline making her pulse thrum as she waits.

And waits.

And waits.

She doesn't dare move, doesn't dare let her guard down for even a second, because she knows the moment she does is the moment he'll appear.

When he finally arrives, it's hours later and the sun is just beginning to descend over the horizon, casting long shadows across the apartment. He appears, back to her and fingers straightening his cuff, in the center of the living room.

Sara doesn't give him time to turn around.

With a shrill cry, she throws the salt at his back—

And watches as the fistful of tiny crystals bounce right off him.

A moment of pause—so still, Sara can feel each trembling beat of her heart as her lungs burn for the breath she doesn't dare take.

Slowly, his hand drops from his sleeve. His body turns. The smirk he wears is as dark—as challenging—as the gleam in his eyes. "And here you worried our time together would be dull."

She says nothing. Her hopes are as small and dashed as the salt littering her living room.

Hands in his pockets, he steps toward her—towering over her. Sara's too numb to move as he leans down, snaring her wide, panicked gaze with his dark one. "You will have to try much, much harder than that, Princess."

She tries the sage next.

Smoke fills the rooms, coiling and swirling from the bundled leaves in her hand like snakes. Seth sits in the wingback, his chin resting against his palm and a subtle smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. His eyes are dark, gleaming wickedly as they follow her from room to room.

By the time it's burnt to the stems, her apartment is filled with enough smoke to make her eyes water and her lungs itch. She tosses the remains in the sink, dousing it in water. Before she turns around, she closes her eyes and mutters one final prayer under her breath.

When she looks, he's in the exact same place with the exact same infuriatingly smug expression.

"Well," he hums, "you've made a right mess, haven't you?"

Chest heaving, she drags in a breath—fury fueling her—but the smoke triggers a coughing fit before she can spit out the first word.

His amusement is as obvious as her anger.

"Leave," she rasps between coughs, the venom in her voice clear despite her wheezing. She's not sure if she's commanding or begging—at this point she doesn't even care so long as he gets the hell out of her life.

His eyes gleam. "No."

She tries everything.

Nails cheap wooden crosses over every door. Plants (supposedly) purifying crystals in every room. The silver necklace she never really liked but could never manage to part with, finds a home around her neck despite the way it burns with memories of her mother. Before she left, she used to wear the matching heart-shaped pendant daily. When the crosses don't work, she nails up iron horseshoes next to them and kisses the deposit on her apartment goodbye.

Pentagrams drawn in chalk.

Holy water tossed at his chest.

Chants and prayers in several languages, she just knows she's butchering.

Even the priest she convinced to come bless her home (and herself) only succeeds in drawing a snicker from Seth's pale lips.

Nothing works. Nothing helps.

She wakes up each morning teetering between stubborn hope and crushing despair, sometimes swinging between the two so quickly it makes her dizzy. Meanwhile, the days keep slipping by—time unmoved by her struggle to regain her balance. Oma calls at least three times a week, and Sara only just manages to sound convincing as she picks apart her day and shares the bits and pieces that don't include the uninvited guest shadowing her.

Jen and Miles aren't as easy to fool. Sara can read the worry in their voices each time she cancels and avoids making plans for the remainder of the summer.

Jen's voice is soft, free of judgement but brimming with concern. "Are you sure you're ok? I hate thinking of you being alone right now with everything that's happened…"

Sara bites her cheek, glares at the man/demon lounging on her living room furniture and coaxing her cat into his lap as if he belonged there. Either he can hear Jen's voice through the receiver or he can feel her stare, because the grin he gives her is mocking.

She wants to scream that being alone is the exact opposite of her problem. Instead, she tries to sound convincing when she says, "I'm fine, Jen. Promise. I just need a bit more time to figure everything out."

The beat of silence, the thread of doubt lacing her voice, makes it clear Jen's not convinced when she responds, "If you're sure…"

Sara's so far from sure it's laughable, but she assures her anyway. "I am."

Scratching under Ansel's chin, Seth's smile only sharpens. "Liar," he says, the single word dripping in approval. "Perhaps there's hope for you yet."

It's in that moment, more than any of the others, that Sara believes what he's told her from the very beginning.

She's never getting rid of him.

He foldshimself into her life.

Tears apart the seams of her routine, stitches it back into something she can only barely recognize. She's constantly looking for him, nerves singing as she expects to find him around the corner, across the street, lounging in her chair. It's been weeks, but she still isn't numb to the way he can blink in and out of her life—can't shake the way her heart jumps in surprise every time she turns around to find him close.

She pulls the cork out of the bottle of wine, forgoing the glass to take a deep drink. It's cheap—cheaper, even, than what she usually buys—but right now she doesn't even care. Her nerves are wound so tight, she's afraid she'll snap. Just one night, she prays. Let him stay away for just one damn night so she can drink and pass out and—

"Having a party for one, are we?"

She jumps, the bottle slipping from her fingers and landing with a clunk on the floor. It's a small miracle it doesn't shatter, but she's dismayed to see the red wine spilling across the floor.

"Damn it!" she hisses, grabbing the bottle by the neck and mourning the loss. It was just some cheap wine, but it was hers. But of course he just had to ruin that, too. She's too angry, too tired, to remember to be afraid. The blood is roaring in her ears, the aftertaste of the wine sharp and bitter on her tongue. "What the hell is wrong with you?!"

Seth raises a brow, leaning against the counter. It's the first time she's seen him without his coat—the white sleeves of his shirt rolled up to the elbows, flashing the pale skin of his forearms. She misses the coat. Without it, he looks too casual. Too at home. "Far too much, I'm afraid." His eyes flit to the bottle in her white-knuckled grip. "Though, I'm sad to say alcoholism isn't one of them."

She stills, the echoed memory of clinking glass bottles ringing like an accusation in her skull. "I don't have an alcohol problem," she says, the words hissed between her teeth.

"And yet you were eager enough to skip the glassware entirely." His fingers curl around the edge of the counter at his back, his gaze dangerously intense. "It must be a truly special occasion."

He's wrong—she knows he is—but the accusation is a well-aimed blade striking one of her deepest fears. There's a reason she doesn't keep alcohol in the apartment; a reason why she will only buy one bottle of wine, one six pack of beer, at a time and only occasionally. She won't risk letting herself trip into her father's mistakes.

His gaze flits to the clenched fists at her sides, understanding darkening his eyes. "Ah, I see I've found a nerve." He meets her glare, the corner of his mouth twisting into a cruel, teasing smirk. "Tell me, is it your mother or father you're so terrified of becoming?"

Both, she thinks. She's so furious she's shaking. The glass neck of the bottle in her grip grows hot. "Shut up."

His head tilts, smile sharp. "My, haven't we grown brave?"

His words are a gunshot, her anger dropping from the sky like a bird full of lead. The tightness in her chest becomes a cold weight. The being in front of her doesn't play by mortal rules—can travel without taking a single step, is invisible to all eyes but her own. Who knows what else he's capable of?

Sara pales, taking a step back even though she knows it doesn't matter. There's no escaping him—she could run to the other end of the world and he'd only be a blink behind.

The serrated edge of his smile softens into a frown, irritation pulling at his brow. "Your fear is wasted."

"I don't believe you."

He stalks toward her, and it's only her stubbornness that keeps her feet planted. Sara has never felt short, but when he stands this close—when the space between them is inches instead of feet—he towers over her. In his shadow, she tilts her head up, refusing to drop her gaze even as her heart tattoos a warning against her ribcage.

He stares down at her, brow raised and hands sinking into his trouser pockets. "Have I not upheld my promise to bring you no harm?" he coaxes, the timbre of his voice an oil spill—suffocating and slick.

She grits her teeth, each word an enunciated hiss. "I. Don't. Believe. You."

"Stubborn thing," he chastises, but there's approval laced in his voice. And Sara realizes he wants her to challenge him. It's not as comforting as it should be. "Very well. Hold out your hand."

Her fingers clench the bottle, ready to swing. "Why?"

Seth huffs. "Because seeing is believing, and a sharp tongue is far more entertaining than a dull one."

There's an innuendo there, one that she absolutely refuses to acknowledge.

He raises his hand, palm facing her, and motions for her to do the same. There's nothing threatening about it, but she still hesitates a few seconds before raising a trembling hand.

He smirks. "Now, was that so terrible?"

She bristles, biting her cheek. Whatever point he's trying to make, he hasn't finished making it.

Tsking, he shakes his head. "So serious." When her glare doesn't falter, he chuckles—that damn smirk of his widening. Then, before she can register his intentions, he presses his open palm against her own.

She stares at the way their hands are pressed. His fingers are long and tapered, his larger hand dwarfing her own, but it's neither of those things that make her blood run cold and her body freeze.

She can't feel him.

The bottle slips from her fingers, wine spilling out over the floor. She can feel it saturating the soles of her socks.

He leans down, mouth hovering beside her ear. He's too close, she should feel warmth from his body, hear the whisper of his clothing, but there's nothing. "Well, Princess?" he murmurs, a breath that's not a breath. "Do you believe me now?"