Chapter Thirteen

We get into the orchard and Jonas shivers, rattling the chain. It tugs in my hand, but he's not trying to go back.

"I don't remember this," he says.

"You would have been in a trance." Julia says and Jonas looks even less happy. "Hell had you, like a fish on a line, and it was reeling you in."

"Let's get you out of hell and then you'll never have to think about it again."

He grimaces. "I don't think I'm going to forget it again."

He will. I'll take it away from him when we're back.

The house looms ahead of us, a solid shadow, too dark to be a beacon.

It doesn't pull at me physically, but I have never wanted to get anywhere quite as much as I want to get back to that house.

The beetles and bees buzz and click around us, and Jonas swats at them to no avail, but I ignore them the way they ignore Julia.

We just have to get back so I can look for Dylan without having to worry about them.

Jonas starts walking faster once he can see the porch, and I don't blame him. He should want to leave.

But when I go to follow him, I hear a thud outside the house.

I turn too quickly and nearly fall off the step when I see Dylan disappear at the side of the house.

Dylan!

"Oh thank goodness." I tug on the chain and get Jonas's attention. "Dylan's here, let's grab him and go home."

He looks toward the side of the house, warily, but he comes with me.

Julia has already floated to where she can see Dylan, she doesn't look pleased that we've found him.

But she didn't like him in the first place.

I hurry over, but Dylan doesn't notice me when I get close. He doesn't respond to his name.

He just stares at the cellar door, walking a sloppy figure eight path, like a cat waiting for a mouse to come out of a hole.

"Hey," I say as I reach him, grabbing and shaking his shoulder. "You in there?

Dylan's head jerks to the side and his eyes focus on me, he smiles… "Genevieve?"

He glances from me toward Jonas and then his gaze stops on Julia. "What's going on?"

"I'll explain later." I won't. As soon as we get them back to the living world, I will be wiping their memory of this night, completely.

Jonas's chain still in my grip, I reach for Dylan's hand. He smiles as soon as I touch him and then he yanks me forward.

He wraps me in a hug and his lips go to my neck.

"Okay, we're not doing that." But when I try to push him away, his hand reaches up, wraps around my throat and he drags me forward to kiss me.

"Dylan, stop!"

Jonas helps me before Dylan actually manages it and he steps back shaking his head like one of us just slapped him in the face.

And then his gaze narrows on where Jonas's hand rests on my arm.

"Don't touch her." He says, lowly, and Jonas does let go of me.

"Dude. You need to take a deep breath and just… relax okay?"

"Relax?" Dylan stalks forward and gets up in Jonas's face.

I don't actually know how he manages it with their height difference.

"She's not yours." Dylan grabs Jonas's head and wrenches, tearing it clean off.

"Holy shit." I flinch back, but Jonas is fine.

Between one blink and the next, his head is back where it was and turns to me, whispering "What the fuck?"

Dylan looks at his empty hands, lips curled in an unheard snarl.

"You can't kill a soul that's already in hell…" Julia says, quietly, and then, she moves close. "I don't know if we should bring that one back."

"I have to fix what I did."

She looks at me with a concern I'm not used to from her. "Do you?"

Dylan grabs me by the shoulders and glares at me. "Are you fucking him?"

"What? No."

"Good." He jerks me against him again, kissing me with a… violence I didn't expect.

It takes me a moment to process what's actually happen and I shove at his chest and he doesn't let me go. So when he tries to press his tongue into my mouth, I bite it. Hard. And he's the one who shoves me away.

I go sprawling backward, hitting the ground with an ugly thud and a puff of yellow dust.

"What the fuck, Genevieve?" Dylan yells at me as he wipes his mouth—as if his tongue was bleeding.

"I could ask you the same."

There's no way to go back to what our friendship was. This version of him will always be there, a memory I can't—I won't erase.

Jonas helps me up and I glance at Julia, floating close, but watching—waiting.

"I spent months doing all the stupid things you like, learning things no one cares about," he says. "I think my time is up."

"Dude. What are you talking about?"

"I put in the hours." Dylan doesn't look at Jonas as he shoves him away and pushes me back down when I try to get up and get away. "Do you think I like any of that bullshit?"

He snatches the chain from where it lies in the yellow dirt and yanks Jonas off his feet again, dragging him toward the closest tree.

By the time I'm back on my feet, he's gotten that chain over one of the branches and hauled Jonas into the air.

Jonas swings from the branch like a befuddled pinata, swiping for the chain, but Dylan has tied him off and when I go to try to help him get back down, Dylan shoves me hard enough I hit the porch steps.

"You are an asshole," Jonas says, arms flailing as he tries to reach the hook to pull himself down.

"Yeah, I'm an asshole and she's a bitch." He glares down at me and a smile creeps slowly to his lips. "You owe me."

"I don't owe you anything."

Julia's face elongates as her chest moves in deep breaths. Dylan doesn't seem to even know she's there anymore.

"What the fuck, dude." Jonas struggles, trying to get himself free.

"Go inside," Julia says. Her voice is thin, almost as transparent as her body.

Dylan doesn't hear her, or he doesn't pay any attention to her, at the very least.

"I don't know what you want," I say as I lift myself up and back onto the steps, creeping up them backwards.

"Yes you do."

I get to the next step and he sighs.

"Fine." Dylan says. "I'll take what I want."

"Excuse me?"

He doesn't answer, he just looks at me like I'm a child, too stupid to understand him.

"Go ahead and scream." He takes a step forward. "It'll be hotter if you struggle."

"What the fuck? Is this who you were the whole time? Just acting like my friend because you wanted to fuck me?"

"Why else would I put up with your woo woo bullshit?"

I don't want to abandon Jonas, but I don't actually know what Dylan can do to me here. And he's already tried to rip Jonas's head off…

I scramble to my feet and run inside. The chains worked on Jonas… maybe I can die Dylan up with a sheet, or a curtain chord or…

I race up the stairs and Dylan follows me. He doesn't run. I wonder if he thinks I don't have anywhere to go.

Tie him up, or shove him through to the living world and deal with him out there where I can use my magic. Those are my only options right now.

"Taking yourself to a bed for me?" He asks, voice low, as he stalks me. "What a good girl."

My skin crawls and before I reach it, the bedroom door slams shut. There's nowhere else to go and I back up against it, cursing under my breath.

There's nowhere else for me to go between him and me, there's only a cupboard to the right and the bannister to the left.

"What are you doing, Julia?" I ask under my breath.

She doesn't answer.

The lights still flicker, the doors slam shut one by one, and she lifts through the floor in front of me.

She doesn't look like the woman she was.

This is the monster who killed her murder. This is the creature that sent every ill-intending visitor back where they came from.

She's horrific and beautiful and Dylan finally takes a step back. He finally balks.

His eyes go wide. The color leaches from his skin and he takes a step back.

Jaw unhinged, she lunges for him and he backpedals.

One step.

Two steps.

On the third, he turns to run and crashes through the banister instead, falling…

The boards in the foyer splinter and crack as he slams into them—slams through them.

I go to look over the edge and Julia wraps her arms around me, holding me back from falling too.

"You can leave him here, or you take him back. But he will try to attack you again if you leave him long enough."

"Will he attack me in the living world too?"

"I can't speak for the living."

And I can't abandon him to hell… even if I might want to.

I hurry down the stairs and past the hole in the floor.

Jonas still swings wildly from the tree and I pull the chain from the branch Dylan hooked it to.

He hits the ground with a "EUGH".

"If I unchain you, are you going to try to run away?"

"Not a chance. I want to get out of here."

"Good. We need these for Dylan." I unbolt the chain around his waist and pull it free. "And I need your help."