Page 57 of Interior Design for Demons
“She’s not my rival. She’s my friend.”
A movement catches my eye—Apollyon, seated in the front row, motioning for me to sit down. At the same moment Rath’s heavy hand descends on my shoulder, forcing me back into my chair.
Ishtar’s orange eyes blaze. “Miss Labelle and Ms. Norberg, stay behind,” she snaps. “The rest of you, go.”
The other three contestants and their sponsors hurry offstage.
I’ve never been this close to the bottom before.
I’m going to be eliminated.
And if not me, then Linnea.
Time crystallizes as I stare straight into Apollyon’s eyes. I know he’ll stay and watch while they kill me, and maybe he’ll come visit my tortured soul once or twice. Or maybe he’ll forget me completely, and find another human who looks at him the way I do. I’m sure there’s someone else out there who could love him for his sweet, perverse inner self and not just for his pretty face.
Yeah, okay fine—I think I might love him, and I want to say it. If Ishtar eliminates me I’m going to tell him. Maybe we’ll have a cool little Han-and-Leia moment right here in Hell. Maybe he will step in and defend me, claim me or something. Maybe—
“Linnea Norberg, you have been eliminated.”
Ishtar doesn’t dismiss me. Rath hauls my shock-frozen body from my chair and drags me off the stage, like he’s worried the judges might change their minds. Dimly I hear Linnea wailing, crying, and I think of Benny.
The instant we’re backstage with the others, Rath pins me to the wall in a rush of golden muscle and ashen wings. “That was too close!” His spit hits my face and I cringe away, tears starting in my eyes.
“You think I don’t know that?” I scream back.
“You weren’t cruel enough!” he shouts. “Your damned human heart is going to get you killed. You cannot be soft. You have to be the bitch who threw up on my upholstery, the one who let Apollyon touch her, just to make me jealous.”
“You want me to be that bitch?” I yell. “Fine. I wasn’t with Apollyon to make you jealous—I did it because that’s what I wanted. And I lied to you when I promised to be yours. I’m not yours. I’mmine. I won’t sleep with you, or promise not to care about someone else. If you want to kill me yourself—do it. I won’t soothe your precious little demon feelings anymore. I have just as much pride as you, and I won’t hide it for your sake, ever again.”
Petrified silence crackles in the room. The eyes of all the contestants and sponsors are riveted to us. The interview demon is grinning with manic glee, and her camera guy is recording, moving around to get different angles.
Rath heaves a great shuddering breath and lets me down. Then he backhands me across the face and I crash into the bar, shattering glasses. My neck hurts, my cheekbone throbs, my arms are studded with broken glass.
Stiffly Rath stalks from the room.
No one comes to help me. I pick myself out of the mess and stagger from the room, shaking, dripping blood along the floor. The demon by the door is the same one I told to fuck himself the other day, the one with the black-and-white hair and the horns like blades. He doesn’t stop me, or order me to stay and watch Linnea’s execution. Faintly I hear Ishtar’s voice pronouncing that Linnea will be drawn and quartered. A barbaric end for a classy, creative woman.
A sob jerks from my throat as I stumble along the hallway. I can’t make it back to my room like this—I’m losing too much blood.
“Apollyon,” I whisper.
The second I say it, there’s a tangible tug in my heart, and I stop moving, eyes wide.
Wow. Okay, so maybe my Star Wars moment here is more like Luke and Leia communing through the force.
I try again. “Apollyon.”
Again the tug, but he doesn’t appear. Maybe he can’t come yet. He has to stay and watch the execution, and dismiss the contestants like he usually does.
I brace myself against the wall, trying not to stare at my sliced-up arms. I have to stay alive until Apollyon can get to me. Although even if I die, the demons probably have a way to fix me up again. They don’t want me out of their precious contest just yet.
As I hobble around a corner, I stumble against someone—a demon with pixie-cut lavender hair, dark skin, and four tiny white horns. The demon who led my first tour of Hell, who showed me her secret creative project. Rath’s former girlfriend. Naamah.
“Naamah!” I gasp. “I’m so glad to see you. Please—help me.”
She stares at my face, then at my arms. “Rath stormed past me a few minutes ago—did you piss him off?”
“I did. Thoroughly. Can you help?”
