Page 84 of Interior Design for Demons
“Good.” He nods frantically, desperately. “Good, good. Because I thought you might be in love with him.” His laugh is a shrill thread, ending in choked hiccups. Fat tears glitter in his eyes. “And after what these demons have done to me—”
“No,” I gasp. “No, no, I couldn’t love anyone who has done that much evil. I mean, it wouldn’t make sense. It would be so far beyond reason, beyond hope—there would be no future in it.” My voice thickens with emotion. “And it doesn’t matter that I feel more seen and accepted here than I ever did in the Earthly plane. It doesn’t matter that I have more friends in Hell than I did in college, right? Because whodoesthat, who makes friends with demons and traumatized fellow contestants more easily than with their peers?”
My father swipes away his own tears with his thumb and blinks at me. “No, I understand that,” he says slowly. “When people show you their truest, darkest selves, when you know they won’t judge you—it’s easier to connect with them. My best friends were part of the trafficking ring. Some of them are still alive. Others are in the Pit, just like me.”
A hysterical laugh breaks from me. “So you get it.”
His hand slides trembling across the table, halting midway. “I do.”
A hard gulp barely keeps my tears from shattering into sobs. Slowly I stretch my hand out, and he grips it like a treasure, like a lifeline, like the cord that could pull him out of the Pit. And I could pull him out. Maybe. If I win, he’ll be moved to the Abeyance, a much milder place of infernal residence.
“I’m trying as hard as I can,” I whisper. “It hasn’t been easy.”
“Just make it to the top three,” he says tightly. “Survive. That’s all I care about. I made my choices, okay? I deserve to be punished for what I did. I enabled, and I—” He swallows hard. “I may have done more wrong than I let you believe.”
A sick dread roils in my stomach, and my limbs go weak. “Don’t tell me. Please don’t.” I tug my quivering fingers from his clammy ones.
His lower lip is shaking, and he pulls his own hand back into his lap. “I won’t.”
We sit there for a few moments, snared in the awful silence of his misdeeds. Finally he clears his throat. “Tell me everything about your life,” he says. “Everything you can think of.”
I choose the best bits, the good moments, and I soften the loneliness I have felt, the judgment, the derisive looks, the disgusted stares. I sidestep the subtle bullying from the girls in school, the ache in my heart when my foster parents let their love flow to their other children and then stiffly hugged me. Instead I talk about pets and picnics, about splashing in puddles with a foster brother whose face I barely remember, and playground friends I knew for only a few hours. I talk about my favorite art teacher and the pottery class I took. Then I explain the modern design tools and software I’ve been learning to use in my college courses.
My father’s face softens and brightens as I speak. He devours everything I tell him until the door to our room opens, and Rath pokes his head in. “Ten minutes left,” he says, before leaving again.
“I’ve talked enough,” I say. “Dad, I want you to tell me about my mother.”
Judging by my father’s description, my mother sounds like a saint. Nothing like me at all. To be honest, I feel less connected to her than I do to my broken sinner of a dad, who is escorted out of the interview room while I grip the sides of my chair to keep myself from clawing him into a hug and never letting go.
Then he’s gone, and I didn’t hug him, and I won’t ever see him again.
Rath takes me back to my room in silence; but after he leaves I don’t stay in my suite. I can’t.
Instead I wander the hallways of the Hellscraper that has become my home. The tug of Apollyon’s existence is a constant pressure in my mind, and I know that he’d hear me if I called him. I can’t talk to him, or feel his emotions, but we’re connected, and I’m pretty sure it’s an eternal, irrevocable thing. Which is going to suck if I’m returned to the Earthly plane and this feeling inside me doesn’t fade.
The next day, the demons have another wicked surprise for us, becauseof coursethey do. Not only are we paired off into three teams of two, as Apollyon hinted—but we’re taken into a gigantic warehouse the size of a stripped-down Costco. It’s empty, gutted except for single objects placed at intervals all over the floor. From where I’m standing, next to my teammate Hisae, I can see a single white tile, a square chunk of wood, a piece of cross-shaped plastic, and a strip of what looks like wicker, or something woven. There are tiny paint samples, bits of gold leaf, scraps of cloth.
Apollyon whisks past me, close enough to brush my arm, and a chill of awareness runs over my whole body. “Ladies and gentlemen—in this room we’ve laid out a variety of raw materials. Your team will have twenty seconds to pick up as many of these as you can. When the time is up, you will freeze in place, and whatever you hold in your hands will be what you use to decorate your room for Round 7. We will provide basic fasteners, and we can get you more of the objects you collect, in any quantity or size you desire—but you won’t be given anything extra with which to design your rooms. No furniture, accessories, or special orders from the Earthly plane.” Mouth quirking, he glances at me. Rebelliously I glare at him. It’s not like I’m the only one who’s been ordering a ton of cool stuff to use in my rooms.
“Are you ready?” Apollyon’s blue dragon wings whip from his back, and his horns extend, along with his claws. At first I’m afraid he’s transforming against his will—but apparently he’s in control this time. He grins, his teeth long and sharper than usual. “When I roar, begin.”
“Wood first,” Hisae mutters to me. “Then fabric and neutral paint. Then extras.”
As I’m nodding to her, Apollyon’s roar rips through the air. Resisting the impulse to cover my ears, I charge for the nearest wood sample and crack my skull into Aghilas’s. But my hand got to the sample first. For a second I almost let him have it—but my dad’s tear-streaked face flashes into my mind and I shoulder Aghilas aside, gripping the scrap of wood in my fist. I don’t look for Hisae—I race at top speed across the room, slam to my knees beside a piece of blue fabric. Nearby is some green paint—not sure what shade—I snatch that too. A bit of bronze something or another. A rock. A piece of twine—
Wait a second.
A few strides away lies a jumble of toy-sized electronics. A TV, a game console, a doll-sized Blu-ray case, some other stuff—weird—why would those items be here, unless they’re somehow applicable to the challenge?
On impulse I drop everything but the wood, and I collect all the electronics. Hisae is probably going to be pissed at me, but—oh well.
I’m scrabbling for a bit of tile when Apollyon roars again. I freeze, my finger on the edge of the tile. Am I allowed to pick it up once time has been called? Better not, I guess.
Sighing, I rise, inspecting my strange collection. Hisae walks over to me, carrying some paint, fabric, cotton stuffing, and a snippet of a fake plant. She stares at the piece of wood and the electronics I’m carrying.
“What have you done?” she says, glaring at me.
“I—thought we might need them,” I reply lamely.
