Page 92 of Interior Design for Demons
This is bad. This is really, really bad.
I want a do-over, and I can’t have one.
There are ten minutes left until the deadline.
Slate runs in with two dead plants. “Where do you want these?”
I stare at her, my jaws locked open, mute and terrified.
She frowns at me, her eyes narrowing. “What’s wrong with her, Ru?”
“Don’t know, sweets. She just froze like that.” He flicks my cheek. “Where do you want these plants, tenderling?”
With a mighty effort I close my mouth, mostly, and I manage to whisper, “Wherever you want.”
And then I run from the room.
I run all the way back to my suite, but instead of going inside I sink down in front of my door, speechless and shaking. Maybe some part of me hopes to be seen, to be found, to be comforted. But no one comes to me or touches me—not even Amanda. She gives me a pained, pitying look when she returns from her Round 8 interview.
I didn’t do my interview. They’re going to come looking for me so they can scrape thoughts out of my brain, dredge words from my lungs. I’ve lasted this long, I’ve been tough and determined, but I’ve lost myself now. I’ve lost my vision. I hate that room. Something went terribly wrong in there. If this were in the Earthly plane and I were a real designer, I could fix it—I could figure it out—but there’s no more fuckingtime.
I’m out of time.
A handful of hours until the elimination, and then a few hours after that there will be the usual party for the top three contestants, the ones who didn’t die horribly. I try to picture myself attending the party, drinking to celebrate my soul’s ongoing presence in my body.
I can’t envision it clearly.
After a while I drag myself into my suite, shower, and dress in a purple silk blouse and black dress pants to coordinate with my stupid design. No one comes to interview me for the episode, and I don’t know if that’s a good sign or not. After dressing I sit primly frozen on a chair for a while, until nervous energy buzzes hectic through my body, and I jump up to pace the room. Then I order food on my tablet—ridiculous amounts of rich food, with the half-buried thought that it might be my last meal.
When the food arrives, I pick at each dish, but nothing tastes quite like it should, or like I expected. I desperately want some fish tacos from this little place near campus where I went with my roommate one time. I want a Big Mac and fries. I want legit New-York-style pizza and a bowl of shrimp gumbo. I want one of the peppermint patties my high-school counselor kept in a jar on her desk.
I want the stale, hot-plastic smell of my car’s interior during the summer. I want the whisper and shiver of trees overhead as I walk down a cracked sidewalk. I want the bubbling giggle and bright eyes of a baby, and the loose-tongued, panting smile of a dog. I want the zipper on my laptop bag, the one that always got stuck, and I want the inappropriate whispers of my roommate and her girlfriend from across the room while I’m trying to sleep. I want popcorn and my earbuds and a TV show I’ve watched a million times. I want the satisfying glide of a gel pen on a notepad, and the warmth of a cozy sweater.
I want all of that—anda certain tall, red-haired demon who still has room for innocent wonder in his heart. I want the way he touches me, the reverence of his hands and decadence of his smile. I want to curl up with him on a sofa under blankets and run with him across the wet mirror-like sand of the beach.
The aching unfairness of everything I can’t have sours my heart, and I lie quietly incensed on the bed until Rath comes to escort me to the auditorium for elimination.
He doesn’t comment on the smorgasbord of practically untouched food. But before we push through those black doors onto the stage, he grips my shoulder—no claws this time.
“I have something I can use to save you,” he says. “If it comes to that.”
I should tell himno.
Don’t throw someone else under the bus to save my soul.
But instead, I nod, because Iwant.
“I won’t let them take you.” Rath’s voice is darkness and gravel. He lays his palm across my forehead, and I feel the suction of him drawing away the worst of my panic and anxiety. My body feels strangely boneless and lax now, though my heartbeat keeps up a frantic thrum in my chest.
The crowd of demons shrills with bloody delight as I walk onstage with Rath. They crow and cheer as my fellow designers arrive, shouting our names, knowing full well that they’ll witness someone’s excruciating death within an hour or two.
How long is this episode going to be?
It can’t be long enough, yet I don’t know how I’ll manage to sit through it.
When I see my room onscreen, a little of the tension trickles out of me, and I breathe deeper. It looks better than I thought. In fact, it looks damn good. Maybe I was being too self-critical.
Maybe I have a chance.
