Page 101 of Worse Than Wicked
What would you give up for me?Mabel whispers.
“Everything,” I whisper, and I open the matchbook.
For a flash, I see it empty.
There’s nothing there. No options.
But when I blink, they’re back. Half a book still. Plenty of chances, if the first one fails.
“For you, and for Baron,” I say. “You always belonged with him.”
Colt smirks down at me, all smoke and shadow, and flicks his Bic.
Nothing happens. “Got a light?”
I tear off a match. “And you belong with Lo.”
And you belong with me,my demon whispers.
It’s the only place I ever belonged. Maybe that’s why I made him up, like Mabel thought she made up Dahlia. Because I didn’t fit with my family, and he kept me company. He helped me fit with them, helped me belong, like I helped Baron belong to the world. But it was always just the two of us. Me and my demon. But he’s not real, so it’s just me.
Colt was right. There is no demon. It was always just me.
I hate him for that. For knowing me better than I knew myself. For calling me ‘man’ like we’re buddies, like that’s all we are. For not letting me hate him.
I press the head of the match to the strip. I can smell it, the phantom sulfuric scent through the gasoline. It makes me delirious.
He won’t do it,Dad whispers.He’s not man enough.
I can see them all crowded around the bed now, phantoms in the vapors of gasoline.
They’ve gathered to watch me go.
Dawson. Dad. The man we killed.
Jane. Dixie. The demon who looks like me.
Is it Baron? Is he my demon?
He doesn’t belong to the world. He belongs to me. He is me.
His hand closes around mine, gentle but firm. It crushes my fingers painfully tight.
“Don’t. Move.”
I stare up at him through my glasses, smudged and splattered with gasoline. He’s a mirage, a figment of my imagination like the demon, a drug-fueled hallucination. He’s my reflection in the mirror, myself but reversed, the man I want to be. My savior.
“Baron?”
“What. The fuck. Are you doing?” he asks.
“It’s really you?” I pull my hand away, and he sucks in a breath through his teeth. I touch his face. I must be dreaming. I must have already done it, and this is what comes after.
“Duke. What are you doing?” he asks, and this time, his voice breaks.
“Are you here to kill me?” I ask, thumbing the slight indent in his square chin, the same one I have. “I knew you’d come. Light the match. It’s okay. I’m ready.”
“I’m not.”
