Page 10 of The Devil She Knows
It—shesmiled, teeth razor-sharp and stark white against the deep crimson of her mouth. “No, silly. It’sDaphne.”
She was breathtakinglyhorrible. The blue of her eyes was gone, the white, too, replaced with two inky-black voids, her stare sucking Sam in. The only thing unchanged was her hair, inexplicably still blond and still spilling over her shoulders, only now there were two curved crimson horns jutting out from her gently teased roots.
“I’m guessing this is closer to what you had in mind?” She cocked a hip, striking a pose, drawing Sam’s eye to the—Oh, okay.That was a—a thing she had. Long, sleek, and the same color red as the rest of her, growing darker at the spadeshaped end, a tail,hertail, twitched idly behind her. “It’sfine, I guess, but it’s what everyone expects, you know?” She rolled her eyes. Or at least Sam thought she did. Hard to tell, considering her eyes were infinite pools of black.
Sam needed to sit down. She pressed her palms flat against the floor. Oh, right. Shewassitting down.
“I—you—there are—you’ve got …horns,” she stammered, and Daphne’s lips twitched. She stole in a deep breath and started over. “You are a demon.”
“I mean, don’t sound so surprised. Ididtell you.” Behind Daphne, her tail swished from side to side, a lot like how those of Sam’s kitties, Nacho and Pumpkin, did when they were feeling playful.
Air shuddered between Sam’s lips as she slumped against the wall, reeling. No,spiraling. “Demons are real, and you are one.”
“As we’ve established,” Daphne said, sounding amused.
Dreaming.Sam had to be dreaming, trapped in a nightmare, or—or maybe she’d knocked her head on a subway pole and was passed out on the floor of the 1 train and this was all just a figment of her brain’s overactive imagination and—and concussive trauma. Or something. In a few hours or days she was going to wake up in a hospital bed with a bump on her head and a bill that would bleed what was left of her savings account dry, but in a world without demons.
Just in case, Sam slipped her fingers inside the sleeve of her coat and pinched the thin skin of her wrist hard.
“Did you just pinch yourself?”
“No,” she lied, scowling as heat gathered in her cheeks.
Daphne grinned, mouth full of too-sharp teeth. “Humans are so cute sometimes.”
Humans.Jesus Christ on a cracker. Only Sam, with the worst luck in the universe, would find herself stuck in an elevator with a demon. An actual living, breathing—Wait.
“Are you even alive?”
“Am I alive? That’s what you care about? Seriously? I can’t die if that’s what you’re asking, so don’t go getting any funny ideas,” Daphne warned before, in the span of time between one blink and the next, returning to looking human. She shimmied her shoulders, settling into her skin like most people settled into a well-worn shirt, and sighed, relief plain in her features. “Since we’re finally on the same page, let’s get down to brass tacks, shall we?”
4
“YOU WANT HANNAH to be with you? Respect you? Love you?” Daphne asked. “Hell, why stop there? I could make the whole world love you. Millions,billionsof adoring fans. Simpering, swooning over you. I can make it happen. All you have to do is say—”
“I don’t want the whole world to love me. Just Hannah.”
“Boring,” Daphne singsonged. “But whatever, it’s your life. You want your snooty little girlfriend to be head-overheels in love with you? I can make it happen.”
Another unfair assessment. If Daphne knew Hannah, she’d know Hannah had been raised by a single mom who cleaned houses in a wealthy suburb just west of Newport, working herself to the bone and still struggling to make ends meet. She’d know that Hannah knew what it was like to go to school with the girls whose houses her mom cleaned and to be looked down on because of it, teenage cruelty at its finest. She would know that Hannah knew better than mostwhat it felt like to be on the outside looking in, to feel like no matter how hard she tried, she’dalwaysbe on the outside looking in. That a part of Hannah worried, would always worry, that she didn’t actually belong in the crowds she ran in now that she had money, and that everyone knew it, too.
If Daphne knew Hannah, she’d know that even before Hannah struck gold on TikTok, when she was working as a makeup artist and living in a two-bedroom apartment with three roommates, barely covering rent and groceries, she still scraped together a few extra dollars to send home to her mom each month. And two years ago, when shehadstruck gold, earning her first big brand sponsorship, the first thing Hannah had done was pay off her mom’s mortgage. Sam’s student loans had been next, Hannah telling Sam toconsider it my investment in your futurewhen Sam had balked.
In a way, Sam owed it to Hannah to keep trying.
“How?” she demanded, too suspicious to be anything close to hopeful.
Daphne sighed explosively. “This again? Really? I’m a demon.Demon.An agent of evil, one that—”
“No. You’re a demon. Trust me, I get that.” The horns and tail were damning evidence. Pun totally intended. “But why should I trust that you have the power to do what you say you can? Hell, you’re ademon. Why should I trust you at all?”
Daphne’s bottom lip jutted out in an exaggerated pout. “That’s awfully prejudiced of you, casting aspersions and making judgments because of what I am. I’ve got to say, I’m a little disappointed in you, Samantha.”
“Oh, save it.” She pressed a palm to her forehead; she wasclammy, nervous sweat cooling on her skin, leaving her chilled. She hugged her coat around her body a little tighter. “Demons are … they do …”
“We do …?” Daphne prompted, eyes wide, eager.
“I don’t know! Bad things. You said it yourself, you’re an agent of evil.”
