Page 79 of Demon Hunger
“I love you. With all that I am. I’ve loved you for a long time, but I’ve been lying to myself. I was afraid of what it would mean to be with someone like you. But you made me realize that it doesn’t matter who the heart chooses. Once it does, there’s nothing anyone can do to change it. I was being a fool, trying to fight it. I love you, and I would do anything for you. Anything.”
Tears were flowing freely down his cheeks now. His chin trembled with the strength of his emotion. I draped my arms over him and gently and awkwardly hugged him. After a moment, his arms came around me too, surprising me the way his voice had. He seemed to be growing stronger with each passing moment.
I pulled away and looked him in the eye. His chest moved with a deep inhale. He touched one hand to the side of my face.
“My Lucia,” he said. “I have longed to hear those words from your lips from the day I met you. I never thought…” He pushed up, trying to sit.
“What are you doing? Don’t move. You’re hurt.”
He shook his head. “I’m not.”
What?He was delirious.
“Are you sure you can’t take us to Dani? You seem…” I said.
“We don’t need to go.”
I drew back as he fully rose to a sitting position. I watched him, dumbfounded.
“You’re wounded.” This time, I tore his shirt open, sending buttons flying in every direction.
The remnants of golden blood stained his skin, but there was no wound where the dagger had been.
“How…?” I couldn’t finish as my jaw dropped open.
“You, Lucia. You save me.”
28
Lifewasquietnow,as I’d wished many times while I’d been caught up in the awful games of a cruel creator.
But I had saved the world.
Thereweren’tfour more subjects to redeem. We were done.
Needless to say, I was ecstatic, and I wasn’t the only one.
After the competition in Los Angeles, Kody regularly started getting millions of views on his videos. All it took was for him to be noticed once, and his sweet disposition did the rest. His content gradually changed from doing exclusively mukbang to cooking some of his favorite recipes. He had a girlfriend: the journalist he met in L.A. and it seemed his mother—after seeing his success—came around to understand her son’s passion for food. She even made some impromptu appearances on his channel, which were inevitably hilarious. Best of all, Kody seemed fulfilled, unlike when we first met him. Who knew digital thumbs-ups and hearts actually had the ability to make someone happy?
Moreover, Director Grant and his staff were also content—not to mention Jenna, Benjamin, and Drevan.
Yep, I had saved us from the apocalypse, and everyone on earth should also have been overjoyed, except they didn’t know what I’d done, so I was an unsung hero. Go figure.
Thanks to me, Hell had expanded to accommodate all the souls and then some, which meant demons weren’t overflowing our realm anymore, hence the Director’s and his staff’s contentment. They were finally able to rest and go back to normal—no more responding to emergencies at all hours of the day.
Peace and quiet. It was almost hard to believe.
This weekend, my friends and I were enjoying the respite with a trip outside of Manhattan. We were visiting the Mill Neck mansion, right in Oyster Bay. It was a beautiful February day, despite the cold blowing from the water.
I was standing on a large rock, hands in my jacket pockets, hair blowing behind me as I watched small waves lapping at the shore. Sage stood a distance away, picking up “perfect” rocks that would skip along the surface of the water. He was good at it, getting some to skip over six times, the stones softly kissing the water before disappearing under the surf.
Jenna and Benjamin were walking down the pier, hand in hand. Every few moments they would stop to kiss and giggle like middle schoolers in love.
That fateful day, Benjamin woke up to find Jophiel dead on the floor, and his first concern was for Jenna. I told him what had happened, and he ran to find her while I tended to Sage, who had suffered a concussion and needed to go to the hospital.
Jenna had told me later that Benjamin found her leaning against the stand where I’d left her and had doted over her until the paramedics arrived. He made her promise that she would be okay because he had something important to tell her. Jenna also went to the hospital, and the next day, while she lay in bed with her head wrapped in thick bandages, Benjamin confessed that he loved her and would make up for the lost time. He said he’d been a coward for a long time, not telling her how he felt, but his fear of losing her had whipped him into shape.
Watching them kiss now, I smiled, turned away from them, and headed back toward the house. Drevan was waiting for me, a shoulder reclined against an ivy-covered wall. I stepped into his open arms, my eyes fluttering as he wrapped me in his warmth. He wasn’t even wearing a jacket, and he felt cozy and welcoming, as if he’d been sitting by the fire.
