Page 13 of The Final Deal

Dad’s face is bright red as he spins around and faces us, veins popping in his neck and hazel eyes reddened. “What’d you do?”

Robbie and I share a confused glance, but he dares to ask, “What d’you mean?”

Dad snaps, “What the hell did you do to summon the devil?”

Hearing “the devil” come out of my father’s mouth is surreal—kind of like he unironically asked if I wanted to go to a countrypop concert with church friends. Surreal, wrong on so many levels, and uncharacteristic of one of the most important men in my life.

“How do you know about the devil?” Robbie asks incredulously.

Dad’s ruddy face and glaring eyes embody fury as he studies Robbie and me wringing our hands. “I remember the day you dragged her home from the bridge all too well.”

The lump in my throat grows until I swallow thickly; attempting to bury the truth in my own mind is useless.

I didn’t remember that day until I was standing face to face with the devil, bargaining for my life once more so I could live to see another day.

Maybe that’s what I did that day: buried the memory of the devil so deeply in the dark recesses of my mind so I didn’t have to revisit that sharp grin and those black eyes, the way he curled his finger and beckoned me onto the bridge with him. Unsurety and fear sank low in my stomach, but I still took a step forward and wobbled onto the mesquite wood of the bridge.

When I looked up, I saw nothing but shadows. The devil had no face—only black eyes that glittered and teeth that glinted in the noonday sun, a terrifying image that drew me in and made me move closer despite my brother screaming my name.

I don’t know why I stepped foot onto the bridge that day. All I know is my body wholly betrayed me and pushed me toward the devil like I belonged to him.

“Does Ty suddenly leaving have anything to do with it?” Mom demands loudly.

I blink rapidly a few times and shake myself out of the memory. “H-he dragged me out there. To the bridge.”

When I think Dad’s face couldn’t get any redder, the veins in his neck any more pronounced… “Why?”

“Y’all’s teasing us about being boyfriend and girlfriend our entire lives must’ve gotten to his head because me choosing the twins over him really pissed him off.” I shift my weight from foot to foot. “He said if I was choosing them, then he had to choose himself.”

Dad and Robbie both start talking at the same time, yelling over one another until Robbie screams, “How do you know that was the devil on the bridge and not someone else?”

“That’s how New Year’s Ball was able to get off the ground,” Mom admits. Her fiery gaze sets in on me with nostrils flared. “What happened on the bridge with Ty?”

Words form as a jumbled mess in my throat and come out of my gaping mouth like an abstract puzzle with a white background and black lines that makes sense only to the person who’s seen a picture of the completed piece.

“Did you see the devil?” she asks quietly. My mother, like everyone else, is terrified to even whisper his name. “Did you make a deal with him, too?”

My brows knit together and my head tilts. “What do you mean, ‘too’?”

The anger on Mom’s face dissipates and transforms into something else: worry. Anguish.

The silence buzzes in the house like an angry hornets’ nest, a thing so pissed off it holds the energy of a detonated bomb.

When my nails pinch my palm, I realize that I’ve tensed up so much that I’m shaking—I’m the one about to literally burst this entire place and everyone in it into flames. “What are you not saying?”

“We’re worried he may try to come for you again,” Dad quickly pipes up. He searches my eyes, desperately trying to come up with the words to say. “Or try to do something to NYB.”

“Why would the devil come after a seven-year-old girl?” I question. My weight shifts in a poor attempt to keep me from flying into a physical rage. “What was the deal made for NYB?”

Dad closes the distance between us, reaching out to grasp my arms, but I move back. The heartbreak is visible on his face; his eyes are red from screaming and anger, but they’re also glassy and threaten to spill over. “Sweet pea, we just need to know what happened at the bridge. We’ll take care of everything else; we’ll do everything we can to keep you safe.” His eyes flash in Robbie’s direction. “Both of you.”

I slowly shake my head and hug myself, an attempt to keep it all together when I feel it ripping at the seams deep in my stomach.

“It’s too late,” I whisper, blinking rapidly until I feel warm droplets dotting my cheeks.

Mom storms toward me. “What did you do?”

“What didyoudo?” I scream at her, so loudly that it startles everyone. “Why would the devil hang out at a rickety old bridge? What did he want with a seven-year-old girl?”

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