Released (Eternal Balance) Read online

  “It’s not that simple, Sammy. The few seconds I managed to steal my body back almost killed me.”

  I leaned back against him, grabbing his arm and draping it across my shoulder. It felt like heaven and hell all at the same time—a tease of something I’d lost, coupled with the taunt of something I could no longer have. “Then what do we do?”

  He kissed the top of my head. “We’ll think of something.”

  As I closed my eyes and the darkness tugged me under, I couldn’t help feeling like he was lying—which terrified me. What could possibly be worse than what we were already dealing with?

  Chapter Nine

  Azirak/Jax

  The moment Sam’s breathing evened and she drifted off, I felt the demon tugging to regain control. It didn’t fight hard at first, and I got the impression it was testing me to see how far I could bend before breaking. But as the minutes ticked by, the struggle became violent, and by the time it pushed me back, I felt like I’d gone twenty rounds with King Kong. My body, exhausted from the struggle, slipped into oblivion and landed us both in the white room.

  “If it is any consolation, no one has ever beaten me back before,” Azirak said.

  “Excuse me if I don’t dance a fucking jig. And I thought we clarified this earlier—I used to do it all the time.” I drew my knees up and let my head fall back against the wall. I felt like someone had cranked my dial to eleven and forgot to hit the off switch. I couldn’t remember ever being this…tired. Like no matter how much I rested, the buzzing twitch in my limbs, in my mind, would never fade. The demon sat across the room, mirroring my position. “Why are you here, Azi?”

  “My body needs rest, I do not. There is nothing else for me to do.”

  I clenched my fists and lifted my head. A blackened, smoky version of my own face stared back at me. As usual, the demon hovered near the pencil imbedded in the wall. “It’s my body, asshole.”

  “Not anymore.” It almost sounded sorry.

  There was finality in its voice. Something I felt deep in my gut. Something I refused to accept. “As long as I’m in here, it’s mine.”

  Azi leaned forward, black gaze unwavering as the smoke cleared. “You will not be here much longer.”

  Everything went numb. I’d had this horrible feeling lately. A sinking fear that something was wrong. Very wrong. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  Azi drifted closer and crossed the invisible line. “You should have expired years ago. That is the way this works. But there were factors—”

  I struggled to my feet and took an off-balance step forward. I had to remind myself that attacking the demon would do no good. Even though it was on my side of the room, you couldn’t make smoke bleed—especially in my condition. “The way what works?”

  “By human puberty, we are strong enough to take control. The human host retains their will until then. In most cases, the demon is nothing more than a sinister whisper inside the child’s head. By the fifteenth year, they conquer the human spirit and fully possess the body.”

  “And the human?”

  “Gone.”

  “Gone,” I repeated. “As in, what? Dead?”

  “I imagine so. It may sound cruel to you, but I assure you that it is the most humane outcome. If left to fester beneath the surface, the human fades slowly. Painfully.” It walked to the other end of the room, then turned to face me. “You were stronger than any other human I’d been born into. It wasn’t until your seventeenth year that I had the ability to take you.”

  “Yet I’m still here.”

  “I was about to take you. It was the night we—you—kissed Samantha Merrick. Your emotions for her were so strong, so distracting. I became resolved. I took control and sought out Zenak as his human slept, determined to end our exile.”

  I couldn’t believe we were having this conversation. “You knew Zenak was with Chase?”

  “I did. It was unclear at the time if the boy knew—he’d always allowed himself to be bullied by you—but I realize now that was simply part of Zenak’s ruse.”

  “You didn’t kill it, though.”

  “I intended to. But, again, your emotions were overwhelming. I’d never felt anything like it. I was intrigued, so I decided to hold off. To let you retain control and see what you would do. After all, you felt my hatred of him. It affected you as you grew. You’d harmed him dozens of times, and yet never badly. When you decided to leave all of them behind—to leave her behind—I was even more curious.”

  “What you’re saying is that you could have taken control at any point during the last four years, and I would have just been…gone?” The room grew cold.

  “I could have, yes. But you were an anomaly. As a Tainted, you had extreme darkness inside you, but unlike the others, there was light. It was, dare I say, intoxicating.”

  There was a twinge of hunger in its voice, of desperation. If it weren’t for the filmy smoke churning around its body, I was betting I’d see the damn thing drool. “It had nothing to do with me. That light you obviously wanted to fucking freebase? That was all her.”

  “She is the other reason I allowed you to stay for so long. And when you returned to Harlow and found her in danger, I was glad I’d made that choice to keep you. I was…happy to help her. To be reunited with her.” It leaned against the wall, next to one of the pictures of Sam. Tracing the frame with a shadowy finger, it sighed. “However time is running out. If I do not banish you from this body soon, you will suffer. I have no desire to see that happen.”

  “What about Sam?” If the demon thought I was going gently into that good night, it had another thing coming. “What about how she’ll suffer if I’m gone?”

  “She will not want for anything. Everything inside the cabin now belongs to her. There is untold wealth there. Items of great value from my past lives. Antiques the world hasn’t seen in ages. The paperwork was filled out long ago. She will be taken care of.”

  “Money doesn’t mean shit to her!” I lunged forward, my anger getting the better of me. In my current state I wasn’t sure I could throw shade at a kitten much less tackle a demon, but I’d always been a determined fucker. As soon as my fingers wrapped around Azi’s shadowy throat, my foggy mirror image dissipated and reformed on the other side of the room, out of my reach.

  “This is pointless, and you waste energy. It will only make this harder. I ask you to accept the inevitable.”

  “You want me to basically roll over and let you take me out?”

  “It will be easier on us both. I will not force you, though. It will be your choice. You can stay and fade on your own. It will be painful for both of us, and she will know that you are suffering. Or, agree to be terminated. I will allow you twenty-four hours of control before you die. You will have the opportunity to say good-bye.”

  “Twenty-four hours? One fucking day?” For the first time, panic rose and settled like a boulder in my gut. I’d just gotten Sam back. “That’s not enough.”

  “That is all you can have.” There was no emotion behind the demon’s words. “Do you not feel it? Your essence is already starting to fade. Time is short.”

  And there it was. This wasn’t simply me feeling the burn from battling for control. Somewhere deep in the darkest, most unexplored regions of my mind, I’d known. My strength had been slipping away, little by little, but I’d done my best to ignore it. “I don’t feel shit. I’m not going any—”

  The room spun. I stumbled upward and closed my eyes. As if to drive the reality home, I had to grab the wall to keep from going down. When I opened my eyes, I was back in the car. Sam stirred, still dozing against my chest. Her warmth was like an inferno, and as Azi wrapped my arms tight around her, the ache in my gut threatened to rip me to shreds. I couldn’t help worrying that I’d made a mistake in not taking the demon’s offer.

  The demon lowered my head, lips lingering at Sam’s ear. “We need to leave,” it whispered.

  She groaned and stretched against my body, slowly
opening her eyes. “I can’t believe I fell asleep.” Twisting, she pushed herself off my chest and settled on the other side of the seat.

  “You did. You snore.”

  For a second, her smile was all there was, brighter than the sun and electrifying enough to make the hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention. It blotted out our current situation and made me forget that I couldn’t move as much as a fucking toe. Then, like a strike of lightning, it was gone.

  “Azirak.” Sam reached behind her and opened the car door. In a graceful move, she extracted herself from the backseat and took several steps away from the car. The grass was wet, dew dampening her sneakers, and when she stopped, a leaf from the tree above her fell to the ground.

  The whole scene—everything from the expression on her face to the uneven thump of her heart inside her chest—was all burned into my mind as a sharp pain spasmed through my body. The demon felt it but didn’t react.

  What the fuck was that?

  “That,” it said with a shake of my head, “was inevitability knocking.”

  “What?” Sam’s brow’s creased and she bent down to peer back into the car. “What the hell are you talking about? Inevitability of what?”

  Don’t. Don’t say a word.

  And it wouldn’t. Her knowing wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t make this easier on either one of us. Sam would obsess and focus on a way to free me, and in the process get herself killed by ignoring the bigger picture. She’d blow off the task at hand—getting the stone. Azi had one thing right. If we didn’t find both halves, Sam was in just as much danger as the demon. If I was going to die, then I had to at least make sure she’d go on.

  “It is nothing to concern yourself with.” Azi got out of the car and made its way to the driver’s side, stopping in front of Sam. Her mouth fell open as it slipped my fingers into her pocket to grab the keys. “The park will be open soon. We should hurry.”

  Chapter Ten

  Sam

  “Let me do the talking.” I closed the passenger’s side door and pulled my jacket tighter. The wind had kicked up, and there was a chill in the air that went right through me.

  Jax’s eyes narrowed to thin slits, and the demon behind them glared at me. “Do you not trust me?”

  “Does that even need an answer?” I pushed past him and started for the front gate. Two small lines had formed at the two open ticket booths, but they seemed to be moving fast. By the time we made it across the parking lot, there was only one couple in front of us. They were up and done in a flash.

  “Two adults,” I said, stepping aside. I hadn’t been thrilled with the demon’s solution, but as Azi pointed out on the way to the park, we’d need tickets to get in. That, or a blind eye from me as it used force. Since that wasn’t an option, we’d had to borrow some cash from a patron at the coffee house several miles away. It was a small consolation that he’d been an asshole—relentlessly and crudely hitting on me.

  The demon forked over the cash, and I found myself having to tug it through the turn style. The woman had all but thrown the tickets at us, and Jax’s fingers tightened, the demon’s irritation palatable. It bothered me that I was becoming familiar with the thing’s mannerisms. I didn’t want that, didn’t need to humanize it in any way. I just wanted it gone.

  I snagged a map of the park and stepped off the path to plan our route. Get in and get out, fast as possible. “Looks like the Haunted House isn’t far from here. We need to figure out what to do when we find this girl.”

  Azi blinked, and Jax’s gray eyes took on a bewildered look. “The plan is to acquire the stone. What is left to figure out?”

  I folded the map and stuffed it into my back pocket. Jax and Azi shared at least one annoying trait. Both lacked subtlety. “I find it hard to believe that this girl is walking around with the damn thing sitting on top of gum wrappers and loose change in the bottom of her purse. She’s going to have to tell us where it is, and she might not want to do that.”

  The demon let out a laugh. “Might not want to tell us? You’re concerned about the wishes of a puny human girl?”

  “Hey!” I punched Jax’s arm. Hard. All I succeeded in doing was nearly breaking my knuckles.

  “The girl will have no choice.”

  “Yeah.” I folded my arms and glanced around to make sure we weren’t attracting any attention. Someone listening in on the conversation might get the wrong idea, because to me it sounded like we were planning an abduction—which is probably just what the demon had in mind. “When I said I had no intention of letting you muck up Jax’s future by getting him into trouble, I wasn’t joking. You’re not going in there and terrorizing some innocent girl.”

  “Innocent?” it boomed, attracting the attention of a family of four to our right. “That stone belongs to me. She is not innocent.”

  I grabbed Jax’s arm and dragged him to the side. “You have no idea how she ended up with the thing in the first place.”

  “She stole it.”

  “You don’t know that!”

  “Another possibility is…?”

  “She could have found it.”

  “Lying on the floor?” It flashed me a pitying frown. “Either you are stupid or in denial.”

  I grabbed Jax’s shoulders and spun the demon back toward the path before the urge to hit it overwhelmed me. “Let’s get moving.”

  We wove through the crowd, and when we finally found the Haunted House, there was no line to get in. A guy in impressive zombie makeup, flanked by someone wearing a black robe and dark hood, lingered at the entrance, and when we approached, the zombie shambled toward us with a groan.

  “Uuuuuuuuh,” he moaned, chomping his teeth at me. “Braaaaaains.”

  A putrid scent filled the air as he came close. I nudged him away and waved a hand in front of my face in an attempt to disperse the stink. “Dude. Haven’t you ever seen an episode of The Walking Dead? Zombies don’t talk—but you have the smell down perfectly.”

  “Back away.” Azi stepped between us. “Or I will show you true hell.”

  The guy dropped his charade and scowled at us. “I’m doing my job, man. Relax.”

  With a roll of my eyes, I tugged Azi through the door and left the two greeters to their job. “I told you, let me do the talking. That means all of it. Just stand there…” I gave Jax’s body a once-over and swallowed back a spike of heat. “Just stand there and look pretty.”

  If it was insulted, I couldn’t tell—partially because three steps inside, the lights began flashing. There was a loud clanking sound, followed by maniacal laughter, and a gate slammed down behind us, covering the entrance. We were officially trapped.

  “Cute,” I muttered and tamped down the lump forming in my throat. “Real cute.”

  I made a move to step farther into the room, but Azi stopped me. “He tells me not to allow you to go inside.”

  I’d never been thrilled by haunted houses. “Never been thrilled” translated into “was scared shitless by.” Kelly had forced me into several of them when I was a kid, insisting that they’d “make me tough.” I hadn’t had the courage to tell her she was doing more harm than good. After watching my parents murdered by monsters, the horror genre in general kept me up at night. Haunted houses were my younger self’s version of hell.

  It wasn’t her fault, though. I’d never told a living soul what I’d seen that night. The only one who knew the truth was Jax—and that was only because the archangel Michael showed it to him. As much as I loved Jax, as much as I wanted to share every part of myself with him, I never saw myself reliving that horrible night. Not even for him.

  I shrugged it off and took a deep breath to chase away the slight tremble. “It’s fine. I’m good. Let’s just get this over with.”

  Azi nodded, and it was a testament to how little control Jax had in there. He’d been with me one of the times Kelly had forced me into participating in a Halloween carnival. Jax swore he’d never let me walk through another one of these t
hings again after he heard me screaming at night from the next house over, as nightmares plagued me for weeks.

  I kept my eyes peeled as we moved forward. There was no way to know exactly what we were looking for. We couldn’t ask for the girl because we didn’t know her name, and I’d only gotten quick glimpses, just enough to know what general area to look. I’d heard her voice but had never gotten a good look at her face.

  An echoing cackle split the air, and my hair fluttered as something moved in front of us. Azi dragged me behind Jax’s body and struck out. There was a muffled yelp as the demon dragged a guy dressed as Jason from the Friday the 13th movies from the shadows. “Where is the girl?”

  “Girl?” he stammered. It was hard to make him out over the fake screams and manufactured otherworldly howling. “What girl?”

  I dislodged Jax’s hand and wedged myself between them while trying to push away the creepy chills skittering up and down my spine. “I saw her here last week,” I lied. “I kind of have a crush. I wanted to get her number.”

  The guy looked from me to Jax, eyebrows high.

  “Him? He’s my brother. Here for moral support.”

  He shrugged. “Has to be Van. She’s the only girl who works at the house,” he yelled over the noise. “But you’re wasting your time. She’s a cock jockey.” With a grin, he added, “Just ask our manager, Paul.”

  Nice. Asshole. “Oh. Well, can’t hurt to try. Point me in the right direction?”

  He pointed to the hallway on our right and pulled his hockey mask back into place. With one last once-over, he shuffled into the dark, and I turned to Azi. “Shall we see—”

  Another scream split the air, but this one was different. It was real. Not too surprising in a place like this, but the fierce growling and ensuing sounds of chaos were. Several other people screamed, and something crashed to the ground.

  “A dog,” a man’s voice shouted. “There’s a real dog in here!”

  “This way,” another called. It sounded like our Jason wannabe. “The exit is around that corner. Everyone out!”