Released (The Eternal Balance #3)(21)

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 f*cking 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, *.”

“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 f*cking 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.”