The Hearts We Sold(44)

Cora all but lunged for the backseat, apparently wanting as much distance between herself and the Daemon as was possible. Dee slid into the middle of the backseat, and James pushed himself in beside her. It was Cal who pulled open the front door and settled himself only a few feet from the Daemon.

No one spoke.

The silence felt heavy in the car. Dee stared out the window, at the city lights as they rushed by. She was trying not to think about that… thing. The enormous creature made of human body parts, the reason that demons took people’s arms and legs. It was too horrific to contemplate.

But she couldn’t really think of anything else.

And apparently, neither could anyone else. Because just as they were heading across a bridge, Cora said grimly, “Pull over.”

“What?” said the Daemon.

Cora’s voice was tight. “Pull over. I think I’m going to be sick.”

The Daemon threw her a look over his shoulder and if Dee didn’t know better, she would have thought it was anxious. Worried for the state of his charges… or the upholstery, perhaps.

The car left the bridge and pulled onto the shoulder of the road. Gravel crunched beneath the tires, and then Cora was clawing at her door, shoving her way outside. She headed for a clump of trees; Cal hurried after her. James hesitated, glanced between Dee and the others, then opened his own door and half jogged after them both.

The Daemon remained in his seat. “This is how it always goes,” he murmured. “I told the others. Revealing ourselves has never turned out well for our kind. Give humans the slightest bit of knowledge and they cannot handle it.”

Perhaps he did not realize she was still in the car. Or perhaps Dee simply didn’t register enough as a person to him.

“You’ve… revealed yourself before?” asked Dee. “Before the press conference?”

His eyes met hers in the rearview mirror. “Many times. When we have a need, we deal with your kind. Then we disappear, let our stories return to myth, and let the truth fade from memory.” He exhaled sharply. “I suspect, with this new technology of yours, we will not be able to vanish this time. We are here. And we shall never go unnoticed again, not with cameras on every street corner.

“But,” he said, his voice a little stronger, “there are worse prices to pay to keep this world safe.” He lifted his chin in a slight nod, angled to the right of the car. “I do not see you chasing after your own kind. Is it fear that keeps you here—or courage?”

Fear. Always fear.

She gazed at him, a rabbit caught in sight of a wolf, frozen in the seat of a stolen car.

“You should go to them,” said the Daemon. “Bring them back.” His attention drifted to the darkened car windows, to the trees illuminated by the headlights of passing traffic. “There are more dangerous things in the world than myself.”

Dee swallowed. She was hyperaware of the closeness of the car, of the sound of the Daemon’s breathing, and the lump of a knitted heart shoved in her pocket.

She scooted from the backseat and tentatively stepped out of the car. The gravel was uneven beneath her flip-flops, and again she mentally berated herself for not investing in better shoes. But then again, at least she wasn’t barefoot.

Cora stood on the fringes of the trees, her arms wrapped around herself. Her feet were still bare, her shoes left in the car. She looked strangely younger, vulnerable without them. An argument had broken out amid her and James and Cal, and it took Dee a moment to pick up the thread of the conversation.

“… not getting back into a car with that thing,” Cora was saying.

“What are you going to do? Walk home?” But there was no mocking edge to James’s reply; it was a matter-of-fact question. “Hitchhike? Trust that some other kind of demon doesn’t pick you up?”

Cora turned away. Dee could just make out the nail polish on her toes. “Cora,” said Cal, all sympathy. “Listen. I get it. You saw something bad—”

“You don’t get it,” snapped Cora. “You didn’t see it. That thing. What those demons do with the body parts—” Her voice cut off, and it sounded as if she might be choking back a retch. Cora bent over herself, scrabbling at her own jacket as if it were suffocating her. She threw it to the ground, and a red knitted heart tumbled from one of the pockets.

James caught sight of Dee for the first time. He nodded to her. “You all right?”

For the first time, Dee wondered if her own past was working to her advantage. Cora was sick with fear—but Dee had never known a time when she wasn’t afraid. For Cora, this was a horrible revelation. For Dee, it was a Friday.

“I’m fine,” she said. Not entirely a lie. “I—I never wondered what the demons did with those parts,” she added, more quietly. “I feel… stupid somehow for not questioning.”

James’s mouth twitched. “If it makes you feel at all better, I came up with a few wild theories and they were all wrong. Perhaps not wondering was better.”

“Cora,” Cal was saying. “Breathe. Just breathe.”

Cora whispered, “This is wrong. We’re wrong.”

James pressed a hand to his forehead. “We should get back to the car,” he said. “I don’t like our odds if the Daemon gets impatient and drives away. I’d call a taxi, but I don’t have my phone.”