The Hearts We Sold(46)

Cal was sprawled on the pavement, unmoving and silent.

Cora froze.

“No,” breathed James, and he scrambled to Cal’s side. He fell to his knees, felt the space around the young man’s mouth and nose. James let out a curse, placed his hands on Cal’s chest, and began pressing down.

Dee’s mind felt as if it were mired in thick, slow-moving water. She couldn’t understand why James was doing that; people only did that in movies when a person’s heart had stopped. But Cal had no heart, so chest compressions were laughably useless.

Still, James didn’t let up. He pressed a shaky breath against Cal’s mouth, then went back to the compressions.

“Come on,” he said, voice ragged with panic.

James rocked back on his heels. He was shaking, visibly pale, and when he looked at the bridge, he swore. He picked up Cal, dragged him toward the pavement, onto the shoulder of the road. “What are you doing?” asked Dee, appalled.

“Someone will find him here.” James reached down, gently stroked his thumb over each of Cal’s eyes. Closing them.

“Humans cannot survive without a heart,” he said. “We cannot—we need one. Even a fake one. That’s why the Daemon gives those to us. So long as we have something representative of a heart, we’re still functional.”

Dee took a step back. “W-what?”

Cora had not moved. She stared downward at the river, at the place where she had last seen the heart.

“I saw it happen once before,” said James. “That’s how I knew—but never mind.”

Dee reached into her pocket suddenly, desperately afraid. And—yes. Her own fake heart was still there.

Her life was knitted through this thing, stitched with imperfect red yarn. It was impossible—

But then she remembered another fairy tale, something Russian, about a man who breathed a fragment of his life into a finger bone and left it in a cave so he would never die.

She heard a curse, followed by the sound of gravel crunching beneath patent-leather shoes. The Daemon strode up the steep hill; he was soaking, as if he had leaped into the river, and there were splatters of mud across his face.

In his left hand, he held a soggy mess of red yarn.

It had unraveled—it looked as though it had snagged on something.

“A waste,” snarled the Daemon. His gait was smoother than before, somehow even less human, and he stalked toward Cora.

James took two steps, placing himself in the Daemon’s path. “She didn’t know,” he said quickly.

“She cost me my most valuable piece.” Every word was edged with icy anger. He took another step toward Cora, but James didn’t move. He had his hands up, as if in supplication.

Demons didn’t hurt people. They had repeated that over and over in the first few months—in every interview, every public word—they never hurt anyone. There was no proof they hurt people, not even when people attacked them first.

The Daemon’s attention remained firmly on Cora. She knelt on the gravel, gazing at Cal’s unmoving form, and she looked as though she might never move again. Dee darted around the Daemon, around James, and she grabbed Cora’s arm.

“Come on,” said Dee, and tried to pull her upright. Cora rose like a sleepwalker, staggering and unsteady. If there was one thing Dee knew how to do, it was escape. She kept Cora moving, her own gaze fixed on the Daemon, even as she navigated the gravel. And all the while, James stood his ground.

It was a flimsy defense. Dee knew that at any moment, the Daemon could simply push James aside, teleport Cora away, do whatever he pleased. But for some reason, he did not.

Dee maneuvered Cora into the backseat and shut the door behind her. Gravel crunched behind her and she flinched, but it was only James; he jogged up beside her, gesturing for her to get into the passenger seat.

The car was still running. Exhaust fumes hung in the cold, damp air and Dee was glad to slide into the warmth of the car. She glanced through the window and saw the Daemon.

He stood over Cal, gazing down at him.

Fear bloomed in Dee’s stomach; they should have brought him, too. Some irrational part of her didn’t want to leave Cal behind, to see him splayed out on that dirt and gravel, alone but for the creature that took his heart.

James put the car in drive and hit the gas. Dee jerked in her seat as he drove away, hastening to get back on the highway, to take them back to Portland, back to civilization and lights and humans.

But just before the trees blurred around them, Dee saw the Daemon kneel beside Cal, placing the tattered remnants of the knitted heart on Cal’s empty chest.





TWENTY-THREE


C ora Meyer had met three demons before she decided to sell her heart.

She had gone to several states in search of them—a nightclub in LA. A casino in Lake Tahoe. And a coffee shop in Seattle. But the only thing that ever came of it was a few more thousand miles on her hand-me-down Toyota. She walked away from the encounters with all her limbs.

Cora knew she was pretty. Her body was lean and muscled and she had good skin. She was vibrant and healthy, an ideal candidate for a demon. And that was why three different ones had approached her, asked her price.

Every single demon’s eyes flashed with alarm when they heard her answer.

They would decline, either with a look or a curt no, and then they would depart.