Page 11 of Hellbound

She looked down at the black ‘IT STARTS RIGHT MEOW’ text printed across her chest. Above it sat a fat white kitten spinning a turntable. She groaned, jumping into the pool when she heard the first rumble of laughter erupt from Mr. Vale. When she surfaced, the demon stood at the edge of the water, his features obscured by shadow.

“How do you like to be drowned?”

Marian bobbed in the water, the toes of her sneakers barely touching the bottom of the pool.

Tied to an anchor and fifty miles away from you.

“Grab my shoulders and push me under. Yes, I am giving you permission to touch me. No, you’re not allowed to be weird about it.”

But Mr. Vale was immediately weird about it. Even in the dark, she saw a strange glimmer of pale blue light in his eyes. His shrewd gaze never left her as he shrugged out of his jacket and slipped off his Oxfords. “I think I might enjoy this.”

Marian paddled backward as every part of her recoiled from those words. “Fuck, I miss the anchor.”

Mr. Vale crouched down and slid into the pool in a single fluid movement. Marian shut her eyes tight, forcing herself to stop fixating on the demon and the anxiety his presence caused so she could focus on what she was about to do.

You got this, Marian assured herself. But she still had to bite back the whimper that threatened to escape her and turned to face Mr. Vale before she lost her nerve.

“Okay. Let’s—”

Shadows fell across the water as a current slammed into her. Mr. Vale was suddenly there, towering over her with only inches separating them. She hadn’t seen him move. The gym was dark, but not that dark. Marian splashed backward, eyes wide as his nerve-shattering aura expanded to envelop her, fracturing her resolve.

“Holy shit,” Marian sputtered through the saltwater that sloshed into her open mouth. “Wait. Back up.”

But his hands closed around her neck, his fingers like steel over her pulse.

“I said ‘wait.’ ” She clawed ineffectually at his hands. “Wait—”

“Relax. I have you,” Mr. Vale drawled.

The dissonance between the gentle words caressing her in the dark and the fingers gripping her throat was so profound it made Marian’s head spin. Or maybe that was the lack of oxygen.

“For fuck’s sake, Vale,” Marian wheezed. “I’m not ready.”

The demon chuckled low. Fucking chuckled as Marian decided she’d made an enormous mistake by agreeing to this. She looked up to find Mr. Vale’s eyes glowing blue in the gloom. Marian gasped as tendrils of unseen cold slithered down the back of her neck. His thumb swept tenderly along the underside of her jaw.

“No one ever is. But I am.” He pulled her flush against his chest, his arm a vise around her middle as he whispered over the top of her head. “I’ll see you soon, Marian.”

Marian fought for one last gasping breath. What was all this? The touching, the quiet words spoken so softly. The same words that now filled her with a sense of finality she had to escape at all costs. But then he sealed a hand over her mouth and nose while the one around her throat pushed her underwater.

Panic took over. Elio would have pulled her out at the first sign of reticence, but this wasn’t Elio supervising her death.

Marian was being murdered.

Every muscle in her body fought instinctively for life. She kicked and punched at Mr. Vale, but the water slowed every blow. At some point, she bit the palm pressed to her lips, dislodging it enough that salt water filled her mouth.

Her warbled cries spilled out of her in long streams of bubbles.

Stop—you’ll aspirate. But the pain in her lungs robbed her of reason. Synapses fired wildly, overwhelming Marian with thoughts too loud and numerous to parse. Scenes of her life strobed before her, all of them unwelcome.

Then came warmth, like being wrapped in a blanket. Hazy pink and blue fireworks flickered in and out of existence until all the color in the world faded to placid darkness. For a moment, there was peace. Shattered in an instant by the rise of a strident voice she recognized as her own.

You deserve this.

WELCOME TO HELL > MAIN Intro Thread: START HERE

backfromthedead Diver—San BernardinoUSER DEACTIVATED:♰ 4/21/22@raj__ yes, Hell is empty, and the demons are all in Los Angeles for some reason. No, none of them remember what happened to them or why, or how to get back. Death seems to be the only way in, but demons can’t die. Most of them aren’t interested in returning. But they want to remember, and they believe the artifacts we bring back from Hell are the answer. That’s where the money is. If you’re damned, you might as well make it pay, so long as you have what it takes. Find a good spotter and you can make a fortune dying. But pick a bad spotter and you’ll just be dead.

CHAPTER THREE