Page 85 of Hell Burns Between Us

She made a sound that was somewhere between a scoff and laugh. “Yes well, remind me—how was it that the literal Devil was shoved inside of you again?”

He leaned back, brow furrowed. “That’s entirely diff—”

His words were cut off as they were flung into darkness, tossed haphazardly through the void. After a moment flailing through pure darkness, Oleander crashed into something hard and unforgiving.

When the world stopped spinning, he found himself lying in his front garden. Perine was nowhere in sight.

Above him the sky was an uproar of blurry white lights streaming down, he blinked until the world around him came into focus. Stars cascaded around him, glittering beacons marking something monumental

He whispered, “Fuck” on an exhale of penetrating worry.

There was, perhaps, a slight chance that by removing the Devil from his body he’d started a chain of events of cataclysmic proportions.

He stared at the falling stars and whispered another, terrified, “fuck.”

Chapter

Twenty-Eight

PERINE WILDER

Peri flew through the night, a cascade of shimmering silver swirling around her. Then, without warning, she was rag-dolled through an open window and into her bedroom. She hit the floor hard, lying dazed for a moment, breathless.

Snow.

It was snowing.

In the middle of the warmest time of the year?

She gasped as realisation struck like ice water down her spine.

Not snowflakes.

Stars.

The stars were falling. And a sickening feeling churned in her gut—so this was it then.

With shaky fingers, she yanked Oleander’s ring off and slid it back onto the slim chain around her neck. Her body pulled and warped, shifting back into her demoness form.

Voices drifted towards her from down the hall.

Peri’s pulse hammered as she frantically tossed her dirty clothes from the day into her closet and yanked on nightclothes. As she reached for the door, she froze at the sound of her grandfather’s baritone, rolling through the house like approaching thunder.

“Where is she?”

She sucked in a slow, steadying breath, forcing her expression into one of innocent curiosity as she cracked the door just enough to peek out.

The moment Moloch stormed into view, she swung the door fully open, feigning obliviousness to the imminent storm. If any of my anxiety shows, she prayed, let it come across as confusion. Assumed simplicity was the best armour she had in these situations.

“Where have you been?” Moloch’s voice rumbled through her, reverberating in her bones.

Behind him was her mother, breathless and wide-eyed. Silent.

Peri furrowed her brows. “What’s going on?”

Her grandfather’s glare sharpened. “Where have you been, Perine?”

“Sorry, what?” She gave him a quizzical look. “I’ve—been here the whole time.”