Grave Decisions (Hellgate Guardians Book 3) Read online

  I give the bar another look. “I bet Mickey’s gonna be glad he doesn’t have to clean this place.”

  Alder frowns and reaches into his pocket, pullin’ out a phone. “Speaking of Mickey, where the hell is that bastard?” he grumbles.

  “Yeah, he should’ve had this place cleaned up long before we got here,” Flint adds.

  Alder presses some buttons and holds the phone to his ear, only to scowl when no one picks up. I watch him fire off a text before puttin’ his phone away and lookin’ up again. “Well, it looks like we might have lost our bartender.”

  Flint snorts. “He probably ran with his tail between his legs as soon as Medley walked out that night.”

  Alder makes an unimpressed noise. “She didn’t hurt him. Much.”

  My eyes go as wide as saucers. “What? I thought you said I didn’t hurt anybody!”

  Alder tilts his head left and right. “We technically never said that.”

  “Shit,” I groan, wipin’ a hand down my face. “What did I do?”

  “Well…”

  I level him with a look. “Tell me.”

  “That stick you tripped over? It was your scythe.”

  A line forms between my brows as I frown. “My scythe? I don’t know what the hell you mean. I told you, that stick was there when I got here. I just tripped over it and cut my foot.”

  “Similar thing happened to Delta,” Flint tells me. “When she was called to the Hellgate, she found herself a scythe too.”

  I shake my head. “I know what a damn scythe looks like, and that thing wasn’t a scythe. It was just a damn fancy lookin’ stick!” I argue a little hysterically.

  “It changed,” Flint says with a careless shrug.

  Who the hell shrugs carelessly at a time like this? A demon, that’s who.

  “It changed? What the hell do you mean?”

  “During your episode,” he answers smoothly. “Blades popped out and everything, just like with Delta. That’s when Alder and I knew for sure that you were like her.”

  I gape at them, tryin’ to picture an image of me wieldin’ that stick as it magically turned into a scythe. “Did I hurt anybody with it? I mean, besides Mickey?”

  “No,” they both answer quickly.

  I hiss in a breath. “For the love of peaches, I did! Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because we figured you’d respond like this,” Alder declares, gesturin’ to me and the freak out etched in my features as it simmers in my blood. “Besides, it’s okay. The others were just imps.”

  “I don’t know what imps are!” I snap.

  “Imps are punished souls who did very bad things while they were alive and have to make up for it by serving,” Alder tells me calmly.

  My mind chews on that. “Like murderers and rapists? That sort of thing?”

  “Yes, exactly.”

  “Oh. Well...alright then.”

  Flint snorts. “I love how on board you are with all of this. Way better than Delta. From what Jerif said, she was a hot mess. Up top!” he says, holdin’ up a fist for me to bump.

  I tap my fist at him, lip twitchin’. I shouldn’t feel smug at the expense of demon Delta, but I do. Clearly, I’m made of much sterner stuff.

  “Where is your scythe, anyway?” Flints asks.

  I scrunch up my face in thought. “I don’t know. Didn’t I leave it here?”

  They look at me, horrified. “No, you most certainly did not leave it here,” Flint says, lookin’ at me like I’m crazy. “Please don’t tell me you lost an incredibly powerful Hell weapon,” he grumbles.

  “Hey, I thought it was a damn broken fancy broom handle!” I counter. Then a lightbulb goes off. “Oh, I remember, it’s at home. It was…” I trail off, recallin’ that I woke up the next mornin’ with it in bed next to me. “It’s in my room,” I finish lamely. They don’t need to hear about me damn near cuddlin’ the thing.

  “You need to keep that with you,” Flint admonishes.

  I scoff. “Oh sure, I’ll just take it with me to the corner store or the next time I go to the club. I’m sure the bouncers won’t even bat an eye,” I say sarcastically.

  “Peaches, you need to take this a bit more seriously—”

  “I need to take this more seriously?” I demand, repeatin’ his accusation—which is never a good thing for a woman to do in a conversation. “Just exactly what would you have me do differently? Control the uncontrollable and not black out? Wake up just knowin’ what I am and how this all works? I didn’t know it was a demon Hell scythe!”

  Flint goes to open his mouth again, but I barrel on. He ain’t just gonna sit there and put this on me. I can’t make informed decisions if I don’t have all the information, dammit.

  “Should I have asked the nice snake-haired demon not to try and do whatever it was he was plannin’ to do to me last night? Throw in a few more pleases and thank yous and maybe he would’ve seen the error of his ways? What kind of crap is that? I need to take this more seriously,” I scoff. “You need to pull that pretty head from your marble ass, if you ask me,” I say, a tic in my jaw.

  “Excuse—” Flint starts.

  Alder cuts off whatever he was about to spew. “Alright, I think that’s enough for now,” he says, givin’ his friend a hard look. “Let’s take Medley home so she can get some rest and we can make sure the scythe is safe.”

  Flint stares at Alder a moment and then deflates. He scrubs a hand over his face and turns to me. “Sorry,” he mumbles to me, losin’ the attitude.

  “It’s fine,” I say with a sigh. I’m probably overreactin’ because I haven’t slept all night, and I keep gettin’ truth bombs tossed my way. It’s exhaustin’. “A ride home would be great,” I tell them, and then I point at Flint. “But go put on a shirt. It’s distractin’.”

  He chuckles out a yes, ma’am before swaggerin’ away, and I watch his ass in those jeans as he goes before I let out a little sigh.

  I’m about to be driven home by two demons when my parents think I’m at AnnaMae’s house, and I know for a fact they’ll be awake by the time we roll up.

  Let’s hope Daddy doesn’t have time to grab the shotgun.

  15

  The ride over to the trailer park is actually nice. Flint and Alder keep up a steady stream of friendly conversation all about their lives as Guardians. I realize that part of the reason they’re doin’ it is to acclimate me to the Guardian life, but I don’t mind. In fact, I’m grateful, because like they explained earlier, this ain’t somethin’ I can run from or ignore. That’s just not realistic. So the bein’ a demon part, well, I have to face that. The Guardian part, well...one thing at a time.

  I listen with rapt attention to all of their stories about how they escort demons in and out of the Hellgate. Apparently, there are only certain ones who are allowed to be here, and everyone else who breaks through does so without permission. It’s Alder and Flint’s job to make sure that doesn’t happen.

  Every single story they tell is fascinatin’ to me because, well, Sweetgreen is a town with barely five thousand people in it. Talk of demons passin’ through right under our noses is some of the best gossip I’ve ever heard.

  “How often do demons break through the Hellgate and get to your portal?” I ask. I’ve learned a lot already in this thirty-minute drive to my home. Apparently, the buildin’ at the graveyard behind their bar houses the portal to Hell. It’s the last line of defense before demons can sneak through to our world.

  “It happens every so often,” Alder answers cryptically.

  “So...a lot?” I venture.

  His butterscotch eyes lift up to look at me in the rearview mirror as he drives down the highway. He has the A/C blastin’, and his sleeves are still rolled up, so the way his hand rests on the top of the steerin’ wheel looks real nice. “It’s been happening more often,” he admits. “The gate becomes unstable after a while and will need to have an additional Guardian to help stabilize it.”

  “But there are five in
Delta’s group and only two of you,” I point out. “Seems like an awful big job for you two to handle on your own for so long.”

  He shrugs it off. “It’s our duty. Besides, as Ūnus demons, we’re powerful, so we have plenty to feed into the Hellgate to keep it stable.”

  Call me strange, but when he says, it’s our duty, all macho like that, it really kinda revs my engine.

  “And what’s an Ūnus demon again?”

  “Hell is made up of five Rings. We’re from the First Ring—Ūnus. We’re one of the more powerful of our kind, only surpassed by the Center Ring, Nihil.”

  “So y’all are kind of a big deal?”

  Flint snorts and spreads his arm behind me on the back of the seat, his forearm restin’ above my shoulders. It’s comfortable. That’s the only reason I rest back against him. Definitely the only reason. It has nothin’ to do with the fact that my girly side gets some butterflies at the unexpected contact.

  “Ūnus demons are respected, but the more elite are definitely the Abdicated in Nihil. Though, at least we aren’t as common as the Outer Ringers like Fourth and Fifth. There’s more of them, and they have the least amount of power usually. Well...besides the Diluted. They barely have any demon blood in them.”

  “And the Diluted are…?”

  Flint’s slate eyes cut over to me right along with the playful smile that etches into his face. “When demons and humans fuck and procreate, a Diluted is born.”

  Those butterfly flutters in my stomach go a little quicker when fuck flies out of his mouth. “Gotchya,” I say.

  I feel his arm move behind my neck, and then his fingers are absently playin’ with the strands of my hair, just like he did when they drove me away from the club. It feels so nice I could close my eyes and purr like a cat. It takes serious restraint not to.

  “Do y’all ever get lonely?”

  I feel Flint pause his ministrations on my knotted hair and look up to see Alder’s eyes on me. He really is a strikin’ specimen with that bright yellow hair and cool lilac skin. “Lonely?”

  “Yeah, I mean, it’s just the two of you havin’ to constantly watch the gate and run the bar, and you probably can’t visit Hell very often, right? Isn’t that where y’all’s family lives?”

  “Yeah, they live in the Ūnus Ring,” Flint supplies, his fingers pickin’ back up where he left off on strokin’ my hair lightly. I feel so damn comfortable with his presence already.

  “We don’t have to babysit the gate every minute of every day. Like right now, it’s perfectly fine for us to be away for a while,” Alder explains. “We just have to make sure we’ve fed enough power into it and that it’s stable before we leave. It has plenty of juice for the time being.”

  “Yep, unless a horde of demons try to push through, all’s well,” Flint says jovially.

  I make a face at him. “A horde of demons? That can’t be good. What happens then?”

  He lifts a shoulder. “We fight them off.”

  I nibble on my lip. “And if I were to become a Guardian, I’d have to do that too?”

  Flint dips his fingers lower, lightly tracin’ over the curve of my neck and givin’ me an involuntary shiver. “Just by adding another Guardian, it would strengthen the gate even more. It would make it less likely for hordes to make their way through,” he tells me.

  That response really doesn’t answer my question, but I’m gonna let it drop for now, because the thought of me havin’ to help fight off a horde of demons is laughable, even if Delta did do somethin’ similar. I’ve got my pride, but I ain’t stupid. I’m gonna have to work my way up to somethin’ like that.

  “So what about you? We’ve talked a lot about us and what we do. I’m tired of my own voice at this point. It’s your turn now,” Alder tells me.

  “Not much to know really,” I say with a shrug. “What specifically are you wonderin’ about?”

  “Well, when we met, you’d just lost your job, so what was your plan before we showed up on your doorstep?” he asks.

  I snort. “The only plan I had come up with was to drink at your bar until I came up with somethin’ better,” I admit. “But then that went to shit, so…”

  “No big plans for what you wanted to be when you grew up?” Flint asks curiously.

  I shrug. “I did at one point. I went to college and everythin’, but that didn’t work out. Next thing I knew, I’m grown and still haven’t figured out a better way to go about life aside from floatin’ wherever it seemed it wanted to take me.”

  “What happened with college?” Flint presses, and I study his face for a moment, debatin’ on where to even start with that.

  I reach up and take hold of the stones on my necklace, rubbin’ one between my finger and thumb to help ground me. “At first, nothin’. I was truckin’ away at my business degree, thinkin’ about applyin’ to some MBA programs.”

  “MBA?”

  “I wanted to be one of those consultants that companies call in to fix things. I’ve always had a level head and a good mind for seein’ possibilities and solvin’ problems,” I explain, and Flint nods as he wraps a strand of my hair around his finger.

  “I can see that about ya,” he observes, and it makes a smile tilt up one corner of my mouth.

  His eyes drop to my lips for a second before reconnectin’ with my gaze, and there’s a palpable heat that simmers up between us. I shake it off and look to find Alder’s eyes watching me in the rearview mirror again, and there’s no mistakin’ the fervor I see in his gaze. Heat trickles down my spine, and I breathe deeply through the longin’ his stare seems to be callin’ out of me.

  I blink and look away. Whatever’s happenin’ is a little too intense for this early hour and with demons I’m just startin’ to get to know. I focus back on what we’re talkin’ about.

  “Anyway, everythin’ was fine until my roommate, Mackenzie, and I went to a party one night. Some football players were chattin’ us up, and Mackenzie had doe eyes for Channing Phillips. He was very popular around campus, and she just kept lookin’ over at me like she couldn’t believe he was talkin’ to her.”

  I sigh and look down at my hands. I pick at the already chipping nail polish that I just applied the day before, and prepare myself for the memories I wish weren’t now stitched into the fabric of who I am.

  “We were drinkin’ and chattin’ and havin’ a good time, but at some point I looked back, and Mackenzie and Channing weren’t there anymore. I didn’t really think much of it, but when it got late and things were startin’ to wind down, I messaged her and didn’t hear back. It was unusual for her to go off like that and not let me know, but I told myself to relax, that she was probably off havin’ fun with a football star and to just rein in the mother hen in me.”

  I shake my head as a weary exhale leaves my lips, and emotion prickles my eyes. The guys are so quiet and still, waitin’ on my every word.

  “When Mackenzie came home the next evenin’, I was fumin’. I had been so worried about her, and all it took was one look to see that I had good reason to be. She ran right into the shower, and I followed after her. I saw...bite marks and bruises all over her body as she stripped out of her clothes. She was frantic as she got under the water, and she started scrubbin’ at her skin and sobbin’ so hard she could barely breathe. When she turned around and screamed at me to get out, I saw the initials C.P. carved into her lower stomach.”

  I hear one of them suck in a breath, and I pause, breathin’ through the rush of emotions that slams through me like a tidal wave. Even though it’s been years since it happened, or since I even spoke to her, I try to blink back the images of my best friend cryin’ a soul-deep kind of cry as I begged her to get out of the shower and come with me to the police instead.

  Like it was only yesterday, I recall cradlin’ her on the floor as she flatly told me the pieces she could remember of what happened. I tried to hold her together as she broke, cryin’ endlessly until we were both wrung out and hollow.

  “I s
hould’ve been watchin’ for her. Keepin’ an eye out for my friend, but I hadn’t, and now this awful thing had happened to her,” I say quietly, that old guilt still gnawin’ away at me. “I didn’t know what to do. I eventually convinced her to report what happened. But everythin’ that came after she did that was almost just as bad as what happened to her in the first place. There were brutal interviews and horrible gossip, glares, and accusations flung by strangers. I wish I could say there had been some kind of justice, but Mackenzie was told that her case wasn’t strong enough, and the prosecutor refused to pursue it.”

  Flint and Alder both shake their heads in disgust, and anger fills up the car like breaths you can see when it’s cold outside.

  “That bastard carved his initials into her like she was a tree, and they told her there just wasn’t enough evidence, that her case wasn’t strong because she had been drinkin’ and couldn’t recall if she said no. They said they could try for a lesser charge, but by then, Mackenzie was done. She’d been hurt and harassed and put through hell, and she just wanted to get as far away from everythin’ as she could.

  “I had been holdin’ back my anger, tryin’ to be there for her every second of every day like I should’ve been that night, but then Mackenzie got in her car, rolled down her window and told me never to contact her again. That she was leavin’ me, this place, and everythin’ that happened behind her, and then she just drove away. And I…I snapped.”

  I look out the window, sunshine wrappin’ itself around the houses and buildings that are flashin’ past the window as we drive by. I wonder—just like I’ve wondered so many times before—if Mackenzie is okay, if she’s healin’, if she’s happy now, but I respect her wishes to this day, and I stay away. It’s the least I can do for her. I know that I’m just a painful reminder of that time.

  Droppin’ my hold on my necklace, I clear my throat, nervous for my next words to come out. “A week after Mackenzie left, they found Channing Phillips dead, a couple counties over. His initials had been carved all over his body, and his perfectly healthy heart had just stopped, according to the coroner. On the night they suspected that he died, I was accused of beatin’ the shit out of four startin’ football players—his best friends and teammates who were there at the party and spoke against Mackenzie.”