I glared at him while holding my injured wrist protectively against my chest. “Too bad. You can have everything, but you’re all alone. Boo hoo. Maybe you should buy a goldfish to keep you company.”
Jordan reached for something on the ground—a loose brick I hadn’t noticed before—and slowly crept up behind Stephen. My breath caught as she swung it forward to bash him in the head, but he turned just in time and yanked the brick out of her grip. Then he grabbed her throat and slammed her up against the wall directly beside me.
Too close. I couldn’t be this close to someone with a soul right now. From the claustrophobia, to the pain, I’d become too weak. Hunger crashed over me and I literally whimpered.
Stephen’s expression shifted to one of victory.
“See, Samantha? You can pretend to be all high and mighty and above these earthly needs, like someone worthy of hanging around with Heaven and Hell’s best. But at your core, you’re exactly like me. And it won’t be long before you change to something much more interesting. We’ll get along better then.”
“What?” Jordan choked. “Samantha’s not...”
Stephen smiled. “Yes, she is. I made her myself. I took her soul in a kiss that she was begging me to give her. She’s wanted me since she wasn’t much more than a kid. Right, Samantha?”
“And now I want to kill you,” I growled.
He laughed at this and the sound sent a shiver racing down my spine. “I took her soul because her demon aunt asked me to. I actually felt bad about it at the time. Just a kid.”
I tried to kick him, but his grip increased on my throat. Jordan’s, too, since she let out a hoarse scream.
“Don’t hurt her,” I managed.
He didn’t loosen his grip on either of us. “You want to know my plan? It’s this. I’m going to leave you two alone for a while. It won’t be very much longer before you can’t hold back, Samantha. You’ll take Jordan’s soul, and you’ll take it all.”
“What?” My throat closed with horror at the suggestion.
His cheeks tightened. “If I did it myself, I’d kill her. And I want her to live. I want her to be...improved. There’s room for both of you at my side in the new world if you survive stasis.”
He flung both of us to the side and went to the door. “I’ll check on you later.”
He left.
I scrambled to the far corner of the room, which still wasn’t far enough away from Jordan to help clear my head.
I thought Jordan was crying for a moment, but when she pulled her hands away from her face, she looked mad as hell.
“Explain to me right now what the hell is going on here!” she demanded.
I tried to breathe shallowly as possible as I gave her a bleak look. “What part don’t you understand?”
“All of it!”
I studied her for a moment, her furious expression, the sparking anger in her eyes. “I think you understand more than you realize.”
“What does this have to do with Julie’s suicide?”
“Honestly?” I thought about it. “Nothing, directly. But in a way, everything bizarre that’s going on in this city is related.”
If Connor had been right in his hypothesis about the new demon in town, everything bad going on in Trinity was related to the Hollow and how it had become a two-way swinging door, rather than Heaven and Hell’s dumping ground. It had a case of bulimia now, purging what it had once swallowed down.
Jordan raked a shaky hand through her long, tangled red hair. “I thought I was going crazy, but it’s all true. Stephen’s a monster. And you’re...you’re a monster, too. Was he lying about that?”
I swallowed hard. “Depends on your definition of monster.”
She glared at me. “You’re one of these things that can steal a soul with a kiss.”
My chest tightened. “Afraid so.”
“And Stephen’s the one who changed you into one of these things.”
“Yes.”
She inhaled shakily. “He kissed you, but he won’t kiss me.”
My eyes narrowed. “Don’t sound so disappointed. Believe me, this is not something you want. It’s horrible. This hunger, it’s...the worst thing I’ve ever dealt with.”
I’d already given in to it three times. It couldn’t happen again or I knew I’d lose myself completely.
She hesitated. “But you’re something else, too. Your parents...”
“My birth parents, you mean.” I chewed my bottom lip. She knew, so there was no reason for me to try to keep denying it. “I didn’t know the truth about myself until very recently.”
“What does it mean?”
“Only that I’m more confused about my personal identity than ever before.”
She paced in small lines, back and forth, her arms crossed over her chest. “Doesn’t that trump the whole gray thing? Isn’t that some sort of power that you can draw from to help you?”
I wished it was that simple. I really did. “What I am underneath, it’s got nothing to do with this. It’s like they’re separate things. Who my real parents are isn’t going to make anything easier.”
Her skin had paled to a ghostly white. “And now Stephen wants you to infect me.”
I pulled my knees up to my chest and started to rock myself. My mind flashed back to kissing Colin in the hall, how I’d had zero control then when I’d always been able to stop myself before. What happened to Stephen—it was going to happen to me. Soon. Or I was going to drop dead like that woman in the street the other night who’d disintegrated before my very eyes.