Nightfall (Devil's Night, #4)

by Penelope Douglas

I still sucked at literature, and the only class I really enjoyed was independent study, because I could be alooooooone.

Literature… I still hadn’t done the constructed responses and they were due tomorrow. It’s not that I didn’t like the class. It’s not that I didn’t like books. I just didn’t like old books. Third person, wonky paragraphs a mile long, and some dumb academic trying to force me to believe there’s profound meaning in the author’s overwritten description of a piece of furniture I don’t give two shits about. I’m pretty sure the author doesn’t even know what they were trying to do in the first place, and they were probably just high on laudanum when they wrote it. Or soothing syrup or absinthe or whatever the kids were doing in those days.

“I like it here,” he almost whispered. “I like mystery. Sometimes I’m dying to know what happened that night, and other times, I hope I never find out, because it’s more interesting this way. Reality always disappoints.” He turned to me. “I think that’s why I’ve always liked this time of day best. People hide in the dark. They quench their thirsts in the dark. They build their secrets in the dark. We’re more ourselves here than anywhere else. I get to be me...” he swallowed, staring at me, “when nightfall is coming.”

Out of all the boys in school, Will was the biggest threat. Not because he was handsome or because he was one of the only ones who was ever somewhat interested in me, but because… He never gave up. Deep down, I loved that, because I was going to be an effort for anyone, and he wasn’t easily discouraged.

“Ugh!” I growled, turning up the radio and inching up in my seat because I could barely reach the damn pedals, and it was too dark to try to figure out how to adjust the seat in this stupid truck. God, where did he get off? He’s all like “Hey, babe. I’m—insert hair flip and surfer boy tone—Will Grayson. Should we like, maybe get together and mate? We can totally honeymoon in Hawaii. I’ll put a stamp in your passport and make all your dreams come true.” Which of course, we wouldn’t need our passports, because Hawaii was still in our own country! I growled under my breath, breathing hard as rain fell harder, blurring the road in front of me. I turned on the wipers, my brain calming a little. Okay, okay. He wasn’t that dumb. He wasn’t dumb at all. He would know Hawaii was in America. And he didn’t say ‘like’ and ‘totally’. I hooded my eyes, sighing. And he could be kind. And sweet.

Oh Emmy!🤣💕

What was wrong with her? As far as my friends were concerned, there’d always been something wrong with her, but she looked…defeated. Like a broken vase barely held together with glue. Emory Scott never looked like that. She looked down, probably at our hands, and I didn’t tighten my hold or caress her fingers. I just held her. “Look at me,” I whispered. But she choked out a sob, turning her face away so I wouldn’t see. “Don’t,” she demanded. “Please, don’t be sweet. I…” But all she did was shake her head, the words lost. Rage boiled my blood, and I wanted to know what happened. Who hurt her? The sight of her crying was like a knife in my gut. But she wouldn’t talk to me. Not yet. Maybe never.

🥺

“You’re not what I expected,” I said. “You like action movies, huh?” “You don’t?” I laughed. She was back to shaming my anti-feminist remarks. Yay for normal. After a moment, she spoke up, her voice soft. “I don’t think about anything else when I’m watching them,” she explained. “They take me away. It’s an escape. I like the survival aspect in some of them, too. Ordinary people becoming extraordinary. Being called to do great things.” She rolled a Milk Dud between her fingers, watching the screen. “Hell hones heroes, you know? I feel it when I watch them.” What did she need to escape, though? I didn’t ask, because that would only put her on guard, and I didn’t want her to run. “Well, I prefer the classics,” I told her. “Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone…” “Jean-Claude Van Damme,” we both said at the same time. She turned to me, and I laughed. “Yes,” she said, smiling. “Fuck yes.” I nodded. “I mean, the Muscles from Brussels? Hell yeah.” “Bloodsport,” she added. “Kickboxer,” I chimed in. Great movies. The eighties were the golden age. Ordinary people going to war—battling for honor. I mean, you just don’t get movies like Lethal Weapon, Beverly Hills Cop, and Cobra anymore. You’re the disease, and I’m the cure. Booyah.

“Do you have a boy here?” she asked. I stilled. “No, Grand-Mère.” “Menteuse,” she retorted, calling me a liar in French. “Qui c’est?” “Who’s who?” She jerked her chin behind me, and I whipped around to see Will standing in the doorway. Dammit. I told him to leave. But he just walked in, smiling gently. “Allô,” he said. “Je m’appelle Guillaume.” I gaped at him, hearing French spew out of his mouth like it was nothing. Guillaume was the French variant of William. Seriously? Frankly, I’d been surprised he even spoke English. Figured him for someone who communicated solely in emojis.

😂😂😂

“It was a long time before I met someone who could take me,” she explained. “That’s the thing about broken people, Guillaume. If we ever give you our heart, then you know that you deserve it.”

“I’m not right for you,” I told him. And not because he was rich and popular and I wasn’t, but because he made my life better. I looked forward to him. What did I give him?

I wanted him to know he deserved better. I wanted him to know that if I were someone else, I’d be his and I’d love him so good.

“I know someone like that,” I told him. “He couldn’t fight for the life he wanted until he was forced to fight alone. He held on to his friends and to his sister so tightly, he almost killed us, because in that moment, he couldn’t bear to see us leave, and he would’ve rather seen us dead.”

Damon

I looked over at Will to tell him my idea, but he was already staring at me. He gazed down with an entranced look in his eyes like he’d just been watching something so interesting as he stared at me. Something swelled in my chest, and all of a sudden, I could barely catch my breath as the chandeliers were forgotten. Red lights flashed across his face and then dimmed, his eyes barely visible and then lighting up again, still watching me. I… God, I just wanted to wrap myself around him and never let go. Screams and screeches went off around us, and my fingers tightened more inside his as I hovered over his mouth, letting my eyes fall closed. “Will,” I breathed out, the torture of the centimeters between us making my blood race. I took his hand and guided it under the bar as I tugged my dress up and slid his fingers up the inside of my leg. He exhaled hard, his nails immediately digging into my skin. I sucked in an excited breath, my clit throbbing, and I wanted him to keep going. Opening my eyes, I held his stare as he slid deeper between my thighs and I grew warm and wet the farther up he drifted. A werewolf caricature jumped out of the wall on the other side of Will, and I gasped, every inch of my skin on fire. His fingers peeled my panties away from my skin and dipped inside the fabric as I reached behind my back and unzipped the dress. I glided a hand around the back of his neck, leaning in and whispering again, “Will.” The doors in front of us opened, the room going dar...

“My sweet, little secret,” he murmured. He breathed hard and pushed me back onto the seat, looking down into my eyes as he reached between us to guide himself. The thick head of his dick crowned my entrance, pushing inside just barely, and I shifted uncomfortably. “Will…” “You’ll be mine,” he whispered, pressing himself deeper and deeper. I groaned, stretching for him. “You can ignore me. You can run,” he said, grunting and tipping his head back as he closed his eyes. “You can leave. You can hide…” He slid in, burying himself to the hilt and filling me so wide and deep that I cried out just once. “But you’re going to be fucking mine someday,” he growled. “Come hell or high water, Emory Scott. You’re my woman, and you’re going to come home to me every day and sit at my table and warm my fucking bed.” He kissed me. “And you’re going to give me a Will Grayson IV. Mark my words.”

“Strawberries used to be sweet when I was young,” I said. “I don’t know. They’re sour all the time now.” “Commercial strawberries the last couple of decades are bred to be big and beautiful, but that’s it,” he said. “They taste bad. I can barely eat any produce in the States.”

“What was that?” But he held me down, warning me, “I wouldn’t move.” What? Something slithered over my fingers under the dirt, and I froze, unable to breathe. I pulled against his hold, but he pushed me back in as his piercing gaze pinned me, the smooth body under the soil thick and never-ending. It was long. It wasn’t a worm. I gulped, whispering. “Is that a snake?” “One of them.” One of them? I darted my eyes around the plant bed, trying to spot others. There was a clear, plastic wall around the garden, the panel in front of us removed so Aydin could work. “Who was the addict in your family?” “Huh?” “Look at me, Emory,” he said. I looked up at him, worry knitting my brow. I tried to slide my hands out, but he held firm. Shit. Where was Will? “Who conditioned you to lie so well?” he asked, staring into my eyes and keeping his voice calm and steady. “He…” I trailed off as the snake, or whatever it was, stopped over my hand, and I felt it shift or…start to coil. Another lump lodged in my throat. “Aydin…” “Who?” He tightened his hold on my wrists. “He…” I breathed hard. “He wasn’t an addict. My brother had a temper,” I explained. Fuck, where was Will? Tears sprang to my eyes. “And he got physical with you?” Aydin asked. A flicker of something hit my pinky—again and again. Its tongue? “Oh, my God,” I gasped. “Please.” Let me go. “Be still,” he said. “Look at me.” I darted my eyes to his again. “Like a rock,” he instructed. “You’re part of her terrain. She won’t notice you unl...

“You’re Lilith,” he whispered against my skin. “You can’t be burned if you’re the flame.” Pulling back, he looked down into my eyes, and I didn’t want to smile. He wasn’t off the hook for that scare, but I walked in here with something that I was going to leave without. Everything felt stronger and lighter. How the hell did he do that? Lilith... His words drifted through my head. Was he Jewish? She was in our folklore. Adam’s first wife and cast out of the Garden of Eden, because she refused to be subservient. She was dark and light. She wasn’t afraid to fall or to burn too bright. She was a flame.

“My little Em likes her little secrets. Little nerd by day who likes it a little hard at night.”

“What do you want with me?” I ask. She doesn’t know me, and I don’t for one second believe this is anything but a trick. But then again…the only thing I believe about people is their worst, so... “I don’t know,” she tells me, her voice softening. “But do you ever have that feeling that you need something, but you just don’t know what?” She looks at me, a thoughtful look in her eyes. “Like a drink or a good cry or to jump on a plane and see something new?” she continues. “But then none of those things are it, and you still can’t figure out what it is you need?” Her words resonate with me more than she knows. The only difference is I know what I need. I just can’t have it. “Well, when I saw you inside the park just before,” she tells me, “—and recognized you—I felt like we’d found it.”

“I didn’t love her,” he said, almost to himself. But his face was twisted in sadness and despair as tears spilled over, falling down his dirty face. “I don’t know why it hurts,” he told me. “I didn’t love her.” “You did,” I said, but it came out as a whisper. “You learned how to love from her.” I turned my eyes back out my window, staring at the grave. “This is what it looked like.”

Because every time I closed my eyes, I saw the girl who made me want to be better. More. I saw Emmy Scott. Alex was like Damon. They loved me. They indulged my dark side. They were too forgiving and too enabling. They kept me from being lonely, but Emory taught me that not everything I wanted was going to come easy. That there were things I was going to have to fight for and there was pain in the world that my shallow lifestyle in high school kept me ignorant of. She made me feel like a man. Even though her words were sharp and the battle she constantly fought in her heart felt like a knife in my own, her eyes on me made me feel strong. Her arms around me made me want to take on anything. When I closed my eyes, I saw a girl with glasses too big for her face, and I heard the sweetest, most timid voice asking me if I still wanted to hold her. I could still feel her cradled in my arms.

She’d needed that bourbon more than she needed air that day, and I got that. God, I got that. You smile and laugh, not just because your head and everything in it feels lighter, but because when you’re drunk or high, it’s like a vacation. When you’re away from the same people, the same places, the same work…you don’t think about it. It’s a break from everything that worries you or makes you anxious or keeps your world small and shallow, and everyone who wants to take a piece out of you, and when you’re high, it’s like that. It just doesn’t even matter. Suddenly, you’re seeing Machu Picchu from your front porch, and you didn’t even have to leave town. She got drunk and loved her brother again.

“Then why not try to seduce me?” I charged before she could say anything. What was with all the big brother shit? He just chuckled. “The only thing more powerful than the heart is the brain, and it was so much more useful to get into your head than into your bed.” I shook my head. “Or maybe you didn’t want to take me away from Will, but Will away from Alex. Maybe she was the one you wanted to hurt.” He shrugged. “Either way.”

“The role of the villain is only determined by who’s telling the story.”

I launched the flare, watching it land on the platform, and all it took was a moment before a flame spouted and quickly spread. The fire coursed up to the Ferris wheel, lighting the bottom car and its old leather seat on fire, the flames rising and rising, traveling from car to car as the whole park lit up in a glow so tremendous that I needed sunglasses. The wind blew and the heat of the fire covered my face, and I closed my eyes, not sure if I wanted to cry or smile. Michael Crist, Kai Mori, Damon Torrance, and Will Grayson were going to have their secluded, seaside resort, because we lasted, and we were going to build something that would, as well. Heat rushed under my skin, and I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I was home. Tipping my head back, I belted out the loudest howl I could manage from deep in my stomach hearing the rest of them—the girls, too—join me as our fires spat and hissed around us, the whole fucking place going up in flames.

“I love you,” he said again. “But I’ll let you go.” He started to walk away, my heart ripping in two, and I shook my head. No. He couldn’t let me go. He couldn’t move on without me. Everything we’d been through—everything—meant something. It all meant something. Didn’t it? This wasn’t where we ended. Nothing was over. “Will you marry me?” I asked, breathing hard and my heart hammering. Slowly, I climbed to my feet and turned to face him, seeing him stopped. He stood there, frozen, not turning around, but that was okay. I wasn’t sure I could do this if he looked at me. God, my mouth was so dry I couldn’t swallow. “I love you,” I said, and I could see people filming us with their phones out of the corner of my eye, but I didn’t care. “I’m wild crazy for you, and I’m sure I’ll kill you at some point, but… God, I love you so much, and I want you to marry me.” More tears streamed down my face as I choked out the words. “Marry me, Will Grayson.” I rushed up and hugged his back, wrapping my arms around him. “Can you marry me? Can I marry you?” I held him, my cheek resting against his back and water catching between my lips. He was going to laugh. He was probably freaked out or maybe angry I asked him instead of letting him ask me—if those were his intentions anyway. Shit… But then, he spun around, picked me up off my feet, and kissed me, pressing his lips to mine and backing me into a parked car. Laughter went off around us, and I wrapped my arms and legs around him, reveling in ...

“Don’t sleep tonight,” he gasped, pumping his hips and hovering over my mouth. “Don’t break this. Don’t break the spell.” I rolled into him, heat pooling in my belly as I devoured his shoulder, his neck, and his mouth, unable to get enough. “I loved you last night,” I told him. “And I loved you this morning. I’ll still be here. I’ll still be me tomorrow and every day after.” He lifted up, not breaking pace in the least as he stared down between us, watching himself enter me. “I’m sorry about everything,” I said. “Me, too, baby.” He kissed me. “I should’ve stayed. I’m sorry I walked away. I’m sorry I left you that day in the hallway at school.”

I can’t stop crying ugh what a wuss!

“You can still run,” he taunted. “Maybe after this.” I did a little dance in my stained jeans and dirty face. “When you’re legally required to come after me, that is.” Martin drifted through my mind, as well as my parents, Grand-Mère, and how I didn’t have a single person of my own here whom I was bringing into this family. I came alone, without much else to offer these people, but I was starting tomorrow with everything I ever wanted. I had brothers who cared about me now. Aydin, Rory, and the beautiful Micah, his gentleness and presence that put me at ease at Blackchurch almost immediately. I had a career, an education, and The Carfax Room. I also had Will behind me…and in front of me, willing to take a bullet if I were ever in danger. I trusted myself now. I wasn’t leaving, and I wasn’t hiding. Happy people don’t fear death, because there’s nothing more they want out of life than what they have right now. I smiled, because I didn’t have any fear. Finally, I was free.

“Live for your love,” the judge said, “love your life, and raise hell.”

This is my new motto.

“Are you ready?” He grabbed me and kissed me, laughing against my lips. “I am never not ready for anything with you.” And with the long, hard road it took to get us here, I’d never trusted any other words more. I kissed him, nothing clouding my happiness with him for another second ever again. This was always our story. We want what we want.

What a ride.

“You either have my back,” Michael said. “You’re at my side,” Kai continued. “Or you’re in my way,” the rest of us finished. “Be Lilith,” the girls said. Athos pulled the Red Death over her eyes, all of us setting off as she whispered. “Never Eve.”