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Everyone has a story about where they were when the Demon King arrived. I was alone in my condo trying to swat a fly.
I had a strict no-news policy because the news was depressing. The world was burning. A mass shooting every other day. Political discord. Governmental nutjobs. I was already not excelling at life. I didn’t want to add to the shit with more shit.
We were all captivated by him, starved for beauty, greedy for drama, attracted to power like a moth to the flame. We were all hungry to burn.
It’s like I’m searching for something through my lens that I just haven’t found yet.
For now, family photography pays the bills, and I’m my own boss, but it’s starting to feel like every session I do chisels a little more off my soul. My cracks are widening, and I don’t know how to fix it.
Nothing is perfect in this world, and allowing something to show its cracks should be beautiful.
He’s made me a half-and-half spiked with rum. Black tea, lemonade, and all the booze a girl could get.
It somehow made us closer, losing someone we loved.
Looking at the Demon King is like peering into the heart of an underwater cave and knowing that the darkness is looking back.
And his eyes. Not gray, not blue, not green. Something in between. All of the colors and none of the colors. A gaze that penetrates and cuts and observes and knows.
He’s flawless. Not shining exactly, but radiant. Ethereal.
“My eyes are up here.” “I’m glad you’re aware. Perhaps use them next time.”
But I keep standing. I can’t tell if it’s a good idea though. Am I the lighthouse standing against the raging storm? Or the single dandelion trying to face a tornado?
Whenever I’d throw a mini tantrum when I was a kid, my mom would turn to the witnesses in the grocery store or the library and just shake her head and say, “She’s an Aries,” as if they should know that meant I’m stubborn and I have a temper and I hate being told what to do. And I do. I really, really hate being told what to do. I level my shoulders, bunch my hands into fists, and stare into those bright, bottomless eyes of the Demon King and say, “No.”
I hate men who think they’re powerful. Who think they can tell people what to do. If I learned anything from my mother, it’s how to stand on my own two feet, dependent on no one.
Fuck no. I’m Rain Low. Wild child. Aries woman. I surrender to no one.
I close my eyes against the heaviness. The world spins in the darkness.
The toaster pops up, revealing bread so seedy, it might as well be a bird treat.
The heat and humidity were so bad, I spent most of our time there feeling like I was swimming in our own apartment.
I feel crazy. Because there’s this little voice in the back of my head that says I want to see him again just to feel that weightless delirium at the center of my chest.
“now that we know you can stand against the Demon King, it won’t be just Wrath that wants you.” I had no idea at the time just how right she was.
Cocooned in Harper’s high thread count white sheets, I fall asleep fast thinking I’m safe. That turns out not to be true. Because several hours later, I’m jolted awake and yanked from my bed by the Demon King himself.
Moonlight shines on half the Demon King’s face as he throws me against the wall.
I fucking hate him, and I think we’re trying to murder each other right now, but I’m also dangerously close to wanting to rip his clothes off and fuck him until I can’t stand upright. What the fuck is wrong with me?
I’m now the enemy of our enemy. And apparently the only
I like to pretend I don’t need anyone, until I do.
“Every man has a weakness,” Adam repeats. “And the Demon King? You’re his.”
“Witches? Demons? Possession?” I can feel my blood pressure rising, my face flushing.
“Chinese food always makes everything better.”
Fear keeps us all in our boxes, locked away safe and sound. I think in a lot of ways, doing family photography is my safe little box. I whine and bitch about it, but have I done anything to change it? No. Because it’s safe. Because doing it means I don’t have to take any big risks, it means I don’t have to face failure, or discomfort.
The Demon King is coming for me whether I like it or not.
She smiles again. She has a dazzling smile that reminds me of a daisy opening up. When she turns that smile on you, you just want to bask in it.
The trouble with always fending for myself means I’ve never had to shoulder the responsibility of anyone else, and I’m finding I don’t like it. The feeling chafes.
I hate that I hate this. I hate that I can’t just be happy with what I have. But isn’t that how I’ve always lived my life? Nothing is ever good enough. Perpetually dissatisfied.
“Like you’re always chasing a drug,” she would say, “but you don’t know what the drug is.” She’s not wrong. I feel like I’ve been searching for something my entire life, but I don’t know what that is,
He takes a breath. I can hear it in the dark. I can feel it like a fingertip dragging across my skin.
It’s just…every breath he exhales around me feels like a storm rolling in, like I’m the ocean, and he’s the thundercloud churning my insides. I can’t fight it any more than the ocean can fight the storm.
A light here required a shadow there – Virginia Woolf
Anything that’s made with creativity is art.
when she took part in a live exhibit. I know art. I know that not all of it makes sense, but that good art makes you feel something.
Our world is already dangerous, but it’s a danger I’m familiar with.
Wrath is living, breathing art. And a little twisted part of me wants to be overwhelmed by him like my mom at the Grand Canyon, staring into the chasm.
A hot shower can seriously repair any bad day.
The only thing I can think about is how Pitch just told me a silly story about math class and his mom and now he’s bleeding out right before my eyes.
He cants his head, a sliver of moonlight finding his face. There is something dangerously beautiful about him, like a blade made of glass.
Wrath’s attention slides away from me briefly, and the absence of his attention is like losing the sunlight on a cold winter day.
Swaths of his dark mist bleed into the air around us like ink dropped into water. The darkness cages us in as a gun goes off. Wrath growls at my ear and the darkness pulls in on itself, perfuming the air with a scent that’s deep and dark and reminds me of starlight and burning wood.
His eyes are no longer glowing, and all of that black magic that trails off him is gone, but even so, even when he’s standing by as casual as can be, there’s something menacing about him that disturbs the air like he’s a volcano that could blow at any moment. It makes my heart thump in the hollow spaces of my body, this constant closeness to something that could destroy me with such little effort.
“If I brought you here with barely any effort at all, imagine where I could deposit you now, dieva, naked and trembling.”
Because when he steps into a room, it’s clear he’ll always be the one in charge.
