The Devil - Rewritten

Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE: WILLOW

Sunshine, if I ever disappear, please tell people that I ran after the Devil, trying to get my soul back. 
-April Genevieve Tucholke

Emma's

Emma Carter knows that everyone has secrets. 

It's inevitable. 

She knows that a lot of the time, their life is what's secret—some of the biggest parts of it anyway. Parts that they don't really hide but don't flaunts. 

Hers would look like "My father died by being shot." or "My mother's a drug addict." or "I tried to kill myself last year." 

Because no, she doesn't try to hide it. 

She doesn't take off her father's dragon ring from her neck, she doesn't wash her clothes every time they smell like smoke or pot, she doesn't hide the scars on her body or the bandages on her arms. 

But she doesn't report the drugs she finds or go to the school councilor, she's not in therapy even though she knows she should be.

Often, Emma feels small.

Anxiety and depression to Emma was a lot more than being nervous or shy. 

It's her entire body existing in a physiological and mental state of emergency in the absence of danger while her mind tried to convince her that she'd be happier shoving a pencil through her eye or jumping from a two story window just to see what would break.

Her home life doesn't help that.

Sometimes her best friend, Jessamine Thatch, does. She laughs with Emma and Emma knows the crazy girl is the only reason she has any semblance of a life.

Jessie can be a little over the top sometimes, but they were best friends and had honestly been through a lot together.

Emma wasn't about to give that up just because Jessie's a little annoying.

Often, Emma didn't care enough to show up to school on time and she's gotten detention for that and scolded by teachers but she didn't know how to tell normal teenagers and her teacher who only have normal worries and responsibilities that she's exhausted physically and mentally from just existing.

How can she tell them her insomnia—given to her by paralyzing fear of having a nightmare and trying to kill herself or just remembering the things she's been through—keeps her up most nights? 

She can't. 

That's the simple answer.

People act like they want to help her, they say they're her friend but when she needs them they aren't here. But Jessie was. She's held her when her arms were beat up and bloody and Emma was sobbing on her bathroom floor.

Jessie was also the reason Emma was introduced to the Devil.

Xavier Wolf.

Emma was hesitant at first, she knew that Xavier's reputation and many of the rumors weren't just random bullshit passed around like gossip.

He was violence, and cruel and snarky. He liked to punch things, people, and he didn't care about the cops.

That was... it was a little scary.

And that's without her factoring his impressively built frame, where he ranged about six and a half feet tall, imposing large hands that were often curled into fists, his lips that were always in a wild smirk or thin line. He had fangs, actual fangs, because his canines were sharpened naturally to a lethal point.