DEMON DOOR (#2 GHOST PORTAL series)

FIFTEEN

Jamie kept prodding at Avery, but he wouldn't give the full details of his encounter with Jessamine until Ada came back.

"I'm not repeating this more than once..." Avery shuddered, dreading having to recite the story at all. "I can't. I'm already dealing with too much on the inside, and you all make me repeatedly tell this tale..."

Jamie tucked his hands behind his head and angled back in his seat. "Fine, fine. We'll wait." He'd switched on some music on his phone, and closed his eyes as he bobbed to the beat. "We'll chill until Ada's done doing whatever the fuck she's doing."

Avery rubbed his hands together, hoping to infuse them with warmth.

I don't think I'll ever "chill" again.

He'd been fighting actual chills since he'd come up from the basement, but the eerie heat in his core wasn't helping, wasn't settling him. Torn between sweating and shivering, he didn't know how to get comfortable. The air-conditioning soothed over his face, and yet it didn't seem to truly cool him down.

The sky grew darker, plaguing the clearance with obscurity. Like a blanket was thrown over them, concealing them from the outside world. Further implying that this area, this place was its own dimension, protected from humans, magical and sinister all at once. Further isolated from the world Avery sought to save.

The heat remained in his core. It wouldn't spread up his arms nor down his legs, and concentrated inside his stomach and churned it, upset it. He hadn't eaten anything to justify the nausea, and he didn't get nauseous easily. Which meant it was completely caused by the demonic realm, Jessamine's interference, and the overall anxiety of everything going on.

And of course, the music coming from Jamie's phone wasn't helping, either. He'd opted for a playlist that featured indie singers that Avery had no doubt Jessamine listened to. So every lyric, every beat reminded him of her. Every shiver, every thread of cold slicing down his back, every jolt of warmth in his belly, reminded him of her.

Not just the demonic her that he'd been strangely attracted to, but her. The real Jessamine, the one he'd spent a night with, wrapped up in her blankets, basking in her scent. The one he'd been hesitant to get too close to, still nursing his pain at Amy's disappearance, but he'd gotten too drunk to resist. Jessamine, the beautiful, mysterious barista whose touch had sent sparks up his arm and jump-started his heart.

Fuck.

He definitely had feelings for her. More than what he'd thought, much more than what he'd intended. If he hadn't realized it yet, that had changed, with quite the smack to the face to make him see it.

But had it been her reappearance as an evil entity that had caused him to come to the conclusion? Or had he always known deep down and been unwilling to admit it?

Did Jessamine have feelings for him, too? She'd implied it, even the demons had implied it, earlier, but how could he know for sure? And what difference did it make?

I need to get rid of her, regardless. She has to be stopped, and the only way to stop her...

If she did have feelings, how were those feelings strong enough to evade the thousands of demons cramped up inside her? She'd pushed through them and kissed Avery; and with more reflection on it, Avery had an inkling she'd been the one to do that, not the monsters in her head. They wouldn't have wanted to kiss him, would they? They were demons, they were ruthless and bloodthirsty—they didn't experience lust. If they did, it was likely a violent kind of lust, that would have resulted in Avery's death.

And yet, their presence had created lust, and it was, to a point, brutal. The way they'd transformed Jessamine had animated parts of Avery that he hadn't experienced in ages. The desire he'd had for her, for her growling, her darkness... he didn't understand it. He had no means to prevent it, to shove it down and pretend it wasn't happening. Was he attracted to evil? Or was it a simple coincidence that the woman he'd been developing feelings for was becoming evil?