CHAPTER 8

4 0 0
                                        

Katie felt a weight lift from her shoulders. Was she doing the right thing? Forever it seemed like the only thing she had to do was get away from Josh, but situations didn't allow that. Now, she felt like she was consciously deciding to stay with him. With no coercion. Was that acceptable? She honestly didn't know, but she felt better about the decision to stay with him than she had with anything else that had happened recently. She felt like she was regaining control.

She reached out and grabbed Josh's hand. If she was going to be stuck with him, she might as well learn as much as she could from him. His knowledge and experience could come in handy. He gently squeezed her fingers.

"Can you get those healed?" Katie asked.

Josh raised his right eyebrow and stared at her. "Get what healed?"

"Your back. Randy, Wes's dad, was in horrible shape when I first met him. Told everyone he had been in a car accident but he had actually been in a fight with demons. He had the ability to get healed."

Her mind drifted back to being in Randy's house. It was right after he had destroyed her demon-mom. He had been in terrible shape—stitches had covered his face and he could barely walk. And that was before demon-mom attacked him. When they were safe, he had opened a portal and told Katie to wait. She didn't know where he had gone, but when he came back, he was healed. There had been only scars where the wounds had been. She hadn't had a chance to wonder about it before because she had been desperate to find her mom.

Josh snarled at the mention of the Praesuls' names. "Randy has the luxury of using Heavenly Light to get healed. That's also how he was able to escape my grasp. He brought some of it back with him."

Katie thought back to the moment in the warehouse when Randy had slipped out of a demon's grasp. Light had flashed through the room and practically blinded her. It had also incinerated the top half of the demon. She hadn't had a chance to think about what was going on at the time because she was trying to save lives, but it made sense that Randy would employ the power of Heaven to fight his battle; he might not have won otherwise. He had been completely outnumbered.

"Hell doesn't have the equivalent of Heavenly Light? Deadly Shadows or something?"

Katie didn't mean the question to be a joke; she honestly wanted to know. It seemed to her that there would be equal but opposite powers on both sides of good and evil.

The right side of Josh's mouth pulled into a smile. "We have something just as powerful, yes. But only a select few are allowed to wield it." His smile faded. "As for the wounds, I'm expected to carry the scars for eternity to remind me of my place."

Katie grimaced. Visions of history class and stories from the days of slavery entered her mind. She definitely got the sense from Josh's words that his situation wasn't much different. Power and dominance played a major role, and those with power didn't want those without it to forget their place. But underlying that idea was the fear that the powerless would rise up. Katie had seen that side of Josh. She sympathized with his punishment, but she also knew that if it came to protecting her, he wouldn't hesitate to act—no matter the punishment. She smiled inwardly at the thought.

Josh let her hand go and stood. Katie stared up at him, wondering what he was doing. She figured they would probably head in to whatever establishment was close by and look for some souls to harvest; it would be the normal and predictable chain of events. And, surprisingly, she was all right with that. It would mean things were back to normal. He smiled down at her.

"I should get you home. You have school tomorrow."

Katie was shocked. "Seriously?"

Josh's smile faltered slightly. "Yeah. Why?"

Dealing with Devils (Book 2 in the Road to Salvation Series)Where stories live. Discover now