Free Soulless (The Heartless Series Book 2) by Kelly Martin

even stop to make a stupid sex joke. I appreciate it. “Or inside with me because she was the one with the memories. I don’t know anything about this body’s life. Nothing. Not even a name. But with your aunt, I needed to know everything: what she did with your mother when they were young, where they went to high school, everything, and the only way to get that information…”
    “Was for her to be alive.”
    “Was for her to be alive.”
    “You bastard.” I can feel the anger rising in me like I did before in my room. I know I should feel angrier, actually. What he did… it can’t be undone. I feel the same tingle in my stomach, only this time it’s barely there, barely able to be felt. The red I see isn’t as dark or pure as the red I saw before in my bedroom.
    “If you are thinking about hurting me, you can’t. Don’t have enough demon blood in you. You need to recharge.” He starts out the door, leaving me there to stew in all my anger and confusion and regret—so much regret.
    There’s one more thing I need to know… one more thing. Well, many more things, but one more that is bugging me so much. I hate that he did that to my aunt. I hate it with everything I have. But I understand it, and that scares me so much. I don’t want to understand it. I don’t want to understand anything a demon does. But I do.
    It’s now or never. “You could get out of Sam,” I say as I stand.
    Hart stops in his tracks. By the way he’s standing, it doesn’t even seem like he has a slightly overweight body draped over his shoulder. Demons must have extra powered super strength.
    “You don’t need him, not really. You could find some other poor body to inhabit.”
    “Yes.”
    “But you don’t. You went back, and I honestly hate that I have to say it like this, inside him even though you could have picked someone else. Why?”
    Half of Hart’s body is inside our little apartment and half of his body is on the outside. I can feel the cold air pour in through the open glass, which is disheartening since it’s September.
    “Tell me why you stay Sam.” I push.
    Hart lowers his head, averting looking in my eyes.
    “Because you love him.”

CHAPTER NINE
     
    L ESS THAN AN HOUR LATER, MY living room looks completely normal. One would never know that it’d been a slaughterhouse earlier in the day. After Hart took the bodies outside, I cleaned… and cleaned… and bleached, until I had no more nose hairs left.
    While I clean, I turn the television on to see how bad things have gotten around here. It’s bad.
    The eclipse, going on three days, has turned the entire world nearly crazy. Looting. Sacrifices. The upside, I suppose: churches have never been so full. Lots of people seem to think this is the end of days. It’s all that’s on almost every channel, save HGTV. They are showing House Hunters . I love House Hunters and am tempted to leave it there and pretend the world isn’t falling apart around me. Seems like an excellent plan to me.
    However, being the ever responsible Abomination I am, I change it back to local programming. Hundreds of people are missing. Hundreds… I pray Hart didn’t do all that for me.
    Then I wonder if God can hear my prayers. A strange thing to wonder, I suppose. I’ve always been to church on and off. It isn’t that I don’t believe. I most certainly do now. Hell, Seth opened the Hell gate just to give God the middle finger. Seth certainly believes. I believe.
    I just want to know where He is, and why He’s not down here fixing this mess. On a different note, why didn’t he stop Seth from having sex with Ruby Sullivan eighteen years ago and producing a child? Free will is one thing. Allowing the thing to happen that will destroy the entire, beautiful thing you created is totally another.
    If I think about this long enough, I’ll get a headache. Or a bigger one. I have the makings of a pretty big one right now.
    I wonder where Seth is.
    I wonder where God is.
    I wonder about