Mona has Deedee by her feet while I have my arms under her armpits. The poor woman is petrified. So petrified that she's shaking like a leaf as we toil our way to the west wing of the house. Between the two of us, we manage to carry Deedee's lifeless body all the way up to her room.

"You can go now," I tell Mona when she lingers anxiously behind me after we lay Deedee down on her bed. But then I pause and before she could leave, I grab her by her arm. "Not a word about this to anyone, you understand?"

The woman feverishly nods before she hastily skitters away, closing the door behind her.

Then I arrange Deedee's body to make it look like she's merely sleeping. I brace my elbow against the mattress to support my upper body up as I lay beside her. "Don't worry, you're still beautiful, Deedee," I reassure her because I know it's important to her. I brush her hair back from her face, then tuck a few strands behind her ear. I run my fingers over her flawless skin. "You're a bit pale but that's not something a little make-up couldn't fix." My voice breaks at the end, so I close my eyes and take a deep steadying breath before I continue, "You just leave it to me, Deedee."

I lay my head down on the pillow next to hers, closing my eyes, pretending that she's just sleeping.

*****

A talk with a fellow Cambion, Joshua King reveals that Robert Rosenheim and Graham Yates aren't the upstanding members of the society as they'd like the public to think. Power, money, sex...humans could make the devil weep with envy, given the right motivation and the two are deep into all those things. They are almost as bad as my father.

Rosenheim and Yates are best friends since Harvard and in their youth, they've sold their soul to the devil for power and wealth. Ironically, they failed to recognize Astaroth for what he is.

"They've been harassing and threatening your sister Deidra for months," says Joshua. Joshua is the son of the demon Leviathan. I don't know if I could fully trust him but I know that he'd rather not get involved in anything so he wouldn't talk if anything were to happen.

"How'd you know all these things?" I ask him.

"I could tell you but then I'd have to kill you," he says.

"How very original, Joshua."

"Then stop asking stupid questions," he returns with a chuckle. Sobering up, he asks, "So, is it time for the devil to collect yet? Seems to me that they had a good run."

Am I going to be the one to collect their souls for the devil? "I don't know. Are you?"

"Not me, pretty girl. Not me," he says. "You don't hear it from me that they're going fishing this weekend," he adds. "I have to go. Have a great weekend, baby girl!"

"Thanks, Josh," I say, ending the call.

A few minutes of ingenious cyberstalking later, I find the address for Rosenheim's cabin by the lake where they'll be staying this weekend. How very convenient. Almost like it's fated to be.

"You are going to be very busy this weekend, Deedee," I tell her as she lays quietly there.

Deedee's phone keeps going off with calls and incoming messages from Sterling Rosenheim. It goes on for a couple of days and by Friday, he shows up at the house, demanding to see her.

I can't bring myself to care and I let the maids deal with him.

Whatever it is that he wants with her, it's too late. Maybe he did care about her, maybe he didn't. Either way, it doesn't matter anymore. He'll never see her again.

*****

The following evening, right after the sun goes down, Mona and I put Deedee in the back of my Audi.

Mona is still scared silly but she's helped me set everything up and gets into the car with me without any complaints.

I drive over four hours to upstate New York.

It's quite late when we get there but I found a clearing in the woods not far from Rosenheim's luxurious cabin by the river.

Surrounded by candles with Deedee's body lying inside an ancient sigil drawn on the earth, I recite the forbidden spell in the foreign tongue. I invoke her spirit. I call upon her to come back.

Under the pale moonlight and the golden glow of the candles, Deedee stirs and sits up.

Mona who is sitting close behind me lets out a tiny squeak and Deedee raises her face up to us.

Just by looking at my sister now, I can understand why the spell is forbidden. She radiates malice. There's an eerily blank expression on her face and an emptiness in her eyes. The play of shadows on her pallid skin gives her a sinister look.

She doesn't look much like Deedee that I know. I don't know if whatever inhabits her body right now is really Deedee. The book had warned me that whatever comes back isn't the same as the one who died.

"Go and do what you came back to do, Deedee," I tell her. The candles all around us flicker and die out all at once. Owl hoots echo from afar and Mona is shivering behind me.

Deedee stiffly raises to her feet. The paleness of her skin and the white silk dress that we put her in earlier seem luminous under the moonlight as she slowly walks deeper into the woods. We silently watch her disappear into the darkness.

Mona helps me gather everything back into the sack and get rid of all the other evidence that we're ever there. It's after four in the morning when we arrive back home.

The next day, I wake up to the news of the gruesome deaths of Robert Rosenheim and Graham Yates. The two tycoons reportedly died of an animal attack.

The fallout of what happened lays at my feet. Astaroth knew what I did and as a punishment, I'm being stripped down to my waist to receive the lashings of my life. My hands are tied to the chain that hangs from the ceiling.

Astaroth delivers the whipping and there's no mercy. Blood rolls down in rivulets down my legs. The pain is unbearable that I might have passed out several times.

After it's all over, Astaroth gently strokes my hair and kisses my forehead. "Well done, daughter," he whispers.

I stare up at his beautiful face. I must be having a hallucination from the pain- he looks at me as though he's proud of me.

They carry me back to my room where they lay me on my stomach. My back is bleeding. My skin is shredded.

That night, I wake up to the feel of icy cold fingers on the side of my face. I feel a cool breath on the nape of my neck along with the stench of death. "Danica..." someone whispers in my ear.

"Deedee?" I crane my neck to look behind me but it's too dark. I'm groggy from medication, and my neck can't stretch back any further. "Deedee? Is that you?"

There's a scent of decaying flesh and blood and a malevolent presence in the darkened room with me. It lingers and stays with me until I drift off. When I wake up in the morning, it's gone.

Even though I can't sleep on my back for weeks after the lashing, the punishment is very light considering the mess that I've created. Astaroth could've killed me.

The fact that he didn't makes me wonder that he actually approves of what I did. Maybe I wasn't hallucinating after the lashing after all. He was proud of me.

No one threatens or tries to intimidate Astaroth and gets away with it and Rosenheim and Yates were foolish to do it. If I didn't know any better, I'd say Astaroth orchestrated the whole thing.

The lashing was necessary. If the Nephilims and their law came knocking, he could have told them that he had nothing to do with it and the person responsible had been severely punished.

I know Deedee had used me to exact revenge on Rosenheim and Yates for taking away her lover and caused Astaroth to kill her and it could've easily ended my life. She's manipulative and conniving through and thorough, self-serving at the expense of others, namely me, till the very end. But ask me if I was sorry I did what I did.

The answer is no. Given a choice, I'd do it again.

I guess I needed that to really hammer it home that I have nobody looking out for me. I only have myself. It's every woman for herself- that's what Deedee knew and that's what she did. I couldn't fault her for it.

This reminds me to be me again. The one before the Nephilim prince showed up and messed with my head, filling it with false hope.

I'm an adrenaline junkie. I live for the high. There's this sense of urgency running through my veins. Being a daughter to Astaroth means that my life is short and sweet. Well, maybe not sweet, but definitely short. So I'm going to make sure that I burn bright before my light fizzles out.

I try to push all the thoughts of the Nephilim prince out of my mind. I spend my birthday partying up on one of the small party islands in the Bahamas with my friends. It's not every day that you turn 17.

The party island is very exclusive, meaning if your family isn't in the top 5 percent or you're not on the in, you wouldn't know of its existence.

There's a natural waterfall next to the DJ's raised platform. Luxurious yachts and boats moored all around. Their lights reflected off the ocean like stars. It's magical.

The next day I cliff jump from that very waterfall. This is what I live for.

*************************************************

Hello dear readers!

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My next update is going to be on Friday evening (est). If you want to read three chapters ahead, go to: 

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Enjoy the rest of your week and stay safe!

Much love,

Nicole♥

P/S: The song is Drunk by Keshi♥