The Appeal of Evil (The Road to Salvation) (20 page)

JOSH WAS JERKED FROM KATIE’S GRASP.
A scream built up in her throat, but it never had the chance to leave. With inhumanely fast speed, Josh was on his feet, spinning to meet his attacker. His eyes glowed white. His jaw was clenched, his hands balled into fists at his sides. A growl emitted from his lips. When his vision fell on Wes, all of that drained away and a laugh escaped his lips. Katie had a hard time understanding what was so funny. Her heart pounded in her chest, her palms were sweaty. The anticipation of what was going to happen next hung thick in the air.

“Oh, Wes. It’s just you. I thought I was facing a real threat.”

Wes raised the log and pointed it at Josh. Where had he gotten a log? Katie didn’t remember seeing any lying around.

“I’m done warning you, Josh. Stay away from her.” He said the last part slowly, emphasizing each word so Josh would know he was serious.

A crowd formed around them. The buzz of whispered questions reached Katie’s ears. They wanted to know what was going on. Who was the guy with the log? Why had he attacked Josh? Was it because of her? Fingers pointed at her, gazes drifted in her direction.

Josh held his hands out to his sides. “What are you gonna do?”

Katie saw the indecision on Wes’s face. He wanted to attack, to take Josh down and beat him into Hell, but could he do it in front of all these people without them interfering? Plus, he wasn’t at one hundred percent. He still had his injuries from his and Josh’s first meeting. That hadn’t gone too well for him. The only reason he had gotten out of it alive was because of Katie. Was she going to help him again? His eyes briefly took her in, but she averted her gaze to the sand. Why was he putting her in this situation? How could he expect her to do anything for him after he refused to help her in the hospital? Wes held out his hand.

“Katie, come with me.”

Katie’s head shot up. Her eyes widened, and a grimace covered her face. Was he serious?

Josh stepped in front of her. “I’m pretty sure she’s going to stay right here with me.”

“Yeah, loser!” Someone called from the crowd. “She wants to stay with the cool people.”

Wes’s eyes drooped in sadness. “Katie, please. I need you to come with me.”

Josh reached behind him and grabbed Katie’s hand. She took it and pushed herself closer to Josh’s body. The crowd around them drew in, moving closer to Josh to emphasize they had his back.

Wes was not in a good situation. Katie glanced around. He was easily outnumbered twenty to one. Surely he knew he couldn’t win. He would turn around at any moment and leave. He had to. Katie was mad at him and didn’t want to talk to him again, but she also didn’t want to see him get hurt. She stared at him, her eyes pleading with him to leave.

Josh laughed again. “I’m fairly certain Katie has made her point. If anyone needs to leave, it’s you.”

“No one wants you here, geek!” A girl’s shrill voice echoed across the beach. “Go home to your video games.”

Wes never took his eyes off Katie. His hand shook slightly, then fell to his side. The log thumped into the sand. Relief washed over Katie. Wes was going to leave. He would be safe. Rage burned across Wes’s eyes, and he charged forward. Josh dropped Katie’s hand and lunged forward to meet him on the sand. His fist connected with Josh’s face, and then the two of them fell to the ground in a flail of arms and legs as they tried to punch and kick each other. Shouts erupted from the crowd, encouraging the two to kill each other. If they only knew that would happen if everyone wasn’t around.

Nausea settled in Katie’s stomach. She wanted to scream at Josh and Wes to stop fighting. She wanted to tell the teens around her to quit encouraging them. She wanted to go home and crawl into her bed, pretend the day didn’t happen. But she didn’t do any of that. She couldn’t. Frozen in place, she stared at the two fighting like she was caught in a trance. They continued to roll around on the ground, each trying to get the upper hand on the other. It surprised her how much fight Wes had in him. Where did he get the strength after being in the hospital and having so many stitches? He shouldn’t have been able to put up that good of a fight. Perhaps it was determination. Maybe he wanted Katie so badly to go with him he could transcend pain and discomfort to accomplish his mission. Whatever it was, it was too late. He’d had ample opportunities to express his feelings to Katie. It shouldn’t have taken such extreme measures to get his attention.

The crowd parted opposite of where Katie stood and three guys rushed toward Wes and Josh. Katie faintly recognized one of them as Zack. The other two must have been other members of the football team. Without blinking, they reached into the tangle of limbs that was Josh and Wes and pulled them apart. It took two of them to pull Josh away, but Zack was enough to handle Wes. Blood was smeared across Wes’s face, and small pools formed on his shirt. Josh’s face was red, his lip swollen. They glared at each other, each looking like they wanted the other to burst into flames.

“Enough!” Zack yelled.

Josh immediately went limp in the two guys’ arms, and they let him go. He wiped at his mouth, never taking his eyes off Wes, who jerked himself out of Zack’s grasp.

“What’s going on here?” Zack asked. His tone softened slightly, but there was a hardness to it. “Is this about her?” He pointed at Katie.

All eyes turned toward her. She wrapped her arms around her chest and hunched her shoulders forward. If she could have folded in on herself and disappeared, she would have.

Zack slapped his hand against his leg. “Look, I’m not trying to get in anyone’s business, but we all came out here to have a nice, relaxing day. You two want to fight over her, assuming she’s worth it, by all means, but do it somewhere else. Don’t ruin everyone else’s good time.” He folded his arms across his chest and stared at Wes and Josh, expecting an answer.

Katie turned and ran to the bathrooms. She didn’t want to be back in the smell, but she had to get away from the looks of contempt, of blame. Being the center of attention was nice, but not like that. She wanted to be envied, not hated. Slamming the door behind her, she held it shut with her hands as she caught her breath. This wasn’t exactly how she planned on spending the day. It was supposed to be her one chance to get away, to relax, to not think about Wes or Josh or Heaven or Hell. She and Deb should have gone shopping.

She went to lock the door, to make sure no one barged in on her, only to find the lock was broken. Of course it was. Nothing else had gone her way that day, why would the lock work? She sighed and took a seat on the “toilet.” Really it was nothing more than a seat over a hole in the ground. She placed her head in her hands. With any luck, no one would come after her. Hopefully they were so disgusted with her they would shun and outcast her. But what if they didn’t? What if Wes or Josh came in? What would she do? Panic settled in her chest and she raised her head, surveying the room for something to prop against the door until she could figure out how to get home. It wasn’t her first choice to hang out in the bathroom, but where else was she going to go? She had to wait somewhere for Deb to come back. There was nothing she could use unless she could figure out a way to wedge a roll of toilet paper under the door.

She stood and reached for a roll. It was worth a shot. Before she could pick up the paper, a portal appeared before her and an arm pulled her into the light.

Katie blinked and found herself standing on a grassy hill surrounded by wildflowers. Tall, snow-covered mountains towered above her on all sides. A breeze blew, bringing with it a slight chill, causing goosebumps to form on her skin, but it wasn’t unpleasant. The scent of lavender filled her nostrils. She inhaled a deep breath. The smell was more than welcome after being in the outhouse at the reservoir. She turned to her right, to figure out who had brought her here. It could have been either Josh or Wes, although she was fairly certain exactly who it was. She folded her arms across her chest as Wes came into view. His brow was wrinkled in anger, and he paced in front of her, his eyes glued to the ground, occasionally glancing up at her. He wanted to say something, that was obvious, but he was trying to figure out the best way to say it without sounding like a complete jerk. Katie didn’t think that was possible.

“He took you to Hell.” The words were quiet but laced with venom. His jaw muscles tightened after he said them, and the vein on his neck bulged.

“So?”

Wes stopped pacing and faced her. Rage burned through his eyes. “So? SO? Do you know how much danger you were in down there? Do you have any idea what could have happened to you?” He lost control of his temper and screamed the words at her.

If Katie could have turned and walked away from him, she would have. She would have flipped him the bird over her shoulder and headed into her house, intent on never speaking to him again. As it was, she had nowhere to go. Her only option was to suffer his verbal abuse until he decided to take her home. She dug her nails into her upper arms to keep from lashing out at Wes. The temptation to punch him in the face burned through her. Who did he think he was, talking to her like that?

“Josh was with me. He said he would keep me safe.”

Wes placed both hands on the side of his head and tugged at his hair. “YOU CAN’T BELIEVE ANYTHING A DEMON TELLS YOU! They lie about everything.”

“I’m here, aren’t I? He must have not been lying if I made it out of Hell.”

“He’s trying to draw you in!”

Katie huffed and forced a chuckle. “Maybe if you weren’t so worried about keeping Josh out, you could draw me in too.”

Wes stopped pacing and looked toward the sky. The anger drained from his features, and his breath became ragged. His knees gave out and he collapsed onto the ground. For a second, Katie thought his injuries had gotten the better of him, that he had passed out from the pain. How was she supposed to call an ambulance? She didn’t even know where she was. Concern coursed through her body and she was about to run to him, but he pounded his fist into the ground and placed his forehead in the grass. Katie took a step back and gave him his space. If he was upset, he deserved to be. He turned and looked at her, his face red, tears threatening to fall from his eyes.

“You don’t think I hate myself for that?” His voice was low, filled with emotion. “My entire life has been spent trying to protect you, keep you away from the horrors I face on a daily basis, and all I succeeded in doing was putting you right in the middle of it.”

Katie glared down at him. There were so many things she could say, both to validate his point and tell him it wasn’t completely his fault. Secretly, it made her happy to see how upset he was, to see him beat himself up, especially after what he did to her in the hospital.

“How did you know Josh took me to Hell?”

Wes wiped at his eyes and turned so he sat in the grass. His gaze was focused on something to his right. “My dad figured it out after talking to you in the hospital room. At first, when he saw you coming out of the bathroom, he thought you were just getting ready to leave. He thought it was odd that you took your shoes off when you saw him, but he figured it was because you knew you were caught and wouldn’t be able to get out. It took him a while to realize you were just getting back from somewhere. After you were released, we went into the bathroom and reversed the portal. We went to where Josh took you.”

“So then if you can do that, can’t Josh do the same thing to find us?” Katie felt hopeful that Josh would show up and rescue her. If anything, he could take her home and let the nightmare of a day end.

Wes shook his head. “He can’t follow us here. We’re on holy ground.”

Katie’s shoulders slumped. Of course. Leave it to Wes to take them somewhere safe where no one could find her. “What’s the big deal that he took me to Hell? At least he was willing to give me answers, show me what was going on. You haven’t done that.”

Wes’s head jerked upward and anger flashed across his face again. “You’re lucky you came out of Hell. Once there, all the rules go out the window. The demons could have enslaved you, taken your soul without your consent. You might have never come home, and I wouldn’t be able to save you.”

“Like you’re saving me now? Have you ever thought that maybe you’re wrong about Josh? That he’s not as bad as you think he is?”

Wes stood from the ground and approached her. He grabbed both her arms and looked her directly in the eye. Katie wanted to back away, to tell him not to touch her, but his grip was too tight, his look intent.

“He’s even worse than you can imagine. That’s how he got you. He made you believe he is something he isn’t. He made you believe he has human feelings and can be saved. He can’t. He doesn’t want to be. He likes what he does. He enjoys causing suffering. Trust me, I’ve been dealing with them my entire life. I know about them, more than you do.”

Katie raised her hands and forcefully removed Wes’s from her arms. She shoved him backward. “Don’t talk to me like that! How dare you chastise and belittle me. Just because you’ve known about demons for your entire life, that doesn’t mean I have. You’ve had every opportunity, every chance to tell me what you knew, to arm me with information, and you didn’t. Now that the world of Heaven and Hell, angels and demons, has crashed in around me, you can’t get mad at me for not approaching it the way you would. You can’t expect me to know what to do. I’m going into this blind. And that’s because of you. I have to figure things out on my own because you’ve refused to be there for me since the beginning.” Katie pointed at herself. “I’m going to deal with this in my own way.” She jabbed her finger into Wes’s chest. “If you had wanted to protect me, you should have done it way before now.”

Surprisingly, Wes smacked her hand away. Katie’s eyes grew wide. The anger crunched Wes’s face.

“So I’ve made mistakes. Who hasn’t? I’m human. I can’t go back to the past and change things. The only thing I can do is fix things now. In the present. But you’re not making it easy. Are you trying to prove a point? Are you trying to rebel? What’s the point of taking Josh’s side and listening to what he has to say? Is this your way of punishing everyone? Because I can tell you now, the only person you’re going to hurt is yourself.”