Almost Alive (3 page)

             
“What do you mean?”  I waited for his explanation, but apparently he didn’t have one.  “You mean it’s still inside of you?”

             
“It’s not a problem.”

             
“What do you mean, ‘it’s not a problem’, “Julian?  How do I know you’re not being controlled right now?” 
How can you trust him if he’s got a demon inside of him? 
He might have been feeding me a bunch of lies to get me thrown into a mental institution or prison.  Maybe he wanted to lure me to that underpass so he could eat my skin or something!  There had to be a cannibalism demon!  How did I know he didn’t have one of those?

             
He took a step closer to me and I took one back.  I didn’t want him to eat my face off!  “Think about it.  If the demon had any authority over my life, the one inside of you wouldn’t be making you so hostile toward me.  We’d be confidants.”  He smiled.  “Probably even lovers.”

             
“Oh, what a shame!” I wasn’t usually so sarcastic, but he was a sick pervert!

             
“I’m just being honest!” he laughed.  “Last time I checked, having sex with someone who isn’t your marital spouse is a sin.”

             
Oh, screw that! 
“You mean I can’t have sex again?”

             
“Is that your human flesh crying outrage or is it the demon?  I know I caught you about to screw Michael, but you don’t seem like a slut to me.”

             
I tried to think about it.  I did only have sex that one time with Jason and it wasn’t exactly the greatest thing ever.  It was okay, but certainly not worth losing my soul over.  “I don’t know!” 
Why does Julian have to butt in so much?
  “It’s not like it’s any of your business, but I’ve only had sex once.”

             
“It must not have been that pleasant.”

             
“Excuse me?” 
Slap him!  He deserves to be slapped.
My hand started tensing up as I began to prepare.

             
“Most people who aren’t honor bound by religion that get in the habit don’t actually stop after one time.”

             
He infuriated me!  It even infuriated me more that he was actually right about it.  “Well, I’m single now!  And stop being such a douche!  You’re making it far too easy for the demon to make me dislike you.”

             
He laughed amused.  “You’ll get over it.  I was really hostile toward my teacher too.”

             
“Oh?”  I felt sorry that someone else had to put up with him.  “And what happened to him?”

             
Then it happened.  Julian showed that he was vulnerable and sad, if only for the few seconds it took to get out his sentence.  “He’s no longer with us.”

             
“Oh.”  I felt so incredibly terrible.  “I’m sorry to hear that.”  Maybe he was right about the demon making me feel so horrible toward him.  He couldn’t have been a threat to me.  He was a threat to the demon.

             
“He taught me how to survive with this curse.  I know I’m not perfect and I may not look like someone who fights against demons, but I do and I am good at it.  I can help you if you let me.”

             
“I am letting you!” I whined.

             
Julian grabbed my shoulders and looked me straight in the eye.  “Let me help you.”

             
I’m not sure how he got the power to calm me so when he wanted, but I felt everything inside me soothe, and I realized how little of myself I actually was.  The blanket had been pulled off and I uncovered who was really resting in the sheets.  I wanted the demon gone.  I wanted to be alone in my head again.  How could I live if I couldn’t even trust my own thoughts?  “Okay.”

             
“And then you can help me.”  He let me go and smiled a little bit.  From that, I felt a bit of comradery between the two of us.

             
“You know, you never really told me what you want me to do.  Banish them to hell?  Maybe.  But if the demons are living in human’s bodies, then aren’t they technically part human?  I get hunting, but I don’t think I can kill anyone.  I don’t think I have it in me to fight your war.”

             
“Men are sent across the world to fight men with the exact same humanity as them, yet they are conditioned to kill those men because of their loyalty to their geographical location.  Don’t worry about learning how to fight.  I’ll teach you how to kill them.  Hopefully, they don’t teach you first.”  Geez, he was all man!  Yeah, he was coated in more mascara than me, but he was totally manly and though I think my feelings were still rooted strongly within me, I totally believed that he could have conditioned me to suck it up and fight.  I’m not gonna lie.  It was pretty hot.

             
I was kind of flustered, but I figured it was the demon playing mind games again.  “Is there anything else I should know before I go home?”

             
“Yeah.”  He looked a little surprised.  I guess he thought we had so much more to talk about.  We did, but I needed to get away from him and clear my head from all of the forced emotions and sort out what was real and if I could trust him.  “Rule number four: it’s important to keep good company.  If all your friends are drunken whores or just trouble makers in general, then it’s probably best to stay away from them.”

             
My old friends were generally good people, but they stabbed me in the back and once were far too many times.  “I don’t have any friends anymore.”

             
“The rule applies to family too, if you can help it.”

             
I didn’t want to tell him about my super lust charged parents.  I was so embarrassed about it.  I couldn’t even confront them.  I certainly wasn’t going to blurt it to a guy who still felt like my enemy.  “What about my parents?  Should I tell them?”

             
“Are they believers?”

             
“No.”

             
“Then absolutely not.  You don’t want them to have you committed and don’t think for a second that they won’t.”  As sad as it was, I knew he was right.

             
“You want me to lie to them?”  That seemed awfully contradictory to the “no sin” policy.  Besides, it just wasn’t my style.

             
“I want you not to talk about it.  I know this must sound like the most terrible thing in the world, but I’m the only one right now that can be here for you.  We’ll try to find some other righteous citizens, but right now it’s just the two of us against the whole world.”  I didn’t feel so bad about feeling so irritated that it was only us involved in the battle of good versus evil.

             
“You’ve been going at this alone this whole time?” I asked.

             
“I don’t have a choice.”

             
I did feel bad for him, so I offered a pity smile.  “I guess you’re glad to have found me, huh?”

             
“No.  I wouldn’t wish this life on anyone.”  I didn’t know if I should let the demon’s irritation of him prevail.  He was trying to be sweet in his own way, but he really did sound like a jerk.  “Go home.  Read a bible.”

             
“Don’t have one.”

             
“There’s an App for that.  Download it.  Read it online.  Don’t be difficult.”

             
I really didn’t want to change my whole entire life and I don’t think it was all the demon.  Julian wasn’t the type of person I would be hanging around in normal circumstances.  It was only unreasonable that I hated him to the point where I could barely tolerate him—not that I disliked him.  However, I could suck it up.  “I will try to do this right, but I’m not doing it for you.  I wanna save myself!”

             
“That’s fine.  As long as we stop some demons along the way, I’m happy.”  And that was that.  He turned around and started walking toward the direction of his car.

             
This will never work.  All he cares about is destroying demons.  He’ll betray you if he has to.  Your life means nothing to him. 
Our partnership was most uneasy.  What if I couldn’t bring myself to be the great hunter he needed me to be?  Would he ditch me and let me fend for myself?  Then what if I somehow lost my soul?  Would he execute me without trying to find some way to make me normal again? 

             
He’s not interested in saving you.  He has a vendetta.  He’ll end up killing you, Michelle.  It’s best to get him out of your hair now.
  I should have never trusted Julian.  If I didn’t need him to help me take my body back, I wouldn’t have even been talking to him.

             
You don’t need him.  He doesn’t even know how to get rid of the demon.  He still has his.  You don’t even know if you can truly trust him. 
What was I hanging around Julian for?  I didn’t want to be a warrior.  I just wanted to have my body to myself!  “You know, you really didn’t give me a lot of help.”

             
“I gave you quite enough.  Let’s see how many of my rules you can actually follow.  If you can manage, the results will be evident.”

             
“And what if I fail?  Will you hunt me too?”

             
He stopped walking and turned around, eyeing me suspiciously.  “Let’s not think about things like that.”

             
“But that’s what you want, right?  You want me to kill every human who has been completely possessed?”

             
“Demons living in shells are hardly human.  Don’t even worry about that right now.  You won’t be able to do any hunting until you can decipher yourself from the demon.”  He turned his back on me and began walking toward his car again.

             
He’s going to kill you, Michelle.  It’s inevitable.  The only way to save you is to kill him now. 
My eyes magically flew down to the left of me and I saw an abandoned tire iron conveniently placed for my use.  It was terrible to think of killing Julian, but it made so much sense.

             
But I wasn’t a killer.  Why was it acceptable to kill Julian?  I couldn’t do something like that! 
Sure you can.  It’s as easy as picking up that tire iron.

             
Before I knew it, it was in my hand.  It was freezing and coated in mud.  I kept breathing in and out slowly, heavy, but quietly.  The more I looked at it, the more it made sense.  I didn’t think about it, but it just started to feel right.  I wasn’t angry at him anymore.  It was just something that needed to be done.

             
I gripped the tire iron and raised it up and began to slam it down toward his head as fast and hard as I could without making a sound. It amazed me that he turned around so quickly and caught the tire iron in his hand.  I was overcome with an incredible fury and I tried to pull it away so I could try to kill him again, but he pulled me closer until I was trapped inside of his eyes.

             
“You had best think twice before you try killing me.”  What kind of man was he?  Where did he come from?  How could a man so sure of himself commit suicide?  He completely destroyed all of my will and focused me in on his own.  I was stripped away from the demonic thoughts and left abandoned in the flame of his convicting eyes.

             
“I’m sorry.”  I let go of the tire iron and began wiping the mud on my pants.  “I am so sorry!  I can’t believe I just—”

             
“Don’t worry about it.”  He shrugged his shoulders and cast the tire iron away too far for me to reach unless we ran for it, but I had a feeling he would beat me to it.  “I tried worse to hurt my teacher.  I only know how to handle you, because I’ve been handled myself.”

             
“This isn’t fine though!”  My hands were shaking and I was near the point of tears.  “I just tried to—”

             
“Go home and rest.”  Julian nicked me lightly on the chin with his fist.  “It’ll work miracles for you, Hun.”

             
Hun?
  I ignored his sexist statement as best as I could, because I knew for sure that it was the demon trying to ruin me.  I didn’t want to let that happen.  “I can call you if something goes wrong?”

             
“Always.”  He smirked before turning around and walking away toward his car.  I didn’t understand how he could be so calm about everything, as if he already knew how everything was gonna turn out in the end.

             
I wanted to know so badly myself, but I was going to try it his way until I could see some future with me that wasn’t fabricated by a demon or didn’t end with me being utterly alone for the rest of my life until I killed myself again.

             
I had no choice but to trust Julian.