Parker glared at Damien.

“Ignore him,” I told him.

I didn’t want Damien to disrupt this conversation. I had a feeling he was trying his best to stop any further talking between Parker and I for fear of what I would find out.

He stood and put his drink down on the nearby table.

“What was it like when you died?”

His question took me by surprise and I hesitated. It was a day I didn’t like talking about. The little I could remember terrified me but I was glad I couldn’t remember more. Who knew if I could function if I could remember everything from that tragic day.

“Do you remember what it was like?” he asked, when I didn’t immediately answer.

I shrugged. “I don’t remember any of it.” I swirled the contents of my drink.

It was probably better that way. I remembered parts of the accident but nothing else until I woke up in hospital with Damien watching me from the corner. The doctor had explained that part of the amnesia was the trauma of the accident.

And if Damien was right and I was supposed to have gone to hell, I was very thankful that for the parts I couldn’t recall.

Parker studied me with his arms crossed. “Did you see anything else when you woke up?”

I released a breath. “Only the ghosts but at least they aren’t annoying as he is.” I glanced in the direction of a still glaring Damien before fixing my attention back on Parker.

Parker gave a whisper of a smile.

He wasn’t looking at me like I needed to be locked up in padded room, in fact, he was looking at me like I was the coolest person he had ever met. That was what prompted me to share more. For the first time I had someone I could share all the things that had haunted me for so long.

“I can also see auras. I can usually tell what type of personality a person has by the color of their aura.”

His eyes sparkled. “Really?”

I nodded.

“Can you see mine?” His eyes were big and expressive.

I pressed my lips together. How did I tell him that his was gray and that I had never seen that before? Even though I didn’t know him well or for very well I could just tell he was a good person. It was instinct. I knew what kind of aura I was supposed to see instead of the colorless one I was staring at now.

I hesitated, trying to find the right words to explain it delicately, the last thing I wanted to do was upset him. There was no way to know how he would take it.

“The reason she is stalling, she is trying to figure out how to tell you yours is dead,” Damien revealed.

Dead. The word hit me like a hammer to the chest, causing the breath to knock from my lungs. It was then it occurred to me, the possible reason his aura was gray. I couldn’t be a hundred percent sure.

“You really are an asshole Damien,” I admonished but he beamed under my disgust.

“I aim to please.” He bowed and I rolled my eyes at him.

Some days I wished he was real just so I could throw something at him, like a large vase. But I would have to rely on my imagination to give me some satisfaction.

“Dead? Huh?” Parker asked me, ignoring Damien. He refused to give Damien the reaction he craved.

Damien reveled in the pain of others, he was at his finest when he could cause the pain. But Parker wasn’t playing his game and Damien was getting more annoyed by the minute. He had finally seemed to have met his match.

I shrugged. “It’s gray. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen it so I have no idea what that means.” Although after Damien’s description I believed I had a pretty good thought as to what it meant.

Parker rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

He didn’t look in the least perturbed. I would be freaking out if a demon was telling me my aura was dead. But why would he take anything Damien said seriously.

The door opened and a tall guy with short brown hair looked in. His eyes were glazed over, which meant he was probably drunk or close.

“I’ve been looking all over for you,” the guy said to Parker who had collected his drink.

“I was just talking to Tessa.”

The boy in the doorway looked me up and down before winking at his friend. “Nice.”

“Joey.” Parker shook his head. “It’s not like that.”

Feeling self conscious I crossed my arms, feeling out of place now that someone had interrupted our conversation. I stood.

I felt Damien’s presence beside me. “Aren’t you doing a good job of attracting the opposite sex tonight Tessa?” His voice was filled with sarcasm and just for a moment he sounded jealous. But of course he wasn’t. This was Damien. He knew exactly how to chip away at me, undermining any confidence I had ever tried to build.

“I’ll be downstairs in a few minutes,” Parker told Joey.

Joey nodded, but took one more lingering look at me before closing the door.

“He definitely thinks the two of you are hooking up,” Damien announced.

Parker shrugged. “Joey doesn’t believe girls and boys can just be friends. He is a bit of cynic.”

I had no designs on Parker at all. He was nice, the nicest guy I had ever met up to this point but then again I didn’t enough social interactions to be able to make a wider comparison.

The most important thing was that he could see Damien and understood me in a way no one else did. And that was something, for me anyway.

Parker turned to face me. I didn’t feel that same vulnerability with Parker that I felt a need to protect myself like I had with Joey. Out of everyone I knew, he was the only one who understood what I had to deal with.

“He is harmless,” Parker added.

“You really are naive Parker,” Damien announced confrontationally. Making a point of appearing between Parker and I.

“And why is that Damien?” Damien was working himself on Parker’s nerves. He had pinned it down to a fine art. I rolled my eyes at Damien.

“No one is harmless, everyone has the ability to do something bad. Everyone.” Damien scoffed, like he could see deeper than we could. “It just takes the right situation to see what people are capable of.”

He was so dramatic.

Parker chuckled, shaking his head. Damien’s mouth tightened. He was used to getting the reaction he wanted but Parker wasn’t reacting in any way Damien had hoped.

“It was nice to talk to you Tessa,” Parker walked over to me. “I have to get back downstairs otherwise he’ll be back up here looking for me. You want to stay here or head downstairs with me?”

“I’ll head down in a few minutes.”

“Stay and enjoy the party,” he instructed, taking a moment to look over his shoulder at the demon who was watching our interaction closely. “Ignore him, and have some fun.”

His smile and the sparkle of mischievousness in his eye made me feel lighter than I had in years.

“I will,” I whispered, but I was unsure I would stay.

While I felt comfortable in Parker’s presence, I didn’t feel that way with anyone else. Besides I didn’t know anyone else other than him.

I wasn’t good with strangers, I did my best to avoid them to ensure I didn’t have any slip ups with Damien in the presence of others.

Parker threw one more look over at me and smiled before he left.

I stared at the closed door trying to take in everything that had happened and what I suspected.

“You have to stay away from him Tessa,” Damien said. It was the tone that he used that caught my attention. It was missing the usually condescending tone or cruelty.

“Why Damien?” I stood up.

He frowned, pressing his lips into a tight line of silence.

“If you don’t give me a good reason why, how can you expect me to do as you ask Damien?” I asked the question, not really expecting him to answer. “If anything I shouldn’t listen to a word you say because you’ve done nothing but make my life miserable.”

I approached him. “Why on earth would I listen to you now?”

“There are far worse things in this world than a demon Tessa. Things that you should fear.”

His warning made me shiver.