felt sorry for him if he truly believed that. “I make choices every day—my choices. If you have no free will, then what kind of purpose would you even have in life?”
“What kind of purpose does a demon have? Hmm?” He tapped his chin with the tip of his finger. “Should I coerce a politician to turn dirty or should I save a kitten from a tree today? Wait. I’m a demon. I’m going to—”
“You don’t have to be sarcastic.”
“I’m not. I’m just giving you an example of how we are who we are—what we’re born to be. Our paths are clearly laid out in front of us. There is no changing that. No free will.”
“That’s your opinion.”
He held my gaze for a few more seconds and then smiled. “Come on.” He spun around, hurrying down another flight of stairs.
It took me a few seconds to make my legs move. “I’m not anything like you.”
Roth laughed in that rough, deep way again.
A brief, satisfying image of me kicking him down the stairs flashed before me. He was humming again, and I was too annoyed with him to ask what the song was.
The school was old and several stories tall, but it had been remodeled a few years ago. The stairwells were a sign of its true age. Old brick walls crumbled into a red-and-white dust that covered the steps.
We stopped in front of a rusted gray door that said Employees Only. The smell was enough to kill my appetite for the rest of the day. Roth glanced at me, seeming unaffected by the rankness.
“So...can you really tell if someone is going to Hell?” I asked, stalling. I might hurl if he opened the door.
“Pretty much,” he responded. “Usually it runs in the family. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
“Kind of cliché.” I wrinkled my nose as the stink increased the closer we got.
“Most clichés are true.” He jiggled the doorknob. “Locked.”
“Oh. Darn.” I tugged on the chain and fiddled with the ring. “I guess we—” I heard gears grinding and metal give way. I glanced down at Roth’s hand as he pulled open the door. “Wow.”
“Told you I have many talents,” he said, glancing down at the ring. “Interesting piece of jewelry you have there.”
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