“Eternal damnation. As I said before…in your case, I used to think it was making sure you ended up with Devina, but now I’m damn clear that’s the wrong outcome. Now…it means something else. I just don’t know what.”

Vin wiped his mouth and stared down at the man’s big, capable hands. “Would you believe me…if I told you I had a dream about Devina—one where she was like something out of 28 Days, all rotted and fucked-up? She maintained that I’d asked for her to come to me, that we’d entered into some kind of bargain that there was no getting out of. And the most ridiculous thing about it? It didn’t feel like a dream.”

“And I believe it wasn’t. Before I had Friday’s little lights-out session with the extension cord? I’d have said you were nuts. Now? You bet your ass I believe every single word of that.”

Finally, at least something was working for instead of against him, Vin thought as he decided to pull a bare-all.

“When I was seventeen, I went to this…” God, even with how well Jim was taking things, he still felt like a complete ass. “I went to this palm reader, fortune-teller…this woman in town. Remember that ‘spell’ I had back at the diner?” When Jim nodded, he continued. “I used to get them a lot, and I needed…shit, I needed some way to get them to stop. They were ruining my life, making me feel like a freak.”

“Because you saw the future?”