Page 99 of Not Another Happily Ever After

Then I see her—the little girl from earlier. She’s tucked against a wall, watching the same two people dance before her.The couple’s faces are still stretched in laughter even as tears stream down their cheeks.

I look back to where Frog has all but disappeared around a small diner. I’m going to lose him if I stop.

“Momma!” the young girl calls, but no one comes to comfort her.

I hesitate, torn between the truth I’ve been chasing and the child who needs me. With a heavy exhale, I turn away from Frog—just for a while—and walk toward her.

“Hello, there…” I say softly.

The little girl shrinks against the wall.

“No deal. No deal. No deal,” she repeats, her voice breaking.

“Alright, no deals.” I drop to my knees beside her. “My name is Sunday. May I ask yours?”

She shakes her head, burying her red cherub cheeks between her arms and knees.

“That’s okay.” I look around. Surely someone is missing her.

I spot the couple she was watching. Their smiling faces are turned toward us, their eyes are fraught with worry.

“Are those your parents?” I ask, gesturing toward the man and woman dressed in blue and red.

She lifts her head from her lap and nods, fresh tears spilling down her cheeks as she watches them dancing without slowing.

“Hey! Get away from her!” A stout man with a potbelly shuffles toward us, abandoning his drums. “That one belongs to me.”

The little girl trembles, her eyes blown wide.

Something isn’t right.

I stand, placing myself between them.

“Do you know this man?” I ask, blocking her view of him.

She nods. “He owns Momma and Papa,” she cries.

Owns?The word twists my stomach.

I turn toward the couple, my gaze falling to their wrists, where I’d seen the blue flicker on the artist. As they step into the light, I see it—the faintest trace of a blue thread.

The realization strikes like lightning.

“You trapped this poor girl’s parents somehow, didn’t you?” I snap, rounding on the stout man.

He recoils, feigning offense. “They made a deal. Their child needed food, and I needed souls to pay my debt.”

I shake my head. “How could you possibly think that is a fair trade?”

“Life ain’t fair,” he barks grabbing the little girl. “Now move along!”

She cries out.

“You will not touch her,” I snap.

The man seethes, waving his thick finger in my face. “A deal is a deal.”

“Undo it,” I demand.