lay

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years of promise.

Satan, she repaid with laughter. Triumphant, exultant mockery, bouncing off the walls of a trailer bedroom and echoing down into the Pit.
Jeff, exhausted for the moment, lay by her side and watched her. Puzzled by the laughter, perhaps, but not caring. He was awash in his own satisfied pleasure and, still more, in the pride of his accomplishment. Whether he understood the savage humor filling his wife—and he didn’t, not at all—he was reassured by the joy in her face and the warmth of her hands, stroking his body.
Finally, Gretchen understood the full extent of her victory. Total, complete. She had beaten the Devil. Whipped him like a cur.
She had saved everything from his dark realm. Even the one thing she had thought lost forever. The only thing she possessed of value to the Beast, which she had traded away to save her family. Now, at the threshold A

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