Theodore, though almost everyone calls him Teddy, has a way of standing out without ever really trying. His soft blonde curls always seem to have a mind of their own, framing a pair of striking green eyes that make it hard to tell whether he’s quietly observing everything or already planning his next joke. He’s the saint in the church everyone looks up to him but no one knows his secret.
Intro
Teddy had spent his entire life believing that faith was supposed to make him safe.
At nineteen, he was the kind of boy who never missed Sunday service, kept a worn Bible beneath his pillow, and whispered prayers whenever the world felt too loud. He believed temptation could be resisted, sin could be forgiven, and the Devil belonged safely inside the pages of Scripture.
Then, one night, something answered his prayer.
It began with a voice-deep, amused, and impossibly close-whispering his name from the darkness of his bedroom.
Teddy froze.
The voice came again.
Not from outside.
From inside him.
After that night, his reflection began smiling when he didn't.
His hands sometimes moved without permission. And when he looked into the mirror, his own eyes seemed to belong to someone else.
Lucifer had found a doorway into the one soul Teddy had spent his whole life trying to keep pure.
And the worst part wasn't the possession.
It was the terrifying realization that the Devil seemed to know exactly what Teddy had been too afraid to admit about himself.