She sets out the cutting board and looks at me with a serious expression. “How are you doing?”
I gnaw on my bottom lip as I debate just how much I want to tell her. She’s like the older sister I can always confide in, but she’s still my guardian. I’m not sure where the fine line ends. “It’s going pretty good, Aunt Polly.”
She puts the knife down and gives me a blank expression. “Just pretty good? Come on, tell me more! Aside from Lily, I think I’m your biggest fan.”
Well, that answers my previous question.
“I don’t really know what else to say, Aunt Polly. I’m still trying to figure out what’s going on. We enjoy spending time together, and I feel like I found someone who understands me.”
She chops her vegetables, her shoulder bouncing in time with her quick movements. “I’m beyond happy to hear that. I have to admit, I wasn’t sure if I was ever going to be able to break you out of your shell when we first met. The damage that woman did to you was pretty deep, but I had the perfect remedy on hand.”
I frown at her words. “What do you mean?”
“What? That the damage was deep? Well, you should have seen yourself when I first took you. You were completely void. I wasn’t even sure if there was any piece of your soul left for me to save.”
“No, not that.” That much I already knew. “That you had a remedy on hand? Did you know the Hales were coming back to town?”
“What?” she asks. “No, of course not. I mean getting you far away. Starting over in a town that’s not too big so you’re not overwhelmed but big enough you’d eventually blend in with the rest of the crowd.
“Trust me, if there’s anything I’ve learned from my time is that being able to just pick up and leave is truly magical. Got dumped? Move. Got fired? Leave. Just want to try something new? Go for it! Honestly, having nothing to hold you back is the real definition of freedom.”
“But don’t you get tired of always moving?” I ask her. “Don’t you ever form relationships that you’ll miss if you decide to leave?”
Aunt Polly shrugs and pushes a hair out of her face with her forearm. “Not really. I never stick around long enough to get attached. Plus, the only people I really talk to are sources, so when I’m done with them I move onto the next. It’s best to not get attached.”
I frown at her sudden talk of moving. “Aunt Polly…are we leaving?”
She puts on an obvious smile. “This was never permanent, you knew that.”
I recognize the feeling brewing inside of me: Pure, undeniable panic.
My breathing gets choppy, my heartbeat quickens. A thin layer of sweat coats the back of my neck. My shoulders fall limp, and I have to wipe the sweat away from my mouth.
“But, Aunt Polly—”
She begins to laugh. “Whoa, Calla, calm down. I can see the panic in your eyes. Nothing is a sure thing yet.”
I force a deep breath to try to calm my nerves, nodding along with her words. “But what about Luke?”
Aunt Polly’s eyes darken in understanding. “Oh, Calla, you’ll find someone else.”
The idea of finding someone better than Luke is laughable. “I don’t want to find someone else, Aunt Polly.”
“Your first love is always the hardest to get over. You’ll get over it.”
“Yeah, but Aunt Polly—”
She waves a dismissing hand. “Don’t worry about it now. Like I said, nothing is ever set in stone. There’s still some things that I’m waiting to see through before I even think about where to go next. Okay?”
All I can do is nod. “Okay.”
“Good,” she says. “Now go change. You never want to go on a date in what you wore during the day. Dating advice 101.”
Luke shows up at exactly six o’clock, minutes after Aunt Polly got into the shower. He seems disappointed when I tell him so.
“I’d like to meet her. Lily seems to like her.”
I laugh as I lock the door to the apartment. “That’s because they’re a lot alike. You should have heard them talking, like they’ve known each other a long time.”
We’re down the stairs at this point and Luke opens the car door for me. I buckle up and immediately shift my body to face him.
“Well, let me know when she’s home. I’d like to take the two of you out for dinner someday.”
I think about sitting at the dinner table between the two of them and can only imagine what type of hilarity that would be. Lily is an avid talker and had no problem keeping up with my aunt’s questions, while Luke is much more observant. But I’ve seen his wicked smile before. He’ll have my aunt eating out of his hand in no time. “She’s not home often but I’ll be sure to pass that on. I’m sure she’d love to.”
“I’m afraid I don’t have much time. I had to sneak out for a while, so I can’t take you where I’d like without teleporting there and I know you aren’t a fan.” I shiver at the memory of being burned alive, if only for a few seconds. “There’s a decent pasta place in town, if that’s okay?”
“Yes, of course.”
He pulls onto the road leading into town and I can already tell from his body language that Lily’s news was nothing good. Usually his entire body moves fluidly as he turns the wheel and checks the mirrors, but all of his movements are rough, fueled by something he hasn’t told me about yet. I reach over and put my hand on his upper thigh, assuring him that everything’s going to be okay. He shudders at the contact.
“Are you—”
He doesn’t let me finish the sentence. Reaching down with his right hand, he picks up my hand and kisses the back of it before placing it back into my lap.
The restaurant is only minutes away, so we arrive quickly and find a parking spot Luke turns off the engine and hurries to rush me out of the car. When he places his hand on my lower back to usher me into the restaurant, it doesn’t burn as it usually does. Like the sizzle of stepping under a hot water shower, almost too much to bear but too good to walk away. Now it hardly feels like anything at all.
We’re seated right away, a small table in the corner of the restaurant and handed our menus. Luke’s eyes dart over the laminated pages while I spend the time trying to observe him. “Do you want to tell me what Lily wanted?”
He looks up, either startled by my question or perhaps he forgot I was there in the first place. “I’m sorry, amour, what is it?”
“What happened back at the manor?”
Luke’s sigh is heavy.
“Let’s talk about something else.”
“Was it bad?” I ask him.
His response is slow, unsure. “It’s nothing you need to worry about.”
“Don’t do that,” I tell him.
“What?”
“Don’t tell me that something isn’t my concern. You threw that out of the window when you decided to not to leave town.”
I’m not going to pretend that I’ll understand, but I can try to lessen the burden.
“Lily found out the murders that happened in town weren’t exactly just murders.”
My spine straightens, my palms get sweaty. Try my best at a poker face.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s—”
“What can I get you kids?”
I glance up at the middle-aged woman with a notepad in her hands. “I’ll take the chicken parmigiana please.”
She scribbles that and then writes down Luke’s order, some type of angel hair pasta. A hilarious contradiction.
“You were saying?”
Luke licks his bottom row of teeth, causing his lower lip to pucker out in irritation. “The bodies were soulless. Meaning, they weren’t human when they were killed.”
That’s not what I was expecting.
“Were they demons?”
“No.”
“What could they have been?”
Luke begins rubbing at his temples, his face straining to get control. His eyes begin to twitch, as if he’s fighting a force I can’t see.
“Luke, are you okay?”
He slams his hand down onto the table and the utensils jump. “I’ll be right back.”
He vanishes from his seat.
I jerk in surprise. Nobody else seems to notice his sudden absence. My foot begins bouncing, hoping that he doesn’t get caught when he reappears—he’s back in his seat.
I touch my chest, my heart pounding as if I’m the guilty one.
His features are much calmer, but I notice a stain on his flannel. “You have something right there.”
He looks down at his collar and rolls his eyes. “It’s just blood.”
I raise my brows. “Just blood?”
“It’s fine, amour.” Luke dips his napkin into his cup of water and dabs at his shirt, like it’s nothing more than a simple ketchup stain.
I narrow my eyes at him and thank the server for dropping off more bread when she comes back around. “Whose blood is that?”
“Valak wouldn’t stop talking so I shut him up for a while.”
I cock my head to the side in consideration. “And you can hear him? All the time?”
He regards the question with some thought. “Only when spoken to. I don’t exactly hear everything at every moment but if someone is speaking directly to me then I’ll hear it. Valak is upset I’m gone so he’s yelling in my head.”
“Is that how you heard me when I called you?”
“Yes.”
“Only when I call out to you?”
He nods.
“I don’t hear thoughts, if that’s what you’re asking. I can only hear what’s spoken directly to me. Which is why it’s hard to summon a demon. Unless you know the demon’s name, there’s a ritual that needs to be performed to summon one. A real demon, that is. Not a collector.”
Right. The demon hierarchy. Good to know.
The food comes to the table and when he doesn’t immediately break into the little growl he emits when good food comes to the table, I know something’s wrong.
“So, who was it? Or what were they?”
He takes a steaming bite of his pasta. I understand that years—centuries—of isolated tendencies are hard to get over. It took the entire three-day road trip for me to finally open up to my aunt. So, I wait him out.
“They were angels, amour,” he finally says.
My eyes widen in shock. From the way Luke spoke about them, I’d imagine angels didn’t spend their time on Earth. Especially long enough to get murdered. “So, what does that mean?”
“It means,” he says in a condescending tone, “if I don’t figure out why this is happening, we’re going to have a war.”
“War?” Good God. “Is it that bad?”
“Bad?” he spits the word out. “Yes, it’s bad, amour.”
He joked that he’d start a war for me once, but this seems bigger than he let on.
His eyes are glued to his plate, and I notice that his knuckles are white, the metal fork bending under the weight.
I clear my throat, but he doesn’t acknowledge me. I can tell he’s having a conversation in his head because his mouth twitches and he tilts his head.
I might as well not be here.
“I want to go.”
Luke sighs and puts down the bent fork. “Calla—”
“I said,” I snap in the same tone as he spoke to me in, “I want to go.”
Luke reaches into his jacket pocket when I rise from the table. He pulls out a couple bills from it and puts them on the table, following me out of the restaurant when I leave without waiting on him.
I stand close to the door—so close he can’t get close enough to open the car door for me—and when I get inside, I make sure to slam it shut. He doesn’t speak when he gets into the vehicle beside me. I want to be upset, infuriated he’s ruined our first date because of something that isn’t my fault, but I can’t be too sure about that.
I don’t actually know if I play a role in this. Don’t know why I would dream of something so violent, something so…paranormal.
I’ve never seen monsters or heard voices, but being in this town has awoken something inside of me that I never knew was there.
And it scares me because I’m not ready to tell Luke about it. Not sure if I even should, based on his reactions at dinner. If he wants to keep his secrets, I’ll keep mine.
So, when he pulls out of the parking slot and reaches for my hand, I let him take it. Allow the both of us to pretend everything’ll be all right.
But when he parks in front of my apartment building, I walk in alone.
Every Wednesday the city opens up the roller rink, and this is the week Daisy decided she—therefore we—are required to go.
From the outside, I’d never have guessed this was one of the favorite pastimes for generations. The simple brick building is pulsating from the beat coming from within. Even if you were deaf, the multi-colored disco lights visible through the windows are enough of a welcome sign.
I told Daisy and Becca that I needed a girls’ day and they agreed. But it was Becca who gave into Freddie’s pouts and decided it’d be a group event. I don’t really mind, I just wanted to be anywhere but at the apartment.
An arm comes around my shoulder. It’s light in comparison to Luke’s. “You ever been roller skating?”
“No,” I say. “Sheltered, remember?”
Tyler’s laugh is easy. “Don’t worry, I’ll teach you how. Once you get the hang of it, it’ll be easy, like riding a bike.”
I scrunch my nose. “But I’ve never ridden a bike before.”
“Oh, Calla,” he says, “sometimes I forget how innocent you are.”
If only he knew. “Come on, preacher’s son, show me what I’m supposed to do.”
The five of us step into the small building, pay the ten-dollar entrance fee, and I wait in line to borrow a pair of skates.
Tyler is quick to put his on and easily glides through the large crowd to wait in line with me. The skates make him tower over me.
“Is there anything you’re not good at?” I ask.
He purses his lips dramatically in thought. “Yoga. I just can’t hold a pose even if my life depended on it.”
When I see that he’s serious, I bark out a laugh. “You’re funny.”
He shrugs. “That I know.”
He slides away when I elbow him. Not once has Tyler tried to be anything more than my friend and that’s something I’ll forever be thankful for.
When I approach the fold-up table with the skates methodically organized on them, I ask the girl manning the table for my shoe size and follow Tyler back to our table. Which really is a small corner of a table because someone’s already claimed the other side.
As I struggle to lace the skates, my friends zip around the table being complete show-offs. When I tell them, they all laugh at my jealousy.
I brace myself on the bench underneath me and attempt to stand up. Tyler stops in front of me and holds his hands out to grab onto in case I end up falling on my face. My knees wobble as soon as I push off the bench, and my arms immediately go to Tyler.
“You’re doing great, Calla.”
I’m able to stand up straight while holding onto Tyler’s hands and feel proud of myself. Looking over, I see everyone else is already on the shiny floor. I open my mouth to tell Tyler he can go on without me, but I yelp when he skates backward, pulling me along with him. “No, no, no, no. Tyler! Stop!”
Completely ignoring me, he continues his journey backward, not even glancing over his shoulder to make sure we don’t bump into anyone. “Come on. If you fall, I’ll just pick you up.”
My legs scissor as they try to keep up with him. I lock my knees and let Tyler drag me to the barrier around the floor. Once inside, I let go of Tyler’s forearms and grab for the wall to support myself.
“I changed my mind,” I say as my legs move on their own.
Tyler swings around to face me. “It’s okay, you’re good. You haven’t even fallen yet so you’re basically a pro.”
&nb
sp; Sometimes I wish I had just a sliver of the positivity he always seems to have. “You’re just saying that to be nice.”
He laughs. “Trust me, I’m not. I had plenty of accidents on this very floor before I gained the confidence to not care anymore if I did fall. All you have to do is get back up when you fall. You should know better than anyone.”
I don’t have to be a demon to know that Tyler’s soul is as pure as they come.
“Come on,” he says, “I promise you it’ll be fun. You just have to go around a couple times and you’ll get the hang of it.”
My hands grip onto the barrier for dear life as I try my best to keep upright. Instead of moving my feet, I use all of my upper body strength to pull me onward. With concentration, I manage to keep my legs firmly underneath me.
“You’re cheating,” Tyler says.
I don’t look at him in fear of breaking my concentration. “Don’t judge me.”
He laughs. “Never.”
I only glance up when someone whizzes by me, almost causing me to fall. Becca does a figure skater type turn and faces me with her hands on her hips. “Oh, come on, don’t embarrass us.”
“Embarrass you?” I squeal when my legs start slipping from underneath me. “I’m just trying to keep myself alive.”
Freddie joins his girlfriend in taunting me. “Come on, Calla, falling would be the least terrible thing that’s ever happened to you.”
Leave it to Freddie to bring up my haunted past during what’s supposed to be a fun time out, a night where I can forget about the physical and mental demons in my life. “Go away, Freddie.”
He grabs his girlfriend’s hand and they skate away, their laughs carried by the wind they create. With my head up, I search for Daisy and find the blonde hair weaving in and out of the crowd of couples and families. She glances up and skates our way.
“How’s it going?” she asks.
At this point, my entire upper body is pressed against the barrier, like a koala on a tree. “Having an amazing time.”
She doesn’t pick up on my sarcasm. “I knew you’d love it.”
The Devil's Heir Page 26