I swung my legs over the side of the couch. “What does she mean?”
“The talisman around your neck is laced with a protection spell. It’s complicated because it’s meant to protect—as indicated—the person from evil spirits. Demons. That kind of thing. But it doesn’t work perfectly. Why not? Well, because as I started to say, in nature things aren’t really good or bad. Sure, maybe the insect thinks the bird is evil when it eats him. But the bird is just doing what the bird is doing. It’s not really evil.”
I nodded. “It’s all about perspective.”
“Correct. These talismans would offer us protection from Erdirg if he were truly an evil spirit with nothing but ill-intent. That isn’t what he is. He’s more like an old god, and he wants to mate with you. To him, that’s not evil. That’s his right. To procreate. Or at least, he thinks he is. Our feelings on the subject are rightly the opposite of his. We need to stop him from doing what it is that he thinks he has every right to do.” Aaron sat down next to me. “In his mind, he saved you today from the other demons. He let Thorn and Colton go. He knocked down the house where you were hurt. He is trying to get you away from those who would keep his mate from him.”
I shook my head. “He’s in my head. Saying terrible things to me. Calling me a slut.”
Aaron put his arm around me. “I know, Lacey. It’s awful. I’m just explaining to you why a spell isn’t perfect. At least not in any real way. That’s why it takes three of us. As Kelly said, he’s a strong demon. And nature may not think of him as evil. For the record, I find him on the wrong side of things. Okay? I’m not speaking of my own opinion.”
Thorn sat back on the couch. “Then we knock him out. Your parents went to get the stuff to defeat him. Knock him out. Say goodbye to the demon.”
Aaron rubbed his nose. “In the meantime, let’s eat some pizza. Then we’ll go home to my house and watch a movie. How does that sound?”
It sounded good. I relaxed back against the cushions when Kelly decided to drop a bomb. “He doesn’t want me to know my mom and dad are missing. But I’m really smart, and I stole his phone and looked at the texts from Oliver. No one can find them.” Kelly rolled her eyes. “So, yeah… pizza and a movie. Great.”
I rocketed to my feet. “Your family is missing?”
“It happens sometimes.” Aaron winced as he spoke. “We’re not scared yet.”
Kelly groaned, storming to the kitchen. “I am. But no one ever asks me. Just, ‘Come along Kelly.’”
Aaron rolled his eyes. “Oliver and I had similar rants at her age. I still do, sort of.”
Even though my parents were dead and I had no family left who cared about me, I couldn’t quite comprehend Aaron’s blasé attitude. Was I the only one who’d heard him call Erdirg an old god? If someone calls something a god, and their parents went missing while searching for items to rid the world of the aforementioned god, then that someone should probably be freaking the fuck out.
“I’m with Kelly on this,” I announced. “How am I supposed to eat when—”
Kelly walked out of the kitchen, a slice of pizza in her mouth and another on a plate. Well then. “They go missing all the time,” she said through a mouth of mozzarella.
“It doesn’t mean we don’t worry,” Aaron said. “We just don’t do it yet. There are signs. Sometimes they get so wrapped up in whatever they’re doing, they forget about things like meals and school.”
But what about their kids? If Erdirg got me and I gave birth to a litter of demon babies, so what? What happened to the world?
“What else did you learn about Erdirg when you were doing your research, Thorn?” I asked.
Aaron stood and went to the kitchen, returning with more pizza and paper plates. I took the plate he offered, but I didn’t eat.
“I’m just wondering,” I continued, “why he even wants demon babies. If he’s an old god, wouldn’t it just be easier to be on his own? A lone demon, more powerful than everyone else?”
“It’s like Aaron said.” Thorn popped the top on a soda and took a sip. “It’s nature. The life cycle. And all organisms seek to procreate. He probably hasn’t worked out what he’s going to do with them when they’re born.”
“I’m not ready to be a mom, let alone a demon mom,” I deadpanned.
Aaron frowned. “Not funny.”
“So, the things I found about him.” Thorn ignored my foray down the garden path and got us back on topic. “This is his home, and he can’t leave it. That’s why he keeps you close. That’s why he sent us away. The place that gives him strength—this land—can also take away that strength. Whatever put him to sleep used the land to contain him.”
“That’s why it’s so important that my parents gather the items we need from the place where he awoke. They can’t just—”
“Scoop a bunch of dirt from the back yard,” Kelly interrupted.
No, I supposed not. That would be too easy.
“They’ll take the sand from that trailer park in the desert, but then they’ll find the shrubs and plants, animals. They have to create the perfect set of circumstances, using the perfect set of items, to put him to rest. We think.” Aaron put his plate on the coffee table. There was still half a slice left on it. Perhaps he was more scared than he was letting on.
“Why’d he go to sleep in the first place?” I asked.
“That I don’t know,” Thorn said and looked to Aaron. “Do you?”
Aaron raked his hands through his hair, drew it to the nape of his neck, and secured it with an elastic band. Leaning back against his chair, he shook his head. “No. Nothing precise. There’s legend.” He glanced at Thorn. “Your info is more recent than mine.”
Thorn walked into the kitchen and came back with a piece of pizza for me. He had a plate for himself, too, and we all sat quietly eating.
“We almost never get pizza,” Kelly supplied. “My mother really likes to cook. I love when we get to have takeout or delivery.”
Mine was a strange existence.
When we returned to the Chee’s house later, the mood was subdued. Oliver returned with Colton, having not located his parents. They weren’t answering their phone. He sat down in the big chair in the living room. “Can we… can we do something non-monster related tonight?”
Kelly snored on the couch. I looked at my watch. Was it already ten o’clock? I had school tomorrow, which meant I couldn’t do much at all before I, too, would need to go to bed. Aaron got up and scooped Kelly into his arms, carrying her into her bedroom before he returned.
“She’s getting too big for me to do that.” He sat back down where he’d been next to me. “What do you propose, big brother?”
Oliver got up. “Movies.”
Funny he and Aaron were on the same page about doing ordinary things in the face of such a strange, unhappy night. He pulled the chair over until it lined up with the couch, making every seat in the room a straight line in front of the television. Aaron was on my one side, Thorn on the other. Colton had taken up the loveseat he’d slept on the night before, and Oliver was now in the chair.
“I vote since Lacey had a hellish day, she picks the movie. What are you up for?” Aaron smiled at me, and I blushed. There was something about the way he looked at me that made me feel like I was the only person in the whole room.
Me? My mind went blank as everyone turned to gaze at me expectantly. Part of me wanted to choose something I thought they’d like. Die Hard? Didn’t all guys like that?
But then, they’d seen me at my worst and hadn’t balked. “Sense and Sensibility.”
Aaron blinked. “I don’t know that one.”
Thorn picked up the remote and turned on the television. After a quick search on the streaming service they had, he found it. “Oh. It’s a period piece. I didn’t know you were into this kind of movie.”
So, here was the thing. I loved British period movies. Fancy dresses. Balls. People who went by their titles instead of their names. God. I swooned.
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br /> I loved Marvel movies, and the occasional romantic comedy, but I didn’t usually see them until way after they came out. The movie theater was too far to walk to, and it took me three times as long to finish a popular movie since only the television in the living room was hooked up to cable. Generally, I could finish a third of a movie before Gran and Christopher walked in. When that happened, I went right to my bedroom, choosing not to interact with them since that tended to end badly.
With screaming.
And once with police.
But I had an old television in my room, the kind that connected to a box and got only three channels—one of which was public television. For some reason, public television was a hotbed of British shows and movies, so that was what I watched.
Aaron placed his arm along the back of the couch. I tucked my knees up on the cushion and leaned back.
“This okay?” he asked, moving his arm from the couch to my shoulders.
Automatically, I leaned my head on his shoulder and then pulled away. But a quick glance around the room showed me no one was watching. Or cared. Oliver shifted his attention from his phone to the TV, but Colton and Thorn appeared to actually be watching. On the screen, the character of old Mr. Dashwood had just died, and now his wimpy son was negotiating with his horrible wife about how much money to give his sisters to live.
“Five hundred pounds?” Thorn looked at Colton. “How much is that today?”
Colton pulled out his phone to look it up. “With today’s conversion rate? Thirty-two thousand dollars. But you need to imagine that he had millions of millions of dollars.”
“Asshole,” Thorn muttered.
They didn’t seem bothered by my position, but Aaron must have taken my pause as refusal because he began to draw his arm back.
“It’s okay,” I whispered and linked my hand with the one on my shoulder.
He entwined our fingers, squeezing lightly, and I went back to resting against his side. Once I stopped feeling self-conscious, I realized how content I was.
It was crazy. The Chee parents were missing. A demon wanted me to have his babies. And four boys who liked me watched Sense and Sensibility and didn’t complain one bit.
“This guy’s a tool!” Thorn exclaimed when Willoughby, the handsome character who left Marianne Dashwood, ignored her at a ball. “How much is fifty thousand pounds?”
It was Oliver who answered this time. “Somewhere in the neighborhood of six million dollars.”
“I hate this guy,” Thorn said. “Who leaves the girl he loves just for money? Get a job, dude. Stop riding horses and drinking whatever is in that tiny little glass and shaving your stupid sideburns like a douche.”
“Oh my god,” I laughed. “Thorn. Relax. It all works out.”
Thorn huffed and crossed his arms. “Marianne deserves better.”
Colton side-eyed Thorn. “I forgot you weren’t in the advanced English courses with me.”
Thorn shot Colton back a look. “What does that have to do with this?”
“Jane Austen always gives everyone the ending they deserve. My guess here is that Marianne will get someone worthy of her. And maybe become a little bit more worthy herself. A little less sensibility. A little more sense.” He put his hands in the air like he was showing a scale. “Austen’s leading ladies have to find the happy middle.”
Thorn rolled his eyes. “You’ve read this.”
He shook his head. “I’ve read Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, and Mansfield Park.”
Oliver set down his phone. “I wouldn’t have made you for a lit guy.”
“Colton was a straight-A student. He hides it like he’s some kind of too-cool-for-it-all dude, but his grades always said otherwise,” Thorn admitted.
Colton smirked, extending his feet onto the table. “I am too cool for it.”
Aaron whispered in my ear. “I read it. I read everything I can get my hands on.”
The night went on, and when the movie was done, no one made any moves to leave. Oliver flipped the channel and we watched sports, something to do with baseball. My eyes drifted closed, my head on Aaron’s shoulder.
A hand touched my knee sometime later, and I woke with a start. Oliver stood over me. Aaron slept on the couch, his head back. Thorn snored lightly on the other side of me while Colton mumbled something on the ottoman, his eyes also closed.
I rubbed my eyes. “Sorry. Do you want me to move?”
“No.” Oliver squatted down. “I’m going to search for my parents some more. I want to be in Albuquerque where my parents went for supplies when the store opens. I’ve got to leave now. I wanted to tell you goodbye before I left and to have a good day at school.”
I took his hand. “Be safe. It’s so dark.”
“I’ll be fine. I’m good in the dark.” He squeezed my hand back.
I didn’t want him to leave, but I, too, was anxious about his folks. “See you later?”
“Yes.” He strode to the door quietly, throwing me a look over his shoulder when he did. I didn’t know what it meant, but there was heat to it, that much I knew.
I thought about getting up and moving, but Aaron was a comfortable pillow, Thorn a familiar presence, and Colton made me feel safe in a world that was absolutely not safe. Oliver’s motorcycle rumbled as he sped away. He wasn’t familiar, comfortable, or safe. He was a whirlwind that I liked being caught in. I needed all of them, and I wasn’t going to question it anymore.
I laid my head back down on Aaron’s shoulder. He shifted slightly but didn’t stir, and I closed my eyes.
Twenty-Two
I’d awoken on the couch. Aaron was nowhere to be seen, but Thorn and Colton were up and about. After being informed that Aaron had taken Kelly to school, the two guys offered to do the same.
“Tell me,” I had said on the way there. “What’s the point of school when there are demons in the world?”
“Have you forgotten your dream?” Thorn asked. He was driving and flashed a grin at me in the rearview mirror. “Go north. Never melt in the desert heat again?”
Right. Those dreams seemed so far off, especially when my dream right now was to keep the people I cared about, and myself, alive. Who cared about the heat when a demon could knock-knock into my head?
“You’re almost there,” Colton said. “Just keep your head down. Besides, if worse comes to worst, you can always get your GED, like we did.”
I wondered if they were disappointed by the way their lives had changed. It struck me how they never complained about their situation. Last night, listening to Colton wax poetic about Jane Austen, I was reminded of how smart he was. Our school wasn’t huge, but there were a lot of class options, and when he wasn’t flirting his head off, he seemed to enjoy the ones we’d shared.
“After all this, what do you want to do?” I asked.
I could see a line of busses up ahead, so it was piss poor timing on my part. It was too early, and we were too close to school for deep conversations.
From where I was in the back, I caught the guys exchanging a glance. “We’ll talk about that later.” What a non-answer. But I’d allow it.
The busses were taking forever to drop off the kids, so I grabbed my bag and opened the door. “I can walk from here.”
“We’ll pick you up,” Colton said. “Don’t go too far away from people. Stay in sight. Got it?”
I did. I was wearing my pendent and had two pretty purple crystals that Kelly and Aaron had given me in my pocket. It was pretty funny. Kelly had left me a note on my dresser along with the smooth and bright purple crystal. “This is supposed to give you psychic protection. I don’t know if it works, but it can’t hurt.”
Then, as I’d stuck a water bottle in my backpack, I found a note and an amethyst. “This is supposed to protect you from negative energy. I don’t know if it works, but it can’t hurt.”
I loved their family. And I really, really hoped their parents were okay.
“Be safe,” Colton said.
&nb
sp; “I will.” I gave them a small wave and got out of the car, before I could change my mind and beg to spend the day watching movies.
As I hurried to the school, the pit in my stomach grew. Was it stupid to keep coming to school? Pretending like nothing had changed? Mr. Hancock stood by the doors like he did every day, greeting students, and just like every day, he ignored me.
I guessed it was good some things wouldn’t change.
The day dragged, but I had lunch to eat and something to look forward to. Hopefully, the Chees had come home. At the end of the day, I made my way outside looking for one of their cars, but none were visible. Whirling around, I looked everywhere I could see. Nope. They weren’t there. I looked down at my phone. I didn’t have any messages from them.
Me to the group: You guys okay? Coming to get me?
A girl slammed into me from behind. I stumbled, catching myself at the last second.
I didn’t know her name. Was it Jerrilyn or something? She snarled at me like a wounded animal. “Watch it, bitch.”
I backed up fast. “You knocked into me.”
“Whatever.” She walked away, flipping her hair over her shoulder in the way only mean girls could. I rubbed my arm where she’d banged me and moved out of the way of the crowd.
No one had texted me back.
I sat down to wait. Time had a way of moving either too slow or too fast, there was no in between, not for me. After a while of endless nothing, I had to move. Something was wrong. Maybe they’d all gone after the Chees. Or they’d gone home. Or a giant power surge had broken their phones and cars. Whatever it was, I had to find out, and I wouldn’t be able to do that sitting here.
With a final thought, I ran to the back of the school and grabbed my can. It brought me good luck in my travels from school to home before. I’d just act like it was a normal day and maybe no demons or infested people or whatever they were would bother me.
I started walking. Step by step. Inch by inch. Like time, the distance seemed longer than ever. Finally, I arrived at the Chee’s house.
Eyes in the Darkness (The Coveted) Page 22