Agatha was seated at the desk, tapping a pen against the wood, and staring off into space. “What did that…guy mean by all that stuff earlier? About your mom…and the devil?”
Shoot. I didn’t think she’d been paying attention, or I’d been hoping anyway. I smoothed my wrinkled T-shirt as I searched my thoughts for how to handle this. Truth or lies? Truth and lies?
“Because…a lot of the kids here… Well, some of us don’t have parents.” She grazed her fingertips across the edge of the desk and swallowed down at them. “Or some of us have parents who don’t want to be associated with us. Kind of like Zane’s dad.” She glanced up, and something about the way those bright, intuitive eyes searched my face made me feel small and insignificant. “Where is your mom?”
I lowered myself into the seat across from her with a sigh. “I honestly don’t know.”
“And your dad?”
“Never met him.” I shrugged. Yet another thing Mom refused to talk about. She’d completely clam up at the mention of him.
Agatha nodded. “I still don’t know if I believe that those things were…were demons. I saw what happened to Miss Molly and Zane, but...” She squared her shoulders. “So, tell me what happened.”
I sucked in a deep breath and held it a few beats. Wow, okay, how to do explain when I didn’t even know for sure myself. “My mother was in Hell.”
Silence. Not much you can say to that one. Then she said, “You mean like Detroit or…”
I laughed. I was starting to like Agatha, but after this, I doubted she would ever speak to me again. Even I didn’t believe all of it. “No, she was in literal Hell. That’s where I’m from. But she left, went somewhere safer, I guess.” I shrugged as if it were no big deal.
Just two girls, talking about where they came from and where they were going. Like two friends. The only friends I’d ever truly had were Mauve and my hellhounds when I was younger, and I wasn’t even sure they counted. It might be nice to have more, someone around my own age.
“And that smoke…” Agatha spoke slowly, feeling out each word.
“Also from literal Hell. Escaped demons looking for someone to hide in from my friend Blade.” I sighed and let it all come pouring out. How I tried to collect a soul and failed. How my mother, the Devil, had banished me from Hell to teach me a lesson, only it’d really been for my protection. How everyone here had false memories of me, all a magical illusion designed to protect me. And about the missing key to the Gates of Hell. She’d already heard Blade and me talk about all this in the hospital, so it wasn’t as if I was spilling any Hellish secrets or anything. I thought I owed it to her to fill in some of her blanks.
We sat there not looking at each other as time stretched on and on. I glanced at the clock behind her head. It was almost one in the morning, and I could feel that number like a stick prying open my eyelids.
“So, you’re not a thief?” Her voice sounded like it was being strained through cheesecloth.
I shrugged. “Well, I’ve been known to snatch something from time to time.”
“And you…” Her eyes narrowed. “You never kissed Mikey?”
I blinked, stumped by her random question. That was what she wanted to know? I’d just laid it all out that I was the princess of Hell and there were now demons walking the earth, and she wanted to know about Mikey? Humans were no joke in the complexity department.
“No. No kissing.”
She smiled down at her lap. “Okay.”
“Did you just say okay?”
She shrugged, further baffling me. No way she was taking the news this well.
“So, you’re the princess of Hell, and your mother is…Satan.”
“Satan is just a badge high-ranking demons wear, like guards, but my mom’s not a demon.” I really should stick some explanations on a sticky note and slap them to my forehead to save time: Hello, I am Not A Demon, P.S. Neither is My Mom.
“The devil isn’t Lucifer?” Agatha asked.
I shook my head. “One of the biggest misconceptions about her is that she’s a man. She goes with it because she figures the more in the dark people are, the safer we are.”
“Cool,” she said, nodding.
I stared at her, wanting to rip my own hair out. I couldn’t understand why she was so “cool” about this.
“You’re from Hell.” The corner of her mouth twitched. “I used to suspect as much anyway.”
I snorted and she laughed, too, and this time it was a warm sound that made me feel at ease.
“There’s a lot worse around here. Like Heather Dawson.” She made a talking gesture with her hand. “Miss Chatty Bitchtits? She’s like a hardcore stalker. She had a foster family, but she was like, obsessed with the dad. Followed him to work. Showed up to his job naked. Had a shrine to him under her bed.”
My eyes suddenly felt too big for their sockets.
“So, I figure being a Hell princess isn’t the worst thing you can be. As long as you don’t like Mikey.” Her cheeks flushed.
“I don’t, but Agatha, please don’t tell anyone about all this.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “Who would believe me? I’d be sent back to the hospital. What we probably need to focus on is finding Miss Molly.”
“Right.” I gazed around her office as if I could I find her here, maybe hiding in her fantasy bathroom.
“Where do you think she went?” she asked.
I sighed and sat back in the lumpy chair, the imaginary sticks in my eyes threatening to crack under pressure and exhaustion. “Come with me tomorrow. We’ll go shopping.”
“Shopping’s going to find Miss Molly?”
“No. Yes.” I scrubbed at my face, trying to rub some sense into my brain. “Maybe.”
“Didn’t that weird Blade guy tell you to stay put?”
“I’m sure he did, but I wasn’t listening. Just come with me tomorrow.” I offered a tired smile, hoping she’d agree. “I have an idea.”
16
As I laced up my combat boots the next day, I searched the room for Agatha. She was nowhere in sight, unlike Elia, who fluttered through the door with her knit hat covering one eye. This one was green with a black leprechaun belt sewed across the top.
I sat on my bed as she weaved around the edges of my vision. She was slumped over, her one visible gray eye darting anxiously around at the four other girls in the room. Almost as soon as they left, her posture tightened and she looked down her nose at me. I shuddered and wondered how many times a day she slipped that mask on and off.
“I didn’t see you around much yesterday. Where did you go?”
I shrugged and covered the laces of my combat boots with more duct tape just so I wouldn’t have to look at her. “I hung out at The Coveted Closet most of the day.”
“Huh.” Her tongue clicked. “So, you didn’t go see Aggie?”
“Zane was taking those cards up to her, so I tagged along.”
Elia narrowed her eyes. “She somehow managed to get herself out of the hospital and is being all secretive about it. She doesn’t even seem upset anymore.”
I stood and grabbed my backpack. “Does that disappoint you?”
She batted her eyelashes and brought her hand up to cover her mouth in mock shock. “Of course not! I’m just glad she’s feeling better.” She edged toward me with a hungry look in her eyes. “Did you write that note to Mikey to meet you outside the girls’ bathroom?”
“No. You know I didn’t.” I made my voice flat and final, like a slammed door right in her face.
But she opened that door and waltzed in without knocking. “It’s weird, though, that it was written in your handwriting.” A low, hissing noise came from between her teeth. “I wonder what Miss Molly will do to you.”
Hearing the threat in her words was the surest bait. I’d have to check myself for fish scales later.
“What do you want, Elia?”
She huffed. “Nothing. Except to leave my name out of it if she grills you, that’s all.”
I frowned and held my hand out to her. “I need that key back.”
She smiled as smooth as Devil’s nectar, glancing at my waiting palm. “And access to your keys any time I want them. I’ll tell Miss Molly it wasn’t you who wrote the note if we have ourselves a deal.”
I shut my palm with a little more dramatic flair than necessary. It may have had something to do with the fact that I was imagining her head squeezing between my fingers.
“Sure. We have a deal.” I made my voice as sweet as her smile.
“Okay, well I better get going.” She leaned over, grabbed her books, and arched her shoulders over in a slump as she dragged herself out of the room like a little old lady.
I gave her a twenty second lead, the last of my trust for her unraveling with every step, then followed to hunt for Agatha. On my way to the cafeteria, I ran across Mrs. Crenshaw speaking to three uniformed police officers. They all wore matching wary expressions on their faces, unlike Mrs. Crenshaw, who was a lot more animated. Her hands were planted on the hips of her pantsuit, her eyes bugged out of her head, and her purple-painted mouth flapped a mile a minute.
As I passed, I kept my head down. I caught the tail end of what the tallest of the officers was saying. Something about not being able to file a missing person’s report for at least forty-eight hours, and that it wasn’t one of those cases anyway since Miss Molly had been seen several times around Jonesborough.
Mrs. Crenshaw hissed something so low that I couldn’t make out, but her worry rang clear.
I hurried to the cafeteria and spotted Agatha almost at once. She was surrounded by a group of people on the far side, but we shared a look as I passed her table on my way to the cereal station. After I quickly filled a plastic bowl with sugary flakes and a healthy dose of chocolate syrup, I carried my tray to her table and slammed it down, making everyone jump. I smiled into my breakfast of champions and bit into it, letting most of the chocolate syrup drip down my chin like a creepy wet beard.
The crowd around Agatha instantly cleared, and she sat there staring, a wide grin on her face.
“You don’t have many friends, do you?” she asked, sliding down across from me with her tray, milk carton, and bowl of congealed...paste.
“Not when there are demons to be caught.” I used a paper napkin to wipe away the mess on my face. “What did they want?”
Of course I had to ask while she was in the middle of taking a sip of milk, so she didn’t answer right away. “They were asking if I was okay. And they had some questions about Miss Molly.”
Ignoring the second part of her sentence for now, I said, “That was nice of them.”
“Maybe.” She sighed. “I got the feeling it was to satisfy the rumor mill.”
She was probably right.
“Did you see the cops were here?” she asked, spooning the paste in her bowl.
I nodded, worry clamping my gut.
She glanced around the cafeteria and then leaned across her tray. “What are we going to do?”
I turned my spoon around and around in my hand. The metal caught the fluorescents and shined it in my eyes. “We need to get to The Coveted Closet.”
“The thrift store?”
“Yeah…” I searched the cafeteria. “Have you seen Zane?”
“Not since last night.”
Everyone was starting to funnel out of the cafeteria, so I stood. “We should get going.”
We bused our trays and headed to the boys’ dorm. And then we searched everywhere else. Zane didn’t seem to be anywhere.
“Maybe he’s in the bathroom?” Agatha suggested.
We stood outside the boys’ bathroom for at least ten minutes before I got tired of waiting.
“Screw it. I’m going in,” I announced.
Agatha shook her head wildly. “There might be boys in there.”
“That’s kind of the point.” I pushed the door open. “Hello?” I called. When no one said anything, I turned to Agatha. “Wait here.”
She grabbed my elbow. “What if someone is in there and you see their…peckers?”
How bad could it be? I patted Agatha’s arm. “I’ll close my eyes.”
She nodded. “Okay. Good idea.”
I crept inside. The tiles were a muted tan instead of the tacky lime green and bright pink in the girls’ bathroom, and crumpled paper towels spilled onto the floor from the garbage cans. On the outside of the stalls, someone had scrawled some not-so-nice things about the girls here. Heather = BJ. Agatha is a secret slut. Kasey makes my… The rest was blurred out. Maybe it had read Kasey makes my hands clap? Kasey makes my nose drip? Kasey makes my soul wither?
Nah. I dug in my backpack for a Sharpie and scrawled Kasey makes my Hell happier. There. Much better.
I peeked into stalls, but the last stall was locked. “Anyone in there?”
There was a click, and then the door swung slowly inward. Zane was seated on the toilet lid with his pants up. His crutches were leaned against the wall, and he peered up at me with a glazed look in his eyes.
He blinked a few times. “Kasey?”
I leaned against the doorframe and crossed my arms. “Did you not hear me calling?”
He just stared like he’d been hollowed out. “Um…” His gaze shifted to his hands. “Yeah, I just…”
“Hey, you okay?” I asked. “Pain medication got you a little loopy?”
His eyebrows furrowed. “Pain medication?”
He must have still been traumatized from the previous day’s events. I leaned out of the stall to make sure we were still alone.
“About yesterday,” I began, turning back to him. “You probably have a lot of questions.”
“Understatement of the century.” He ran his fingers through his hair, making it tuft up in adorable spikes. “I swear, I don’t even remember breaking my leg.” His purple-blue eyes narrowed behind his glasses. “Did you drive me home?”
Had Blade altered his memory? But that wasn’t exactly his style. The only reason he did it to the hospital staff was to make his life easier. He was too proud of what he was to hide from humans, and he cared too little for them to protect them from the truth. It must’ve been Zane’s pain medication mixed with the trauma of realizing that monsters were real.
“Um, you broke your leg at the hospital,” I finally said. “And yeah, I drove you and Agatha back.”
He straightened. “The doctors let Agatha out?”
I nodded. “Blade took care of them.”
“What?”
“No. No, he didn’t kill them,” I said, holding up my hands. “He altered their memories a little.”
He blew out a slow breath, seeming to process that. “She okay?”
“You really don’t remember anything?”
He reached for his crutches and then rose to one foot. After planting his crutches under his armpits, he leaned toward me. “The last thing I remember…was having some kind of bizarre dream. There was…” He looked like a blind man straining in the hope that sight would come. “There was smoke and…and M—Miss Molly…”
His face washed of all color as if the memories came at him like a storm. His good leg buckled, and he had to use his crutches to keep himself upright.
I dived toward him, ready to help. “Whoa, Zane, take it easy.”
“No.” He stared at me. “You…you were…” His eyes blanked like a TV snapping off in the middle of an action scene. When his inner life switched back on, his eyes were full of a rolling fury that spread midnight across his irises. “You bitch.”
My mouth dropped open. “What?”
The ends of his crutches were like suctions on the linoleum as he propelled forward. “Tell me where the key is.”
That wasn’t his voice. It was too deep, too gravelly. But we’d exorcised him. I still had the demon caught in the soap container Devil’s trap bound with duct tape at the bottom of my backpack.
Before I had a chance to react, he raised his right crutch and swung it at me. I
leaped out of the way, but I was too slow. The crutch hit me in the lower back.
I righted myself, wincing. “Stop!”
This had to be another demon inside him, trying to get to me. Horror tightened in my gut as he came at me again, helicoptering his crutches in the air. I ducked this way and that, narrowly missing being struck by him again.
He stopped and growled. “This. Damned. Cast!”
He threw his crutches, and they skidded across the floor. One of them slid under a shower curtain. He bent over and started ripping at his cast. A large chunk came off the side. He pounded at it, ripping cracks up the length of it with demon strength.
“Leave him alone,” I shouted and sprang at him. I grabbed both arms, wrenched them behind his back, and forced him over at the waist.
The door flew open. Agatha rushed in. She looked with wide eyes from me to Zane, who was struggling violently in my grip.
“What’s going on?” she asked, breathless.
“Agatha.” I gritted my teeth, trying to keep my hold on him. If he did any more damage to that cast, we’d have to take another trip to the hospital. “Get out of here.”
“Let go of me, bitch!” He twisted his body this way and that. Trying to keep a hold of him was like trying to control the reins on a bucking bull.
“Zane.” I set my feet into the floor to keep us both from falling over. “Knock it off. Fight it.”
“This again?” Agatha shouted.
He ripped his right arm away and swung around, hitting me in the core. I doubled over, all my wind knocked out, and braced for another attack.
He foamed at the mouth. A formerly domestic dog with a case of demon rabies. I was at a loss about what to do because exorcism wasn’t my forte and I had zero magic. The only thing I knew was that if I didn’t stop him, he would keep coming at me for the location of that damned key to the Gates of Hell. He lunged again.
I swung and cracked him as hard as I could in the jaw. His head snapped to the side, and he collapsed in a pile on the linoleum.
Daring the Devil (Reigning Hell Book 1) Page 12
