Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 88849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 444(@200wpm)___ 355(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 444(@200wpm)___ 355(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
“No!” I was out for Vespar’s blood. I swung around, ready to charge, and found myself face-to-face with an equally enraged Vespar. His eyes were wide, pupils dilated, and when he shook a finger in the air, I saw the actual air move with it. I wondered if the trees swayed as well.
“You don’t say that! You don’t play with our lives like you did in class!” Vespar yelled at me. Giuseppa stood to the side, anxious, but still alert. Kellan fell to the side, and I surged forward. “He asked me a question. I told the truth!”
“How do you know, Shay?” Vespar laughed mockingly, bitingly. “How do you know there’s a heaven or hell? How do you know when no one else knows?”
“I know because—”
“You know because you’re a demon! Just like us, Shay. We’re all demons. We’re all going to hell. That’s how you know, but are you going to tell them that? Are you going to—” Vespar interrupted heatedly. He shook his finger with each word until he stood an inch from my nose.
I took it. I held firm, and then I cut him off, “What life are you so worried about, Vespar? You can’t die. You’re a demon. We all are. We don’t die!”
“Enough!” Kellan roared and stepped between us.
He didn’t touch us, but his hands sparked, and we were thrown backward. Vespar went farther than me, and as I landed, a little unsteadily on my feet, Vespar fell to the ground. I quickly strode to where Vespar lay. “I spoke the truth. That’s all I did. No one’s going to think we’re demons. No one’s going to ever consider it, so you’re safe, Vespar. Your little hide is safe because that’s all you’re really worried about. You don’t care about me. You’ve never cared about me.”
He looked up, dazed, but I saw the anger still there. His blue eyes snapped back at me as he cradled a hand on his chest, where Kellan had zapped him. “Humans can’t hurt us, but don’t you think there’s something worse for us? We’re half-human, but we’re half-demon, Shay. We can go to hell. That’s our rightful place—”
“Not if we’re smart. Not if we…”
Vespar laughed coldly and rolled to his feet. “Not if we what, Shay? Not if we ignore all the sick, dark stuff we love? Not if we…what? I’d like to know. We’ve got a nature inside. It’s called evil. We’re evil. You’re evil, just like us. You just fight what’s inside of you better than the rest of us, but there’s worse for us, Shay. Worse than just dying.”
I frowned, caught off-guard.
Giuseppa stepped forward with her eyes narrowed and her hair pulled into a hasty ponytail. She murmured throatily, “They can send messengers after us, agents after us. You have no idea, Shay, because you never want to know. You don’t want to know what we are, what you are. You’re one of us. You need to start acting like it.”
Messengers? Agents? A cold shiver slammed down my spine as I remembered my painting. Three angels were descending—I painted that after seeing Kellan portrayed as a demon. It didn’t mean anything. It couldn’t. I shook my head and rasped out, “It’s no excuse. Just because our mother had demon blood—”
“Has,” Giuseppa interrupted firmly, coldly. Her blue eyes studied me as if seeing me for the first time, like she was seeing something she’d never seen before and didn’t like it. She stepped back, retreating, and repeated again, “Has.”
“What?” I frowned, scratching absent-mindedly at my arm. The tattoo was burning…
“You said ‘had.’ Mom has blood. She’s not dead, Shay,” Vespar snapped back. “And you still need to hear us. You can’t go talk about stuff like that. There are people, things, around that are more open-minded than most. They believe in stuff like us, like demons. They’ll figure it out and send messengers after us—”
“—if they’re smart, they will,” Kellan finished for him darkly.
I looked at him, confused. “You want that?”
Kellan shrugged. “We’re demons. If they’re not coming after us, I’m going after them.”
“Do you know who it is?”
“Does it matter?” Gus laughed shrewdly. “The minute they open a channel and summon something, we’ll feel it and be all over them.” Her eyes twinkled in anticipation.
I felt a shiver down my back, but suppressed it. This was my blood.
“Why do you always talk as if Mom is dead?” Vespar folded his arms over his chest.
Why? I opened my mouth to explain and stopped. I had no idea. “I…I never see Mom or Dad. They’re never here. It’s only us all the time.” It had never been them. It had always been the four of us.
Giuseppa frowned. “They’re here all the time. What are you talking about?”
Kellan stepped in between us and folded his arms over his chest. His eyes sparked. “I think that’s enough. Vespar, don’t ever challenge another Braden in public.” Vespar opened his mouth, but Kellan finished, “Or be prepared for me to challenge you.”