rhythm and kill me. But instead of directing my fury where it belongs, I hear my voice, low and strangled, lash out at her. “
For a moment, she looks like she might. And I really want her to. I want her to run hard and fast and never look back.
It’s a good thing that I don’t have to breathe, because I’m fairly certain I wouldn’t be able to. I lean back against the wall, slouching down it and staring at the ceiling with my fingers laced over my horns, and wait an eternity for her to do something. Anything.
Finally, unable to help myself, I drop my gaze back to her.
Her face is brooding, her brow creased. Her voice is heavy, pensive. She hugs the pillow tighter. “This can’t be real.” She rubs her eyes and looks back at me.
I would give anything for it not to be. I hang my head. “It’s real.”
For a minute she’s quiet and I can almost hear her thinking. “I’ve always known there was something. dark. and sort of dangerous about you,” she says, finally.
I slide up the wall to a stand. “Are you hearing me, Frannie? I’m more than ‘sort of dangerous’!”
She flinches a little but doesn’t move from the bed. I watch, expecting terror to dawn on her face at any second, but instead, her expression turns furious and black pepper floods the room. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I’m telling you now.”
“I mean before. You let me. ” she spins off the bed and glares at me, gripping the pillow so tight I’m sure it will rip. “I love you,” she spits in accusation.
And it’s there-warm chocolate underlying the scorch of black pepper in my nostrils. In that instant, all my insides turn to pure energy, and I feel my brimstone heart explode.
But it doesn’t matter, because this is the part where she runs.
Her eyes widen as what she just said dawns on her. She slides back onto the bed and sits there, for a long, agonizing minute, staring at me, her jaw slack and disbelief stamped all over her face. “I. I didn’t. ” Her eyes drop to the sheets.
There’s nothing I can say. I can’t reach out to tell her I love her too. So I hang my head and wait for the slam of the door as she bolts.
But the door doesn’t slam. Instead, she says, “So, what’s the deal? Do you have to go back?”
I look up and a sardonic bark of a laugh leaves my throat. Of all the things she could have asked. “Eventually.”
She grabs her shirt from the floor, tugging it over her head, then glares at me. “I knew you’d leave.”
My lips pinch together in a grimace, and I shake my head. “
“Fine,” she says, shoving her composition book into her book bag. And that’s when I notice the shake in her hands. “I’ll save you the trouble,” she snarls.
She throws her book bag over her shoulder and searches the floor as my insides churn.
“Damn it!” she yells in frustration. “Where are my goddamn flip-flops?”
I bend down and scoop them off the floor, holding them out to her.
She storms over and rips them out of my hand. But then she hesitates, staring at my horns. She starts to lift her hand as her eyes drop to mine, the curiosity back. “Can I. ” But then she drops her hand and shakes her head, as if trying to clear it.
“What?” I hear the hope in my voice and despise myself even more for it.
“Nothing.” She wheels and strides toward the door. But before she reaches it she spins back. She stares hard into my eyes for a long minute then pulls a deep breath. “So, now that I know what you are, am I going to Hell for falling for you anyway?” A shaky smile plays at the corners of her mouth as she wipes a tear off her cheek with the back of her hand.
And, suddenly, warm chocolate overpowers her black pepper. Just for a second, the heart throbbing in my chest doesn’t feel like brimstone. I can’t believe that she knows what I am-the real me-and she loves me anyway. But then the reality of that sinks in.
“Frannie, no. this isn’t right,” I groan. I let my knees buckle and slide down the wall to sit, my head in my hands. She shouldn’t still love me. This can only end badly.
She walks back to the center of the room, drops her book bag, and perches on the corner of the bed. “Do you care about me at all?”
I pull my head out of my hands and look up at her on the bed. I know what I should say, and my mouth opens to form the word “no.” But instead, what I hear escape very softly from my lips is, “Yes.” And hearing myself say it shocks me out of my stupor. I spring to my feet and channel all the ice from my dying brimstone heart into my words. “I mean
“I don’t believe you,” she says, fiery incredulity in her words and her face.
She should be screaming. Running. Anything but this. I spin around and throw a general growl out at the world-and catch my reflection in the mirror on the bathroom door.
I walk to the mirror and stare at myself as I work harder to push off my human form. When nothing changes, I turn back to her.
“Frannie. Look at me and tell me
“Well. the horns are kinda new, and your eyes are glowing a little more than usual. And I hate to say it, but you stink.” She scrunches her face and pinches her nose. “Can you turn off the rotten eggs? I like cinnamon better.”
“That’s all?”
“Is there supposed to be more?”
“Like?”
“Nothing.” I grab my T-shirt off the floor and yank it on. “We’re going for a ride.”
Chapter 17
Frannie
We run through the rain, my hand in Luc’s, and slide into his car. I’m afraid to ask, but I do anyway. “Where are we going?”
“There’s only one person-and I use that term loosely-that might know what the hell is going on,” he says as he starts the car.
As Luc drives the storm picks up, and by the time we pull up to Gabe’s house it’s a full-on deluge, fat drops of rain sheeting the windshield and pounding on the roof like a thousand tiny hammers. And the whole way, all I can think about is that I told him I love him.
He’s a demon. I still can’t get my mind around what that even means. He had
Oh God! Where did that even come from?
I don’t love him, do I?
No. Love doesn’t exist.
I glance at Luc as he cuts the engine and turns to look at me. I’m terrified of him, but as stupid as I know it
