But then she heard a crash and voices. Stopping all motion, George attempted to orient herself when she heard, “How nice. Her boyfriend. Did you come to save her?”
“Where is George?” a voice roared.
Dex?
No. No. No!
What was he doing down there? How had he gotten in? Had he teleported into the basement? Had he come alone?
Leaning against the wall, George turned back around. No way was she leaving Dex down there.
She didn’t know how powerful he was or if he could suffer. She only knew he couldn’t die because he was already dead. But she wasn’t leaving him down there with her psychopath father in order to find out what a demon could do to him.
Whirling around, she looked for a weapon, any kind of weapon, and found a long level, which would have to do.
She snuck back across the floor to the tune of muffled voices, praying her father wouldn’t hear her footsteps. Thankfully, the basement door was still open and, as she crept down the stairs, she saw Dex, facing off with Houston.
The hammer still embedded in his forehead, Houston eyed Dex with so much venom, it took George’s breath away. Not only that, he held something in his hand—something shiny.
Her stomach rocked and rolled and her heart throbbed in her chest. In the distance, she heard voices, but she didn’t have time to decipher who they belonged to when her father yelled.
“I’m gonna get some wings tonight, and I don’t give a shit whose they are. So call up your wings, loverboy! Do it now and this can all be over. Otherwise, I’ll hunt Georgina to the end of damn time!”
Just as he spoke the words, the stupid staircase creaked.
Her father, without turning around, said, “Did you come to save loverboy, Georgie Porgie?”
“Let him leave, Dad. Let him leave now,” she hissed, gripping the level in her hands.
“Or what?” he sneered with a cackle. “What are you gonna do?”
“George, go back. Get out,” Dex said calmly. Too calmly, his beautiful face a hard mask.
“No, Dex,” she argued, slipping down another step, her clammy hand clinging to the level. “Let him leave.”
But Houston shook his scraggly head. “I don’t think so, Cupcake. I’m gonna kill your boyfriend here if I don’t get some wings!”
This was ridiculous. Angels were already dead. “Don’t be obtuse. Angels can’t die, Dad. Now let him leave!”
Why wasn’t Dex steamrolling her father instead of standing there with his arms up, bent at the elbows? What was happening?”
Dex’s hard face stiffened and his eyes searched for her on the steps, his voice. “George, he has a blade—a blade that can kill me with one nick to my skin. Get out.”
The knife she wasn’t supposed to worry about? The knife that was only a, cough-cough, legend? A legend embellished ov er time?
Seriously?
The moment George thought about the hell she’d give him if they got out of this intact was the moment she lost her footing and tumbled down the steps, crashing to the floor below.
That was when her father scooped up her aching body up and held the knife to her neck, leaving her facing a clearly distraught Dex. “Move and I end it all right here, right now, loverboy!”
Again, that rebellious voice inside spoke up, even with a deadly knife to her throat. “If you do that, Dad, how are you going to get past the Pearly Gates? Let Dex go and I’ll give you my wings.”
“George! No!” Dex yelled, his jaw hard, his eyes on fire. “Stop, right now!”
His arm like a steel band around her chest, Houston pushed the blade against her chin. “I’ll slice her open like a wee little pig and laugh while she bleeds!”
Dex looked at her, his eyes pleading before he said, “Take my wings, Houston. I’ll call them now if you let her go.”
“When I see the wings, she’s all yours, loverboy,” Houston assured him, his lips greasy against George’s ear.
He couldn’t be serious! Why would he do something like that?
Closing his eyes, Dex summoned his wings like he’d tried to teach her to do so many times before.
As the outline of them began to take shape, pushing through the darkness, she screamed, “Dex, nooo! Stop!”
But they were already there, and Houston was dropping her again to reach for them, their magnificent mother-of-pearl white glowing in the semi-dark basement.
As Houston’s hand touched the glistening white feathers, George was up and off the floor in seconds while Dex crumbled.
It took only a moment to realize this animal’s touch, this man she’d been forced to call father, now a demon, was going to kill Dex just by making contact with his wings.
“Get out!” Dex yelled in a hoarse whisper, his voice so weak, his face a mask of agony.
“The hell!” George hollered back as she made a run for her father, the image of her mother, bathed in blood on his study floor, rife in her mind’s eye. “Nooo!”
George threw herself at him, knocking him to the floor and away from Dex’s wings, only to have him backhand her and slam her to the hard basement floor.
But her rage, her anguish over her mother’s untimely murder, had her lifting herself off the floor, hurling herself toward his broad back.
She wrapped herself around him like a crab capturing prey. Using her thumbs, she jammed them into his eyes. “I’ll kill you, you animal! I’ll kill you for murdering my mother!” she bellowed, spittle flying from her mouth, sweat pouring from her forehead. “For all the times you made me afraid, for every bruise you gave her, for every time I was taken advantage of, I’ll kill you!”
Houston swung around, whipping her back and forth to try to dislodge her, but she held him tight, pummeling him with her fists, yanking at his hair…
Until he shot a fireball, that is.
With one hand, he grabbed George by the back of her dress and flipped her over his head. She landed on her backside on the floor right next to Dex’s
