Chapter 5 Allie
ALLIE
The hallway was dark and quiet as Jared and I made our way down to the dorms, but my head was anything but. The prophecy kept echoing off my skull— The door will bleed. Only living shadows can seal the wound.
“You’re quiet,” he said.
“Can you blame me?”
He shook his head, then lifted our joined hands and kissed my knuckles. “At least you have company this time.”
I shot him a scowl. “Yes, it’s so much better knowing my dad and boyfriend are in the crosshairs, too. What?” I added when he smiled.
“Boyfriend,” he said, his voice full of heat. “I do like the sound of that.”
I rolled my eyes, but it had worked. My mood had improved by at least five notches.
And then five more when I saw the heat flicker across his expression.
“We could just skip the meeting redux with the gang and go back to your room.” He bent over and kissed my ear.
“You spent so much time decorating it, it’s a shame not to thoroughly christen it. ”
“You, sir, are too transparent.”
“Parent being the operative word?”
“Stop,” I said, fighting a laugh. “What if my mom’s lingering?”
“She’d just think we’re enjoying your extra space. I know Mindy approves.”
“Of you or my new room?”
He flashed that lust-worthy grin. “Both.”
I swallowed a laugh. When I’d upgraded to my own room in the residential part of the mansion, I’d told Mom it made sense because I was doing more teaching than studenting now.
But Mindy knew the truth—Jared. Because the tiny dorm room converted from servants’ quarters that Mindy and I had shared was hardly date-friendly.
And because she’s my bestie, she’d assured me that she didn’t mind.
Considering how she liked to spread out all her computer gear, I thought she might even have been secretly turning cartwheels about having the room all to herself.
I let my mind drift back to earlier. The way it had felt with Jared’s hands on my skin. The way my entire body had seemed to be nothing but want and need.
The way my mom had burst in.
I jumped a little, jarred from my lusty thoughts, and realized we’d almost walked right past the common room.
“Mind elsewhere?” Jared teased.
I brushed a soft kiss over his lips. “Maybe. But don’t even think about heading back to my room yet. You know they’re all huddled in there waiting for us to give them the scoop.”
Sure enough, the entire—albeit small—student body was gathered in the common room. Mindy on the couch with her laptop, my cousin Eliza cross-legged on the floor, and Ren and Ana tangled together on the loveseat, still in that always-touching, new relationship stage.
Jared took his place in an overstuffed armchair and pulled me into his lap as Mindy said, “We heard everything.”
“Really?”
She nodded, her newly short, wavy hair was a mess, as if she’d been dragging her fingers through it, and her eyes were bloodshot.
For that matter, all of them looked a bit wrung out, and I felt a weird sort of warmth knowing that these guys were here because they had my back—even though I didn’t have a clue how they’d heard a thing.
“The study,” Eliza explained, probably because I looked clueless. “The door that opens onto the sitting room. We thought it was painted shut, but it’s not.”
“It was just stuck,” Mindy added. “WD-40 fixed it weeks ago.”
“And?” I glanced around the room at all of them. “Please tell me you worked some mojo and figured out the prophecy. I mean, it’s been at least ten minutes. I expect results from you guys.”
“We totally have the answer,” Ana said. “You’ll kick some ass and save the world.” She shrugged. “Because that’s what you do.”
And the cool—and terrifying—thing was that she actually meant it.
Cooler still is the fact that she said it aloud.
When Ana first came to the Academy, she was a mousy little thing who’d been sucked into herself after her parents’ death and had somehow ended up on Forza’s radar.
Now, she’s grown into a stunningly pretty girl, with real confidence and some pretty kickass fighting skills.
She looked between me and Jared. “You two,” she said. “And your dad. You guys are on deck to save the world.”
“Again,” Ren said with a grin. He’d come into his own on the fighting side of things last year, his lean frame giving him an advantage. Not to mention years of living on the street after his parents had been killed by demons when he was six.
I hadn’t known that he and Ana had started seeing each other, but I had to admit they fit.
At that thought, I snuggled closer to Jared, feeling a tiny stir of pain for Mindy—my bestie—and Eliza—my cousin—, neither of whom had somebody at the moment.
“So what do we do about this signature demon dude?” Eliza asked. The leather wrist cuffs she always wore to hide some pretty nasty battle scars caught the dim light as she shifted.
I shrugged. “We do what Mom assigned everyone to do. Laura’s checking her contacts. My dad’s researching the mark. Cutter’s on security. And we wait, I guess. Try to figure out what it means before whatever’s coming actually gets here.”
“I’m already on the forums,” Mindy said, her fingers flying across her keyboard. “At least the ones I visit regularly. DemonSlayer666 is offline, but there are some old threads about signature marks.”
“DemonSlayer666,” Ana repeated.
“He’s very knowledgeable,” Mindy said earnestly.
“You’re taking demon advice from someone whose only knowledge of demons probably comes from Buffy and Supernatural.”
“They’re knowledgeable,” Mindy repeated, already typing furiously. “We’re not the only ones fighting the good fight.”
She had a point, and I had to smile. Even when the world was falling apart, I could count on Mindy to make everything feel slightly less apocalyptic.
“The new kids arrive tomorrow,” Ren said. “Anyone else think the timing’s suspicious?”
Ana shrugged. “Everything is suspicious now. A butterfly could land on the windowsill, and I’d assume it was a demon spy.”
“Demons don’t slide into insects,” Mindy said absently, still typing. “What would be the point? They’re basically just navigation systems with wings attached.”
She was right. Most of the time, demons are just there, floating around us in the ether, which is kind of gross when you think about it. But they all want to be human—to experience all those lovely pleasures of the body. I sighed, leaning against Jared. Can’t blame them for that.
But because they want it so much, demons keep an eye out and slide into the body of the unfaithful at the moment of death, right as the soul leaves the body.
They can—but hardly ever do—take over the body of someone faithful.
Those souls fight. And since the whole point is that demons desperately want experience all our human-y emotions, insects aren’t exactly on a demon’s preferred body list.
“There have been a few recorded instances of demons taking over a hamster,” Mindy added. We all just gaped.
“What? It was in the reading for Mom’s class last term.”
“You actually do the reading for your mom?” Ren asked.
“I do all the reading. How do you think I found out about the forums?”
“Whatever, Hermione,” Ren said. “But seriously, what door was that prophecy talking about? And how do we know for sure it’s meant for one of you two?” He looked between Jared and me. “Or your dad,” he added, his attention still on me.
I shrug. “We don’t for sure. Not yet. And trying to figure out what the prophecy means before we have more information is just going to make us crazy.”
“Too late,” Mindy said without looking up from her laptop. “I’ve been crazy since I found out demons were real and my best friend had been fighting them while I thought we were just doing homework and obsessing about boys.”
That got a weak laugh from the group. We’d all had versions of that moment—the before and after that divided our lives between normal and whatever the hell this is.
“We should try to sleep,” I said, even though I knew none of us would. “Tomorrow’s going to be brutal.”
The group dispersed slowly, everyone drifting toward their rooms with mumbled goodnights. Except for Mindy, who was clearly waiting to chat. Jared lingered, too, his hand still on my shoulder.
“You okay?” His voice was soft.
“Not really. But I will be.”
He studied my face for a long moment, then nodded. “I should let you get some rest.” He glanced at Mindy, who was making a very poor show of being absorbed in her laptop. “Night, Mindy,” he said, before brushing a kiss over my lips.
“Night, Jared,” Mindy called without looking up as he swept from the room.
The second the door clicked shut behind him, she closed her laptop and patted the couch cushion beside her. “Spill.”
“Spill what? You heard everything.”
She fixed me with that look—the one that said she could see right through me. We’d been best friends since elementary school. She knew all my tells. “Something else happened tonight. You and Jared? You weren’t quite as clingy.”
I grimaced. “We’re not ever clingy.”
“Oh, please. You so are.”
She was right. We so are. Apparently, tonight I wasn’t feeling it. Gee. I wonder why.
“See?” Mindy said, pointing to my face. “You know what I mean.”
“Fine. Fine.” I plopped onto the sofa, drew a breath, and blurted, “My mom walked in on us.”
Mindy’s mouth fell open. “No way.”
“Way,” I said, grabbing one of the throw pillows and hugging it to my chest.
“And, um, what exactly did she see? I didn’t think you two had...you know.”
“Not that!”
“Well, good. Because I thought we had a pact to share when we did that.”
“We do,” I said. “Maybe.” Now that I was edging closer to that, I wasn’t so sure I’d want to share. That, however, was not the point.
“We were in my room. Making out. And then my door flew open, and there’s my mom, and I swear I’ve never moved so fast in my life.”
“Oh. My. God.” Mindy was clearly torn between horror and delight. “What did she say?”