Chapter 8 Allie
ALLIE
“Okay, verdict time.” Mindy flopped onto my bed and grabbed my pillow, hugging it to her chest like a lifeline. “New kid rankings. Go.”
Timmy was sprawled on the floor near my desk, crayons spread around him in a chaotic rainbow.
Fran had asked if I’d watch him while she and Elena went for a playdate with one of Elena’s old preschool friends.
At first, Timmy had been at loose ends without his bestie—which I totally got—but he’d finally settled down and had been quietly coloring for the past twenty minutes.
I was pretty sure that was a new record for the Rugrat.
“Maybe I should call those world record people,” I said to Mindy.
“Careful. You’ll jinx us.”
She had a point.
I flopped on the bed beside her, then glanced around my room.
Last year, I’d been in the mansion’s dorm wing—aka repurposed servants’ quarters—with the other students.
But now, I was back in a real bedroom, with the same furniture I’d had in our old house.
And the same pile of training clothes in the corner that I kept meaning to wash.
And the same best friend making herself at home on my bed like she owned the place.
So I guess it really is true—no matter how much things change, some things stay the same.
“Hello?” Mindy pressed, snapping her fingers in my face. I smacked them away, and she crossed her arms and scowled. “Hello? Are we ranking or what?”
“What categories?”
She rolled her eyes. “Duh. Hotness. Personality. Overall vibe. Likelihood of being secretly evil.” She ticked them off on her fingers. “The usual.”
“We have a usual? This is only year two.”
She made a clicking sound with her tongue. “I’m adding to last year’s spreadsheet.”
“Right.” I made a show of rolling my eyes as she made a show of shaking her head in mock exasperation.
“You are such a Luddite,” she said.
“I have no idea what that is, but I shall proudly wear the crown.”
She grinned, and I grinned back. This was normal, at least for us—Mindy’s systems and spreadsheets and deep-dives into demon research, me pretending to be exasperated while secretly finding it both impressive and hilarious.
And right now? Well, I’d like a great big helping of normal, please.
“So?” Mindy prompted. “Sophie first. Thoughts?”
I scooted up the bed, then turned to sit with my back against the headboard. The movement made Timmy look up briefly, but he went right back to his drawing without comment.
“Sophie,” I repeated, calling up the mental image. Small. Brown hair that hung in her face and a habit of biting her lower lip. “Sweet. A little scared. Reminds me of Ana before she came out of her shell.”
“Agreed. Abandoned-puppy energy.” Mindy nodded sagely. “She’ll be fine once she settles in. This place is weird, but it’s good-weird once you get used to it. Trevor?”
That one was harder. I thought about dinner—the way he’d sat at the end of the table with his headphones on, hunched over his food like he was guarding it from predators. The way he’d flinched when Ren accidentally bumped his chair. The flat look in his eyes that substituted for a full-on mask.
“Defensive,” I finally said.
“Translation, daddy issues.”
“Come on, Min. Leap much?”
She just shrugged. “He’s all surly macho guy. Sounds like classic no good male influence.”
“You have got to stop reading psych books,” I said, but she wasn’t wrong. Trevor might as well be wearing a t-shirt that says The system failed me, and now I trust no one.
“You agree,” Mindy said. “I see it on your face.”
“Fine. Maybe you’re right.” She was, but I couldn’t tell her as much since Mom had made me swear not to tell anyone—especially Mindy—that he’d bounced through six foster homes in four years.
And that kind of instability left marks.
The kind Mom says either kicks you in the gut and knocks you down or makes you strong enough to do the kicking.
It all depends on the kid, and we won’t know until we know.
I shrug. “Mom thinks he’s got potential.”
“Your mom thinks everyone has potential. It’s her superpower. She has to. Otherwise, she’d be an idiot to run this school.”
She wasn’t wrong about that.
“He’s kind of cute, though,” she said. “In a broody, I-hate-everything way.”
“You think broody is cute?”
She shrugged, hugging a pillow tight. “Not cute so much as bad boy hot. And speaking of hot...we’re agreed Zane is totally BBH?”
“Don’t tell Jared,” I said, “but OMG, yes. With his hair and that jawline? Why he’s here and not on some sexy streamer is beyond me. And he’s nice,” I added. Because that’s important, too.
Mindy shifted on the bed. “I know, right? You saw him at dinner? He got Sophie to laugh twice, which I think qualifies as a miracle since she looked terrified all morning. Plus,” she added, a little breathlessly, “ he’d had a pretty solid conversation with Ren and Ana, and he’d even gotten Trevor to grunt in response to a question, which was way more than anyone else had managed. ”
“This could be Fate, Min,” I teased. “Maybe he’s the Demon Hunter of your dreams.”
“I wouldn’t shove him away. That’s for sure. Plus, he’s like the Newbie Whisperer.”
I shook my head, completely confused.
“Oh, come on. You saw how he got Trevor to put his phone away during orientation without your mom having to go full headmistress.” Mindy clutched the pillow to her chest. “That’s like...social superpowers. Which are way better than actual superpowers.”
“I don’t think they’re better than actual superpowers.”
She shrugged. “Yeah, well, you have actual superpowers. You don’t understand the struggle of us mere mortals.”
“You’re not mortal. I’ve seen the crazy magic you do with a computer. I’m pretty sure that’s some serious form of witchcraft.”
She only smiled serenely.
I twisted around to watch Timmy, who’d stacked up a lot of sheets of paper, all adorned with red rectangles of various sizes. He pushed the current one aside and began a new one, like a preschool Mondrian on crack.
“What are you drawing, Timster?”
He looked up and flashed his best smile. “Doors! Lots of doors!”
I tossed that one around in my head, wondering about deep psychological meanings.
None jumped to mind.
“Why?” I asked.
He shrugged.
Mindy peered down at his work. “You’re right, RugRat. That’s a lot of doors.”
He didn’t look up but shook his head. “They’re all one door.”
“Deep,” Mindy said with a grin. “Very philosophical. So,” she continued, “Speaking of boys...”
“Subtle much?”
“I’m a master of subtlety.” She leaned forward. “Well?” she asked, her voice rising with her brows. “How are things with Jared today? I mean after yesterday’s peep show for your Mom? Any awkwardness? With him or Aunt Kate?”
“Will you stop?”
She had the grace to look abashed. “Sorry. It’s just, well, it’s got to be both mortifying and awesome, right? I mean, you two are like really serious. And I’m living vicariously.”
“Fine,” I said. “Yes, awkwardness. It’ll be a month before I can look at Mom and not blush.”
“Did she sit you down for the talk. Not the sex one—I remember you telling me about that years ago. But the dating a vampire one.”
I shook my head. “No. But she pulled me aside and told me that she knows I’m responsible and she trusts me.
” I rolled my eyes a little. “We were supposedly talking about the school and me taking on more of the training and all that. But then she added that she really likes Jared and trusts him, too.”
“So basically she’s heavily guilting you with the truth, but at the same time giving Jared her thumbs-up.”
I laughed. “Yeah. I guess she is.”
“So are you going to...”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I want to,” I admitted quietly.
“But at the same time, I don’t. I mean, I’m me, you know.
This Chosen One demon hunter thing...it’s like I got shoved into a grown-up costume and then tossed onto stage and told I had to win the Tony.
I mean, I never got to finish being a kid.
So, I don’t know. I want to—I mean, when we’re kissing and stuff, I really, really want to.
But I think I want to wait even more.” I shrugged, feeling beyond awkward. “I haven’t told Jared any of that.”
“He’ll get it. I bet he already does. And besides, it’s not like it costs him anything to wait. The guy’s got all the time in the world.”
She wasn’t wrong.
She cocked her head. “Is that weird? I mean, he really does have all the time, and you...” She trailed off with a shrug.
“It’s weird,” I admitted. “I mean, yeah. What happens in ten years, twenty years, when I start getting older and he...doesn’t? When I have gray hair and wrinkles, and he still looks seventeen.”
“You could, too, though.” Mindy’s voice was careful, tentative. But I knew where she was going with this. “If he turned you—”
“Don’t tell my mom I said this.”
“Scout’s honor.”
“You were never a scout.”
“Semantics. My lips are sealed.”
I took a breath, then let it out slowly. “I’ve thought about it. The turning thing. What it would mean. Being with him forever, never getting old, never having to say goodbye.”
“But?”
“But eternity scares me.” I stared at the ceiling again, like the answers might be written up there somewhere. “I’m only seventeen.”
“Not for a few more days.”
“Whatever,” I said. “Point is, how am I supposed to know what I want forever? I don’t even know what I want for breakfast half the time. What if I change? What if he changes? What if we’re perfect now but in two hundred years we can’t stand each other, and we’re stuck together for all of eternity?”
“That’s...” Mindy paused. “Really mature. Plus,” she added, “you’ve got to factor in the whole demon essence thing.”
And there it was. The thing I tried not to think about too hard, because when I did, it opened up a whole Pandora’s box of questions, and I had no answers.
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “There’s that.”
The demon essence in my blood.