Page 23
I get to my feet and try to catch my breath, staring up at the low, grey sky. Perry and Dex are in Hawaii right now, which is total bullshit. I know this was a present from Dex, who did good for once, but I hate that her Facebook has turned into a tropical slideshow while I’m here in the ever-present winter gloom of the PNW.
“You ready?” Max asks, placing a hand briefly on my back. I feel a warm jolt of energy from his palm, energy that starts multiplying inside me. Jesus! What was that?
I straighten up quickly and look at him.
He’s got fucking flames in his eyes.
“Uh, Max,” I say, nodding to him. “Your eyes are like…on fire?”
The flames are nearly taking over the green in his eyes, but he just stares at me. “Did you feel that?”
“Feel what?” I ask warily, taking a step back. “Should we not be concerned about this…” I point at his face frantically.
“Do you feel it?”
I shake my head. Does he mean the energy? “Yes. No. Can you tell me what’s happening?”
“Are you ready?” And I realize he’d just asked me that before all of this weird shit.
“Ready for what?”
He licks his lips, giving me a hint of a smile. “I take it you felt it. Here we go, Blondie.”
“Go where?!”
And then Max raises his palms, swirls them in a swift Dr. Strange type movement, and then the air starts to shimmer, warp, and burn. He’s creating a portal.
“What are you doing?” I yell at him. I didn’t know he could do that! That’s my thing!
But before he can answer, I see it. A person walks out of the portal.
Holy. Shit.
It’s a woman with dark curly hair, wearing a navy business suit, pale with a stern face, and close-set eyes. She looks at Max. Then looks at me.
“Who the fuck is this?” I cry out.
Then she smiles at me.
With pointed teeth. A shark’s smile.
I scream.
It all happens so fast.
The woman lunges for me, transforming before my eyes from a person to an ugly demon-like creature. Her hands turn into claws, suit into a tail, curly hair flattening down her back until it turns into slick black fur. Only her face remains human, smiling with those rows of pointed teeth, about to take a bite right out of me.
Max reaches out calmly and grabs the woman’s head in his hands and twists it around until it snaps right off, blood spraying all over him, all over his face.
Her body falls to the ground, turning back to a woman’s shape in a suit, before disintegrating into a pile of ash.
My mouth is open, frozen in a silent scream, as I watch the woman’s head in Max’s hands, her mouth snapping and snapping, eyes turning white until it too turns to ash and falls to the ground like burned snow.
I can’t form words. I can only stare in horror.
“So you weren’t ready,” he says, wiping his hands on his jeans. “Next time.”
“You…Max…what the fuck just happened? You just ripped that fucking woman’s head off?!”
“I had to. You weren’t going to do anything about it.”
He stares at the portal. It’s still open. He’s looking at it like he’s waiting for someone else to waltz out of there.
“Max…” I can’t even find the right words. My mind is blown. “Who was that?”
“I don’t know her name, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Dude, you just…”
“She was a demon, Ada.”
“She was a human! Demons don’t wear business suits.”
“They don’t?” Max says to me, his forehead creased. “We both know that’s not true.”
Right. Michael. Dex’s older brother who was taken over by a demon at some point in his life. He wore a suit. He killed Max. He killed my mother. And he tried to kill me. I know what it was like to have that thing in my body, trying to take over.
“Think fast, Ada,” Max says, and I look to see another person exiting the portal. This time it’s a young male, maybe fifteen, the type that should be carrying a skateboard, long blond hair that gets in his eyes. He gives me an easy normal-toothed smile and raises his hand in greeting.
I quickly eye Max, not knowing what he’s going to do. What if he’s wrong and this is just a kid who got lost? I don’t know what portals can do, if they can suck normal people in by accident.
“Do it, Ada,” Max warns me.
“Do what?!”
I stare at the kid. The kid stares at me.
And he starts walking toward me.
Still smiling.
And his teeth change, long, jagged, and sharp.
“Oh fuck!” I scream, and my first instinct is to turn around and run like hell. Cowardly, maybe, but you try being in this situation.
“Do it, Ada!” Max screams at me.
He’s never yelled at me before.
It snaps some sense into me.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23 (Reading here)
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92