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“We?” I repeat.

He grins at me. “Ada Palomino—demon slayer.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Two weeks later

“You have one dark, twisted mind, you know that?”

Jorge is leaning over my shoulder, peering down at the sketch I’m furiously trying to finish before class is over.

I ignore him, my tongue sticking out in concentration as I try and get the shading just right. He doesn’t say anything else, just keeps watching me as he always does. I’m starting to think Jorge has taken a non-sexual shine to me. He’d just moved to Portland with his older brother a week ago from San Diego and still has that fish out of water look to him, which dissolves when he’s around me, turning into a whip-smart attitude full of withering commentary.

Finally I’m done, holding the paper up so the both of us can see it properly. “I wouldn’t say it’s dark and twisted,” I muse, inspecting every mark my pencil’s made.

“Honey, there is no point in denying it,” he says. “You’re dark. You’re twisted. If you didn’t have Courtney Love’s hair, you’d fit right in with Wednesday Adams.”

“Oh please,” I say, giving him a look. “You don’t even know who Courtney Love is.”

“I know the bitch shot her husband and has a horrible bleach job,” he says with an exaggerated shrug.

My eyes narrow and for a moment I think he freezes. I think I’ve done it again, the thing that’s only worked on Jay and demons.

But Jorge quickly laughs, swatting at my shoulder. “You know I’m joking, girlfriend. Your hair is preciosa.”

Even so, I see a glimmer of fear in his eyes. I feel bad. I need to be a bit more careful. After spending some time in Hell, I’m not quite sure what I`m capable of anymore.

Case in point: my current sketch is a dark purple evening gown made of sequins, shiny black tar and charred animal bones. A sexy version of a demon cloak if I ever saw one. I’ve been drawing a whole line of designs based on what I saw in Hell. I guess to some it would creepy, not to mention morbid, to fixate on these details I would rather soon forget. But for me it’s more of a coping mechanism. Turning the horrible things I saw into something I understand, even something beautiful.

“What are you doing after this?” I ask him. We’ve only know each other a week really—it’s been ten days since school started—but I feel it’s time I solidified this into a friendship. Jorge is the only guy in our class and the rest of the girls are nice but all local, so they all have their cliques. I may be local too but I’m still like a boat without an anchor. I’ve made peace with the fact that Amy and Tom don’t talk to me anymore (and Jessie’s emails have become distant at best) and the only real tie I have to anyone is Jay, who I haven`t even seen since it all happened.

And believe me, it hurts every fucking day.

“I have to work,” Jorge says. Then he lights up. “But hey, tomorrow night I’m making dinner for Roberto. Come on by. Roberto will get us wine and beer as well.”

So lame. I can go to Hell (not to mention vote) but I can’t buy alcohol. In some ways the past month has made me feel old beyond my years and it’s like the real world is still struggling to catch up.

“That sounds like a date,” I tell him with a wink.

“Easy now,” he says with a discerning shake of his head. He runs his hands seductively down his chest and abs. “You may wish you can have all this but until you grow a penis, we’ll be staying friends.”

I roll my eyes and promise I’ll be there. Also promise I won`t be growing a penis. Then I wrap up my stuff and head for the bus stop, going home.

Yeah, a lot has happened in the last two weeks since I stepped back from the underworld (and yeah, I know I keep mentioning it but it’s a hard thing to just gloss over). Mainly good things. Really only one bad one.

But first the good.

My mother is in heaven. Still. I mean, she’s there permanently. Not in the Veil and definitely not in Hell. When Jay took her off into the light, she stayed in that light.

I know so because I’ve seen her ghost.

Just once.

But it was enough.

It was a few days after and I was lying in bed, doing my usual scroll through Instagram and rolling my eyes at the drama on my feed when she appeared in Pinkie. I felt her before I even saw her, a sugary hit of her lilac perfume, a warm glow to the room.

I turned my head and saw her sitting there in the chair like she used to. She was wearing a long white dress, like a nightgown someone out of the Victorian era would have worn.