Bitter Demons (5 page)

I cringed. Part of me wanted to run up there
and tell her that I didn't want the position in the first place.
But at the same time, I knew that I needed to do exactly what Mrs.
King told me to do. If I started falling short of the Order's
expectations, there was no telling what they might do to me. I
didn't want to find out.

"She's special," Allison said.

I couldn't tell how many people were up
there, but I was glad Allison was kind of sticking up for me.

"She's clueless," Brooke said. "You saw her
when she first got to this town. She was nothing until we invited
her into our group."

I'd never heard Brooke talk so nasty. Her
words stung. I didn't know she felt that way about me.

"Brooke, she's the future Prima for God's
sake. You have to respect that," Allison said. "I know it sucks
because you totally deserve to be the star of the squad this year.
You earned it. But at the same time, she's important. I'm sure that
whatever their reasons, the Order is doing what's best for all of
us. Including you."

Brooke made a frustrated sound deep in her
throat. "I'll believe it when I see it," she said. "Besides, she's
not even technically the Prima yet. She's only a future. She still
has to prove herself in this town. Especially after the
disappointment her mother was all those years ago."

My hands clenched into tight fists. How dare
she say those things about my mother. I felt a sick pang in my
stomach. Did everyone know more about her than I did?

As soon as I was sure Brooke and Allison were
gone, I came through the wall. A sound up in the open window
overlooking the locker room caught my attention.

A black crow sat in the window sill. I looked
up just in time to see it turn and fly away. I suddenly got the
strangest feeling in the pit of my stomach. Maybe I was imagining
things, but I could have sworn that crow had blue eyes.

I did my best to shake off the anger I felt
after listening to Brooke's rant. Lark was right about Brooke being
different these days. She was jealous and snippy and on a complete
power trip. Did joining with a demon turn her into that? The
question only brought a million more questions to mind. Like, was
it the demon that was bringing out the worst in her? I didn't want
to believe that. Jackson was a demon of some sort and he wasn't
evil. It couldn't be the demon making her like this. It had to be
something else the Order was doing to her.

I grabbed my bag and headed out to meet
Jackson. As soon as I saw him leaning against his bike in the
parking lot, my entire body felt lighter. My face broke out in a
huge smile. He looked up at me, as if feeling my presence.

I watched him as I crossed the distance
between the gym and the parking lot. He was wearing worn blue jeans
and black cowboy boots. His dark hair was spiked slightly on top.
His leather jacket hung open slightly and he wore a dark gray
t-shirt underneath that clung to him in just the right way.

My pulse raced. How could someone so perfect
be interested in spending time with a girl like me? The corner of
his mouth curled into a smile, and my knees went weak.

He stood as I approached. There was a book in
his hand and he kept his finger inside to hold his page. "Look who
decided not to ditch me today?" he teased.

"Haha, very funny," I said. "Last night
wasn't my fault. Believe me I would have much rather been with
you."

He raised one eyebrow, studying me more
closely. "You went to see the council?"

"How did you know?" I asked. Then, I shook my
head. "Wait, not here. We'll talk about it later. What's the
surprise?"

"If I told you, then it wouldn't be a
surprise, would it?"

I laughed. Well, more like giggled. He kind
of brought out the girly side of me. "I guess not."

The back of the bike was packed with stuff.
There was a blanket strapped on the back, but I couldn't tell what
was underneath. A basket of some sort?

He handed me a helmet and our fingers
touched. I started to pull the helmet away, but he held onto it,
running his index finger along the outside edge of my pinky. I
looked up and our eyes met. Everything else fell away from my
vision. There could have been a thousand people in that parking
lot, and I wouldn't have seen a single soul except Jackson. The
look in his green eyes made my breath catch in my throat and my
hands go all clammy.

I yanked the helmet away and put it on,
thinking that if I let him stare into my eyes like that much
longer, I might just melt onto the blacktop. "I can't go far," I
said. "New rules."

"Since when are you the type of girl who
follows the rules?"

I rolled my eyes. "Since last night, I
guess."

"Tell me."

"Home by seven. They said they'll be watching
my tattoo to make sure I stay near school and Shadowford home, but
if you get the urge to keep riding to, say, California, I won't
complain."

Jackson laughed and threw his leg over the
seat. "Get on," he said. "I won't take you too far."

I climbed onto the back of the bike and put
my arms around his waist. He drove toward Shadowford, but instead
of turning down the driveway, he kept going. I hadn't been this far
out of town since Mrs. Meeks, my social worker, first brought me to
Peachville just a few months ago.

"Where are we going?" I shouted.

Jackson just shook his head. I relaxed into
him. The cool wind made my eyes water and my cheeks burn, but it
felt nice to be on the road. We passed a small farm with cows
grazing in the pasture. The sun was shining and it was warm for a
day this late in the fall. A thick forest of pine trees on our left
opened up into a beautiful pecan orchard.

Jackson slowed his bike and turned down a
dirt road that ran alongside the pecan trees.

We followed the road all the way to the back
of the orchard, out of the view of the main road. Jackson stopped
the bike and lowered the kick-stand. We both pulled our helmets off
and got off the motorcycle.

"This is gorgeous," I said.

He smiled and unhooked the red flannel
blanket from the back. Underneath was a basket. I was right. He
took the basket and blanket in hand and told me to follow him.

We walked to the middle of the orchard and he
spread out the blanket in a gorgeous patch of warm sunshine. I sat
down and looked inside the basket. He'd brought a feast! Cookies, a
handful of sandwiches, chips, fresh fruit, and a bottle of white
wine.

"Wow, what's all this for?" I said,
blushing.

"Decoration," he teased, opening the bottle
of wine and pouring two glasses.

I took a sip. I'd never had wine before, and
I expected it to be bitter. But it wasn't. It was actually kind of
sweet.

"Like it?" he asked.

"It's delicious," I said. I took a strawberry
from the plastic container and popped it into my mouth. The sweet
flavor rushed across my tongue as I bit into it. I wondered if I
was the first girl Jackson had ever brought to a pecan orchard. "I
don't think this is what the Order had in mind when they put me on
probation."

Jackson's eyebrows drew together in the
middle. "What exactly happened last night? I can tell something's
different about you."

I nearly choked on the strawberry. I knew I
needed to tell him about the confirmation ritual, but I was afraid
he'd be upset with me for agreeing to take the next step.

"Besides the clothes," he said. "You don't
need magic to be beautiful, you know."

"How come you're the only one who could tell
I was using magic today?"

He shrugged. "It's just part of who I am. I
can just tell."

"So does that mean you see through my
glamour?" I asked, looking down at my outfit. All that work to
impress him and he might not even be able to see it.

"If I choose to," he said. "I can tell you're
using one, but if I want to see the truth, I can. Or if I want to
see the magic, I can see that too."

"So it's basically like that potion I took to
get rid of the memory spell they cast on me? The Elixir of
Kendria?"

He nodded. "Yeah, only I don't need the
potion like regular humans do."

"But you make it, right? And give it to
people?" I thought of the night I'd heard Tori asking him for
it.

"I used to share it with Morgyn before she
died," he said. He took a long drink of wine. "Sometimes Mary Anne
buys it from me. I don't know. Various people in town that know, I
guess. Mostly they hear about it from friends."

"Makes you sound like a drug dealer," I
said.

He laughed. "I think the magic is more like a
drug," he said. "What I sell is immunity. Freedom."

My mouth went slightly dry, so I grabbed
another strawberry. Freedom. Would I ever have that again? I
wondered if I would ever really be able to make all my own choices
ever again, or if this stupid town was going to swallow me
whole.

"You never answered my question about last
night," he said, his voice softening.

I swallowed and wiped strawberry juice from
my lips. "I was summoned to a meeting of the Order," I said. I had
no idea how Jackson would take the news of the new ritual they'd
done, but I didn't want to lie to him.

He narrowed his eyes at me. "What
happened?"

I started from the beginning and told him
about how they were upset that I'd gone into the hospital to save
him. Then, I told him about the ritual and that the Order finally
told me the truth about being the future Prima.

Jackson made a noise. "The truth?" he said.
"They'll never tell you the whole truth. Not until they have you
completely locked into their plan. You forced them to tell you
something more than they wanted to tell you, though, and that's
something."

"Everyone treated me so different at school
today," I said. "At first, I thought it was just because of the new
clothes, but then I started to think maybe it was something
more."

"The ritual they performed on you was kind of
like a baptism," he said. He'd barely touched the sandwich in his
hand. I wondered if I'd made him lose his appetite.

"I was never baptized as a child," I
said.

"Instead of immersing you in water, they
poured their demon slaves into you," he said. "They gave you a
small piece of their power as a sacrifice."

Goosebumps crawled across my flesh. "Did I do
a bad thing by letting them..." My voice trailed off and I dropped
my head low.

Jackson put his finger under my chin and
lifted my head. "You had no choice," he said. "It's not your
fault."

My eyes stung, but I held back my tears.

"It's good that you have more power," he
said. "I have a feeling you're going to need it in the months
ahead."

We sat in silence, the fun atmosphere of the
surprise picnic completely dissolved now that I had brought up the
ritual. I drank the rest of my wine and let the warmth of it fill
me up. My eyes studied his face as he lay there on the flannel
blanket. He was so perfectly sculpted. A perfect human. But how had
he gotten this form? Could he turn back into a demon anytime he
wanted?

His eyes flickered to my face, then dipped
down to my necklace. Instinctively, my hand reached up to touch the
sapphire pendant. I wasn't used to drinking, and it made me feel a
little numb. And maybe a little brave.

"Tell me about the demon that keeps saving my
life," I said.

My question shocked him. He sat up suddenly,
his body tense.

He shook his head. "You know I don't want to
talk about my past," he said. "We've been over this."

Yes. We'd been over it and over it during the
week I'd spent in the hospital waiting for my arm to heal. Jackson
didn't want to tell me about his past or about his being a demon.
He didn't want to talk about himself much at all. But I needed to
know the truth. He hadn't said a single word about what that guy
Isaac had told me. He'd said that Jackson killed people when he
came through the portal for the first time. Was it true? I didn't
want to believe it.

And he hadn't told me how he knew the demon
attached to my necklace.

"I'm asking about my past," I said. "Not
yours."

His eyes searched my face. I thought he was
going to stand up and walk away from me like he'd done so often in
the hospital when I pressed him about his past. Instead he moved
closer to me on the blanket. He ran his finger along the silver
chain around my neck, his warm fingertips brushing against my
skin.

"Aerden," he said.

My eyes opened wide. Aerden. That was the
name he'd called the demon when he first appeared that night in the
old hospital. I took Jackson's hand in mine and lifted it to my
lips. I kissed the knuckles on his fingers.

"Who is he?" I asked. "Every time I've been
in trouble, he's come to help me. Did my mother send him to watch
out for me?"

Jackson swallowed hard and gave my hand a
gentle squeeze. He didn't speak for a moment, and I didn't dare
interrupt the silence. It was as if there was a war going on inside
of him. I knew he was trying to decide whether to open up and let
me in or whether to keep shutting me out.

Finally, he looked up and moistened his
lips.

"Aerden is my brother," he said.

My mouth fell open in surprise. "Your
brother?"

"I told you it was a long story," he said,
taking another sip of wine.

I couldn't put a voice to all the questions
that flooded my thoughts. I knew that what the Order was doing to
the demons was wrong, but I'd never thought of them as having
families and being capable of love the same way humans were. But
that was silly wasn't it? I mean, I knew Jackson was a demon, yet I
desperately wanted him to love me.