Evil (6 page)

“How do you know, Shay?” Vespar laughed mockingly, bitingly. “How do you know there’s a heaven or hell? How do you know when no one else knows?”

“I know because—”

“You know because you’re a demon! Just like us, Shay. We’re all demons. We’re all going to hell. That’s how you know, but are you going to tell them that? Are you going to—” Vespar interrupted heatedly. He shook his finger with each word until he stood an inch from my nose.

I took it. I held firm, and then I cut him off, “What life are you so worried about, Vespar? You can’t die. You’re a demon. We all are. We don’t die!”

“Enough!” Kellan roared and stepped between us.

He didn’t touch us, but his hands sparked, and we were thrown backward. Vespar went farther than me, and as I landed, a little unsteadily on my feet, Vespar fell to the ground. I quickly strode to where Vespar lay. “I spoke the truth. That’s all I did. No one’s going to think we’re demons. No one’s going to ever consider it, so you’re safe, Vespar. Your little hide is safe because that’s all you’re really worried about. You don’t care about me. You’ve never cared about me.”

He looked up, dazed, but I saw the anger still there. His blue eyes snapped back at me as he cradled a hand on his chest, where Kellan had zapped him. “Humans can’t hurt us, but don’t you think there’s something worse for us? We’re half-human, but we’re half-demon, Shay. We can go to hell. That’s our rightful place—”

“Not if we’re smart. Not if we…”

Vespar laughed coldly and rolled to his feet. “Not if we what, Shay? Not if we ignore all the sick, dark stuff we love? Not if we…what? I’d like to know. We’ve got a nature inside. It’s called evil. We’re evil. You’re evil, just like us. You just fight what’s inside of you better than the rest of us, but there’s worse for us, Shay. Worse than just dying.”

I frowned, caught off-guard.

Giuseppa stepped forward with her eyes narrowed and her hair pulled into a hasty ponytail. She murmured throatily, “They can send messengers after us, agents after us. You have no idea, Shay, because you never want to know. You don’t want to know what we are, what you are. You’re one of us. You need to start acting like it.”

Messengers? Agents? A cold shiver slammed down my spine as I remembered my painting. Three angels were descending—I painted that after seeing Kellan portrayed as a demon. It didn’t mean anything. It couldn’t. I shook my head and rasped out, “It’s no excuse. Just because our mother had demon blood—”

“Has,” Giuseppa interrupted firmly, coldly. Her blue eyes studied me as if seeing me for the first time, like she was seeing something she’d never seen before and didn’t like it. She stepped back, retreating, and repeated again, “Has.”

“What?” I frowned, scratching absent-mindedly at my arm. The tattoo was burning…

“You said ‘had.’ Mom has blood. She’s not dead, Shay,” Vespar snapped back. “And you still need to hear us. You can’t go talk about stuff like that. There are people, things, around that are more open-minded than most. They believe in stuff like us, like demons. They’ll figure it out and send messengers after us—”

“—if they’re smart, they will,” Kellan finished for him darkly.

I looked at him, confused. “You want that?”

Kellan shrugged. “We’re demons. If they’re not coming after us, I’m going after them.”

“Do you know who it is?”

“Does it matter?” Gus laughed shrewdly. “The minute they open a channel and summon something, we’ll feel it and be all over them.” Her eyes twinkled in anticipation.

I felt a shiver down my back, but suppressed it. This was my blood.

“Why do you always talk as if Mom is dead?” Vespar folded his arms over his chest.

Why? I opened my mouth to explain and stopped. I had no idea. “I…I never see Mom or Dad. They’re never here. It’s only us all the time.” It had never been them. It had always been the four of us.

Giuseppa frowned. “They’re here all the time. What are you talking about?”

Kellan stepped in between us and folded his arms over his chest. His eyes sparked. “I think that’s enough. Vespar, don’t ever challenge another Braden in public.” Vespar opened his mouth, but Kellan finished, “Or be prepared for me to challenge you.”

He shut his mouth with a snap. He raked his eyes over me and then Kellan. With a disgusted sound, he grabbed Giuseppa’s arm and yanked her with him when he stalked to his car. Ignoring her protest, he shoved her in the car and took off, spitting gravel from the tires. When they were gone from eyesight, Kellan sighed. “Vespar will leave you alone from now on.”

I didn’t say anything at first. I spoke the truth, and Vespar couldn’t handle it. But then I felt their darkness inside of me. I felt it twist around my soul and squeeze, if I had one. This was the family that I came from? I felt like I’d just gotten a bucket of boiling water thrown in my face.

“Shay.”

I whipped my eyes to his and saw concern. “What?”

“What were you just thinking?”

“Why?” For some reason, I didn’t want to tell him. For some reason, I didn’t trust Kellan anymore and that shook me more than anything else. “Nothing. Why?”

“Because the garage just lifted off the ground.”

I twisted around just as it landed with a crash. The cement was cracked as well as the bottom portion of the garage. “I didn’t even…I don’t know how to fix that.”

Kellan stepped forward and waved a hand in the air. The garage was lifted again, and every crack was fixed. He set the building back down as if nothing had happened and then studied me again. I felt his gaze on me. It was heavy, as if wet cement covered me head to toe, and it was drying rapidly. A lot of different emotions were swirling inside of me, but I focused on one thing. I needed Kellan away from me. My head couldn’t get clear if he was around. He always got in there and muddled everything up. I spoke hastily, “Leah came to my locker today.”

He frowned more fiercely, but I felt a shift in his concentration. “What about?”

I wet my lips. “Her father hurt her. She asked us to tell you because…”

“I know why.” He sighed. “I have to take care of that as soon as possible.”

“You can go now. I’ll be fine.”

“I don’t think I should leave you alone.”

“No.” I shook my head and hugged myself to ward off a chill in the air. It felt like it was trying to slip inside of me, winding around my legs, arms, neck. “You can go. I’m going swimming. That’ll help me relax. I’ll be fine.”

Kellan stared at me, and I knew he was trying to read my thoughts. I didn’t think he could, but I clamped down on everything in my body. A wall slammed in place, and I figuratively shoved him out. “Okay,” he murmured slowly. “I’ll go.”

I held my breath when he turned and walked away. It wasn’t until after his car had driven off and was gone from sight did I let it out raggedly. When I jerked forward a step, I wasn’t surprised at how my legs shook. Then I reached for the door handle on my own car, and I saw that my hands trembled even more so. As I cursed, I attempted twice to open my door until I finally managed it. When I crawled in and shut my door, I slumped forward and rested my forehead against the steering wheel. It felt cool to my skin, and I pressed my cheek against it to calm down. Then I turned, and my eyes opened slightly to look at the house.

My house looked like it always did: tall, three stories high, with a deck that wrapped around it. What was different was the front window. Two people stood there, watching me. They hadn’t been there two seconds ago, but they were now. Their eyes were large black holes, and the woman had white hair that wrapped around her waist. Her mouth opened, and her hand stretched to me as if she had a warning for me.

It wasn’t the sight of them that jolted me. It was their pure darkness that rushed at me. It was as if they’d come from hell and wanted to take me with them. I screamed and jerked upright. When I reversed the car, I slammed down on the accelerator and shot out of the driveway. It wasn’t until I was miles away before I slowed down to a normal speed, but my heart kept racing. I knew demons existed. I knew ghosts existed, but those two weren’t either of them. Whatever they were, they were worse. And I knew instantly they were more powerful than I was.

“You don’t have to be like them,” a voice whispered from behind me.

I whirled around, but there was nothing there. Then I sensed all around me, in the car, out of the car, above, underneath since magic could come from anywhere. I couldn’t detect anything. Magical spells always left a trail. Then I heard the voice again. “You’ve been given a reminder. You keep ignoring it.”

I sucked in my breath and tried to concentrate on driving. The voice didn’t send chills down my spine. In fact, I wasn’t alarmed at all. I was more intrigued and cautious. “Who are you?”

There was no answer. I waited a few more minutes, and there was still no response. When I pulled into my school’s parking lot, I turned off the engine and listened to the silence for a while. My heart pounded loudly, but my hands no longer trembled. I waited for the voice again, but there was nothing. So I asked softly, “What reminder?”

“The bracelet.”

I pushed back my black sleeves, but my wrists were bare. “I don’t have a bracelet.”

Nothing. I waited ten more minutes, but there was no answer.

“Who are you? What do you have to tell me?” My heart pounded thunderously in my ear. I focused on that voice, only that voice. Everything in me strained to feel where that voice came from because it touched something inside of me. And that same something told me it didn’t come from a foe, but from an ally, a very powerful ally. “Who are you?”

I held my breath and closed my eyes. The ticking from someone’s watch pounded loudly in my ear. When I opened my eyes, I saw an older man across the road. He walked beside his son, and they were headed back into a house. The voice didn’t come from him, but it was connected to them. I just didn’t know how.

My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I was startled.

I gasped, and my eyes flew open. That was when I realized that I’d never opened them in the first place. I looked around and only saw my school’s parking lot. There were no houses nearby. The older man and son had been a vision. Somehow, I’d conjured them in my mind because they were connected to the voice.

My phone vibrated again.

I cursed because something snapped in me, and I knew I’d lost whatever connection I’d had to the voice. “What?”

“Hey, bitch.” They sounded drunk on the other end.

“Who is this?” My patience was nearing an end.

“None”—hiccup—“ob your bidness.”

When I looked at the caller ID name, I sighed. “Matt. What do you want? You need to leave me alone.”

“Whatss your perblum?”

“What’s my problem?” My translation was a little rusty. “Is that what you said? You called me, Matt. You’re drunk. Say what you have to say and let it go after this. That’s my warning.”

“Your werning? What werning? You gib me a werning?” He laughed and then hiccupped.

My patience was running low, seriously low. I felt the vision of the old man slipping from my grasp, as if I could hold on to it. “Matt! I swear to your God that this is enough. One word and my brother will be at your throat. One word, Matt.”

He was quiet on the other end except for his heavy breathing. Then he choked out, “Oh yeah? Well, he can just try.”

The call ended after that, and I sighed. I didn’t sigh because I was tired of Matt. Humans rarely annoyed me. I’d always been surprised at the patience I had with them, considering my bloodline. I sighed because I knew Matt had become a problem. If I didn’t tell Kellan about him, Matt would feel that he’d overpowered a Braden. No one overpowered us. No one could, and if one thought they had, then he’d start on Kellan or one of the other two. I was fearful what they would do to him then. The chances of Matt graduating alive had just grown slim, very slim, unless I took care of him myself.

The school beckoned to me. The painting studio wanted me to come in there, and I knew I had something to paint. I almost wanted to go just to see what would be the end product, but I started my car again. Matt wasn’t going away, and he’d have to be dealt with. Quickly.

“Don’t,” the voice whispered this time.

I turned the engine off. “What do you want from me? Who are you? I know that you mean well.”

“Don’t.”

“Who are you? What do you mean I’m not like them? What is my reminder for? What is my reminder?” I didn’t search out through my powers this time. I sat there and waited, hoping it would answer.

“Don’t…”

Goose bumps rose on my arm, and my tattoo burned my skin. I hissed from the pain and clamped a hand on it, trying to stop it. Then my phone vibrated again. This time, I looked before I answered and saw it was Kellan. Instantly, I took a few deep breaths. I needed to be calm before I talked to him. He’d know right away something was wrong and would push until he knew about Matt or the voice.

“Kellan.”

“What happened to you?”

I clamped my eyes shut. “What are you talking about?”

“Don’t lie to me. I know something huge just happened. What was it? Tell me, Shay.”

“Kellan, there was no—”

“Tell me!” he yelled.