Darynda Jones - Death and the Girl Next Door

“O-okay.”

“Not you,” he said to Tabitha, annoyed, then fixed a warning glower on me. “Now.”

With the world tossing me to and fro, I felt absolutely useless. And I was pretty certain by that point I did not, in fact, have a latent superpower. Surely, he wouldn’t actually hurt her. I couldn’t give up my advantage now. I almost had him convinced I was nigh indestructible.

With a smirk, I decided to call his bluff. “Go ahead, kill her.”

Before I even had time to blink, the knife sliced across her throat. I looked on in disbelief as blood cascaded out of her neck and down her chest to saturate the pretty white blouse she wore. She grabbed her throat with both hands, her eyes wide with shock as the most disturbing gurgling sound bubbled out of her. Dell let go. She slid down his body to land before me, the blood coursing through her fingers unheeded.

I closed my eyes, blocking out the scene, the gush of dark red. When I reopened them, we were … back.

“Now,” Dell said as he held Tabitha against him, the knife at her throat, anger apparent in his volatile expression.

I jumped in surprise, looked around, then swayed a little with the movement. We were back. How on earth? Maybe I really was a prophet. I’d just seen the future, and it did not look good for Tabi. Which was too bad, really.

No, I thought, my hopes dwindling. I couldn’t let him kill her. I would probably feel guilty about it later. I looked up at him and suggested an alternative: “You’re right. We could get in the van, or we could just wait a minute.”

He tightened his hold. “Wait? For what?”

“For him.”

I pointed past him as Jared stepped up, and again before I could even blink, he’d grasped the man’s head between his two large hands and twisted, breaking the man’s neck. I gasped as a sharp crack echoed against the building. Dell’s head sat contorted in an unnatural angle, his stare empty as he crumpled to the ground, and it was exactly what I’d seen in the forest. Every movement. Every sound. Jared hadn’t killed him then. I’d merely seen the man’s future, probably when he tried to grab me and I shoved his hand away. I saw the agony of his last seconds on earth.

Tabitha stumbled to the side as everyone ran out of the store toward us. She caught herself—which, in those heels, was impressive—and flew into Jared’s arms. “You saved me!”

Oh, for heaven’s sake. I was possessed, my head was pounding, and now I had to watch my archnemesis slobber all over my man? Brooke and Glitch got to me first, Glitch literally sliding across the dirt lot to my side. “Are you okay?”

Before I could answer, I heard a woman’s scream.

“Tabitha!”

Tabitha’s mom came running out of the store, her face frozen in shock. But not for the reason I’d thought. She and Tabitha’s dad pulled her off Jared. “Your Grace,” she said, bowing her head repeatedly in reverence, “we’re so sorry. She doesn’t know.”

Jared disentangled himself from her and, ignoring them, kneeled beside me.

“Mom, that man had a knife to my throat.”

“Tabitha, you can’t just grab people like that,” her mother scolded as the sheriff checked Dell for a pulse.

“Mom! Are you even listening? Wait, did you call him Your Grace?” She glanced back at Jared, and I could almost see cartoon hearts bursting out of her eyes. “He’s royalty?”

“Lorelei,” Jared said, and without waiting for a response, he scooped me into his arms and lifted me off the ground. I caught a glimpse of Grandma and Grandpa as they hovered around us, Grandma’s hands plastered over her mouth and Grandpa’s brows kneading in worry. But I felt safe, so utterly and completely safe, that I let the tilting and the swirling stop, nestled farther into Jared’s hold, and tumbled into oblivion.

“No.”

“But, Jared—”

“No,” he said again, refusing even to consider what I’d asked.

With a sigh, I turned to my grandparents, who were standing on the other side of the hospital bed. “Grandpa, make him listen.”

He worked his jaw in discomfort. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Prince Azrael is right.” He and Grandma had yet to take to Jared. They tensed every time he got near me, cringed every time he touched me. And when he wasn’t looking, I caught a glint of fear in their eyes. It saddened me. But, ever the hopeful soldier, I ignored their misgivings and hoped Jared would grow on them.

In Jared’s defense, he kept a reverent distance from me in their presence. “We don’t really call ourselves princes,” he said.

“Oh,” Grandma said, her voice tinged with uncertainty. “I just thought Archangels were considered the princes of Heaven.”

“True, but we’re not actually called the princes of Heaven.”

“Are you called jerks?”

Brooklyn backhanded Cameron on the shoulder as Jared said simply, “No.”

“Maybe not to your face,” Glitch said. “So, what does it feel like?”

He’d been asking me the same question all morning. Over and over. Kind of like what I’d been doing to Jared.

“Glitch,” Brooklyn said from atop her perch on the end of the bed, “if you ask her that one more time, I will stab you in the head.”

“No, you won’t.” He turned back to me. “But really, what’s it feel like?”

He wanted to know what it felt like to be possessed. To have a demon living inside me. “I don’t know, Glitch. I don’t feel any different today than I did yesterday, except for the fact that now I know. Please, Jared.”

“No.” He said it with the same inflection, the same gentle tone he’d been using since I started the conversation. Apparently, he was not as easily swayed by my obnoxious repetitive behavior as my grandparents were.

“But it’s not in you. It’s in me. And I trust you completely.”

“Lorelei McAlister,” he said, his voice soft with understanding, “we can’t risk your life by trying to exorcise it. Like I said before, you’ve somehow absorbed it. It’s there, but it’s lying dormant. I’ve never seen anything like this. Most humans don’t live a month with a demon inside them.”

Wonderful. “Brooke got to be exorcised.” I crossed my arms and stuck out my tongue at her. “She gets to have all the fun.”

She laughed with me and tickled the bottom of my foot through the blankets.

“The reaper’s right,” Cameron said. He was standing at the foot of the bed, hood up, hands stuffed into pockets. I had a feeling Brooklyn had dragged him there, and Glitch seemed none too happy about it, if the parade of glares he continually cast Cameron’s way were any indication. “It would fracture your soul. Even if you survived, you would never be the same again.”

Brooke turned back to him. “My soul isn’t fractured, and Lorelei’s strong. I think she could handle it.” She winked in support.

Cameron hunched his shoulders and lowered his head. “Actually, it is.”

“What?” She raised her brows in question.

My grandparents looked at him askance as well. For all of their knowledge, even they couldn’t see what Cameron could.

After taking a draught again, he said, “Your soul. It’s fractured.”

She scooted around to him. “What do you mean?”

“That’s why it’s so different. So amazing.”

“Amazing how?” she asked, her suspicion growing.

He offered a one-shouldered shrug. “I don’t know. I’ve just never seen anything like it. It’s broken. There’s a crack down the middle and while the aura all around you is normal, a light projects out of the fissure, so bright that when you stand just right, you’re blinding.”

“So,” Glitch said, his head bowed in thought, “you’ve been checking out her crack?”