Death, Doom and Detention

She clamped her mouth shut and folded her arms over her chest as Glitch stared out his window. I didn’t know if he was still seething over the Boy Scouts comment or the fact that Cameron had permission to tie up Brooke.

* * *

“So, what’s up with that kid?” I asked Cameron as we pulled behind the store.

He leaned his head to either side, stretching his neck. “It wasn’t him I was worried about. How soon can you get me that list?”

“I can work on it now, but I really didn’t see everyone and I’m not sure how many I’ll remember.”

“That’s okay. It’ll be a start.”

“A start for what?” Brooke asked.

“We need to interview them. See if anyone who was there that night has been reported missing or is acting strange.”

“Like Lor?” Brooke asked.

I elbowed her.

One corner of his mouth tilted up. “Something like that.”

Grandma and Granddad were not happy that we’d left after church without telling them where we’d gone, but I was a little unhappy with them as well, so I figured we were even-steven.

I wondered how the meeting went, if they held their ground about sending me away or if they’d allowed the congregation to sway them to change their minds. After playing twenty questions, we were finally allowed to go upstairs.

And stay there.

Or get tied up.

* * *

“You need to rest.”

I peered into the darkness toward the window seat where Cameron had set up surveillance, his back against the wall so he could keep watch.

“Cameron, this is ridiculous. You need rest, too. What good are you going to do anyone if you can’t stay awake?”

I couldn’t see his face clearly in the soft light of the moon, but I was certain he scowled at me. “This is what I do, Lor. I’ll be fine. You, on the other hand…”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Have you seen your hair when you don’t get enough sleep?”

He knew my curly red locks were a constant source of concern. I threw a pillow at him. He caught it, then stuffed it behind his head.

“Thanks,” he said, the satisfaction in his voice worth the loss of my most cherished possession. Or, well, one of my top twenty most cherished possessions.

“Is he okay?” I asked him, and he didn’t have to ask me whom I meant.

“I wish I knew.”

I rose onto my elbows. “I thought you guys could, like, sense each other.”

“We can. He must be too far away. I haven’t sensed him for a while now.”

That worried me. “Do you think something’s happened?”

His head shake was not a negation, but a confirmation that he had no idea.

“Do you know what’s going on?”

“No more than you.”

I lay back on my lumpy, less-prized pillow. “Yes, Cameron, if there is one thing I know for certain, it’s that you know more about all this stuff than I do.”

He settled his gaze on me. I couldn’t so much see it as feel it. “What’s it like?” he asked, his tone full of genuine curiosity.

“What? Having friends?”

He smiled. “Having a demon inside you.”

“Oh.” Of course he would want to know about Malak-Tuke. The demon inside. What was it like? That was a good question. “I think at one point I could feel him. I remember knowing he was there. But then I forgot and I honestly don’t know that I even feel him anymore. Maybe I’m just used to having him inside me.” It was a disturbing thought, but a logical one.

As nephilim, Cameron could see things we couldn’t, like poltergeists and auras. It fascinated me. He told me a while back that my aura was different, unusual. He’d never seen anything like it. “Is my aura different because of the demon, do you think?”

“No.” He shifted toward me. “Your aura was different even before then.”

“You remember that far back?”

“I remember seeing your aura when I was very young. It’s one of my first memories.” His head tilted to the side. “The girl encased in fire.”

Oh, I liked that. Jared had told me that my aura looked like fire. The thought fascinated me. “Did it change after my parents disappeared? After the demon took me?”

He lowered his head as though regretting what he was about to say. “For a while. It got darker. But slowly the fire took over again.”

“I wish I could see what you see.”

He glanced at Brooke’s sleeping form. Her aura was different as well. It was cracked from when she too was possessed. Damaged. Only she was possessed by an evil spirit, not a demon. The way I understood it, if caught in time, a person could survive possession by an evil spirit, but people almost never survived possession by a demon. No idea what happened with me, why I was even still alive with a demon inside. Granddad and the Order exorcised the entity out of Brooke. She almost died as a result. If her family had not brought her to Riley’s Switch when she was in the third grade, to the Order, she may not have survived much longer anyway. But apparently, trying to exorcise the demon out of me when I was six would have killed me. Or that was what they feared.

Still, I wished I could see Brooke’s unusual aura as Cameron could. “Is she still cracked?” I asked, unable to suppress the smile in my voice.

“I think she’ll always be a little cracked.”