A Demon's Kiss (Young Adult Romance) (3 page)

Again, it was the most tender, thrilling, wonderful kiss I’d ever encountered.

“You’re getting good at the guitar,” he whispered as I went inside.

***

Once I caught my breath, I started to float up to my room, but stopped, frozen.

On our kitchen table was another long box. My stomach clenched.

“Beth?” I choked out from the kitchen doorway. Or tried to choke out, but didn’t actually make a sound. It got caught in my throat, tangled with my pounding heart.

Shaking, I swallowed, then tried again. “Beth?”

But I knew there would be no answer. She and Summer weren’t home yet. I knew that. But someone had brought the box into the house and put it on the table. For a long moment I stared at it from the doorway, unable to move. But finally, Beth and Summer burst into the house, laughing and talking about the movie.

“
Another
gift?” Summer gasped, breezing past me into the kitchen. “I don’t get it. Why do
you
have a secret admirer? You don’t even talk.”

Yeah, my half-sister adored me.

She snatched up the card attached to the box and blinked. “Oh, he actually wrote something.” She read the card aloud, “Michaela, you’re mine.”

It made her roll her eyes, but it made me break out in a sweat, made me squeeze my stomach. I was going to puke, because now I knew who the gifts were coming from. Before I’d only suspected, but I’d hoped I was wrong, prayed I was wrong. But now I knew I wasn’t. It was the guy from my nightmares. All my life I dreamed of him, of him and the demons in hooded cloaks. They were always hunting for me, searching for me. But he was the worst. He was always screaming, “Michaela, you’re mine!”

Somehow I knew he would find me. I always knew. And now I even knew why he was coming—how he found me. It was because I saved Gage, brought him back from the dead. But what could I do? Let him die? No way. I had to save him.

But it took all of my powers to do that.
More
than my powers. I had to call on the other world, the people from my nightmares. I didn’t know how to do that, that I
could
do that. I never tried. I never fathomed in a million years I’d want to try. I’d spent my whole life avoiding my powers just so I could avoid the demons searching for me. Forever, I was hiding from them. But then, Gage drowned. So, I had to call on them, had to, because it was Gage. When I found him dead, I summoned up everything inside me. But that’s how I learned. See, somehow the demons were there, inside me. Not just in my nightmares, they were in my soul, part of me. Somehow.

I knew it would happen, though. Somehow, I knew if I called on them, they would find me. But...it sucked. Seriously. ’Cause I knew what they wanted. They wanted to take me back with them. To hell.

CHAPTER 3

When I finally slept, I dreamed of Gage. But it wasn’t a good dream. It wasn’t about his kiss. It was about this summer, the day he died. I dream about that day a lot. Too much. I want to forget, but the nightmares won’t let me. They’re as bad as the demon nightmares, maybe worse. Seeing Gage dead always makes me scream, always.

“Michaela!” Summer groaned now, flipping on her nightstand light.

“Huh?” I woke, covered in sweat, my scream dying in my throat. “Sorry,” I mumbled.

Summer shut off her light again. She rolled over with a huff, muttering she needed her sleep. “I shouldn’t be punished for your morbid thoughts!” she growled into her pillow.

I stared up at the ceiling, knowing she was right. I’d be pissed if someone woke me up every night screaming. So, I didn’t say anything. What could I say? I totally understood her whining. I got why she wanted her own room.

But Beth forever took it in stride. “There’s always the attic,” she’d remind us breezily.

“Right.” Summer always eyed me at that, like I should be the one to move. She never said it aloud, except when she was really, really mad, but I knew what she was thinking. This was
her
house.
Her
room.

But I wasn’t moving up there, no way. I was scared enough down here. My dreams were full of scary cloaked demons coming to get me. They’d find me in the attic.

I never told Summer this, but I didn’t want her to move up there either. I liked having someone in the room with me. Even if it
was
Summer. Having someone—anyone—was better than being alone, seriously. Hearing someone snore—it was comforting.

My sheets were soaked with sweat. I kicked them off and curled into a ball, pulling my comforter up around me.
Think about Gage
, I willed myself, still shaking.
Think about his kiss
.

But thoughts of him dead on the riverbank—his body limp and lifeless—haunted my frenzied brain. So did the cloaked demons. Because I knew they helped me save Gage. And I knew they found me, knew they were coming to get me.

The second box of roses I got tonight, the ones left on the kitchen table, they had been black and dead. They made me run to the toilet and throw up a dozen times. I heaved and heaved until nothing came out, but I still couldn’t ditch the memory,
Michaela, you’re mine.

No, don’t think about that!
I pleaded with my sick mind.
Don’t think about demons or black roses, think about Gage. About his sweet, soft kiss.

 
Shaking, I tried to remember how it felt to be in his arms. But now it seemed unreal, all of it. Gage and I had been friends since the second grade. He had never once tried to kiss me. Not once. Well, okay once. But it was only on a dare, and it was back in the third grade, and it was on the ear. So it didn’t really count. Only sometimes I counted it anyway. When I was feeling desperate.

But tonight was different, totally different. There was no dare. And the kiss hadn’t been a wet, slobbery mess on my ear. It had been the most exquisite event in my entire life. Only...Gage had a girlfriend that he panted over big-time—the big, stupid, dummy. What was he doing kissing me?

***

What happened? I was still wondering that a week after Gage’s kiss. I hadn’t gotten any more demon gifts, so I was hoping I was wrong about that. That it wasn’t from a jealous demon after all, but a normal, everyday lunatic. It was possible, right? I had my fingers crossed. After all, the world was full of maniacs sending people black roses. I read about them in books all of the time.

So, I was letting my demon worries slide...or trying to. Instead, I was trying to concentrate on Gage. What had gotten into him? Why’d he kiss me? It was baffling. I mean, I understood how things like that could happen. Late at night, boy and girl alone—it was the makings for a romance novel. But it was different with Gage and me. We had been friends forever. What suddenly made him think, “Boy, I should kiss this little cutie?”

Only, I do have to admit, we had been getting closer since I broke up with Seth. I needed a shoulder to cry on, and Gage was always there. But that’s the way it is with friends, right? They’re there for you when you need them. Addison didn’t get that. She thought since Seth was out of the picture I was going after Gage. But that wasn’t it. I was hurt and Gage made me feel better. Gage always makes me feel better.

So, yeah, Gage and I were getting closer—but not romantically. And then Addison got all spazzed-out and in my face one day at school in the girls’ bathroom, telling me how I “cling” to Gage and that he “feels sorry” for me.

“Give him some space,” she said. “Let the poor guy breathe.”

So I did that. Or tried to do that. But Gage was an important part of my life—a necessity, like my arm. How’s a person supposed to get along without their arm?

But anyway, the night it happened, the night Gage kissed me, I hadn’t been expecting it, at all. I have to admit though, it was something I had always dreamed of, Gage taking me in his arms and kissing me—just as he had done. Exactly as he had done. But I had never expected it. Never. It was just a fantasy. One you think about before you drift off to sleep, but don’t actually give much thought to during the day because it’s too impossibly wonderful to ever happen for real.

So when it suddenly
did
happen, it didn’t seem real. And it kind of seemed like maybe it wasn’t. I mean, the following days—after the kiss—nothing changed. I mean, besides Gage and me being awkward around each other. It did change our friendship. It took it down a couple-thousand notches. But it didn’t change anything about Gage and Addison. They were still together.

So, I started to think maybe I somehow misunderstood. I mean, to me, Gage’s kiss was the most wonderful, spectacular, romantic thing that could possibly ever happen to a girl. But I started to think maybe he didn’t mean it like that—to be romantic. Maybe he was just “feeling sorry for me” like Addison was always saying. Maybe he thought I needed a kiss.

But, it didn’t feel like a pity kiss. It felt...wonderful. But a pity kiss—that was the only thing that made any sense. After all, Gage had a girlfriend. He was “coupled” with Addison. And Gage was nothing like two-timing, back-stabbing Seth. Gage was a good guy. And he was honest and trustworthy and all that kind of stuff—that’s why I liked him so much. He was sweet.

Gage would never, ever cheat on a girlfriend. He wouldn’t do that. Except...he did. So I decided it had to be the pity thing. Nothing else made sense. But it made me feel lame, because his kiss...for me, it was real.

So, I avoided Gage like the plague. I even started doing my homework at the library since I knew he was unlikely to show up there, as opposed to my house where, living down the street, he showed up all the time.

So, five days after Gage’s awe-inspiring kiss, I was at the library. I wasn’t just hiding out though. I had a paper due, and I was in a panic.

“Logan is staring at you again,” my best friend, Izzie, announced for the hundredth time. “He has a thing for you Michaela, big time.”

I rolled my eyes, trying to concentrate on the encyclopedia—not an easy task. “Me and every other girl at Jefferson.”

“No, with you it seems different,” Izzie mused.

I shook my head, trying to ignore her, because isn’t that what guys always say?
It’s different with you, babe
. But then they cheat on you just like everyone else. It’s not different, it’s never different.

But Izzie went on anyway, “He stares at you all the time at school, and you said he asked you out at Posh, and look at him over there now, staring at you like a little puppy dog wanting his belly scratched.”

Ugh! I glared down at my paper, trying not to listen. “I’m sure Lauren would love to scratch it.”

I snuck a peek at Logan later, though. When he wasn’t looking. He was at the non-fiction secession with Chloe, playfully holding a book from her as she tried to get it away. It was kind of a romantic-movie-type-scene. The kind where there is music playing to show the couple falling in love rather than actual dialog.

Only—yikes!—Logan felt my eyes on him or something, ’cause all of a sudden he saw me. A smile crept on his face. It got my heart going all twisty and wild and I wanted to look away. Only I couldn’t. Not until I got swatted in the head by Izzie.

“Are you listening to me?” she asked, glancing up from her notes.

“Yeah. Well, no. Sort of,” I spurted, wondering if Logan saw that, me getting bonked in the head for paying attention to him. I took another quick peek at him. He was still smiling at me, looking amused.
Yeah. He saw.

***

I vowed not to look at Logan for the rest of the night. And I didn’t. But I guess he kept looking at me. Izzie seemed to think so anyway. She kept announcing it every five minutes.

“Logan is
still
staring at you,” she whispered for like, the millionth time. “He has the hots for you, Michaela. Big time.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, that’s why he’s sitting over there with Chloe Reece.”

“But he’s looking at you.”

 
I glared down at my notes. Can you be held accountable for plagiarism if you don’t do it on purpose? I sighed. “Izzie, give it up. If you want a romance between Logan and me you’re going to have to write it yourself. There’s no book like that on the shelf—anywhere.”

“I don’t know why you deny it.” Izzie put her hands over my book. “How can you deny it? Look—he can’t take his eyes off you.”

I moved her hand away. She was being a romantic pest. She was always on me about Gage, saying how he has a “thing” for me. And now she was saying the same thing about Logan. Funny how I’d only had one boyfriend my entire life (and he was a major loser) yet Izzie somehow thought all these hot guys had secret “things” for me.

I glanced over to where Logan had been sitting. He was gone. “Yeah, he can’t take his eyes off me,” I muttered.

“Well—”

I felt lame. Neither Gage nor Logan liked me, obviously. I mean, they both had girlfriends—that weren’t me. I was just this big dork clinging to ridiculous fantasies and Izzie was hopeless; she was fueling the crazy flame. “Look Izzie, I really want you to drop it, seriously. He’s a flirt, that’s all. And he hasn’t even talked to me since that night.”

“Well,” she stretched, metaphorically, “maybe he’s shy.”

I gave her my furrowed brow look. “Trust me, he’s not shy.”

Izzie seemed to agree, but she didn’t give up. “Well, he’s a mysterious guy, weirdly so, but you have to admit, he
is
showing a lot of interest in you.”

I couldn’t argue with that. So I didn’t even try. Instead, I went back to working on my paper. It was late and I was tired. I wanted to go home, but of course I’d put off the assignment until the last moment. At this rate, I was going to be working on it all night. And I couldn’t just get the information off the Internet like I usually do. Mr. Bradshaw insisted we do the work the old fashioned way, gleaning at least a fourth of our work from an actual encyclopedia.

“I need to go upstairs and use the copier,” I told Izzie. “I’ll be right back.”

I got on the elevator, shuffling through my notes. I yawned, checking my watch. I had forty-five minutes to write three more pages—but I was running out of research.

I went through my notes again. The elevator stopped on level three, letting someone on, but I was too involved in my notes to notice who it was—until the person pushed a button, stopping the elevator between floors.