Demon Derby (12 page)

I woke up sprawled on my living room sofa with the thick braided edge of a cushion embedded in my cheek. The bright midmorning sun streamed through a familiar picture window; pots and pans clattered in the kitchen. My mother was quite possibly the loudest cook in the history of the known universe, but I was used to it. I flipped onto my belly, wriggling into the depths of the couch, searching for sleep again.

When my nose pressed against the pillow, pain lanced my face. I pushed myself up to see Michael sitting on the floor next to the sofa. It all rushed back: the callbacks, the suicide drills, the whole hot-guy-with-a-shocking-touch thing.

“Holy crap!” I flailed in surprise, sending half of the cushions to the floor. “What’re you doing here?”

“I just came by to check on you. Your mom said I could
hang for a while and see if you might wake up. And here we are,” he said. His voice practically made me purr, but I wasn’t about to let that show on my face.

“Wait.” I settled back into the remaining cushions, glancing at the windows. “What day is it?”

“It’s Sunday. Almost ten a.m.”

My stomach clenched. I’d been out for about fifteen hours. I’d slept that long before, especially after a dose of painkillers, but this was different. Over the past few months, I’d gotten used to flipping out over every cough or sniffle. I knew it was just paranoia, and I could force myself to put the panic out of my head if I worked hard enough. But this time I wasn’t overreacting; frankly, it seemed like everyone else was
underreacting
. Why wasn’t I in the hospital? I should have been hooked up to about a billion monitors right now; my mom should have been studying my blood counts and helping me put on my lucky hospital pajamas, not dorking around in the kitchen.

“Casey?” Michael looked concerned.

“Oh. Uh … it’s okay. But I’m assuming I didn’t make the team?” I said. “That’s probably a good thing. You can go now.”

“You … you think?” He sounded uncertain. “I wanted to talk about possibly making you an alternate. I think I might be able to petition the league—”

“You’re not listening to me.” I stood up slowly, taking careful stock of my body. No dizziness, which was a bonus. I ached all over, but I couldn’t honestly say whether that was from derby or something else. “I can’t be on the team. Healthy people don’t randomly lose consciousness. I’ve got to get to
the hospital so they can see if I’ve relapsed. Maybe we can talk later. If you want,” I added hastily.

It seemed like I should be panicking, but I felt this strange sense of relief. At least now I knew. No more worrying, no more fearing the worst. Because the worst was happening, and it left me exhausted and empty, like a scooped-out melon.

“Before you do anything, there’s something I need to tell you.” He gently pushed on my shoulders until I sat back down. It didn’t take long, because I wasn’t fighting. I needed to save my strength. “I promise it won’t take too long. But here. Drink this first.”

Michael handed me a glass of water, and only then did I realize how parched I was. I gulped it down and barely restrained myself from trying to lick the last few drops from the inside of the glass. My tongue probably wasn’t long enough for that anyway.

“I’ll get you some more,” he said, holding out a hand. I gave him the glass and watched him walk into the kitchen. His shoulders were broader than I remembered, but maybe that was because I’d been too busy staring at his butt.

I heard the low rumble of his voice from the kitchen and the laughing tones of my mother’s response. I waited for Mom to charge in and fuss a little, which kind of seemed warranted, given the situation, but it didn’t happen. The whole thing was beyond surreal. I rubbed my temples and tried to put it all together in a way that made sense, but I failed.

“Here,” Michael said, emerging from the kitchen with a
glass of ice water that tinkled musically as he carried it to the couch.

I wanted to push it away and demand some freaking answers, but I was just so thirsty. So I downed the second glass without stopping for breath, and then gasped the words out.

“So, what do you have to tell me?”

“Ah.” He shrugged, looking over my shoulder at the wince-worthy painting of dogs in clown makeup that hung over the sofa. It was still a little singed in one corner from the time I’d tried to burn it. “Well, I didn’t exactly tell your mom what happened yesterday.”

I blinked. “So let me get this straight. You and Darcy brought me home unconscious, and I slept for about fifteen hours, and she thought that was normal?”

“No,” he said. “No one was here when we came in yesterday. I stayed here until your parents got home around midnight, and I came back this morning. Your mother doesn’t know how long you were out. I told her you fell asleep while we were watching a movie.”

“Why would you do that? Don’t you get it? I’m
sick
. It’s not something you fool around with.”

“You don’t have all the information, Casey,” he said, staring at his clasped hands. “There are some things I need to tell you.”

“Like what?”

“What happened to you yesterday has nothing to do with your health. It has to do with what happened when we touched. You know, the whole shock thing?”

“You’re certifiably insane.” And it figured. The first guy I’d been even remotely interested in since I’d been sick, and he turned out to be a total loon. “I was probably hallucinating. It’s not real. Look, I’ll prove it to you.”

I grabbed his hand. Nothing happened. No mysterious, semi-electrical current or anything else, except for the warmth of his skin. We locked eyes. His were wide and blue.

When it hit me, it was like a fireball.

The hair on my arms suddenly tingled with static, standing on end. A whip crack of electricity whirled through my torso; my face went immediately numb, all the soreness draining away. When I spoke, my voice vibrated, making me sound almost robotic. My lips felt like they were actually buzzing.

“You tell me what’s going on right now,” I said.

“Let go,” he said, and if his voice had been awesome before, now I felt it thrum through my body like I was listening to it on headphones with the bass turned way up.

“Casey, you need to let go,” he repeated.

“Not until you tell me,” I murmured. “Not until you promise.”

Now it didn’t even sound like my voice anymore. It was too far away; I blinked and found myself floating near the ceiling. It felt so natural that I didn’t even freak out when I looked down to see my body standing next to Michael. My arms were shaking uncontrollably; my skin glowed. Like, literally glowed.

He looked up and actually saw me floating, disembodied, in the air. Which was really freaky.

“Get back here,” he ordered.

He pulled my body close and mashed his lips to mine.

I felt a rush of vertigo so intense that I nearly threw up, but the warmth of his mouth quickly distracted me. I was back in my body now without quite understanding how it had happened, and the electricity was muted, like he was sucking it out of me. He kissed me insistently, and I pressed against him hard, grabbing fistfuls of his shirt.

His mouth tasted sweet, like he’d been rubbing his lips with oranges. As if the whole situation could possibly get any weirder than it already was. I couldn’t help myself; my tongue darted out to taste it, and the kiss slowed and deepened until we weren’t trying to devour each other anymore. His mouth opened against mine, and his hands slid up to my jaw and cradled my face.

It was amazing, until I realized he was only doing it to distract me. I pulled back and slapped him.

“Ow!” he exclaimed, putting his hand to his cheek and looking almost comically surprised. “What did you do that for?”

“You were … I was …” I couldn’t come up with anything to say that didn’t sound totally insane. So I latched on to the one thing that did. “You were trying to distract me.”

“No, I was kissing you. Unless that whole lip-contact thing means something completely different on whatever planet you’re from.”

My limbs were shaking pretty uncontrollably by this time, so I sat down and folded my arms.

“You were only kissing me because that was the best way to make me …” Return to my body? No sane person would say anything like that. “Shut up,” I finished lamely.

“That’s not the only reason,” he said, not meeting my eyes.

“Oh?” I flushed. “I mean,
oh
.”

“I was also kissing you to …” He made some vague gestures in the air above his head that may have referred to my out-of-body experience or may have been him trying to avoid saying anything else embarrassing. “Get your attention.”

“You’ve got it. I want to know what’s going on. Right now.”

He nodded, and of course Mom picked that moment to come in with a couple of strawberry smoothies and some sandwich-type thing. Any sandwich made by her was an adventure. Most of the combinations she came up with were so bad that they qualified as cruel and unusual punishment, but some were surprisingly good. When no one else was around to witness it, I sometimes ate my mother’s infamous pickle and mayo sandwiches.

“I thought you’d be hungry since you missed breakfast, honey.” Mom put the sandwich on the table and followed it up with the smoothies. “And I made your favorite smoothie. I thought you might like one too, Michael.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Kent,” he said.

She kissed me on the top of the head. “I’ve got to get going, sweetheart. We’re doing character-building exercises today. I mean, as long as you’re okay? You slept in pretty late.”
She stopped, shifting uncertainly from foot to foot as if trying to decide where she was needed most.

“I’ll be fine, Mom,” I said, not really sure but knowing that if she was hovering, I’d never find out what the hell had just happened. “Your students will be pissed if you don’t show up to class.”

“Yes, yes, of course.” But she didn’t go. She stood there for another moment or two and then finally turned to Michael. “Are you going to be around for a while? My workshop is only a couple of hours. It would make me feel better to know she’s not alone.”

“Mom!” I protested. “I do not need a babysitter! Let alone one who’s a couple of years older than me, tops.”

“But I’m mature for my age,” Michael piped in helpfully, grinning like this was all really amusing.

“Humor me,” Mom said, all the dreamy airheadedness gone from her voice. Now she was in stern-parent mode. It didn’t happen often, but there was no budging her when it did. “I’d feel more secure knowing you have company. Do you mind, Michael?”

“Not at all,” he said. “I like Casey.”

“Of course you do,” Mom said happily. “She’s the nicest girl in the world. I hope you’ll stay for dinner too?”

“I’d love to,” he told her, but he didn’t take his eyes off me.

She didn’t seem to notice that she was intruding on our staring contest. “Great. Well, cheerio!” Mom kissed the top of my head yet again and then bounced out.

Michael and I kept staring at each other until the door closed. When he wasn’t moving, he looked almost like a statue, with his too-perfect face and equally awe-inspiring physique. Not that I wanted him to kiss me again. In fact, I was concentrating very hard on not wanting to make out with him until he gave me some answers. It was more difficult than I would have liked to admit.

I opened my mouth to demand he start talking, but he spoke first. “Well, I guess I’d better just take the plunge.”

“What plunge? Will you please for the love of God start making sense?”

He started to sit down only to pop up again, looking more than a little agitated. “Casey, I haven’t told anyone this before, so I hope it will come out right.”

“All right …,” I said cautiously. “I’m listening.”

“Yeah.” He held his hands out to his sides. “I’m not exactly human.”

I didn’t have time to scoff before a pair of flaming wings burst from his back and lit the dog painting on fire.

I found it difficult to argue with the whole I’m-not-human thing when Michael’s blazing wings were immolating my living room. Something about those flickering wing-shaped flames convinced me. It’s hard to argue with burn holes.