Demon Heart (The Darkworld Series Book 3) (34 page)

“Don’t you even think of finishing that sentence,” I said sharply. “Don’t you dare.”

Leo shrugged. “I’ve always wanted to go travelling. I have no patience for university. I never should have come here in the first place.”

“Aren’t―” I choked on the words. “Aren’t you glad you did?”

“No.” He shook his head. “I’m not.”

I couldn’t see through a haze of tears. Whether he was in his right mind or not, his words struck like a knife in my chest.

“Then I guess there’s no point in me staying.” I stumbled towards the door. My chest ached horribly as though my heart was literally breaking, and numbness made my limbs clumsy.

I reached for the door. He still wasn’t looking at me. I felt a surge of rage.

“Look at me!” I shouted. “At least have the courtesy to look me in the eyes when you break up with me!”

“I don’t want to look into your eyes.”

And I’d thought it wasn’t possible to feel worse than I did. My heart splintered.

“You didn’t just say that,” I whispered stupidly. “You’ll regret it.” I wanted to hurt him as badly as he’d hurt me, but suddenly words were meaningless. I felt like I yelled at the walls of the Angel Box. I wanted―needed―to get away, before I lost it completely. I fell into the endless void again, and this time there was no one to catch me.

So I ran. I ran right out of the flat―nearly colliding with Rachel―and out of the student village. I kept running, through the woods towards town, and didn’t stop until I reached the Blackstone House.

It stood, lonely and sad, and watched me cry.

I crouched on the grass, not caring what I might look like to passersby. I thought the tears would never stop. It was like a dam had been wrenched open inside me, and I cried until I could barely breathe. They were selfish tears, true. I cried for Leo and myself, and for everything I’d lost. I’d given him everything, and yet that wasn’t the worst of it. The last few weeks had been like a crazy, wonderful dream, but in the end, my entire life had been a fabrication. I didn’t deserve happiness.

Eventually I got bored of being self-pitying, and trudged back uphill to campus. I ran into Sarah just as she was leaving the flat.

“Ash! I wondered where you were. I’m going home now―”

Her eyes widened. I wondered how bad I looked.

“I broke up with Leo,” I said, by way of an explanation. The rest of it wasn’t something I could tell anyone.

“No way!” said Alex, coming out the door―she was clearly in the process of moving her stuff to her parents’ car, too.

“Ash, I’m so sorry,” said Sarah.

“So am I.”
God, not again.
I’d thought I had no tears left in me.

“What happened?”

I shook my head. “It’s complicated. I’ll explain later.”

“I’ll be online tonight. Tell me then?”

I nodded, though I didn’t intend to go on Facebook or any social media site at any point in the future. Not when Leo had doubtlessly changed our relationship status.

Fresh tears gathered in my eyes.

Get a grip.

I said goodbye to Alex and Sarah and went back to my room. Almost immediately I wanted to leave again. Possibly I was going crazy, but it smelt like him. He hadn’t been here for at least a week, and yet…

Definitely crazy.

My phone buzzed. I groaned.

Cara demanded to know why I hadn’t answered her message the day before, and if I was all right. I loaded up Skype and texted her asking for a chat. At least I could tell her everything―even if she didn’t truly understand it all.

To her credit, she barely interrupted as I told her the whole story. I was crying so hard I could barely get the words out by the end, and she looked like she wanted to come out of the screen and give me a hug.

“Okay,” she said. “I think you need to get away.”

“I know,” I sniffed. “But I can’t―I can’t come back home.”

“You can stay at mine. Seriously, stay as long as you like.”

“The―the fortune-teller left me money. I could rent my own place.”

“She left you money? How much?”

“I don’t know. A lot. Her family were loaded, and she got it all.”

“She did? Hmm…” Cara’s voice had the tone that meant she’d thought of some kind of plan. “Did I mention I got an extra grant from the university for my grades? You did, too, right? If your uni does that kind of thing.”

“Yeah,” I said hesitantly. “I don’t know if I’ll get any student funding any more, though―now that I’m not technically connected to my parents. God, it’s a mess.”

“Let the fortune-teller worry about that,” said Cara. “She deserves to have to deal with those finance idiots, right?”

“Right.” Ordinarily I might have smiled. As it was, I was kind of half laughing, half crying at the ridiculousness of the whole thing. Worrying about student finance when my parents didn’t know I existed anymore, for crying out loud.

“Anyway, I’m thinking you and I should go on holiday. A long one.”

“What, right now?”

“Maybe. Nah, I have essays to write over Easter. But summer, definitely. We have three months off, might as well go wild. How about we go to Australia? I’ve always wanted to go back. A week there wasn’t enough.”

“Australia?” I repeated. “Are you crazy?”

“Are
you
crazy? Who’d turn down a trip to Australia? It’s an amazing country.”

“I need to think about this.”

“Sure. But the answer’s obvious, isn’t it? You don’t have anything holding you back. You have a shit-ton of money. Loads of people would love to be in your position. I mean, money-wise.”

I hadn’t thought of that. I didn’t relish the idea of owing anything more to the fortune-teller… but she’d never dictated that I couldn’t spend the money on whatever I wanted.

It wasn’t like she owned me, anyway.

“Cara, you’re amazing. Seriously, you’re the best person ever.” This time, I managed a smile.

“Proud to be of service. So, you’re in?”

“Hell, yeah,” I said.

Emma Adams
spent her childhood creating imaginary worlds to compensate for a disappointingly average reality, so it was probably inevitable that she ended up writing fantasy and paranormal for young adults.

She was born in Birmingham, UK, which she fled at the first opportunity to study English Literature at Lancaster University. In her three years at Lancaster, she hiked up mountains, skydived in Australia, and endured a traumatic episode involving a swarm of bees in the Costa Rican jungle. She also wrote various novels and short stories. These included her first publication, a rather bleak dystopian piece, and a disturbing story about a homicidal duck (which she hopes will never see the light of day).

Now a reluctant graduate, she can usually be found in front of her writing desk, creating weird and wonderful alternative worlds. Her debut novel
The Puppet Spell
, published in January 2013 by Rowanvale Books, is a fantasy tale for young adults and the young at heart, featuring disappearing uncles, invisibility potions and chimeras.

Emma also writes dark and creepy supernatural novels for older teens and adults. Her next book,
Darkness Watching
, is the first in the upper-YA/New Adult
Darkworld
series, and was published in October 2013 by Curiosity Quills Press.

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