Renegade (8 page)

“What are you doing?” I asked. I usually shoved the whole thing in my mouth at once.

She looked up. The bright green of her eyes shocked me sometimes. “Enjoying this.”

I opened up an oatmeal cream pie and the Nutty Buddies. “Here, try these.”

“All of them?”

“Won’t know which one you like best until you do.”

I ate the bacon off her plate while she tried all the different snacks laid before her. When she sampled them all, I asked for the verdict.

“I like this one best,” she said, pointing to the Ho Hos.

“The ladies love chocolate,” I said, half to myself.

“What ladies?”

“Never mind,” I said, finishing off the oatmeal cream pie. “So where’s your wings?”

“My wings? I don’t have any. There’s no need with the job I do here. They would just get in the way.”

I looked down at her plate of food and she pushed it toward me. I didn’t have to be told twice so I picked it up and started eating.

“You know you could learn to cook,” Ana said as she peeled the icing off the second Ho Ho.

“I don’t have electricity in my castle. How is it you have it here?”

“Magic,” she said simply as she licked the cream off her finger. I momentarily forgot what I was talking about.

“Magic.” I echoed.

She nodded.

Seemed to me there was plenty of power and magic in hell so I wasn’t really sure why Beelzebub didn’t use some of his to make his castle a little more comfortable.

“So have you found the stolen souls yet?”

“No.”

“Well, hell is a very big place. I am sure it will take time.”

“Yeah.” I agreed. I didn’t want to admit I hadn’t really been looking that hard. At first, I looked around, banging some demons’ heads to try and find the place, but I came up empty. Then the demons started challenging my position down here and my focus switched to keep the power and position I had—and yeah, gaining more. I liked power.

But sitting here now—with Ana—I felt a little guilty I hadn’t tried harder.

I didn’t like feeling guilty.

“Well, I gotta be going.”

Ana’s eyes widened a bit—in disappointment?—before she smiled. “Yes, well, I am sure you are very busy.”

I shoved my things back into my backpack—leaving behind the other unopened package of Ho Hos—and zipped it up. “Thanks for fixing me up. I don’t heal as fast down here.”

Ana nodded. “Whatever you broke would have taken weeks to heal.”

“Good as new now,” I said, standing in front of her, dragging out my time here.

“Well, if you happen to need more, you know where I am. Good luck with the search.”

“Thanks.” I stood there a second longer. Then I turned and headed for the doors.

“Oh, and thank you for the junk food!”

I grinned to myself but didn’t turn around. I walked until I came out the Devourer’s cave on the side of hell. It looked even more depressing than usual. The brightly colored dragon was there and turned its eyes on me as I came toward it. An idea formed in my head.

“I need to find some stolen souls and you’re going to help me.”

Chapter Five

Heven

Riley never called me back. Over the past two weeks or so I left several messages, none of which ever got a return call. I was beginning to agree with Sam in that relying on Riley might not be the best thing to do. I wanted to like Riley—part of me did like him—but I couldn’t ignore the things Sam said about him anymore. Riley only did something if it got him something in return. He wasn’t reliable. He wasn’t nice. He’d most likely betray me again, and maybe it was time I just face the facts.

Riley wasn’t going to help me.

I took a seat at the lunch table next to Sam, who was already inhaling his first sandwich (Gran packs him two). He smiled and leaned over to give me a kiss on the cheek as he chewed. He smelled like turkey. “Enjoying that sandwich?”

“Gran’s the best.”

I opened my lunch bag as Cole and Kimber walked into the cafeteria. I noticed how they seemed to draw a few stares. I wasn’t sure if it was the fact that people couldn’t decide if they were back together or if it was because Kimber just wasn’t as flawless as she used to be.

I heard a few whispers in the hall about Kimber and why she wasn’t as hot as last year. Most people seemed to think it was because she was brokenhearted when Cole dumped her. But here they were showing up for school together (Cole was driving her), sitting at lunch together, and people were confused.

Not that I cared that people were whispering. They did it about me too, only this time around I couldn’t care less. I didn’t try to hide my scar and avoid eye contact either. I dressed nice (today’s outfit was jeans and a lightweight yellow sweater) and I pulled my hair back when I felt like it (today it was in a ponytail). Let them look.

“Hey, guys,” I said when they sat down at our table. Cole smiled, but Kimber didn’t say anything. I wouldn’t really call us friends anymore, but after everything we went through we couldn’t pretend to be strangers, either. Besides, after
being trapped in hell and having her soul ripped out of her body, Kimber needed people around her that understood (or at least tried to). Her parents hadn’t even noticed she’d been almost two weeks late coming home from Italy. And as far as I knew, she was spending most of her time with Cole.

“Crap,” Kimber said. “I forgot my water.”

“Want me to get you one?” Cole asked.

“No.” She sighed, then began to pout. “If I had my powers I could just poof my water here.”

“Still nothing at all with your powers, right?” Sam asked her.

She shook her head, her red ponytail swinging. Her hair was pretty, but it wasn’t as shiny and bouncy as it used to be.

“No. The old hag must still be bound,” Kimber said, narrowing her eyes at the mention of Hecate.

“That’s good, then. At least we know they’re still trapped. The minute Hecate gets out she’ll find a way to unbind her powers.”

“At least I would have mine back too,” Kimber said, her voice wistful.

I would rather Kimber not have her powers. After all, she did betray us all to get those powers. Who knew what she’d do when her magic was returned to her?

“Now I’ll have to drink cafeteria water.” She complained, looking at me like it was my fault.

“It’s bottled at least,” I offered.

She grimaced. Cole handed her his bottle of water. It wasn’t the brand she usually drank, but it was a better than “cafeteria” water. She brightened and gave him a smile.

Beside me, Sam paused in inhaling his lunch when a new figure came into the cafeteria. Sean. Last year at Kimber’s lake birthday bash, his girlfriend Andi had gone missing. The police labeled her a runaway and as far as I knew, no one had seen her since that night.

“He still looks pretty messed up,” Cole said, following Sam’s gaze. “I don’t talk to him much anymore. Ever since Andi… he kind of keeps to himself. He isn’t even playing football this year.”

“No one’s heard from her at all?” I asked. Sam pushed his food away.

“She’s probably dead,” Kimber said matter of fact.

We all turned to stare at her.

“What?” She shrugged. “Like you weren’t thinking it too.”

None of us denied it, but we all fell silent. A few minutes later Kimber turned thoughtful. “You know, she probably got drunk and drowned in the lake that night and no one saw.”

Sam started packing up what was left of his food. I gave Kimber a dirty look. Hadn’t we all seen enough death lately? Talking about it was just wrong.

Then she gasped, the cap to her water bouncing to the floor. “The hand!”

Cole paused in reaching for the cap. “The what?”

“When I first got my magic, I went out into the lake and did some stuff.” I saw a shot of fear through her eyes and I sat forward to listen. Kimber wasn’t one to be afraid. “And this hand—a skeleton hand—came to the surface. I about peed myself.”

“You saw a skeleton hand in the lake?” Sam asked, his eyes intent on her face. His feelings seemed to spike and spill over to me through our Mindbond. Something had him afraid but also sad. I turned in my seat toward him.

Kimber nodded. “Maybe it was a piece of Andi.”

Sam looked down at the table.

“Can we not talk about bodies and skeletons while I’m trying to eat?” Cole asked.

“Oh! I forgot. I did bring my water. I left it in my bag.” Kimber brightened, skeletons long forgotten, and got up and rushed from the room to grab her fancy water.

Sam grabbed up his sack and glanced at his watch. “I gotta go.”

I sighed. “Yeah, okay. I’ll see you later?”

“I’m working a double, remember? Come by the gym tonight and we’ll do your training there.”

The senior class was offered a work-study program with the option of getting out of school early every day so they could go to work. Since Sam is emancipated and paying for his own rent and food, working is essential, and this is just one more way he can get in more hours.

At first I wasn’t thrilled because I had too many classes left to complete to graduate to qualify for the work-study program, so I was stuck here all day. But it was good for Sam, and I wasn’t about to complain about anything that made his life easier. Plus, because he worked so much during the day, he sometimes had the evenings off and that meant he could spend them with me.

Except for the one day a week he worked a double. Which happened to be today.

His chair scraped back and he slapped Cole a high five and then turned to me.

“I’ll see you later.” I began.

Sam grinned, his teeth flashing white, and he tackled me, sweeping me and the chair I sat in down toward the floor, holding me so I didn’t hit the floor, and then he kissed me, loud and sloppily.

I laughed around his kisses. Then he righted my chair, planting one last solid kiss on my lips. “See ya later, baby.”