Something was severely wrong with me.
As the sunlight filtered through my blinds and into my dorm room, I pushed my blanket back and attempted to get out of bed. As usual, the room was dark, as was Bella's preference. She studied and did her homework in the library, choosing only to sleep in here.
Our sides had a visible difference: her blankets were tangled, a picture was crooked, half of her powers were falling down, her shoes were spread in various areas, her clean clothes were thrown in a pile in the corner of her bed, and her dirty ones strewn on the ground. Her books were stacked on her desk, her backpack open with pens spilling out—a green one had rolled over to my side.
But Bella's side was always messy because she didn't have time to clean. Between sorority business, working, studying, and her social life, she never spent more time in the dorm than she needed to. I didn't mind, though, I had grown used to it.
By comparison, my side was hospital-clean. The only things I didn't have put away were my textbooks, my laptop, and the jacket I had come in here with. Those things were dumped on my desk.
Rubbing my temples, I reached for yet another painkiller and took it dry. It was mid-afternoon, my head was killing me, and I was positive death by head explosion would take me out. With a sigh, I tossed myself back on my bed. I wished I could just go back to sleep, but the pounding in my head prevented me from doing anything but staring at the back of my eyelids in utter agony.
Four hours ago, I had left home to get to class, but on my drive here, it was like someone had taken a sledgehammer to my brain. I had parked and stumbled inside, waking Bella up for some pain killers. It hadn't helped ease the pain, but at least I eventually went to sleep, which meant I became blissfully unaware of the pain for at least an hour or two.
Now I was waiting for the third painkiller to take action, but it, like the others, failed me.
My phone buzzed, and I glanced over at it. Luca. I answered despite the pain, a flicker of happiness slicing its way through the agony. How are you? he asked.
We had decided to stay in last night. He cooked for me, and we ended up playing video games and talking about his siblings. It was nice and calm, an evening I needed to destress before midterms this week. I wouldn't be seeing him for a few days so I could focus on my exams. Although with this pain in my head, I very well could've seen for all the focusing I would be able to do.
My head is killing me, so if I don't respond, I'm sleeping it off, I texted back, putting my phone down and covering myself fully with the blanket. "Ughhhhh," I moaned, tears in my eyes.
A second later, the door flew open with as much noise as an opening door could make. Bella walked in, talking on the phone and laughing loudly. She jumped on her bed, making it squeak.
"Bella, my head still hurts, can you keep it down?" I mumbled, peeking over the blankets.
She glanced at me, a frown on her face. "I'll talk to you later, Tony." She hung up, then bounced over to me. "What's wrong, honey bun?" Gently, she eased herself onto my bed, placing a hand on my forehead. "You're not running a fever."
I doubted she would've known if I was. I appreciated her effort, but she possessed not one single medical bone or know how in her body. However, she did possess a vast knowledge of over the counter medicines that she pondered over for twenty minutes before buying bottles of cheap whiskey to "clear her sinuses." I smiled at her gratefully. "It's just a bad headache. Who's Tony?" The last guy had been named Brannon or something like that.
She rolled her eyes. "A guy. Not important." They never were with Bella. Tony would be someone else in a few weeks time, maybe a little less. "What caused your headache?"
I closed my eyes as the pressure continued to build. "No idea," I whined, "it just happened out of nowhere."
She looked concerned—deeply so, but Bella was dramatic and took every little moment and turned it into a Broadway show. "Do I need to drive you to the hospital?"
I started to shake my head then thought better of it. "I'll be fine. I just need some sleep honestly."
"Okay." She pouted. "I'll go ahead and cancel our plans tonight."
Plans? My eyebrows furrowed over my eyes in confusion. "We had plans?" I asked, racking my brain to try to remember. I had no recollection of this. "When did we make them?"
Bella gave me a look. "Yesterday morning before you left for class," she answered. "This is the fourth time in the past week and a half you've forgotten something, Clare-bear. Is everything okay?"
No, no it wasn't.
The word 'forgetting' rang some sort of far-away bell. Besides the plans we apparently made, I was forgetting something else. Something important, possibly life-changing. It was like it was right there, on the tip of my tongue, and I couldn't remember it, even as it begged for me to remember.
"I—I don't know," I mumbled, unable to explain myself. I couldn't put it into words, this feeling that I was somehow losing time. It was like there were sections of my life missing from the past two weeks, hours worth of time just… gone. "I keep forgetting things. Important things." Or one very important thing and other little details.
What was it, though?
It was like someone had put a block over my memories, making them impossible to access.
Bella frowned. "Did you fall and hit your head? Have you been stressed out lately? With the pressure in your head, it could also be a brain tumor." She started looking up other symptoms of a brain tumor.
Brain tumor? I would've laughed. Stress, anxiety, depression, a lack of sleep: all of that made more sense than a brain tumor, but Bella's mind. "No, I didn't fall, nor—"
"Maybe you forgot you fell?"
"No, I'm positive I didn't fall. Anything that made me hit my head that hard would've left bruising or something'" And I had no bruises, no cuts or anything. No physical markings.
"Okay, well here it also says it could be syphilis or HIV," she offered.
I resisted the urge to take a deep breath. Bella was no help at all. If we weren't talking about boys or make-up or clothes, she was usually left field of the conversation. "I haven't had sex in almost a year."
"So? STDs can lie dormant and undetected."
I wasn't about to have this conversation with her. It would go nowhere, and my head hurt too much to entertain her, so I changed the subject. "Anyway, what plans did we have tonight?" I asked.
I needed some Bella time. With her multiple boyfriends and extracurriculars, and most of my time going to Luca, we hadn't seen each other as much lately, unless you counted work, which I didn't because we couldn't really talk there like we used to, not with our fathers watching or customers listening in.
"Wings and movies." She looked at me like I had completely gone off the deep end—every time we did something on Wednesday, it was always wings and movies. It was an eight year-long tradition, ever since we moved to New Orleans, and we had a wing place in walking distance from our homes. We didn't go every Wednesday, and we had been going less and less since we started college, but it was still something we both knew. Like each other's birthdays or favorite colors. For me to ask what we were doing was a betrayal. "Okay, something is seriously wrong with you. I'm calling your mom."
Truth was, I didn't even remember today was Wednesday, so it wasn't like I had forgotten our beloved tradition. "I—it's Wednesday?" I asked, completely shocked. The last day I truly remembered fully was Sunday, when I was hanging with Luca, and we were talking about my writing. We had gone to…. somewhere. We had gotten beignets, but it wasn't in the French Quarter. Maybe a restaurant? No, that was last week.
No, no, last I hung with him was yesterday. Tuesday apparently, and we talked about… his family. I was sitting on the sofa. I remembered some of their faces, like his beautiful older sister Kela with her long legs and dark skin. Patrick with the haughty tilt of his nose. Then we talked about… I closed my eyes, head burning. What did we talk about?
Bella's voice sounded distant. "Are you on drugs, Clare? What's going on?" She kicked off her sandals and laid next to me on top of the blankets. "I'm serious, talk to me."
How did I explain it? I opened my eyes, saw her staring at me with eyes filled with worry. She was definitely going to call my mom, and my mom was stressed enough about her case. She didn't need to worry about me. "I guess I've just been really busy, lately," I started, slowly, trying to come up with something that would make Bella back off. She was so often self-centered, but when something was truly wrong with me, there were only two other people who would care for me more than her: my parents. "I dunno, but, like, I'm forgetting specific parts of the day. Like, I know yesterday was Tuesday—now anyway—but all I remember is hanging out with Luca and goin' to class, but—"
Something important happened, something important was said, but I couldn't get to it. The realization made sharp, pulsing pains shoot through my head. I closed my eyes, squeezing two tears out. Telling Bella I didn't remember what we talked about was an understatement. It wasn't my usual 'Oh, we talked about so much, and I was so enamored by his blue eyes that I only remember a little bit of what he said, and as the day continues, I'll remember more.' It was more like the conversation had disappeared.
Maybe I was a medical lab rat, a part of an experiment I had signed up for. There were always students on campus offering gift cards to stores if you participated in their studies. I didn't think I had been low enough on cash to actually participate but maybe. It was the only explanation.
"But?" Bella motioned for me to continue.
I sighed. "But I can't remember."
She sighed in return, putting her head on my shoulder. "Is there something specific you're forgetting? I heard that sometimes the brain blocks out things that are painful or trauma related?"
I didn't think that was it either. "I'm not sure, honestly," I admitted. "It's just, I forget things where Luca is concerned. Some of the times we've hung out…. it's like there are hours missing."
She gasped, sitting up so quickly it made me dizzy. "Maybe he's drugging you!" she announced. Her back was to me, but I could see her face working itself up into a scowl. She was typing something on her phone, and I can see by the tension in her back that she was preparing herself to battle.
If I knew Bella, even in the slightest, she would march up to Luca's club, ask for him, and then demand he turn himself into police for drugging me. She wouldn't take no for an answer. "He's not drugging me, Bells," I told her. I had proof of that. "I just took a drug test Monday morning. Everything was clear." I had applied for a job as an English tutor, which required me to take a drug test and background check.
She frowned. "Well, then it has something to do with him. I'm convinced."
"Ten minutes ago, you were convinced it was syphilis, too."
She looked over her shoulder at me. "I'm completely serious, Clare." By her expression, she was. Bella never looked serious—carefree, happy, angry, flirty, yeah, she was all of those. But serious? It seemed out of place on her features. "You know, some weird stuff started happening when you met Luca."
I waited for her to continue. Bella would say her piece, whether I agreed or not. It was best to let her talk and then counter with an argument. Sometimes I chose not to argue. Today was one of those times. I lacked the energy for a rebuttal.
She was right, though. Now that she mentioned it, weird things had happened since I met Luca—random people staring at me intently, and not in a 'she's weird way' or a 'she's cute way' that I was used to. Just staring, really hard, as if they knew me. This one guy, if I remembered correctly, had followed me from class last week. There was nothing too odd about him at first since he looked like a normal college kid—messy brown hair, books in his hands, a button-up plaid shirt and blue jeans—honestly, the worst thing about him was that he was wearing boot cut jeans. I noticed he was always around thirty feet behind me, his eyes trained on me. So I made some moves, to a place where a building was abandoned, where no other students went unless to smoke. He followed me every time. I faked a call, turned around and passed by him. When I did, he reached out as if to touch me, then when I pulled away, he said, "Sorry, Clare, I was just enamored." If his following wasn't weird enough, him knowing my name was super creepy. And the final straw? I swore his eyes were bright red for a second. He bowed before he rushed past me, and when I turned around, his books were on the ground and he had disappeared in the middle of the sidewalk.
I had kept it from everybody because it was, like, super weird, and Bella already thought I was crazy. I never saw the guy again, and other things in life had taken precedence over my possible stalker, who disappeared out of nowhere and maybe didn't even exist outside of my imagination.
Although, this could be chalked up to a coincidence, and I was putting this on Luca to fit the narrative.
His brothers had also reemerged, though, after he said they hadn't seen each other in years. Along with this dream about Mother and the time lapses after seeing him, something felt real fishy.
Which really, really really sucked because he was so my dream guy.
"It's just weird how perfect he is," Bella continued. "I always thought so. He's rich, handsome, an Ivy League college graduate, fine, and he's—"
"Attracted to me?" I continued, raising my eyebrow at her. It wasn't a secret that Bella was used to getting more male attention than me, and usually, when guys chose me over her, it didn't bother her because they weren't guys she was interested in anyway (stereotypical, but I liked good guys, quiet guys, and she liked the wild ones), but a guy like Luca? Ever since our first date, she had made some off-putting comments, and I had tried to ignore them, convincing myself I was overreacting.
She frowned. "No." She turned around completely, sitting cross-legged and looking me in my eyes. "I was goin' to say, 'and he hasn't messed up yet.'"
Well, I felt like an asshole.
"Seriously, Clare, who do you think I am?" She rolled her eyes, and I knew she was only letting me off easily because my head was hurting. "Anyway, what guy doesn't mess up in three weeks? He says the right things, does the right things—"
That was usually what happened when you dated decent guys, but I let her talk.
"I don't know, at first, I was like, wow, Luca is a total angel sent from Heaven for my cousin, who deserves it." She shook her head, curls bouncing against her cheek. One day I really hoped she'd settle down and find her 'angel' guy, too. If that was what she decided she wanted. "But, you know what, we always said he was life-ruiningly attractive. And angels don't ruin your life."
I smiled. "So what do you think he is?"
She shrugged. "I think he's what every handsome light skin man with light eyes is—a demon." Her piece said, she stood and jumped off my bed, giving me a big smile. She reached over, kissing me on my forehead. "Feel better, sister."
Demon.
I remembered.
Everything.
All of it.
The pressure behind my head disappeared, followed by a surge of rage.
"Already do."
Angry wasn't the word. I was infuriated. I was incapable of thinking of Luca with anything less than a desire to wrap my hands around his neck and throttle him to death. Except, he was immortal. Unless I was a super-strong demon, it wouldn't do much but be a mild annoyance to him. Still, if I saw Luca right now, I would—
I didn't know what I would do. Information raced through my head, the information I knew and couldn't process. I didn't have time. I had midterms, and I had wings and movies with Bella tonight, and right now, I was getting gourmet hot dogs with my baby sister. Ever since Luca's story about his sister (who was the sin of Wrath for God's sake!), I had wanted to get closer to Chloe.
Knowing about Luca, though, not only made me angry—it terrified me.
Death was coming, and it was possibly coming for me. Though I had this feeling, a strong feeling, that I would not be the one to, it was still a possibility.
Mother wanted me alive, and I would use that to my advantage. I would do my best to make sure my cousin was safe if I could, but I would not sacrifice my life for hers. It wasn't like she wouldn't protect herself first if—when—it came down to it.
Then again, I remembered that conversation with Sebastian that Luca had. Sebastian wouldn't let anything happen to Athena. He would kill me first. Mother wasn't going to protect me, just overlook me unless she ran out of options.
Before I met Luca, I dreamed of Mother twice, and they were never this bad.
Meeting him wasn't a coincidence. Mother had thrown him into my path to get to me. But why? It would've been much simpler to snatch me off the streets, unknown, and not involve demons or her eventual defeat. Unless, of course, she knew she couldn't be defeated, and this was all just a fun game to her.
Chloe looked over her shoulder, met my eyes, and smiled. She looked exactly like me and nothing like me. We had the same face, but we wore our expressions differently. I had a quick smile; she had a serious, focused frown. When I smiled, it reached my eyes and crinkled the corners; when she smiled, it stopped right underneath her eyes but was no less genuine. When I had arrived at school to check her out early, she had originally thought something was wrong—but when I explained to her that I just wanted some sister time before she went to gymnastics practice, she had unbuttoned her school shirt, threw on the yoga pants under her mandated skirt, and then shimmied out of it in a matter of seconds. Keep this a secret, I had told her, even though Mom and Dad wouldn't care. They had been on me to spend more time with her anyway.
I wiggled my fingers at her, and she turned around to place our orders. My sister was going to be small, just like Mom. She had Olympic hopes as a gymnast I believed she could make it. I was biased, but Chloe was as good as anyone.
No more than eight people milling about since everyone was either at work or school except college students and old folks. Some man walked his dog, a Great Dane who held a frisbee in his mouth. A little girl, no older than five, stared at it with wide eyes, tugging on her mom's hand. A couple, in their late twenties, stared at each other and occasionally laughed. All these people. Unaware that demons walked this Earth and meddled in our damn lives because they found us attractive. Any one of them could be shacking up with a memory-swiping demon, and they wouldn't even know it.
The recent revelations had left me… on edge.
Chloe swung her leg around the bench we sat at, a mischievous smile on her face that had been there since we started our journey. After this, we were going to take a walk three blocks down and get snowballs. "Are you people watching for your story again?" she asked, sliding my hot dog toward me and our cheese fries in the middle of the table. She poured ketchup over half of them, ignoring the face I made and would continue to make as long as she did that until she stopped eating like that.
Yeah, sure. I could write a whole book about this, but I wouldn't. It was laughable. The best inspiration I would ever come into contact with, and I couldn't write about it. "Sort of," I told her, taking a fry from my side. The cheese here was impeccable. I didn't know how they made it, but it was a cure for all problems—except a demon wanting your life, and your demon boyfriend swiping your memories.
"Sort of?" She took a huge bite out of her hot dog, then moaned around a mouthful. Chloe, in keeping up with her gymnastics, didn't get to eat as unhealthy as we did. She tried to stay as small as possible. Hopefully, she would take after Dad's side and be thin like me instead of curvy like Mom. "Explain."
Your sister might die in a few weeks' time. The guy you heard her talk about to Mom is a demon. He's been wiping her memories. She's not actually people-watching, but she's reflecting on how everybody, including you, doesn't even know they walk among us.
I chewed on another fry to buy myself some time. My explanation wouldn't go over. Chloe was sensible, like Mom, and didn't believe in anything except stuff that was already proven or could be proved. "I was sorta looking for inspiration, and I was also sorta thinking about other things." I smiled at her. "Like how we don't spend enough time together. I have no idea what's goin' on in your life."
She eyed me with disbelief. "You want to spend more time with a fourteen-year-old? Geez, college must be boring." She shoveled some more fries into her mouth. She wore her usual hairstyle, a bun without a single strand out of place. "No, seriously, are there not enough parties to go to? You can't find more than one friend with all those thousands of people? No clubs to—"
I rolled my eyes. "Why can't I want to spend time with my little sister?"
"Because I'm fourteen," she explained, throwing a hand into the air with exasperation. "We are two totally different points in our lives right now, Clare."
"Are you breaking up with me, Chloe? Seriously, this is like the first sister date we've had in three years." I laughed at the twinkle in her eye. I was nothing like her at fourteen. I would've never said that to my older sister. I would've been excited she was even spending time with me. If I had an older sister anyway. "Is it me? Was it something I said? Does this shirt make me look—"
"Clare." She giggled, pouring some more ketchup over her remaining fries. In her other hand, she held the hot dog with a tight grip. "I'm just sayin', it's just kinda weird that you want to hang out with me because you have all this cool stuff goin' on."
I wanted to laugh again; I, indeed, had a lot of stuff going on, but it wasn't really 'cool.' "Well, truthfully, I won't be around much longer. I'll be graduating next semester, then off to grad school in New York. I don't wanna be one of those sibling pairs that never talk to each other and then, in their forties, they realize they've missed out on so many memories, so they embark on an across the world trip, in which they leave behind their families, and they—"
"You watch too many movies. You definitely need a life," she interrupted, rolling her eyes at me. "You'll see me on breaks, and you'll see me when I invite you to sit front row at the Olympics."
Sighing, I took another bite of my hot dog. Chewed. This was easy, going off on joking tangents. It was breaking through the anger, making me smile. I needed this. Chloe's innocence was refreshing. "Fine. So do you want to cut this short and wait until next Christmas break? Or can I finish my hot dog without judgment?"
She laughed. "You can finish the hot dog, but know that you're also being judged."
I rolled my eyes at her, a smile on my face.
We ate in silence for the next few minutes, her chewing and focusing on something behind me. I was slowly coming to terms with what Luca had done. You would think, after realizing he was a demon over and over and over again, it would be a little bit faster to process it.
"Are you still writing books about girls falling in love with boys you wish you could date?" she asked as she finished her hot dog.
"Jesus, Chloe." I didn't know where she got her mouth from. My mom was well-mannered and very careful with what she said; my father was goofy, but he was sweet and wouldn't speak a bad word. "Let me know how you really feel."
She waved my comment off. "I mean, seriously, Clare, all you do is pine over the perfect guy, but perfect guys don't exist!" she ranted, eyes narrowed. "They don't hold doors open for you or protect you from harm. They don't even want to take you on real dates anymore. They just wanna text all night!"
I put my hot dog down, eyeing her with curiosity. "One, who hurt you, C-lo?" I asked, surprised. She never mentioned guys. I assumed she was always too busy with gym and classwork to pay attention to guys. "And, two, at your age, boys still have cooties."
Her eye roll was extremely dramatic. "No one hurt me. I just find that guys my age are aggravating. I want an older man."
Older man? I pursed my lips together. "You're fourteen, anybody older than that is a pedophile."
Her sigh was hefty—it lifted her shoulders and dropped them down. "Seriously, Clare, you want to know what's going on with me? Fine." She leaned forward, giving me a serious look with her eyebrows pulled together over her dark eyes. She looked so comical with her young features and serious face. "All I do is practice, practice, practice, and then sometimes I go to the movies with my friends, and everybody else has a boyfriend but me. And you wanna know why?"
I opened my mouth to ask her why, but it didn't seem necessary because she plowed through her tirade without any encouragement to continue.
"Because all the boys in my class think I'm too serious." She sat back, tapping her foot agitatedly on the ground. Her fingers drummed against the wooden table. "They think I won't have time for a relationship because all I do is practice. It's not a lie, but I'm always free on Sundays after church.
"Seriously, all I want is a guy to sit there and cheer me on while I play," she finished, giving me another dramatic sigh. "Someone who's gonna hug me after and talk to me when I'm having a bad day and kiss me. You know, eventually have—"
I held my hand up. "Don't say 'sex.'" Ew. She was fourteen. Did she even go through puberty yet? Her chest was still flat. She didn't have hormones, or she shouldn't. I didn't want her to grow up this fast.
"Honestly, Clare, I'm going to be fifteen in two months."
Fifteen was still too young to be thinking about doing anything other than holding hands. "I was eighteen and out of the house when I had sex."
Chloe reached over slowly and placed a hand on mine. She regarded me with a pitying expression, very Mom adjacent. "I mean, we all know you were a little…. behind your classmates. I, on the other hand, and very much on par. Some would even say I'm ahead of the game."
I didn't bother to explain to her how sex wasn't everything it was cracked up to be, though. If I knew my sister, she would either do what she wanted anyway, or she would think too hard about it and decide to go to the gym was more important than boys anyway. Usual teen problems. "Okay, so do you have any prospects? Crushes?" I questioned, steering the conversation away from sex.
My heart couldn't take it anymore. My baby Chloe was really all grown up. I still remember when she used to yell, Cware! down the hall when she had two teeth and a funny walk.
She looked away from me, but a small smile tried to play across her lips. "Now why would I do something as silly as that?" she asked. "There's this one guy, actually, he's so cute—and quiet, too. His name is Holden. He plays baseball, and his sister is my teammate. Hannah.
"He's a sophomore, and I don't even think he even sees me that way since I'm just a freshman, but he's really sweet. After every meet, he brings Hannah a Powerade, and, like, the last five meets, he's brought one for me, too." She smiled dreamily. "His eyes are the perfect shade of green."
It sounded like young love. So simple. No demons, just Powerade after every gymnastics meet. Maybe I should've done a sport, and I wouldn't have fallen prey to a sin. "I think he sounds great, Chloe." I started cleaning up. We had to go soon if we were to make it in time for the snowballs and then her gym practice, which I was going to drop her off to. I wanted to see this Holden who had my baby sister smiling so preciously. Dropping my voice conspiratorially, I said, "In my personal experience, teenage guys don't buy you things like that if they don't at least think you're cute."
She grinned, and this time it put a twinkle in her eye. "Cool." That summed up Chloe in all her glory—my little sister was indeed cool. "So, how about you? How's tall, blonde and handsome?"
"Still tall, blonde, and handsome," I responded, standing up and grabbing the trash. She followed suit, grabbing the drinks we had barely touched. My stomach was full, my heart light, and my eyes heavy.
"Give me the details." She swung her arms next to me as we left the patio area and made our way down the street. The snowball place was just in sight, and the heat blazing the back of my neck was making it that much more appetizing. "What's he like?"
When he wasn't erasing my memory? "Perfect. Luca is perfect. He says the right things. He usually does exactly what I need." Of course, he could read minds, so that probably made it so much easier.
"Liiiikkkeeee?" She peered up at me. "C'mon, give me something, I'm trying to live my love life through you vicariously. What does he look like?"
She did not want my love life, but if I said that, she'd ask why. I had to pretend I wasn't angry with Luca so she wouldn't ask questions. I didn't have answers to her questions or a viable explanation for what was going on.
I opened my phone, pulling up a selfie we had taken at the zoo. "Here he is." The picture was adorable. It was everything I had always wanted in a relationship: a guy that understood me. Someone I could talk to about my stories and poetry. Someone who shared similar interests with me. Someone I could talk to about serious topics and then laugh right after. A smart guy who didn't mind spoiling me and treating me to nice things. I just didn't bargain for him being an actual demon (I had to keep thinking it incase he made me forget again and to remind myself). Maybe I should've been clearer with my intentions.
She squealed. "He is so sexy, Clare!" she damn near shrieked on the sidewalk. "Good God! Does have a little brother?"
I laughed, trying to tug my phone away from her grip, but she was still looking. "Not one your age."
She didn't look too upset. "Man, if I was eighteen…" She trailed off. "Be glad you're my sister, otherwise I would have to have him for my—"
"Clare!"
I recognized the voice like I was hearing myself. Luca.
Despite being pissed at him, my heart still raced. However, my stomach sank as his tone surprised me. It wasn't glee or excitement, but fear. Something dreadful hit me in the chest as I looked up and saw two things:
There was Luca, across the street, his hands out like he was trying to stop something in front of him. There was nothing but a sidewalk, though. The second thing was a man, rushing at me with a knife. He was going too fast, inhumanly fast.
No, no, not Chloe, I thought as my sister stopped behind me, an actual scream leaving her mouth. It chilled me to my bones. The man was only three feet away from us now.
Something in me snapped like a rubber band that had stretched tight. I tossed myself in front of Chloe. "No!" I yelled, not bothering to shield myself. Not my sister, please. I'm the one you want, I pleaded to Mother, wondering if she could hear me. If this was her attack.
The man raised the knife, bringing it down in arc toward me. Chloe yelled, wrapping her thin arms around me and trying to pull me back.
Then it stopped. It was like the knife hit a clear shield. It clattered to the ground, and the man looked from me to the knife, surprised. "Chloe, run," I said, detangling her from me.
She backed away slowly. "I won't leave you."
I eyed the man. He swatted at me, but his hand never reached me. He growled, sounding like a dragon and not a man. His nostrils flared. His jaw ticked. His eyes glowed red. Chloe whimpered. "Please go," I told her. This was a demon. A true to life demon, and it had almost got me in the middle of the street. I swallowed, my hands stretched on either side in case he lunged toward her. I would kill him if he hurt Chloe.
The man—the demon—took another swipe. This time, when he reached the invisible shield, he screamed. He threw his head back and roared, holding his hand as he crumpled to the ground. A second later, his hand caught fire, and he turned to ash. When I looked up, Luca was no longer across the street but in front of me.
There was something else that was bothering me, that I couldn't quite put my hands on as I looked around and everyone pretending they hadn't seen what had just happened.
"Please," I told him, and I didn't need to explain.
He nodded, looking past me toward Chloe. His eyebrows pulled together for a second, and when they relaxed, I heard Chloe gasp in excitement. "It's so nice to meet you, Luca!" she crowed.
Luca's answering smile was dazzling. "It's more a pleasure to meet you, Chloe. Clare has told me so much about you." His voice was smooth, her name a hug in his mouth.
No, seriously, everybody was going on about their business. In fact, they were in the same places they had been when it happened. Did time somehow freeze?
It wouldn't be the most outlandish thing to happen.
My question was answered, but not out loud. No, out loud, Luca said, "C'mon, I'll pay for the snowballs, and you can tell me embarrassing stories about Clare," in an effort to get my sister to like him. He didn't have to try hard. His blonde ponytail and the tailored suit were enough for her affections.
In my head, he said, It didn't freeze. My brother slowed it down.
Oh.
I'm still pissed at you, I thought.
He didn't respond back.