Page 30 of The Demons We Hide

My body is whole. My limbs are unbroken. My skin is unharmed. Yet… something inside me feels so incredibly wrong.

As if my skin is too tight, like my face is drawn over the wrong set of bones. My muscles scream in defiance as I try to shift on the bed. It’s not my bed, but one of the guest beds in my parents’ home. How did I end up here?

That strange sensation of stickiness all over won’t go away, not even when I rub my palms up and down my arms and legs and stomach.

What is it? Why is it there? Why? Why? Why!

I turn my cheek as a shadow appears in my periphery. A body lies there, stretched out on the bed next to me. A masculine arm drawn up over a pillow. His face is turned away, hidden from view.

I start to shake. There’s gray in the stubble on the part of his jaw that I can see. This isn’t Bran. This isn’t my boyfriend. This isn’t…

Real.

This isn’t real, I tell myself.

None of this is real.

“Juliet!” The near guttural growl of Roquel’s voice jerks me out of the last haziness of sleep and the nightmare. “Did you hear me?” I sit up as her head pokes around the door of her closet. “I said we’re gonna be late. Hurry up!”

I swallow around a dry throat and bob my head. Even though I feel like a puppet whose strings have been cut, I somehow manage to leverage myself out of bed and stumble over to the collection of shit I’ve accumulated since I got here. Digging around as she comes out of her closet, hopping on one foot to get herself into a pair of ripped jeans, I find a loose pair of sweats and a black t-shirt.

Once, I’d treated going to school like prepping for New York Fashion week. Uniforms couldn’t be changed, but they could be accessorized. Now, as long as I’m not naked, I don’t really give a fuck. All of my intentions for getting back at the Scorpion Kings for fucking me over have dwindled in the days away from them. Everything is too much. It requires far too many fucks to give when I don’t have enough to go around.

I quickly change as Roquel dives back into her closet for a skin-tight tank top that I just know one of the teachers is going to call her out for breaking dress code. She never seems to care—and surprisingly, she never seems to make it to Principal Long’s office. Maybe the male teachers like looking at her more than they care about propriety.

“Bag,” she shouts, running out into the hall, keys jingling from her grip.

I roll my eyes but snatch up both of our bags on the way out. Roquel has the car running by the time I get outside, twisting the bottom lock on her front door to lock it behind me as I march down the sagging front steps of the duplex. Popping the passenger door, I get in and drop our bags to the floor just as she’s finishing up one winged eye.

Despite the time on the dash, she takes care to do the second one before dropping her eyeliner pencil into the console and backing out. “I can’t believe we overslept,” she mutters, casting me a scowl. “Why didn’t you wake me?”

I blink back at her. “Probably because I overslept too,” I point out. Not that she seems to notice as she launches into an annoyed rant about how most teenagers require more sleep than adults and it’s just plain torture to expect us to be up at the ass crack of dawn when our brains aren’t fully developed or awake enough to learn. I shut my mouth and lean back, letting her voice lull me back into a semi-asleep state as she drives.

When the rattling Camry comes to a halt and I peek my eyes open to see the wash of early morning and the student parking lot through the windshield, I sigh in relief and reach for my belt. Only to realize that Roquel is quiet. I glance over and immediately stiffen.

“What’s wrong?”

Roquel sits in the driver’s seat, her face twisted in a grimace. Slowly, she turns to face me and sucks in a breath. “I…” She starts to talk only to pause and shake her head. Her eyebrows draw together, two black slants on pale skin, and she reaches up to shove an unruly lock of choppy hair back over her ear.

“I wanted to wake up early to talk to you,” she finally says. “But I…” She waves in an absent gesture. “You know.”

Frowning, I nod. “Yeah, what did you want to talk about?” I glance away from her to the groups and couplings of students passing the car as they make their way to the entrance to the school. Even if we made it on time, we’re far later than usual, and if she doesn’t spit out whatever it is, we actually will be tardy.

“My parents are coming back on Friday,” she blurts.

I swivel in my seat. “Your parents?”

She nods, biting down on her lower lip before releasing it just as quickly. “They don’t know that you’ve been staying at the house,” she admits. “I’m not sure if they’ll be okay with you staying if I tell them.”

It’s not what she says that stabs a deep wound into my chest, but it’s what shedoesn’tsay. Her parents are like everyone else in Silverwood—which means they’re not a fan of Donovans.

I swallow, feeling a tightness constrict my throat. “I-I can try to talk to them, of course,” she hurries to say, “but just in case, I wanted to give you time to … you know … maybe … find another place?” Sympathy drips from both her tone and her gaze.

Thereisnowhere else. Instead of reminding her of that fact, I adopt a brief smile. “It’s fine,” I tell her. “Friday is a few days away. I’m sure I’ll have a place to stay by then, and with all the extra shifts I’ve picked up at the Lounge, I’m sure I can have a decent deposit to put down.”

Roquel blows out a breath tinged with what I assume is relief and her brow eases. “Oh, good,” she says. “Yeah, okay.” Distantly the sound of the warning bell for first period rings and she curses, shutting off the car. “Fuck, we gotta hurry.”

I grab our bags and toss hers to her as we exit the car and make our way towards the building, splitting with a wave as she heads to her locker and I … just stand there. People pour around me, jostling me as students hurry for first period, bags slung over shoulders, cheap sneakers squeaking on the tiled floor of the main hall. My head feels heavy on my shoulders.

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