Page 91 of Keep Your Guard Up
“Spawn of Satan?”
“The Queen of Crazytown has deemed this place her home until Chance decides”—for those counting, this is the fourth yawn in less than five minutes—“to go back home with her. Chance and I have been scheming hardcore. It’s takes it out of a man.”
“Would’ve thought you’d always be in for a bitta scheming.”
“At the appropriate hours of the day,” he grumbled, shooting me another pointed look. “You better head off, Lynnie. I’ll bring him over to your place tonight. Trust me when I say you don’t want to be here when that fuckingthingcrawls out of her coffin.”
I looked towards Chance’s door, with the bedroom behind it that he hadn’t been sleeping in, and back to the front door. It would be so easy to go, tell JJ to let Chance know I stopped by. I could leave, right now, go home to a quiet, peaceful, safe house.
Chance didn’t seem to have any of that anymore.So I pulled out one of the rickety, old yellow chairs from JJ’s dining table and sat down. “I’d like to see what happens when a vampire comes out during the daylight.”
~
Talia was up and out of Chance’s room no later than an hour later. Face caked in makeup, hair pinned back, and those stupid fucking stilettos on that made an obnoxiously high-pitched noise when she walked.
As soon as she rounded the corner into the kitchen, I folded my arms over my chest. Yes, to look as intimidating as possible. But also, to help hide Chance’s book up my shirt.
Her ice-blue eyes were piercing, but mine had to be molten lava. She’d have to try a lot harder to intimidate me than a levelling look from her behemoth ass. She was half a foot taller than me, even more so with those ridiculously impractical stilettoes that had a click to them so obnoxious I wanted to set the damn things on fire. But she could be two metres taller than me and it still wouldn’t have stopped me from looking down my nose at her.
Fucking scum of the earth.
“I know exactlywhoandwhatyou are, bitch,” I hissed. “He’s already copped enough of your Satan-in-human-form bullshit. Stay the hell away from him.”
“Or what? Hm? What’re you gonna do,fighterwhore?” she spat.
It took everything inside me not to laugh and point out the creases around her lips from a life living in frown. I justknewit would drive her insane.
I stepped in closer, taking the space as mine. A clatter in the background sounded and JJ was at my side in an instant. Her time of control of the people around me was over. Done. Finished. I lifted my right palm, enclosed in a fist, and smiled. JJ once told me I reminded him of a lioness, and I let it show. I showed the threat, the promise of an ending on my terms. Because no one—no one—could hurt the ones I love and live ontheirterms.
“I’ll show you what real pain looks like,” I purred, grinning wickedly. “And trust me, Lucifer himself would be proud of what I would do to you.”
~
“We need you here 24/7. I can’t believe she just … left!” JJ gushed, eating his nearly burnt-to-a-crisp bagel that was layered with Vegemite half an inch thick. “I mean, I know it’s not permanent, but still! A temporary exorcism is better than the demon still wasting my good coffee beans!”
“It’s amazing what shitty people like that do when someone will actually hit them back,” I scoffed.
Fucking pathetic, she is.
“So, you read the book then?” JJ asked tentatively.
“Why else would I be here?”
“I’m assuming you being here means you made the right choice?”
“What ‘choice’?” I asked, puzzled.
“The right one.” He sighed, not meeting my eyes. “You believe him?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” I could have sworn JJ’s shoulders sagged in relief.
Chapter 52
Mari
Chance had taken JJ’s truck with him, so I walked the six kilometres across town to the only other person who I knew could help me.
“Mari!” Al beamed when he opened his bright red front door. He made an effort to repaint it every year, keep the colour fresh and ‘iconic to the house’ as he said it.
