This was going to be so much fun. They were going to rue the day they let me go. I was dying to harass Sierra. That bitch deserved it the most, and I couldn’t wait to sink my claws into her.
It was probably totally wrong that I was enjoying myself and plotting ways to make their lives miserable, but there really wasn’t a whole lot of entertainment in good ole Spring Valley. I planned to make my time here count, leave my stamp on the place, because I knew this was only a temporary assignment. Eventually, I would be sent somewhere else to clean house.
Since Travis had dropped me off, I stuffed all thoughts of him in a deep, dark corner of my brain. He was a distraction I couldn’t afford, and the feelings that he was dredging up were dangerous.
Over the next few weeks, Angel and I had numerous run-ins during and after school. It had become the highlight of my day, ruffling her feathers. I realized that if I wanted Chase’s head on a platter, I needed to get to him through Angel. Tormenting her in the process was just an added bonus.
I yanked on a strand of Angel’s long hair, hoping to get a rise out of her during math. Getting under her bitten nails was more fun than pre-calc. Her only reaction was to pull her hair to the front, over her shoulder.
I snickered.
Taking the end of my pen, I poked her in the back. And again.
She spun around, eyes like blue flickering flames. “Stop it,” she hissed.
A few people turned our way. I smirked and shrugged. “Just want you to know that I’m watching you,” I whispered.
“Like I could forget.”
Lexi frowned at us from the next aisle over, and Angel rolled her eyes in return.
I leaned forward on the desk. “You know I heard that if you do that enough, your eyes go cross-eyed.”
“Bullshit,” Lexi said, covering the word in a cough.
I couldn’t help myself. My lips twitched in what might have been misconstrued as a small grin. I had to bite back my smartass retort. We had caught the attention of our pea-brain instructor.
“Ladies,” Mr. Davis scolded. His bushy mustache jiggled as he spoke. “Is there a problem?”
Was there ever! We were sitting in a class with a demon offspring, a demon hybrid-thing-a-ma-jig, and a demon hunter. Yeah, we had big problems. “No, Mr. Davis. Lexi and Angel were just offering to help me catch up on the assignments,” I replied in a sugary sweet voice.
Angel choked.
Lexi snorted like a lady.
And I smiled.
Chapter 11
Travis caught me off guard. All day, the skies had poured in anger. Lightning and thunder raging against each the other in a war as old as time. Winds screamed, fighting with the trees and anything that got in their path.
Locked away in my bedroom, I sat by the window, listening to the rain pelt the glass. I laid my forehead against the cold pane and watched as my breath fogged the glass. Mom and Abigail were at the dance studio in town, and I was alone. I hugged my knees to my chest, and for the first time in a long time I felt the urge to dance—in the rain nonetheless. The feeling snuck up on me. Before I wouldn’t have thought twice about dancing with the music of Mother Nature, but now, I just sat there tracing the dripping raindrops.
I released a huge sigh when a movement in the trees edging my property caught my eye. No longer was I alone. Another flash of blue and I was positive who it was.
Travis.
He stepped forward, eyes connecting with mine through the stormy fog. Blond hair, dark and wet, was pasted to his face, but it was the sea-green eyes and the damp long eyelashes that tugged at something inside me. He looked like a lost and drowned puppy, without a soul in the world to care for him. That was just the kind of person the old Emma would have gravitated to, eager to take in the stray.
But now…I closed my eyes and took one long controlled breath.
It didn’t help.
Just fan-freaking-tastic.
I bolted from the window and ran for the stairs, jumping the last few steps. When I reached the door, I threw it open. “What are you doing here? Have you lost your mind?” And I thought I was a total head case.
He was leaning on the doorframe, soaked to the bone, and still managed to look smokin’ hot. “I needed to see you.”
I stood there staring at him as if he had lost his mind. Coming to a house of hunters? Was he crazy?
I stepped onto the porch, closing the door behind me. Our bodies brushed, and a shiver ran over me. It was most definitely not from the rain. All around us sheets of water poured like buckets. After a quick scan of the yard I grabbed Travis’s hand, hauling him around the house. My mom would kill me if her floors got wet, and I couldn’t risk anyone seeing us together.
We shouldn’t be together.
I should have told him to go, right then and there.