I scowled at the words, finally said aloud. I glanced over to where my cat had been batting a hair elastic. He was now sitting in the middle of my floor, staring at me, as if to say, “Told you so.”
It was true: I liked pen-stealing, demonslaying Logan Bradley. But once the last demon was gone, so was he. He’d said so himself. Still, I couldn’t help but mull over his shy smiles and the intense way he held my gaze while I absentmindedly sketched.
“Paige, stop it,” I said aloud, before blowing some charcoal off my hand. “You have to stop reading into every time he touches you. Or every time he says something sweet.”
I looked down at my sketch book and frowned at the illustration of slightly arched brows peering out from underneath a baseball cap.
“And you definitely need to stop sketching Logan Bradley.”
Chapter 6
“YOU’RE SEEING LOGAN today? So soon?”
My mom did her best to keep her face impassive, but her voice shot up so high I’m pretty sure I heard a dog howling his reply in the distance. My mom and I were sitting around the small table in the corner of the living room on Sunday, talking about my alleged trip to the Museum of Natural History—and my upbeat chatter had put my mom in a pretty good mood. I really hoped that my announcement didn’t change that.
“Yeah. I mean, if that’s okay,” I added hastily, taking a quick look at my father’s empty chair as if he would materialize just to tell me no. Only my father would learn how to bend the rules of time and space just to stop me from seeing a boy.
“Of course it’s okay. It’s just a little...unexpected, that’s all,” she added, carefully picking her words. “I mean, we never heard of this boy until Friday, and now you’ll have spent all weekend with him.”
“Mom, we’re just hanging out,” I said, slathering the uneaten half of my bagel with a thick layer of cream cheese.
“I didn’t imply that you were running off to Vegas and getting matching tattoos,” Mom said with a smirk.
“You caught me!” I pretended to be surprised. “That’s totally what we’re doing. Face tat for me, tramp stamp for Logan.”
We both broke into full-on giggle fits, until my mom wiped her mouth with her blue napkin before tossing it on the table. She arched her eyebrow and gave me her practiced stare.
“We’re just friends,” I insisted, squirming underneath her intense look.
“Just friends, huh? It always starts that way.” My mom gave me a knowing smile and picked up her bagel again. I realized that the last time we had had a normal mother-daughter conversation was before I was hit by the car. Since then, all conversations had the cloud of my assumed mental illness hanging over them. And I do mean all conversations—even the sporadic ones about the opposite sex.
I’d missed our talks. My mom and I used to have an easy relationship. She had always been less quick to judge than my father. And I wanted to talk to her about Logan—I figured I could stay as close to the truth as possible as long as I kept all things demonic out of the conversation.
“You never heard of him before because he’s new this year,” I explained. “He transferred in and we only started hanging out outside of school this week. He kind of keeps to himself.”
“Oh, where’s he from?”
“All over. Chicago, Texas. He lives with his uncle. He’s, um—” I fumbled for the words and leaned down to scratch Mercer’s head as he pawed at my thigh, begging for some cream cheese. What should I say Rego does? Saying “warlock” wouldn’t exactly put a check mark in the Paige Isn’t Crazy column.
“He’s what, sweetie?” Mom prompted me.
“He does something with the army.” The warlock army. “Anyway, they move around a lot.”
“That can’t be easy on Logan.”
“I got the impression his life was kind of...isolating.” I frowned. I couldn’t imagine Rego had been the type to tuck little Logan into bed at night.
“Well, how long is Logan here until?”
Good question. One that had kept me up for a few hours last night.
“He’s probably leaving before the school year’s out.”
“Does he know about—” my mom paused, clearly searching for the words that I could have predicted she’d say “—how you’ve struggled in the past?”
I sighed, crestfallen. I had so desperately wanted my mom to talk to me like I was normal.
“You’re doing great, sweetie,” my mom rushed to say, reaching forward to place her hand over mine. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I was just wond—”
“He knows,” I blurted out quickly. “And he doesn’t care.”
I ripped off a big bite of bagel with my teeth, because I apparently eat like a bear when I’m sulking.
“Well, that’s great. We all deserve someone we can be ourselves around. He seemed nice—in the brief moment I met him, at least,” Mom said sincerely. “I mean, I don’t think he’s killed anyone.”
My mom’s comment promptly caused me to choke on the wad of my bagel in my mouth, my eyes tearing as she patted me on the back. She had no idea how wrong she was—and how acutely she reminded me of the fact that Logan was a demonslayer, here to do a job and kill the demons that wanted to kidnap me. My questionable feelings for him were insignificant compared to that.
“He’s going to leave,” was running through my head on a loop an hour later as I climbed the stairs to the roof. The door was already propped open.
Logan stood in the center of the rooftop, now damp from melted snow. He wore a pale gray button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and had his back to me, his sword merely a blur as he showed off his considerable skills. Yep, he’d definitely been taking it easy on me yesterday. He was agile and swift, but strong—his sword slicing through the air with an audible whistling sound. When Logan heard the door open, he whirled around. He wasn’t wearing his baseball cap for once, and the day was bright, almost warm, so his face was bathed in a soft glow from the winter sun. Logan’s normally shaded eyes looked a much lighter brown in the sun, and they crinkled up at the corners as he gave me an easy smile.
Are you deliberately screwing with me, sun? What’s next? Is his smile going to sparkle as a bell-like “ding” chimes in the distance? Is a butterfly going to land on his shoulder? Give the boy a white horse and it’s a wrap for poor Paige’s heart.
Not falling for Logan Bradley was going to be more challenging than I thought.
“Hey,” I called in my best impression of “casual,” but my voice just sounded slightly high-pitched and incredibly awkward.
“Hey, yourself,” he replied, falling into step next to me as I walked over to the picnic table, dumping my coat next to his.
“So how was the party?” I asked, then hastily added, “I mean, is, um, Della dead?”
Logan scowled, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out his baseball cap. He rolled the brim between his palms before setting it on his head.
“No, she didn’t show up. But from what people were saying, she’s latched on to her victim.”
I leaned against the table as he spoke, thinking of the lusty way Della had leered at Matt on Friday.
“Already? Wow, she moves fast.”
“That girl Parmesan or whatever was crying in the bathroom about it.”
“It’s Pepper, actually,” I corrected him, stifling a grin at his version of her nickname. “Did Matt dump her for Della?”
He nodded, sighing heavily as he also leaned against the table, which creaked under his weight. “If she’s got her hooks into him, it’s only a matter of time before Dottie gets another friend in the Dark World. After all, Della’s the female version of the same demon that effectively killed your friend.”