I opened my eyes to see Logan’s puzzled expression soften.
“But you didn’t want me touching you. You don’t feel that way about me....” Logan’s voice trailed off as he studied me. I bit my lip and stared at the folded-up paper in my hands when I heard him inhale sharply.
“Do you?” He curled his hand around my arm when I didn’t answer. His voice was soft, layered with some emotion that I couldn’t quite identify and desperately hoped wasn’t pity. I steeled myself to look at him—to face the rejection I’d undoubtedly see in his eyes.
“Paige! Oh, my goodness, there you are, Paige!” Dottie exclaimed, bursting into the classroom. Her hand was linked with Travis’s, and she dragged him behind her as she hurried into the classroom, her uniform skirt swishing around her knees while her hair, of course, remained perfectly immobile. Both Logan and I jumped at the intrusion, and he dropped his hand from my arm.
“You’re bleeding! What happened? Why aren’t you standing?” she asked, lines of worry cutting into her forehead. “Why isn’t she standing?” she demanded, directing her bossy question at Logan, who was now on his feet next to me. “I’m Dottie, by the way.”
“I know,” Logan said with an entertained smile. “Nice to officially meet the famous Dottie.”
Dottie became flustered, smoothing her perfect hair as she beamed at Logan, and Travis scowled at her, dropping her hand to cross his arms. Just how friendly had Dottie and Travis gotten in the past couple of days?
“Paige will be all right. We have stuff that can heal her. She just needs to rest for a minute,” Logan explained, adding a halfhearted wave. “I’m Logan, by the way.”
“I know,” Dottie replied, sizing him up through her curled lashes.
“What happened in here?” Travis asked, taking a few steps around the classroom.
“Just your usual, boring, everyday demon fight,” I offered weakly as Travis strolled over to the shredded blackboard. He clasped his hands behind his back as he studied the violent, jagged slices in the slate—which would have been me, had Logan not saved me. Again.
“Wow, the school’s insurance agent must friggin’ hate you,” he said with a low whistle as he attempted to kick a few crumbled shards with his toe. Travis frowned when his foot passed through the debris.
“I’m never going to get used to that.” He grimaced.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, and Travis gave me a resigned shrug in reply.
“Listen, we have to tell you what we saw,” Dottie said, sitting down cross-legged in front of me.
“So, we were in the library, and we heard this commotion outside. There was this big gray monster with wings.” She spread her arms to mimic Aiden’s wingspan and flapped them a few times. “It had this girl under its arm—but it didn’t look like he was hurting her. It looked like he was helping her walk.”
“Aiden and Della! You saw them!” I slapped my palms against the floor in disbelief. “Did they see you?”
“No, they had their backs to us. We hid against the wall inside the library,” Travis explained, sinking down to join us on the floor.
“Anyway, they both sounded like hell, but the girl was worse. She was coughing up all this red smoke—weird, right?” Dottie shuddered at the memory. “And she was crying and the guy was getting angry with her. He told her that he’d promised to take her to a healer so she’d better, and I quote, ‘Stop crying about getting stabbed in the stomach already, it’s annoying me.’ Then he complained about going through the portal and how he’d have left her there if he could have gone through alone. So the girl started saying she couldn’t wait to tell everyone about the Traveler—you, I assume?” Dottie pointed a perfect pink oval nail at me, and I flinched at the term, nodding my head. “Anyway, she said the Queen would be so thrilled, that she’d be sure to get an army here immediately to get you.”
I turned to Logan, terrified.
“It’s as bad as you thought,” I whispered, and Logan hesitantly reached his hand out to comfort me.
“Wait. But then the monster—Aiden, right?—said, ‘We’re not telling the Queen anything yet,’” Dottie continued.
“What?” Logan’s head snapped to face Dottie, dropping his outstretched hand as he leaned forward on his palms. “That doesn’t make any sense,” he muttered, shaking his head in disbelief.
“Well, the girl agreed with you, because she said the same thing,” Dottie explained. “And Aiden said that, well....”
“What?” Logan prodded her, and Dottie took a deep breath, visibly steeling herself to continue.
“Aiden said, ‘I want to see the grateful look on the Queen’s face when I drag the bodies of the demonslayer and his little bitch into her throne room.’” Dottie mouthed the curse word in an effort to take the sting out of it. My poor, sweet old-fashioned friend. As if calling me a bitch was the worst part of that statement.
Travis jumped in to continue the story. “But then the girl started saying that they had to tell the Queen, that you were too valuable a weapon to leave here.” I flinched at his words; I was considered a weapon, a thing to be used.
“And Aiden told her to shut it, and then he went on this whole dramatic rant about how he’s going to prove himself, and he’ll reap all the glory of bringing you both in and finally be considered worthy—whatever that means,” Travis said, adding, “He sounded like a whiny little bitch, if you ask me.”
“Della said she was going to tell the Queen, and he couldn’t stop her,” Dottie said, picking up where Travis left off. “Aiden told her, ‘I can’t let you do that.’ And then we heard this loud cry—” Dottie shrieked, mimicking what she’d heard, and Logan and I cringed at her earsplitting screech “—and then a thump on the floor.”
My theatrical friend pounded her fist on the floor to re-create the sound.
“After we were sure he was gone, we left the library and saw Della on the ground in the hallway,” Travis continued. “There was all this red smoke pouring out of her. It was nasty.”
“She started to disintegrate. She actually turned into smoke!” Dottie added with an amazed whisper, spreading her hands and wiggling her fingers to imitate the creeping spread of the crimson smoke.
“Why didn’t she explode?” I asked Logan.
“That’s only fire demons. Every kind of demon bleeds and dies differently,” Logan explained before shaking his head in disbelief. “He killed her. I can’t believe he killed her.”
“That’s a good thing, right?” I asked.
“It’s a surprising thing.” Logan looked lost in thought.
“Well, he’s a demon. You can’t be surprised that he’s a murderer with zero loyalty,” I reasoned, and Logan pursed his lips.
“That’s not always the case,” he said, quickly rising to his feet. I cringed, remembering Logan’s demonic buddy Ajax a moment too late.
“Paige, I’ll get your stuff out of your locker and then we’ll go.” I looked up to see Logan standing in front of me. “Are you feeling strong enough? We’ll go to my apartment and see what Rego knows.”
“I’m fine,” I replied automatically, nodding my head.
Once Logan was out of the classroom, Dottie’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper.
“What is going on with you two?” Dottie asked, propping her chin on the heel of her hand as she rested her elbow on her bent knee. All she needed was the telephone cord from a rotary phone coiled around her finger, and she’d be a poster child for the fifties teen.