Page 4 of My Demon Charming

“Your ignition failed, you little shit.”

“But if you let me try one more?—”

“No. Get out. Get out of my face. Worthless piece of crap.”

Somehow, his words hurt more than his load still covering my face, and I turn around, pick up my backpack, collect whatever dignity I have off the floor, and run out of the room.

I make an attempt to pull down the attic ladder, but Mason opens his door, just as naked as his father, and leans against the frame with a nasty grin plastered across his face.

“Hey, little bro. Where do you think you’re going?”

“Fuck off, Mason!” I shout.

My stepbrother’s expression changes. His eyes narrow, and he all but hisses at me.

“Come here now!”

The compulsion in my blood, in my very soul, tightens its hold on me, and even though I want to escape, to climb the stairs to my room and die, I follow my feet into Mason’s bedroom and suffer the same fate at his hands as I did in his father’s. He forces himself on me, cuts my other palm, drinks my blood, and adds his load to my face and T-shirt before shoving me out of his room and leaving me crying in the middle of the floor.

“You should have been on time.” Michelle appears from the bathroom door, rubbing cream all over her face, acting like this is normal. I guess to the Taylors, this is normal. “If you’d been on time, they wouldn’t have been so pissed.”

I glare at her. I hate her. I hate them all. I hate everything they’re doing to me and everything they did to my mom. Everything we’ve endured under their rule.

Fuck you, Michelle!

That’s what I want to say. That’s what jitters behind my teeth, but I don’t let it out. There’s no point. I will only pay more if I do.

Instead of acknowledging her further, I pull down the ladder and escape into the attic. My room. The first stop is the bathroom. I jump into the cold shower—it’s always cold showers for me—and rub the sin off my face and body. If only I could do the same with my soul.

So much for having a good day. So much for being accepted into Lockwood. I’m trapped. I’m trapped forever and ever until the day I die, just like my mother. And nothing and no one can save me.

I climb into bed just as vulnerable as I am naked and hug the spider plushie under the covers. It’s the only thing I have of hers that’s not been tainted by the Taylors. The only thing that reminds me of her and not of the bad times.

“Oh, Goemi. Why is this our life?”

Naturally, my spider plushie doesn’t answer, not that I expect it to. But it’s fine. I’m used to talking to myself. It’s not like I’ve had anyone else to talk to all these years.

No one but Jace. And even with him, I only talk aloud the few times he drops by the store and we mumble with our backs turned on each other like we’re spies in fear of getting caught. We rarely get to talk on the phone either. If they ever saw me on the phone, they’d take it and punish me. And maybe punish Jace. So, text messages it is. In secret. Always.

And even that, who knows when they’ll discover and yank it from me anyway.

I get up and unearth the cell from the secret pocket I’ve sewn into the backpack before falling back into bed.

There’s one message.

Jace:

Oh my Goddess, Yu-jin. It’s here. The kit is here!

1 Nightcrawler - In the Cursed Hearts universe all paranormal creatures aside from witches are called Nightcrawlers.

CHAPTER TWO

"I WANT YOU TO FREE ME."

The wind whistles an eerie breeze through the window as if it knows what’s about to happen.

I use the night’s chill as my motivator. To push me forward. To go through with it. I’ve been dreaming of this day for so long. So fucking long. My heart pounds in anticipation.

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