Page 96 of Death is My BFF

“Oh, no you don’t,” my dad said, blocking my path. He placed his hands on his hips, attempting anI’m the man of this householdstance. Instead, he ended up looking like he was striking a Superman pose. “Lisa, your daughter is home three hours past her curfew, on a school night. She’s clearly hiding something. Aren’t you the least bit concerned?”

“Honey, Faith’s eighteen,” Mom said, rubbing his arm with an oven mitt. “She has to leave the nest, let her soar.”

“Iamletting her soar,” Dad said stubbornly, as if they’d had this conversation plenty of times before. “Toward herdreamsand her career goals. What I won’t let her do is soar into the arms of some celebrity full-grown man who can’t keep it in his pants—”

“Henry,”Mom fumed, as I wordlessly shook my head in mortification. “Your daughter is mature for her age and responsible. David is nineteen. He’s only one year older than her.”

Give or take hundreds of years.

“That one-year age gap in boy time is equivalent to a lifetime of messing around with girls and figuring out how to con them,”

Dad said. “Trust me, Faith. Thirty years ago, I was his age, and in a college fraternity. This guy is a class act Casanova. He thinks with hisyou-know-what.”

Mom smacked Dad with her oven mitt.

“What? Am I wrong? Anyway, Faith knows she isn’t allowed to date until she’s married.” In spite of his anger, Dad still managed to throw in that stale joke he’d used a thousand times before.

“Dad, seriously, I wasn’t with David.” I thought for sure I was going to have a mental breakdown at any second. “I hung out with

Marcy at Manuel’s. We parted ways at around four and I sailed off to study. Had to stay longer than I thought . . . at the library.”

“The library, huh?” Dad crossed his arms over his chest. “I see.

And where’s your backpack?”

I looked down at my small purse, realizing I’d either left my backpack in the car, or worse, abandoned it on Main Street to escape demons.

“Please, it’s the twenty-first century. I studied on their online library. We don’t read off stone tablets and tell time off of a stick in the sand anymore.”

Mom gasped theatrically and pointed at Dad. “Burn!”

“Did you see that David punk or not?” Dad demanded, full-on scowling now. “I’m telling you, that boy is trouble. I can see it in his cocky smirk. Boys only want one thing, Faith.”

“It’s true,” Mom agreed. She cupped her hand over the side of her mouth and thumbed toward Dad. “And it never changes . . . ”

“Ew, ew, no. Guys,please!” I took a deep breath, splitting my attention between my parents. “For the last time, I was not with David. I grabbed food with Marcy and drove to the library to study!

My phone died, and I lost track of time! I love you both and will you please let me go study?”

I maneuvered around my parents and hurried to my room.

My parents must’ve been shocked by my outburst, but I needed to be alone and fast, before I shattered into little pieces again.

Once in the privacy of my bedroom, I dropped my purse and double-checked my windows to make sure they were locked. I plugged my charger in with a trembling hand. The cracked screen lit up and a text from my Aunt Sarah popped up.

How’s that Encyclopedia of Vampires book I gave you? Was it love at first BITE? Laugh out loud! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Not in the right frame of mind to text her back, I set the phone back down, planning on replying later. Skittles strutted out from under my bed, rubbing against my shins and purring. I picked her up and gave her a quick kiss, then set her back on the floor. She gazed up at me with her big blue doe eyes.

“I’m okay, baby.”

Deciding I needed to think this all over with a relaxing bath, I peeled off my clothes and headed to the bathroom. The shallow water was a little too hot as I lowered myself into it.

I tried to make sense of it all. Thomas’s face would be all over town and maybe even on the news. And then there was Marcy. Marcy would be devastated . . .

The warlock, Ace, had told me Thomas would survive. He’d also proclaimed that horrifying fate for me, how I was given the Kiss of Death and shared a part of that monster’s soul. He said I washer, and whoeverherwas, she had a prophesized power that everyone expected from me.

And David Star . . . Death. I’d watched that vivid memory through the warlock, seen a truth unravel itself. Visually, David Star looked almost exactly like Alexandru, Death’s past self. Was David Star truly just a character that Death had created to fool the whole world? To fool me?

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