Page 29 of Starry with a Chance of Nightshade

She sighed. “It’s a case of beat them or join them, Astria. Just do it and they’ll stop pushing.”

“Gather around Jessica,” said Krissy, motioning everyone to do as she said.

They did.

ChapterTen

Astria

I remained seated,my mind racing with everything I knew to be true about the supernatural world. Telling them would mean not only exposing myself and my past but revealing the truth about a world many would kill to keep hidden. Maybe I was just overreacting. Maybe everything would be just fine.

Torid whimpered.

I locked gazes with him, wondering if he sensed anything was off. He had a built-in demon-detector of sorts. His radar went off faster than mine did whenever the supernatural was involved.

Krissy frowned. “We need you, Astria. Mina isn’t here yet.”

I shook my head. “Something is wrong. You have to stop.”

“She’s afraid,” mouthed Emily.

“Astria, please,” said Krissy. “It’s our last weekend together.”

I made a move toward the circle, my intent to physically stop them from going forward. My danger-radar was on high alert and Torid’s obvious agitation told me it wasn’t in my head. I was right. Something was very wrong.

Torid put himself in my path, barking wildly. His attention slid toward the kitchen door. He went low and began to growl as he tried to back me away from the circle.

“Torid, stop,” I said.

Spittle dripped from his mouth as he began barking at the kitchen doorway.

Nothing was there that I could see.

“Torid, what is it?” I asked.

“Can you put him outside or something?” pleaded Emily. “Jessica is trying to play dead, and he’s interrupting the flow.”

“The call…it was a warning,” I said.

Emily laughed. “Yes. To hurry it up before some demon that isn’t real comes to snatch our souls from our cold, dead bodies.”

I locked gazes with her. “They don’t need your body to be cold. They can take it with ease while you’re still warm and blood is spurting from you.”

Colleen snorted. “Girl, you are totally twisted. I love it. Now, get your skinny ass in here and let’s get to lifting Jessica.”

Jessica cast me an apologetic look and remained on the floor on her back. She didn’t seem too thrilled to be the sacrificial test dummy to their scheme. I couldn’t blame her. She glanced at the candles and squinted. “Hey, do the candles have pentagrams marked on them? What is the other symbol on them?”

My blood went icy cold.

Colleen grinned. “How much do you weigh, Jessica? I’m pretty sure we can lift you easy enough.”

Krissy scowled. “That’s not the point.”

Her voice was hard to hear over Torid, who was still going batshit crazy over the kitchen for some reason.

“What is it?” I asked, no longer caring if they thought I was nuts for conversing with him.

His head whipped around. His eyes, which looked like a normal dog’s eyes until he was getting ready to change shapes into his natural form, filled with bright yellow as his growl increased.Danger! R-ruun!

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