Page 81 of Demon Kissed
“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” I snap before I can reel in the words. But at this point, I’m not sure if I even want to. A twisted part of me wants to flay my parents open the same way they do to me, slashing at them until the brittle bone underneath is revealed. “I have donenothingwrong. I never do anything wrong. I’m the perfect, obedient daughter, and you know what? I’m sick of it!”
“You watch your mouth—” Mom begins, color erupting on her cheeks, but I cut her off before she can continue her tirade.
“No! I’m sick of the way you treat me and Adam. I’m sick of you showing up at random times and all of a sudden deciding you want to be parents! I’m sick of you pretending that you care, when all the evidence suggests that you don’t. You want to know how often you’re actually here? I’ve kept track. I’ve got calendars for the past three years. You only sleep in this house around one hundred and fifty days a year. You’re gone the rest of the damn time. You’ve never been to a single one of my tournaments, and you missed Adam’s Christmas pageant, even though I reminded you twice. If I didn’t do the grocery shopping, then Adam and I would have nothing to eat! You can’t just walk in here and demand things, when I know you won’t even be here to see it through. And there’s no way I’m leaving Adam and going to boarding school. You two would let him starve!” I’m panting heavily by the time I finish my improvised speech, but it’s worth it to see the rage emanating from my parents’ eyes.
“You really think you’re something special, don’t you?” Dad scoffs, and over his shoulder, I notice Kastros lurking in the shadows. He seems particularly massive this morning, his muscles flexing as he hurls daggers with his eyes at my oblivious parents. “But you, Katrina, are nothing but amistake. You act like you’re so goddamn smart, but I’ve seen your grades. Nothing but Bs and even the occasional C. Isn’t it kind of sad that decathlon is the one thing you’re good at, yet you’re not even the best on the team? Doesn’t that say something about you,my darling daughter?” He turns to Mom and adds, “I told you at the hospital, I thought the nurses switched her. Proof?” He jabs a finger at me. “No true child of mine would be like this.”
With each word he says, with each dagger he plunges into my heart, he takes another step forward until he’s hovering over me. I see Kastros tense, preparing to lunge forward, but I warn him with my eyes that I’ll be okay. They’re just words, after all, and though they can quite literally decimate your heart into shreds smaller than confetti, they can’t kill you.
His words won’t break me.
“Fuck you,” I hiss, raising my chin instead of cowering away like I did for years. “You’re shitty people, shitty parents, shitty—”
The slap comes out of nowhere. I don’t even see it coming. Hell, I’m pretty sure Mom didn’t see it coming either, if her startled gasp is any indication.
An ache spreads across my cheek, and my good ear rings. The mug of coffee slips from my fingers, crashing to the floor, as the scorching liquid burns my skin.
Time seems to slow down as a few things happen.
First, my dad is wrenched away from me by a livid Kastros. I’ve never seen such rage on his face before—on anyone’s face, if I actually think about it. It’s nearly unparalleled, as if this man, this demon, embodies pure and molten anger. The rage transforms his entire face until I can’t decipher where the demon ends and the man begins.
Second, my dad begins to whimper—helpless, pathetic sounds—as if he recognizes the face of death when he sees it. My mom, still standing at the kitchen counter, begins to cry. I would like to believe that the tears are over me, over the horror of what she just witnessed her husband do to her only daughter, but I’d be deluding myself.
And finally, Kastros seems to grow before my very eyes. That’s the only word I can think to use to encapsulate what I’m seeing. His shoulders become bulkier, splitting open his black T-shirt like some sort of sexy Hulk, and his eyes flash crimson. Pale blue horns protrude from his pitch-black hair, accompanied by his leathery wings.
Mom’s sobbing now, collapsing to the ground with an audible thud, and the scent of piss fills the air. I’m pretty sure that’s Dad.
Power surges through the air like a tangible electrical current, zapping at everyone who gets too close. It raises my pink hair, and goosebumps erupt on my arms at the sensation it evokes. I swear that the room is shaking, like a tiny earthquake has hit the house. The dishes rattle, and a few mugs fall from the still open cupboard.
And through it all, Kastros stands like…like…
Like vengeance personified.
His onyx hair blows around his face as he glares at my father before moving that piercing gaze of his onto my mother.
“Kastros,” I whisper, placing both hands on the table as the house continues to shake erratically. “Kastros!”
He glances back at me, his face nearly unrecognizable, before breaching the few short steps between us and taking me in his arms. He breathes in my scent like it’s the only thing keeping him grounded, and I lose myself to his embrace. And though I should be fucking terrified, I only feel safety and contentment in his arms, as if the rest of the world has faded away.
“Katty? Kastros? What’s going on?” Adam asks, his tiny voice scared, and that shakes me out of the reverie I find myself in.
“It’s okay, Adam!” I pull myself from Kastros’s embrace just as Adam lunges forward, putting one arm around me and the other around the snarling vengeance demon. My little brother seems entirely unconcerned about the wings sprouting from his back, his pure red eyes, the anger emitting from him like smoke.
Actually…
I’m pretty sure thereissmoke.
Before I can comment on it, Kastros throws me over one shoulder and Adam over the other. Carrying the two of us, he races out the front door, my sobbing parents following in his wake. I have no idea when they pulled themselves off the floor, and honestly, I don’t care. We exit the house and scatter across the lawn…
Just in time for me to see my childhood home go up in flames.
They say that vengeance belongs to God and that it’s not up to us petty humans to enact.
But I don’t think any of those people factored in demons before.
27
After the house burned down,Kastros carried Adam and me back to the demon’s townhouse. And somehow, there were two rooms ready for us. One was full of Legos and trains for Adam, and the other had a computer, decathlon stuff, and Lakewood Prep uniforms that were just a bit tighter and shorter than before.
