Page 28 of Demon Sworn
I walk a bit aimlessly until I spot a familiar mohawk. Then I rush forward. Akor is holding up a video game controller in one hand and a baseball bat in the other.
“You’re wrong! The bat is obviously the worst gift! It doesn’t feed people’s fury. Video games instill the value of violence in children. Far superior product.” Akor waves the controller at two of Joy’s demons, who shake their heads. On the ground nearby, a third demon of hers is curled up on the floor, using a teddy bear as a pillow as he snores soundly. Kastros is leaning against the closest workbench, arms crossed and shaking his head at Akor’s logic.
“Akor!” I call, interrupting this debate over toys. “We need to leave.”
Akor drops both items immediately, not even noticing how the controller smashes apart when it hits the ground. He spreads his wings and flies over to me. “Of course, Cherry.”
I lift up my arms and ask softly, “Would you carry me?”
He picks me up bridal style, and I glance over to see Kastros with his head sunk in defeat. But if he’s sad, that’s only his fault, right?
Then why do I feel a tiny twinge of guilt about it?
There’s a whirring noise as one of the garage doors on the side of the workshop slowly lifts. “Where are we going?” Akor asks me as he strides out of it.
“Home,” I tell him, nuzzling into his chest. “I need to be home. Fast please.”
His eyes gleam. “Well, I do like fast. And hard.”
I pinch his upper arm for making dirty jokes while I’m serious and sad.
He reaches out a thumb and strokes my cheek gently for a second. Then, without warning, he takes off, and I’m squealing like a kid on a roller coaster. He makes the entire flight home a wild series of ups and downs and loop-the-loops.
By the time we land, I really, really regret asking for fast.
But as we walk in the door, that churning stomach regret becomes nothing more than a pinprick because the impossible has happened. My little brother, somehow, is there.
12
Katrina
“Adam?”I can barely breathe through the sudden tightening of my lungs as I stare at my little brother like he’s a mirage, like he’s going to disappear into wispy tendrils of smoke the second I blink.
But no, that’s my brother, with his floppy brown hair and wide, innocent eyes. He’s wearing the same cute littlePaw PatrolT-shirt and blue jeans that he disappeared in, and I don’t think he’s ever looked more adorable.
My lower lip begins to wobble, and I probably would’ve fallen if Akor’s arms still hadn’t been wrapped around me, keeping me upright. My pain demon has gone rigid, staring at Adam as if he’s a ghost liable to disappear into the ether, but I can’t spare his caution a moment of time. Not when my little brother is here. Alive.
It’s a miracle.
“Adam!” I flail until Akor places me on my feet and then run towards my brother, scooping him up. His tiny, chubby arms automatically move to return the hug as he begins to wriggle against me. “Are you hurt? Are you okay?”
“I don’t sense any pain from him, Cherry,” Akor says gently. Well, as gently as my pain demon is able to. I’m not quite sure he has a gentle bone in his body.
Adam just blinks blankly at me. “I can’t find my new Godzilla toy. I want him to fight the velocicopter.”
I don’t respond to his toy dilemma, or his mispronunciation, I just smother him in kisses as I frantically check him all over for injury. Who took him? How did he get away? I lift his shirt to check his belly for marks because some paranoid part of me doesn’t trust Akor’s words. I have to see that Adam’s not bruised or hurt. I don’t even want him to have a hangnail.
But when I see his belly button, there’s a long black mark. Immediately, I yank up his shirt over his head, whipping it off of him and throwing it aside. What I see puts every scary movie I’ve ever watched to shame.
Written across my brother’s torso in black Sharpie, is the message,Dance, little puppets.
I’m going to puke. I feel it. I feel the churn of bile in my stomach, rising to my throat in a wave of disgust and disbelief. My eyes meet Kastros’s, and for the first time since I found out he betrayed me, I ask him for help.
“Please.”
My vengeance demon nods his head.
I wrap my arms around Adam another time and pull him close, even as he pushes at my arms and wriggles back.
