and Grant and Kirsty and Alastair. You’re a demon, sweetie.”
The word stuck in Amber’s mind like a bone in her throat, so that she barely registered Imelda darting towards her until it was too late to do anything about it.
“Sorry about this,” Imelda said, and punched her into unconsciousness.
AMBER STIRRED FROM HER dreamless sleep, waking without opening her eyes. She snuggled down deeper into the pillow, slowly drifting off again, and then she remembered where she was and what had happened and she sat up so fast she almost fell out of bed.
Back in the bedroom in Imelda’s apartment. The curtains were open now. The day was bright and warm. She examined her reflection in the mirror on the wall. She looked normal. Her hair was a mess, but that was the full extent of the damage.
It had been real. She knew it had been real. She’d had horns. She’d grown them as her skin had turned red and her nails had turned black – just like she had before she’d pulverised Brandon’s jaw with a single punch. She’d grown them just like Imelda had grown them. Just like her parents had grown them.
But no. No, that couldn’t be right. There had to be an explanation. A reasonable, logical, real-world explanation.
She stood. She was fully dressed, in T-shirt and shorts and sneakers. That was good. She left the bedroom. The man with the guns sat on the couch, his long legs crossed, reading a tattered paperback. Milo Sebastian, she remembered. He looked up at her, then went back to reading.
“Where’s Imelda?” Amber asked.
“Out,” he said.
She waited for him to furnish her with more information, but apparently he wasn’t much of a talker.
“Out where?” she pressed.
“Out with the others.”
A wave of alarm rushed through Amber’s veins. “My parents? What’s she doing with them?”
“Pretending to look for you.” Keeping a finger on the page he’d been reading, he folded the book closed and raised his eyes. “You can wait for her here. She shouldn’t be too much longer.”
Amber hesitated, then took a few steps further into the room. “Don’t suppose you’d let me go, would you?”
“You’ve got nowhere to go to,” Milo replied. “The cops can’t help you. Chief Gilmore can only afford his luxury condo with the money they pay him. Your parents, and their friends, are very powerful people. You must know this.”
Amber didn’t reply. She didn’t mention the ease with which they’d had her principal fired.
She went to the couch across from where Milo was sitting, and sat on the edge, knees together and hands in her lap. “Do you know what’s going on?”
“I’m not the one to talk to about this.”
“So you do know. You know they’re monsters, right? You know Imelda is a monster? And it doesn’t bother you?”
“Does it bother you that you’re just like her?”
Amber shook her head. “I’m not. I’m … I don’t know what happened or what drug she gave me, but I’m not like her. I’m not like them. They’re monsters. I’m normal. I mean, I think I’d know if I were a monster, right?”
He looked at her, didn’t say anything.
“Why do you have all those guns?” she asked.
“Your parents might start suspecting that Imelda isn’t being honest with them. She asked me to make sure no harm comes to you.”
“You’re here to protect me?” Amber stood up suddenly. “So I could walk out of here and you couldn’t stop me?”
Milo opened the paperback again, without fuss, and resumed reading. “Try it and see.”
Whatever rebellious fire had flared inside her sputtered and died at his tone, and Amber sat back down. “Do you know where my phone is?”
“Destroyed.”
Her eyes widened. “I’m sorry?”
He kept reading. “It’s the easiest way to track you.”
“But that was my phone.”
“Best not to make calls. Or send emails. Those are the kind of things that would lead your parents straight to you.”
“And how do you expect me to … to … to do anything? I need my phone, for God’s sake. I need …” She faltered. She needed her phone to go online, to talk to her friends. She needed that now more than ever.
Milo didn’t seem to care. He had gone back to reading his book. A western, judging by the cover. Amber had never read a western. She couldn’t imagine they were any good. There were surely only so many stories you could tell about cowboys and shooting and horses before it all got boring, even for those who liked such things. How many times could you describe a saddle, or a saloon, or a desert plain?
Still, it was something. He liked books and she liked books. There was common ground there.
“Ever read In The Dark Places?” she asked.
Milo didn’t look up. “No.”
“It’s a really good series. It’s been adapted into a TV show. They’re on Season Three right now. You should read them. They’re all about these star-crossed lovers, Balthazar and Tempest. She’s a Dark Faerie and he’s an Eternal. That’s, uh, that’s what they’re called. He’s got an evil brother and her parents are nuts and she’s just been possessed by the ghost of her ex-boyfriend. It’s set in Montana. They sometimes have horses on the show.”
“Horses are nice,” Milo said, in a voice that indicated he wasn’t paying her the slightest bit of attention.
Amber glowered and stopped trying to make conversation.
They sat in silence for another ten minutes, and then Milo’s phone buzzed. He checked it, and stood.
“She’s back,” he said, tucking the western into his back pocket and picking up the shotgun. He left the apartment, and Amber immediately leaped up, scanning her surroundings for an escape route.
After a few moments, she sat back down.
She heard the faint ping of the elevator arriving, and then low voices as Imelda and Milo exchanged whatever they had that passed for pleasantries. Thirty seconds later, Imelda came in.
Amber sat back into the couch, her arms folded.
“I’m sorry,” was the first
