Speed Demon (10 page)

But the best was Madison’s: “I’m allergic to your two-faced-ness.”

Ouch.

Literature came to life and actually made sense to me for the first time ever. I was freaking Hester Prynne from
The Scarlet Letter
, shunned and ashamed, and it sucked. Royally.

I started imagining the crowds actually parting as I walked through the halls, determined not to get any of my moral dirt on them and soil their pristine selves and souls. Hey, I was a theater junkie, remember? It wasn’t a stretch for my imagination to go there, especially since I was lonely as my day of silence rolled on. And picturing myself in costume, on a stage, was the only way I could get through the day.

It was bad enough that I had ruined my relationship with Adam, but Isabella had been my best friend for five years. We did everything together. She had been there through puberty and sleepovers and crushes and bad auditions and I couldn’t believe the cold look she shot me at lunch when I gave her a smile and tried to talk to her. I knew what I had done was totally wrong, but she had told me Levi wasn’t interested in her, so I wasn’t exactly sure why she was mad. Okay, not true, I knew why she was mad. There’s a girlfriend rule with guys and I had broken it. I should have waited a few months before hooking up with Levi, and that should have been only after I got her consent and permission to pursue. Girl Rule.

So, yeah, I wouldn’t like me much either, and I actually darted into the bathroom after lunch to wipe tears from my eyes. I had to figure out a way to get Isabella to talk to me so I could apologize and grovel and make it all right or I was going to curl up into a ball and cease to exist.

But first, I had to go to Anatomy and Physiology class, where I just happened to share a lab desk with Adam Birmingham, my now ex-boyfriend. Good times. Probably as fun as stabbing myself in the eye repeatedly with a fetal pig dissection knife. After it was used in a dissection.

Since I wasn’t interested in lingering in the halls, which would only make it even more obvious how totally ignored I was, I was already sitting in class when Adam came in. He dropped his books down on the desk so hard, I actually jumped. Not looking at me, he sat down and moved his chair as far away from me as possible.

“Adam,” I said. “We need to talk.”

He didn’t even look over at me, and I knew then that he wasn’t mad, he was hurt. If he were just angry, he would turn and say something rude, maybe even yell at me. But he wasn’t. He couldn’t even look at me, and that meant he was hurt, which somehow was absolutely worse. I was feeling about as wanted as a case of
E. coli
.

“No, we don’t,” he said.

“I need to tell you I’m sorry,” I said in an urgent whisper, aware that classmates were shooting curious glances our way.

“Whatever.”

Now you would think that I would have just quit there. That given we were in public and it was absolutely clear how he felt about me right at the moment, that I would have just slumped over in my chair and dropped the subject.

Not me. I thought “whatever” wasn’t exactly the same as telling me to eat a fetal pig and die, so it seemed like maybe if I just went for it, I could get some kind of result I might actually like.

Hey, I never said I was the sharpest crayon in the box. Just the most hopeful.

So that’s why I said, “Thanks for forgiving me, I really am completely and utterly sorry. So do you want to come over tonight? We can do homework.”

You know that moment in TV shows where the music grinds to a halt and all the actors turn and look straight at the camera? I swear I could actually hear the beat cut out and the sound effect of squealing tires as Adam swiveled to look at me for the first time since he’d walked into the room. His expression was well, not exactly lovey-kissy.

“Are you
serious
?” he asked.

Was that a trick question?

“We’re not doing homework together. We’re done.”

“Done?” I asked, in case I had somehow misinterpreted what that meant, which of course, I knew I hadn’t and had known since the second my lips had peeled off of Levi’s and turned to see Adam standing there.

“Yes. Done. Have a good time with Levi, Kenzie.” Adam turned resolutely back to his textbook and pretended an interest in science for the first time all semester.

Waahh. My lip trembled, my gut churned, and I knew I was pouting, but there was nothing I could do so I flipped open my book and stared at the innards of a chimp as they removed his heart for a transplant. It was disturbing enough that I was momentarily distracted by compassion for the poor little monkey. Yeesh. I thought I had it bad.

And where was Levi during Kenzie’s Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day?

He was with Amber Jansen, his über-perfect girlfriend who had decided that she was going to Stand By Her Man.

Gag.

They were walking around school holding hands and looking like they had torn down their metaphorical townhouse and rebuilt a new one from the ground up. It had taken a tragedy, a mistake, a disastrous almost end to their relationship for them to see the true depth of their devotion to each other.

Can you say nauseating?

Somewhere between slunking down the hall after math class trying to hold my head up both literally and figuratively, and grabbing my coat out of my locker in relief that the day from hell was finally over, I had a radical thought.

Things were bad. Not that that was the radical thought. But really, they were bad. I had taken seriously ugly to a whole new level since Levi had popped out of the portal into my life.

Yeah, things had been boring before he arrived, but they had been normal. I’d had someone to eat lunch with, a situation I’d never take for granted again. Now it was looking like I might have to transfer schools if I ever wanted to have anyone to talk to ever again, and it was essentially because of Levi.

The demon who told me I was the only one who could close the portal, because I was a demon slayer.

Me, demon slayer. Levi, demon.

Couldn’t I send Levi back to hell?

Thereby restoring peace and calm to my existence?

Huh.

Now that was an idea worth exploring.

Chapter Eight

A Pop-Tart was in order after the day I’d had. I suffered through the bus—yes, the bus, since my license didn’t exist and Levi was staying after school for soccer practice—and was really looking forward to the comfort of my own home where there was sugar and people who didn’t hate me.

Except that Mike, the giant construction worker, was in my kitchen with his co-workers, and there were white plastic pipes laid out all across the floor blocking the entry to the pantry where frosted rectangles of processed food waited to comfort me. It didn’t help my frustration to think about the fact that it was my fault, and well, ultimately Levi’s, that the wall had been destroyed in the first place, thus creating my current lack of privacy.

Oh, yeah. The demon had to go.

I liked Levi.

We’ve established that.

I even liked kissing him.

I could admit it in the privacy of my own head.

But our relationship was not good for me, my sanity, or my social life.

So he needed to take his little self and his portals back from whence he came. (Wasn’t that the nerdiest expression?
Loved
it and had been waiting to use it.)

The question was how. That was always the question.

I eyed Mike suspiciously. If he was a demon, wouldn’t he know how to close the portal? Or how to send Levi back? He didn’t look bright, and he didn’t exactly look evil either, but I couldn’t trust him for obvious reasons. But maybe if I talked to him, I could squeeze some info from him.

Ten minutes later I had figured out that my spy skills sucked. While I knew I was a good actress and could play the role of Teen Seeking Friendship with Mike, I had no clue how to interrogate.

“Hi,” I said to him with a smile, easing toward the pantry. Might as well snag my Pop-Tart while I was taking one for Team Slayer.

“Hey,” he said, returning my smile with a big cheesy grin. “What’s up?”

“Not much. Just hungry.” Okay, now what?
So are you from here or hell originally?
was probably a little too obvious. “Um . . . is this your full-time job?”

“Yep. Since I graduated last year.” He jerked his thumb over to the two guys in the garage who were doing mysterious things to the exposed plumbing on the damaged wall. “It’s a family business. My father and my uncle.”

“Wow, I really think I would kill my father if I had to work with him. Actually, he would probably kill me,” I said, focus on my goal already shot as I pictured eight-hour days with my dad, Bill “Do It My Way” Sutcliffe.

Mike laughed, which earned him a sharp look from one of the two men.

“You workin’ or flirtin’?” either his dad or uncle asked. It wasn’t the one who’d made the creepy brother comment when I had hugged Levi in the kitchen on Saturday.

Making a face, Mike squatted down and went back to measuring and marking lines on the white plastic tubie things.

“Sorry,” he murmured, glancing up at me ruefully. “That’s my dad.”

I hopped up onto the island so I wouldn’t be in his way and unwrapped my Pop-Tart. “How do you know what you’re doing?” I asked, curious. It all just looked like a bunch of random pipes running through our wall. How did these guys actually know what was what and where it went?

“Experience. They’ve been dragging me on jobs since I was eight.”

“Really? How old are you now?” Was I flirting? I bit my food and mentally smacked myself. Just because it was looking less and less likely that he was a demon given that his father and uncle were with him, that didn’t mean I should flirt. He really was not my type, as noted earlier.

“Just turned nineteen last week.”

“Oh, happy birthday.” See, too old for me. I was totally relieved. Actually, what I was was desperate for someone to talk to. It had been a long, lonely day.

“Thanks. How old are you?”

“Sixteen,” I said through a mouthful, swinging my legs as I checked out his butt. Hey, I could look, right? It was right there, bent over the pipes, in a pair of worn jeans. “I’m a junior at West Shore.”

“Really?” He sounded surprised. “You look older than that.”

“Yeah, most people mistake me for thirty-five.”

Mike laughed and set down his measuring tape. “So is the dude who lives here your boyfriend?”

“Levi? No. I don’t have a boyfriend.” Whimper. “He’s a friend of the family.” Is that what we were calling him? “And he’s living here while his parents get divorced and hurl plates at each other.”

“Oh, that sucks for him.”

More like it sucked for me. “Yeah.”

“So you want to go out sometime? Like maybe Friday night?”

I had a feeling he was going to get there eventually, but Mike didn’t waste any time. I paused, thinking of all the people my dating Mike would set off. Parents, Levi, Adam, Isabella, Amber Jansen—the list was as long as my arm. Figuring I was in enough trouble, and given that Mike didn’t really do it for me anyway, I shook my head. “I can’t. I’m grounded. I did this, you know.” I gestured to the wall his family business was responsible for fixing.

His eyebrows shot up as he looked at me from the floor. “How did you do that?”

“Drove the minivan through the wall,” I said, taking another bite of Pop-Tart. “Bad scene, trust me.”

He laughed. “Guess so. Don’t think I’ll be getting in a car with you behind the wheel.”

“No one will. I can’t drive until I’m eighteen.” Ugh. It sounded even worse out loud.

“Mike! Get over here,” his dad yelled from the garage.

Rolling his eyes at me, Mike slowly rose to his feet. “Guess I’ll catch you later, Kenzie,” he said with a smile.

“Sure.” I sat there for a minute and thought about how I closed the water portal by taking out the plumbing in the wall with the van. This was an air portal, right? How did you kill an air source? Taking away air wasn’t exactly an easy thing to do. Did you suck it? Vacuum it?

I sat up straighter. Vacuum. That might work.

 

 

Which is how I found myself industriously vacuuming up the sawdust from the construction that night after dinner. Without explaining what I was doing, I had just gone to the closet, pulled out the vacuum, and cleaned up the mess on the floor. I then dragged it into the garage, sucked every speck of dust up, and undid the hose. Staring at the spot where the apple peel had been, I wondered what had happened to it. Maybe Levi had cleaned it up or maybe it had just evaporated. There was no telling.

My mother stuck her head out the garage door. “Wow, thanks, Kenzie. I appreciate you cleaning up. All that dust is hard to deal with.”

“Sure, Mom.” Good daughter, that was me. Cleaning the house and closing demon portals.

I was taking the hose and just sucking at the air in and around the hole when Levi appeared in the doorway. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“Vacuuming.”

“The air?”

“Yes. Go away.” He wasn’t going to tell me anything, I wasn’t going to tell him anything.

He just stood there. “We need to talk.”

I glanced at his cat-scratched face. “No, we don’t.” The vacuum sucked in some of the plastic and I winced as I ripped it back out. I had nothing to say to Levi.

The cat streaked past Levi’s legs.

“Marshmallow Pants!” Zoe screamed, darting around Levi too in pursuit of her new pet.

I turned off the vacuum. “Is that cat wearing a dress?”

Levi started laughing. “Yes. Pink with flowers. That’s hilarious.”

Shaking my head, I watched the cat run under the van and stare at us with black eyes. I wasn’t a cat person. They always seemed like they were secretly plotting the destruction of the human race. And despite the cutesy name Zoe had given it, this one struck me as slightly evil.