“I’m sorry. I was… in the basement and didn’t hear it.” I face the breakfast table, stacked with pancakes. With an empty plate in my hand, I have little choice but to be berated and break bread with a demon. I pour a cup of coffee, praying that caffeine can help.
Adrial studies me as I take the seat across from him. I shiver under his stare.
“I hope our gargoyle friend isn’t the exhibit in need of more repair,” he says.
Nausea hits my stomach. “No, it’s… uh, some antique crosses. Water got on them. There’s a leak in the basement pipes.”
He’s still grinning at me when I glance at him, and I drop my eyes to my plate, scared. What can he do to me? My parents? How powerful are demons?
Flashes of the most brutal true crime shows I’ve seen leap through my head. Terrible things that were all done by humans… supposedly. My jaw clenches and my teeth begin to ache.
“With everything going on, I wish Hopkins would come back,” Dad scoffs. “The jewelry shop was broken into last night. Are you sure you want to work today? We could just jump your engine, and you come back home or join me at the shop.”
“I’m not going to open the museum. I need to clean up last night’s mess and call someone about the pipes.”
“You never know what sort of danger lies behind a safe, stony facade,” Adrial warns. “I hear your benefactor has been gone for some time. Where is he? Do you know?”
Shaking my head, I swallow a bite of pancake without chewing, lodging it in my throat. I meet Adrial’s gaze, and his nostrils flare, a little too wide for a man’s. My lip quivers. My brands grow hot. Curling my fingers into my palm, I stop the instinct to run them up my shirt.
Dad sighs. “Keep the doors locked. And keep that mace I gave you close. I want you to call me on the landline every other hour.” He pivots the conversation, and I break Adrial’s hypnotic stare, glaring down at my food instead. His smile lingers in my mind.
I nod mutely. “I will.”
“Do you want me to take a look at the leak?” Adrial offers.
“No!”
My parents shoot me angry glances, and I cram pancake into my mouth.
Throughout the remainder of the meal, Mom kicks my legs no less than five times, clearly disgruntled by my behavior. Oyster never shows. Adrial’s constant attention is the worst of it because, between bites and banter with my parents, he doesn’t take his eyes off me. At least not for long.
Even when he looks at my parents, the pressure of his gaze remains. His wicked grin. From the corner of my eye, it seems to grow wider than his face.
I focus on the old floral wallpaper behind him. As a child, I studied its repeating yellow and green patterns and memorized them. Only these patterns, this house, no longer feels safe.
I need to get out of here, need to get Adrial out of my house and away from my parents.
My face flushes furiously, and I scrape my plate clean and jerk to my feet, the food like a weight at the pit of my stomach. “Sorry, I forgot, but I need to go to work.Now.There’s a chemical clean I started last night, and if I don’t stop it soon, I’ll damage those crosses.”
My lies are such bullshit—I don’t even believe them.
Dad takes the hint. He squints at me without asking why I’m putting up such an act. I stare back, pleading.
He agrees, taking his plate to the sink. “All right then. I was done anyway.”
Adrial cocks his head, his perfectly groomed hair shifting slightly away from his face. Does he know what I’m thinking? I chew on my lips and stand, pivoting for the front door.
Squeezing the three of us into Dad’s truck is an awkward, uncomfortable effort. I claim the passenger seat, forcing Adrial to crowd his body into the back. When I blast the radio, Dad gives me a long, hard look, but he doesn’t turn the volume down. Grand Funk Railroad’s “Sin’s a Good Man’s Brother” starts to play.
We head to Adrial’s boarding house first. In the daylight, I realize the house doesn’t look inhabitable. The shingles are hanging, and the lawn is brown and overrun with weeds. It’s in desperate need of a new coat of paint, old graffiti marring the side.
He offers to check the museum’s leak one more time—an offer I just as quickly rebuff.
He saunters to the front door and turns around, his smile lodged in place as he gives us a salute.
His mouth forms the words:See you soon, Summer.
When Dad drives away, it’s easier to breathe.
