The Devil's Prey (The Demon Within) Page 5

  ‘That’s good to hear. You know, if you ever need someone to talk to, I am always here.’ By then we had reached the school bulletin board. It was crowded already. Some people were cheering, and others were crying because the cheer squad was also on the board. Girls who don’t make it on the cheer squad always cry- it’s quite entertaining to watch.

  ‘I made the team!’ people were shouting around me. Once Perry and I squeezed our way past everyone, we glanced up at the names on the list, and of course Amber was cheer squad captain again. Great. The coach of volleyball always ordered the name from the best players to the average players, and right at the top, under the title ‘captain’ was my name.

  ‘Oh my god!’ I looked down at the list to see Perry’s name, and also Sarah’s, along with half the team last year and some new people as well.

  ‘Congrats, Summer, you got captain.’

  I had to glance over it twice to make sure I was not seeing things. ‘Perry, I am captain!’ I was so shocked. I have never been captain before, and yet there was my name under the title. We both made our way out of the crowd, and Perry threw his arms around me in a friendly hug.

  ‘Perry, I made captain! I cannot believe it!’ I had to say again, just to make sure that it was true.

  ‘I know, Summer.’

  ‘Congrats, Summer, on getting captain!’ Sarah shouted from behind me.

  ‘Thanks! I am still shocked!’ I gave her a hug. Whenever I was not with Ethan and Amanda, I felt normal. Like I was not some wacked out pure fairy…and like the devil was not out to get my blood, along with half the demon race.

  I walked into roll call with Perry and Sarah. Once inside, I took a seat next to Perry in the middle of the classroom. I saw Ethan and Amanda walk into class out the corner of my eye, but I hardly took notice as I was enjoying myself, laughing and catching up with Perry and Sarah for the first time in a long while.

  ‘Ok, class. Time to quiet down so I can mark the roll.’ We all went quite straight away. Once the roll was marked, we were allowed to talk.

  ‘Summer, I haven’t seen you around. It was like you vanished off the face of the earth,’ Perry spoke, smiling at me.

  ‘Well, it sure felt like it, but I am all good now.’ I could feel Ethan and Amanda shooting daggers at me, but I didn’t understand why.

  ‘Alright, students, remember to get involved in school activities, as you get extra credits.’ I gathered up my books and left the classroom with Perry and Sarah. Later in the day, we headed over to the hall for PE.

  ‘Alright, ladies and gents. Today and for the rest of the term, we are doing track work.’ People groaned over the idea of long runs every lesson. We lined up, getting ready to run our first 4km which, as always, was going to be timed so we could improve. Everyone was in my PE class- half of the volleyball team, and half the fairies at the house, including Ethan and Amanda. I’d always had good stamina, and hardly ever ran out of breath. I was also fast, but it felt like cheating now, as I knew it had something to do with my fairy heritage. Our horrible teacher told us to go, and we were off. Like always, I was leading everyone around the track at a slow place.

  ‘Wait up, Summer!’ Perry said, huffing and puffing as he tried to get to me. I slowed down my pace until he caught up. ‘Summer, you are so fast- and you aren’t even trying!’ he gasped. He was trying to talk, breathe, and run at the same time, which brought a smile to my lips.

  ‘Well, I am glad you have noticed, since we have been friends since, what… forever!’ It was easy for me to talk and run, but poor Perry was struggling.

  ‘Come on, people. Faster! My grandmother can run faster than you, and she is dead!’ our coach yelled from across the field. I picked up my pace, and Perry followed, but dropped back before we made it two laps. I over took the whole trailing pack of walkers- the people who made up excuses not to run, and were allowed to walk.

  ‘Good work, Summer. Keep it up!’ our coach encouraged me as I passed her. The more we got into the run, the hotter it got. I was wishing that I could use my powers and hide the sun, and maybe even make it rain, but I didn’t know how to control my powers, so that was out of the question. I kept up the same pace the whole way, and soon was on my last lap.

  ‘Summer, last lap! Make it worth it!’

  I went faster on my last lap, and as I came towards the end, I heard a faint voice calling my name.

  ‘Summer… Summer… Summer…’ I shook my head and sprinted home. When I finished, I felt light-headed. I was not tired, but I felt sick. I felt something run across my mouth, and I licked my lip, suddenly welcomed by the rusty taste of blood. I wiped my fingers under my nose, and saw blood on my finger. I covered my nose and made my way over to my teacher, who would be able to help me. When I reached her, she was busy with another student who had fallen. I felt light-headed, like I was going to faint, and my nose kept bleeding, which was strange because I’d never have had a nose bleed in my whole life.

  Most people were finishing when Sarah came up behind me. ‘Summer, are you ok?’

  I turned around too quickly, and everything went black as I fainted.

  Chapter 7

  ‘Someone get me water. Summer, can you hear me?’ My sports teacher was looking over me as the blackness started to fade away.

  ‘Yeah, I am ok…I think.’ I sat up and looked around. Everyone had finished by now, and they were all looking at me.

  ‘We need to get her to sick bay, and get her cleaned up.’ I did not understand what my coach was saying, until I looked down and saw a huge bloodstain on my shirt from my nosebleed.

  ‘Perry, take Summer to sick bay. Everyone else, go wash up.’ Everyone left but Ethan and Amanda, who just looked at me with weird and unreadable expressions on their faces.

  ‘What’s wrong with Ethan?’ I asked Amanda in my mind.

  ‘Nothing, he is just upset.’ I put my hand on my head. When Amanda spoke to me, it was loud and it hurt. She gave me a serious look before the teacher sent her off. When I got up, I had to lean on Perry, as I felt nauseated.

  ‘Thank you, Perry,’ I said as we made our way down to the sick bay.

  ‘No problem. Are you ok? You ran amazing, but you’ve never had a bloody nose, and you’ve never fainted before. It is weird.’ I just had to smile at him because I was finding it hard to believe as well.

  ‘I remember now that I’m not invincible, as much as I would like to be.’ We both laughed as we entered the sick bay.

  After the lady made sure I was fine, I got cleaned up and changed into my normal clothes.

  ‘Sweetheart, I notice you have a scar on your stomach. May I ask what that is from?’ the nurse asked me. My body froze up at her inquiry. I had tried healing it several times, but the scar never seemed to get any better.

  ‘Umm…it is something I don’t like to talk about.’

  She gave me a warm smile and waved me off. I was given permission to skip the next class, so I went over to the library to study. The library was quiet, and hardly anyone was in it. I placed my stuff on the table and walked over to the books. While I was searching for a book on American history, I stumbled upon a book on myths and legends, and it got me curious. I brought it back to my table and opened it up. The book contained everything, from vampires to werewolves to shape shifters. As I skimmed through the pages, I found a section on fairies, and I couldn’t help but laugh. When I did, the librarian told me to be quiet and gave me a warning. When I looked at the page again, I saw tiny little creatures with wings- creatures they called fairies. I was even more intrigued when they said fairies cannot lie and have thousands and thousands of years’ worth of accumulated knowledge. I smiled to myself, thinking how good that would be in a history test, and suddenly I felt the chill of cold evil sweeping over me.

  I looked up to see the devil sitting across from me, with a huge grin on his face and a book in his hand. I drew a lambo in my hand and threw it quickly, but he caught it.

  ‘That wasn’t very nice.’ His voice sent shiv
ers all through my body, and I tensed up. I tried to reach out to Amanda with my mind, but it seemed to be blocked. ‘Please don’t contact any of your fairy friends. I want to have a nice long chat with you.’ He placed the book down, and I saw the chance to run. When I tried to get up, however, I couldn’t move. In fact, I was glued to my chair.

  ‘W-what have you d-done?’ I was shaking so fiercely that I was stuttering.

  ‘That, my little pure fairy, would be so you don’t move anywhere.’ He waved his hands, and I felt myself pressed even more tightly to the chair. I opened my mouth to scream, but he leaned over the desk and put a knife to my throat.

  ‘I wouldn’t scream if I were you. If you want to save your life. If you do scream, my hand might just slip.’ He moved the angle of his hand, and I blinked back sudden tears. ‘Oh, don’t cry. I am not going to kill you.’ He removed the knife, but sat with his legs crossed in front of me. I could feel my body shaking, and I was scared out of my mind.

  ‘What do you want?’ I asked, my voice still small and timid.

  ‘What do I want? That is a good question, little pure fairy, but I think both you and I know what I want. It involves you, in a great big hole in the ground.’ He smiled at his own words, but there was no amusement in his catlike expression. My heart was pounding in my chest and I couldn’t move. I knew that he could see my discomfort and smell the fear radiating off me in waves. I tried to summon power, but it was useless. I was just too scared. I couldn’t look anywhere but at the devil, forcing myself to stare into those piercing black eyes. He was tall and cruelly handsome, wearing a suit and tie with his black hair combed back.

  ‘Y-y-you do know th-there are l-l-lots of f-f-fairies in the s-s-school.” I stuttered so bad that I wasn’t sure if he would understand a word I was saying.

  ‘Yes, I do know that, but do you see any of them around?’ He waved his hands in the air and looked around the library. I tried calling for Amanda again, but I got nothing. It was like all my powers had been locked away.

  ‘So let’s get down to business, pure fairy. I want you dead. It is plain and simple. You killed my daughter, and your boy killed my best demon, Andy, so I want you both dead. But if you turn yourself over, along with your little boyfriend, I will spare your lives and make you demons. Hell, I might even keep you both fairies.’ He was about to say more when suddenly he creased his eyebrows together. ‘Looks like our time is up.’ Just like that, he was gone. I felt the heat come back into the room, seeping over my skin. I shifted in my seat, and realized that I no longer had that lingering feeling of pure evil.

  ‘You alright?’ a deep but angelic voice said from behind me. It made me jump.

  ‘Y-y-yes. I am fine.’

  A boy sat at the desk in front of me, frowning. He looked about a year or two older than me, but I’m not very good at guessing people’s ages, so I wasn’t sure.

  ‘You don’t look ok.’ Something was odd about him- and it was not the way his electric blue eyes stood out underneath his dark eyebrows.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said, a little stronger, but he still did not look convinced. He ran his long fingers through his hair, which was the exact color of dark chocolate. He kept looking around the library, almost like he was nervous, but I was still too unsettled to remark on it.

  ‘If you say so. I am Michel, by the way.’ I waited for him to offer me his hand, but he didn’t. He just kept his hands in his lap. I didn’t respond, trying to calm myself down after that meeting with the devil.

  ‘So…are you not going to tell me your name?’ Michel flashed me a smile.

  ‘No,’ I croaked out, surprised I could even talk. I could feel myself getting better, and I kept telling myself over and over again that what had just happened was my imagination.

  ‘Fine by me. I will guess.’ He scratched his chin and crossed one leg over the other. ‘Is it Bethany? No, that is not right. How about Julia?’ he shifted his head to one side, and I could feel those blue eyes assessing me.

  ‘No! It is not Bethany or Julia, and if you don’t mind, I have to go.’

  He jumped up from the desk as I collected my books, fumbling them awkwardly in my haste. Once I had all my books, I realized that Michel was still watching me closely.

  ‘Ok, but are you sure you are alright?’ he asked again.

  ‘I told you, I am fine,’ I grumbled. My patience was wearing thin.

  ‘Ok, so I will see you around.’ Before I could respond, Michel was gone.

  Once I left the library, I made my way to my locker, where Sarah was waiting for me. ‘Summer, I am glad to see you. Are you ok?’ She gave me a huge hug, which felt nice and made me feel normal.

  ‘Sure.’ We walked into the cafeteria together, and that was when I saw Ethan and Amanda waving at me to sit with them.

  ‘Summer, come sit with us!’ Dylan yelled from another table. I looked over at Ethan and Amanda, and I was reminded of my encounter with the devil in the library. They would know the minute I sat down that something had happened, and I didn’t feel like talking about it just then. I moved towards Dylan’s table.

  ‘Sorry,’ I whispered in my head, but Amanda never replied.

  ‘Three cheers for our captain, Summer!’ They all cheered as I sat down, laughing at the scene they were making. The conversation was light and easy all through lunch. They were glad to have me back, but halfway through lunch, I felt someone fishing around in my head.

  ‘Amanda, please stay out of my head!’ I was trying to juggle two conversations, both on two entirely different subjects.

  ‘Maybe if you didn’t ignore us all day, I wouldn’t have to!’

  I sighed at the tone of her voice in my head. ‘Sorry. I haven’t been around “normal” people in such a long time. Remember, I had a life before I found out I was a fairy.’ I didn’t mean to sound spiteful, but by this point my good mood had completely dissipated.

  ‘Summer, you ok? You look sad.’ Perry frowned, and I sighed.

  ‘It’s nothing. I was just thinking about something.’ I grimaced as the image of the devil sitting across from me came to mind, but I shook that off before Amanda could fish it out of my head.

  ‘Yeah, thinking of something is what I say!’ I could tell she was mad at me, but that was still no reason to scream it into my head.

  ‘I would appreciate it if you did not scream in my head. It does hurt.’ I rubbed my head, feeling as if someone was pounding it with a rock.

  ‘Summer, I am not yelling.’

  I put both hands on my head and moaned.

  ‘Summer, you ok?’ Sarah asked, putting her hand on my shoulder.

  ‘Yeah, just a headache. I will be back.’ I got up and left the table, and I could tell Amanda told Ethan, because they both got up at the same time as me.

  ‘I am just going to the bathroom- or do you need to follow me there and hold my hand?’ I grumbled at Amanda, and left. Once no one could see me, the headache got worse, so I bolted to the bathroom.

  ‘Summer… Summer… Summer…’ voices whispered in my head. I splashed cold water on my face. and the voices were gone, but my head was still throbbing.

  ‘Do you always like to hide out in the bathroom?’ a voice said from the door, and I jumped and squealed.

  ‘What the hell?’ I placed my hand over my heart to try and calm myself down, and saw Michel standing in the doorway of the girls’ bathroom. ‘What the hell are you doing? Trying to give me a heart attack?’

  He had a wicked grin on his face. ‘No, I am not trying to give you a heart attack. And I saw you run from the cafeteria, so I followed.’ He was still grinning at me, and I let out a puff of air.

  ‘Do you even go to this school?’ Because I was pretty sure that with looks like that, the girls would be raving on about him constantly. When I saw that wicked grin grow even larger, I thought, No, that’s impossible. He definitely does not go to school here.

  ‘You could say I got bored, and I wanted to see what all the hype was about. They always mak
e such a big deal on the telly, so I wanted to see for myself.’ He rubbed his chin and tilted his head to one side. ‘You want to know my opinion?’

  ‘No, not really,’ I said, and crossed my arms.

  ‘Well, I am going to tell you anyway. I think that high school has no drama. Like, all you do is sit around. Where are the fights? And the people running around saying, “I am so much better then you.” I personally think Hollywood got the idea of high school all wrong.’ He was smirking to himself when I started to laugh. Not a giggle, but a full belly laugh. I put my hands on my knees and laughed. I couldn’t remember the last time I laughed like this, and it felt good. When my laugh started to die down, it turned into little giggles. I wiped tears from my eyes. When I looked up, I saw Michel with an amused look on his face.

  ‘Something funny?’ he chuckled.

  ‘Yes, you. You said high school has no drama, but you have not seen my life. I have been chased and nearly ki…’ I stopped and frowned. Oh my god. I was just about to tell a complete stranger about fairies and the devil. I felt all the blood drain from my face, and I knew Michel could see something was wrong. He walked over to me and placed his hand on my shoulder.

  I was hit with a electrical spark that was both warm and welcoming. He was smiling at me, and I was about to smile back when I was hit with a wave of coldness. Like the way that demons feel.

  I took a step away and pulled a lambo in my hand. I could feel the wall against my back. I had nowhere to go. I heard the class bell ring, but I could not move. Michel took a step closer to me, and I raised my hands.

  He stopped. ‘I am not going to hurt you.’

  I remembered the warm feeling I had felt before the cold came over me, but I shook that thought away. You are either warm or cold- there is no in-between.

  ‘Stay away from me.’ I was surprised my voice didn’t shake, but I had already seen the devil today, so maybe demons didn’t seem so scary anymore.

  ‘There is no need to be scared. I am a fairy.’ He smiled…and it seemed genuine, but I shook my head.