looked like fire. The thought fascinated me. “Did it change after my parents disappeared? After the demon took me?”
He lowered his head as though regretting what he was about to say. “For a while. It got darker. But slowly the fire took over again.”
“I wish I could see what you see.”
He glanced at Brooke’s sleeping form. Her aura was different as well. It was cracked from when she too was possessed. Damaged. Only she was possessed by an evil spirit, not a demon. The way I understood it, if caught in time, a person could survive possession by an evil spirit, but people almost never survived possession by a demon. No idea what happened with me, why I was even still alive with a demon inside. Granddad and the Order exorcised the entity out of Brooke. She almost died as a result. If her family had not brought her to Riley’s Switch when she was in the third grade, to the Order, she may not have survived much longer anyway. But apparently, trying to exorcise the demon out of me when I was six would have killed me. Or that was what they feared.
Still, I wished I could see Brooke’s unusual aura as Cameron could. “Is she still cracked?” I asked, unable to suppress the smile in my voice.
“I think she’ll always be a little cracked.”
I chuckled. “I think we should call her that. Crack.”
“That’s why I call her Moon Pie.”
With interest piqued, I asked, “What does a MoonPie have to do with it?”
He stretched and let out a yawn before answering. “When we were in the fifth grade, I saw a MoonPie in a store that was broken. It had a crack down the middle that reminded me of her aura.”
I couldn’t help it. I burst out laughing. “That’s why you call her that?”
He laughed too until Brooke stirred. We quieted instantly, but the image was one I would cherish forever.
I ended up talking to Cameron for much of the night, learning about what it was like growing up with his abilities. Being able to see what he sees. On one hand, the idea of detecting ghosts and auras was fascinating. On the other, the things he saw would have scared my hair straight. I wasn’t sure any kid, nephilim or not, should be subject to such knowledge. How did he make sense of it growing up? How did knowing what he knew shape his psyche? His behavior? He’d always been such a loner, never had many friends, and kept to himself pretty much his whole life. Now I understood why.
I looked at the clock as sleep finally settled around me. Two in the morning. I would look horrible for school. Especially since I woke up a little over three hours later to the strangled sounds of my own breathing.
STRAWBERRY SHAMPOO AND CINNAMON ROLLS
A nightmare. I’d had a nightmare, and it was enough to cause an asthma attack. Thankfully, someone thought to put battery acid in an inhaler for just such an occasion.
Standing barefoot in my bathroom, surrounded by a billowing cloud of steam, I wiped condensation off the mirror and leaned forward. Probing. Searching. I studied the pupils of my gray eyes and rapped on the silvery glass. “I know you’re in there,” I said to the demon lying dormant inside.
Talking to the demon was better than dwelling on the fact that Jared never came home. Even my grandparents started asking questions, to which I just shrugged. If they knew he was missing, they would send me packing for sure. For my own safety, of course.
Then again, maybe Jared wasn’t just missing. Maybe he’d been called back. He was the Angel of Death, after all. He had a job to do. Would he leave without saying good-bye?
The thought made my chest ache with sadness.
Since it was Monday and I couldn’t sleep anyway, I’d dragged myself out of bed earlier than I thought humanly possible and forced my reluctant body into the shower. The warm water helped, but it didn’t dissipate the dream I’d had. The same dream I’d been having for weeks, reliving the possession as though it had happened yesterday. The residue lingered, dark and eerie, like a thick smoke suffocating any thoughts of a normal day.
I narrowed my eyes at my own reflection, hoping the demon inside was looking out, watching me watch him. I didn’t want to be rude, but it was my body he was trespassing against.
“If you don’t come out of there this