Gently, Kody rolled him over and held his head in her lap. “My poor baby, but you looked totally K-A!”
And she looked totally beautiful.
By the time Caleb double-checked that the demon was gone and made it up to the porch, Dina groaned from where she still lay at Brynna’s feet. Pressing her hand to her head, she blinked open her eyes.
“Brynna?” she asked in disbelief. “What are you doing here?”
Brynna scowled. “Don’t you remember?”
Dina’s brow furrowed. Then she gasped. “The locket!” She snatched it off her neck and threw it into the bushes.”
They all stared at her as if she’d been possessed again.
“What was that?” Brynna asked.
“Evil! I bought it in a store on St. Anne because I was feeling really bad. The man told me it would make me feel better about myself.”
Caleb licked his lips. “When did you buy it?”
Dina blinked. “Yesterday, after school. Bryn and Shon were talking about what they were going to do for the dance and who they wanted for the committee.” She sat up and glared at Brynna. “I kept waiting for one of you to invite me and you didn’t! Instead you invited that geek and the trash and…” Her voice trailed off as she realized the trash was also on her front porch.
“W-w-what are you doing here?” Dina gasped.
Nick wanted to stand and do his tough guy strut. Unfortunately for his ego, his body was through listening to him. “Saving your butt, but now I’m thinking I should have fed you to it.”
“Dina,” Brynna said, her voice dropping an octave. “That wasn’t yesterday. That was weeks ago.”
“No, it was yesterday.”
Brynna shook her head.
Nick’s phone rang. And of course, it was in the pocket under his broken arm. He tried to reach it and couldn’t. “Um, help, somebody.”
Caleb backed up. “Ah, heck no, I ain’t even groping in another guy’s pants pocket. Forget it. That’s your girlfriend’s job.”
Laughing, Kody reached in for it. For a full minute, Nick felt no pain whatsoever. All he felt was her hand sliding against his thigh. Yeah, he liked that. Definitely worth getting beaten with a bat to have her do that.
She pulled his phone out and answered it. “It’s Madaug.” She handed it to him.
“Hey, what’s up?” he asked.
“Me and Mark finally cracked the site. It was weird. At first the code was like some living entity. Everything we tried, it deflected. I’ve never seen anything like it. Then a couple of minutes ago, bam. It opened right up. Go figure.”
Because a few minutes ago was when Nick had banished the demon. “Let me guess, the site is owned by Dina Quattlebaum?”
“Close.” Madaug sounded impressed. “Her father. How did you know that?”
Nick glanced over to her. “Really lucky guess. Tell Mark I said thanks, and Madaug…”
“Yeah?”
“Good job, buddy. You’re the best.”
“No problem. Talk to you later.”
Nick hung up and sadly slid his phone into a pocket he could reach. “That was Madaug.”
Caleb crossed his arms over his chest. “We heard.”
Nick sat up slowly to meet Brynna’s gaze. “We found out who posted those photos of you, and who’s been running the trash site about our classmates.”
Dina’s face went white. “How do you know about my domain?”
“That was you!” Brynna shrieked. “You made photos of me … of me…”
The all-out panic on Dina’s face said that part of the cruelty had been spawned purely out of her own jealousy and anger, not the demon’s.
“Why would you do something like that?” Brynna yelled.
“It was a joke.”
Brynna curled her lip. “No one laughed.”
“Oh please … you and all your rich friends with your perfect Norman Rockwell lives … you all deserve to be knocked off your high horses.”
Brynna screwed her face up. “My life isn’t perfect, Dina. Good grief, my parents are divorced and they split us kids up like we’re silverware. The one person in this world I love, loves someone else. I’m flunking math. I’ve flunked my learner’s test four times now. I have a little brother who’s a monster and my parents won’t correct him. And I’m the only Addams in nine generations who can’t cook. Believe me, there is nothing perfect about my life. And you don’t see me maliciously attacking other people over it. I’ve read your aweful hate-filled postings. You’re the one who thinks you’re superior to us. And at the end of the day, what makes you angry isn’t the money or the clothes or popularity. It’s because you’re jealous over the fact that even though our lives aren’t perfect, even though life is doing its best to bring us to our knees, too, we still manage to be happy. In spite of everything, we don’t attack other people and we laugh at things that are funny. And sister, no one worth a damn laughs at cruelty. That’s what you’re really jealous over. And that is what makes us better than you. We’re compassionate human beings, not conniving, self-serving, bitter harpies spreading misery everywhere we go.”
“You’re an idiot. You don’t know anything.”
Brynna went to slap her, but Kody caught her hand.
“She’s not worth it.”
“Oh, trust me, she so is.”
Nick shook his head. “Let her live, Bryn. The best revenge in the world? Let her face the people she’s attacked at school. People like her think they’re safe at home, making masked attacks on a glowing computer screen against people who’ve never harmed them. And while the anonymity seems to keep them safe, the Internet is the one place where you can be identified absolutely. Every IP is unique to the user and dedicated logs are kept. You can be found. And even if the person you attack doesn’t retaliate, it doesn’t matter. Karma will get you, and she’s a nasty bugger once you rile her. Absolutely no one escapes her wrath.” He looked at Dina. “I’m truly sorry for what you’ve brought on yourself. Right now, I’m so glad I’m not you.”
Brynna lifted her chin with dignity as she stared Dina down. “I can’t believe I almost let someone as petty as you drive me to suicide. What was I thinking? But you know what? I’ve learned who my friends are.” Her gaze went to Nick, Kody, and Caleb. “And I’ve learned who they’re not. As my mama used to say, sometimes you just have to run the snakes out of your garden. Have a nice life, Dina. But the saddest thing is I know you won’t until you learn that when someone has something you don’t it doesn’t take anything away from you. Ever.” And with those words spoken, she headed off the porch.
Nick made a Yoda gesture at Dina. “May the Force be with you.”
They left Dina on her porch and made their way back to the sidewalk. Nick draped his arm around Kody’s shoulders.
“So, how are you going to get her to apologize to everyone?” Kody asked.
Nick quirked a lopsided grin. “Trust me. Now, please,” he whimpered, “get me home before I fall over. I am in pain. Lots and lots of pain. Giant, Malachai-sized pain.”
Kody bit her bottom lip as she scanned him. “We’ll get you there. And when we do, I’ll kiss your boo-boos.”
Yeah, she definitely had more power than he did. Because those last four words erased every bit of pain in his body.
EPILOGUE
“Again, I want to apologize to everyone for what I did by setting up the Web site and telling lies about my fellow students. I am so incredibly sorry. It was wrong and cowardly, and I will never do it again.”
Nick glanced over to Kody as Dina finished her public apology over the loudspeaker. Sadly, Dina was going to jail as soon as she finished her apology and left here. And he took no satisfaction from that knowledge whatsoever. It was too sad for any kind of victory celebration.
What had started out as a mean prank to get back at someone who had never meant to harm her in any way had caused her to commit a felony. Yeah, she could blame the Trexian for it. Or Brynna, and Dina was.
But in the end, she’d been the one who’d unleashed the demon from the necklace and allowed it to possess her. Nick was just grateful she’d admitted to lying about his raping her and that once the police had insisted she be examined, they’d found out she was as much a virgin as he was.
Still, there were no winners in this. As his mom so often said, in a fight, no one walks away unscathed. All participants get bloody. And even after all of this drama, people at school were still being mean to each other. Still mocking Nick over his arrest, and the other lies Dina had told.
Some things never changed. But even though he was a Malachai, Nick still had hope that people would learn and change.
The bell rang.
Caleb ran on to third period ahead of them, while Kody took his hand and walked him there. Dressed in that tight cream sweater, she was delicious. And best of all, she was wearing the pink heart necklace he’d given her once all the charges had been dropped. It was a celebration gift, and since she’d claimed his heart, it was a reminder that her life was much more important to him than his was.
Even though it was against the rules, Nick gave her a quick kiss before he went into the room, and stopped dead in his tracks.
Literally.
Grim was their substitute chemistry teacher. This had to be a bad idea.
“Are you planning to blow up the school?” Nick asked.
Grim snorted. “I’m not that lucky. Believe it or not, this is what I do for fun.”
Yeah, he found that impossible to believe … unless the lab ended up exploding with lots of carnage.
Nick cleared his throat. “Well then, I’ll take my seat. I am going to live through this. Right?”
“Have no fear, Gautier. I don’t pose a threat to you.”
A really bad feeling went through him. “What do you mean?”
“Is. English. Not. Your. Native. Language?” Grim spoke each word separately, and strung each syllable out.
Nick hated it when he did that.
“Oh, how silly of me,” Grim continued. “I forgot Stupid is your native tongue. Fine. I’ll spell it out for you. I’m not the one who is under orders to kill you.”
He went cold with the news. “But someone here is?”
Grim inclined his head.
Nick’s gaze instinctively went to Caleb.
Grim scoffed. “No, he’s actually loyal.”
“Then who?”
“You’ll know instantly. You can’t miss her. She’s wearing a pink heart around her neck.”