Night of the Demon: Paranormal Romance (Devon Slaughter Book 2) Read Online Free

She always wanted me to
direct the conversation but I knew, if I waited long enough, she would take the
helm. I tried not to squirm.
    After a while, she said, “Is there something bothering you
today?”
    I uncrossed my legs and tapped my foot on the floor. Just
once. Twice. She noticed and made a note on her pad, which irritated me, for
some reason. I crossed my legs again and took a deep breath. “I feel like I did
something bad. When I had my mini-breakdown, and—and I can’t remember. After I
go to bed, I lay there imagining all kinds of terrible things I might have
done.”
    She nodded. More silence. Sometimes I really hated her long
meaningful pauses.
    “That’s what’s bothering me,” I said. “Since you asked.” 
    “What do you mean by bad?”
    “I don’t know. It’s just a feeling. There was this thing
that happened at school. Right before I had that breakdown. A student in one of
my writing classes dropped out. I know I offended her. We had an argument,” I
rubbed my palm on my skirt. “She told me I was a terrible teacher.”
    But that wasn’t right. I’d told Miss Hartly, Georgie (the other English teacher and my nemesis) that she was a terrible
teacher.
    “Wait,” I said. “The girl … Scarlet was her name … called me
a liar. That’s what it was.”
    “Did you lie to her?”
    “ No . God, of course not. I would never lie to a
student. It was a misunderstanding.”
    “What was misunderstood?”
    I stared at her.
    “Ruby?”
    “I don’t know, Dr. Sinclair. That’s what I’m trying to tell
you. It’s like a missing page in a book. And the closer I get to the end, the
more missing pages there are.”
    She steepled her fingers and nodded, which was encouraging. 
But then she said, “You’ll remember when you’re ready, Ruby.”
    I won’t . I never have.
    She had no idea what it was like to be me, to have holes in
your mind. “I want to remember what I did , Dr. Sinclair. I think
I should be hypnotized. I feel very strongly about it … actually.” 
    She nodded again, which, I now realized, was a bad sign. “I don’t recommend hypnosis,” she said. “Not for memory retrieval. It can cause false
and distorted memories, Ruby. Not something you need right now.”
    “But—”
    She glanced at her computer screen. “That’s all the time we
have for today.” 
    I need a watch, I thought.

4. Zadie
    HER LUCK ran out, as luck tends to do. The stars no longer
aligned for her. Maybe they never had.
    She found Devon’s obituary on the internet and printed it
out. She showed his picture around, everywhere. No one had seen him. She made
her way north, to meet up with Inka but received no more messages at any of the
main stops, San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico City, San Diego, L.A., San
Francisco, and at last, Portland, the city of roses. Home .
    Along the way, she saw no demons. At least, none she
recognized.
    She hung out in Portland for a while. Maybe she stayed too
long. 
    But wouldn’t Devon come home? In the end? He should be
looking for her too.
    She liked to walk across the Hawthorne Bridge at night,
after feeding downtown, always drawn to the familiar neighborhoods. Human
memories licked at her mind.
    It troubled her to see her old house with strange people
living in it, though she didn’t miss her family. She just felt proprietary
about the house.
    She checked the cemetery for people she had known. But so
many names from the past had slipped away.
    She found her own tombstone. Beloved Daughter … Rest
in Peace . No rest for the wicked, she thought, running her hand over the
cold marble. What did they bury down there, anyway?
    Devon’s grave wasn’t there. It was in Virginia somewhere,
next to the graves of his ancestors, she assumed. It should be next to hers.
His family were such snobs. 
    Finally, she went east over the mountains to that desert
city, a haven for demons, according to Inka.
    She took a bed in Coffeen sanitarium, and kept a calendar,
marking a big X