Daimon

CHAPTER 8

NIGHT TURNED TO DAY, AND I DIDN’T MOVE UNTIL THE motel manager knocked on the door, asking for more money or for me to get out. Through a tiny crack in the door, I handed him the cash and went back to the bed.

I went on repeat for days. There was a general sense of time changing when I would get up and wobble into the bathroom. I didn’t have the energy to shower, and this wasn’t the kind of place that put out little bottles of shampoo, anyway. There wasn’t even a mirror in here, just a couple of little plastic brackets framing an empty rectangle above the sink. Either moonlight or sunshine would break through the window, and I kept count of each time the manager visited. Three times he’d come to ask for money.

During those days I thought of my mom and I cried until I gagged into my hand. The storm inside me thrashed, threatening to pull me under, and under I went. I curled up in a small ball, not wanting to talk, not wanting to eat. Part of me just wanted to lie there and fade away.

The tears had long since come to an unsatisfying end and I just lay there, searching for a way out.

There seemed to be an empty void looming up ahead. I welcomed it, rushed in, and sank into its meaningless depths until the manager came the fourth day.

This time he spoke to me after I handed him the cash. “You need something, kid?”

I stared at him through the gap. He was an older guy, maybe in his late forties. He seemed to wear the same pinstriped shirt every day, but it looked clean.

He glanced down the hall, running a hand through thinning brown hair. “Is there anyone I can call for you?”

I didn’t have anyone.

“Well, if you need something, just call the front desk.” He backed away, taking my silence as the answer. “Ask for Fred. That’s me.”

“Fred,” I repeated slowly, sounding like an idiot.

Fred stalled, shaking his head. When he looked back at me, his eyes met mine. “I don’t know what kind of trouble you got yourself in, kid, but you’re too young to be out here and in a place like this. Go home.

Go back to where you belong.”

I watched Fred leave and I shut the door behind him, locking it. I turned around slowly and stared at the bed—at the garden spade. My fingers tingled.

Go back to where you belong.

I didn’t belong anywhere. Mom was gone now and-I pushed away from the door, approaching the bed. I picked up the spade and ran my fingers along the sharp edges. Go back to where you belong. There was only one place I did belong and it wasn’t curled up in ball on a bed in a craptastic motel on the wrong side of Miami.

Go to the Covenant.

A tingle ran along the back of my neck. The Covenant? Could I seriously go back there after three years, not even knowing why we’d left? Mom had acted like it wasn’t safe there for us, but I always chalked that up to her paranoia. Would they allow me back without my mother?

Would I be punished for running away with her and not turning her in?

Was I fated to become what I’d avoided all those years ago when I’d gone before the Council and punt-kicked an old lady?

They could force me into servitude.

All those risks were better than being chomped on by a daimon, better than tucking my tail between my legs and giving up. I’d never given up on anything in my entire life. I couldn’t start now, not when my life seriously depended on me not losing it.

And by the way the bed looked and how I smelled, I was officially losing it.

What would my mom say if she could see me now? I doubted she’d suggest the Covenant, but she wouldn’t have wanted me to give up.

Doing so was a disgrace to everything she’d stood for, and to her love.

I couldn’t give up.

The storm inside me stilled and the plan began to form. The closest Covenant was in Nashville, Tennessee. I didn’t know exactly where, but the whole city would be swarming with Sentinels and Guards. We’d be able to sense each other—the aether always called out to us, stronger from the pures, more subtly from the halfs. I’d have to find a ride, because my butt wasn’t walking all the way to Tennessee. I still had enough money to get a ticket on one of those buses I usually wouldn’t consider riding in. The terminal downtown had been closed ages ago and the nearest bus stop going out of state was at the airport.

That was one hell of a hike from here.

I glanced at the bathroom. No light shone through the window. It was night again. Tomorrow morning I could take a cab to the airport and get on one of the buses. I sat down, almost smiling.

I had a plan, a crazy one that may end up backfiring on me, but it was better than giving up and doing nothing. A plan was something and it gave me hope.

After waiting until dawn, I caught a cab to the airport and lingered in the near-vacant bus terminal.

The only company I had was an elderly black man cleaning the hard plastic seats and the rats that scurried along the darker corridors.

Neither were very talkative.

I pulled my legs up on the seat, cradling the spade in my lap while I forced myself to stay alert. After existing in the void of nothingness for days, I still wanted to climb into my favorite jammies and curl up in my mom’s bed. If it wasn’t for every little noise causing me to jump out of my seat, I would’ve fallen out of my chair in a dead sleep.

A handful of people were waiting for the bus when the sun rose outside the windows.

Everyone avoided me, probably because I looked like a hot mess.

The motel shower hadn’t even been working when I’d finally tried it, and my quick rinsing in the sink hadn’t included soap or shampoo.

Standing slowly, I waited until everyone got in line and looked down at the clothes I’d been wearing for days. The knees of my jeans had been torn open and the frayed edges were stained red. A sharp pang hit me in my stomach.

Pulling myself together, I climbed the steps to the bus and briefly made eye contact with the bus driver. Right away, I wished I hadn’t. With a head full of bushy white hair and bifocals perched on his ruddy nose, the driver looked older than the guy who’d been cleaning the chairs.

He even had an AARP sticker on the sun visor and wore suspenders.

Suspenders?

Gods, there was a good chance Santa Claus was going to fall asleep at the wheel and we all were going to die.

Dragging my feet, I picked a spot in the middle and sat down beside a window. Luckily, the bus wasn’t even half full and so the body odor usually associated with these buses was below the norm.

I think I was the only one who smelled.

And I did smell. A lady a few seats ahead of me turned around, wrinkling her nose. When her gaze landed on me, I looked away quickly.

Understanding my questionable hygiene was the least of my problems, it still made my cheeks burn with humiliation. How at a time like this could I even care about how I looked or smelled? I shouldn’t, but I did. I didn’t want to be the stinky girl on the bus. My embarrassment flashed me back to another horrendously mortifying moment in my life.

I’d been thirteen and just started an offensive training class at the Covenant. I remembered being thrilled to do something other than running and practicing blocking techniques. Caleb Nicolo—my best friend and an all around awesome guy—and I had spent the beginning of the first class pushing each other around and acting like monkeys on crack.

We’d been quite… uncontrollable when together.

Instructor Banks, an older half-blood who’d been injured while doing his Sentinel duties, had been teaching the class. He’d informed us that we’d be practicing takedowns and paired me up with a boy named Nick. Instructor Banks had shown us several times how to do it correctly, warning us that, “It has to be done this way. If not, you could break someone’s neck, and that’s not something I’m teaching today.”

It had looked so easy, and being the cocky little brat that I’d been, I hadn’t really paid attention. I’d told Caleb, “I so have this.” We’d high fived like two idiots and gone back to our partners.

Nick had executed the takedown perfectly, sweeping out the leg while maintaining control of my arms. Instructor Banks had praised him.

When it came to my turn, Nick had smiled and waited. Halfway through the maneuver, my grip had slipped on Nick’s arm and I’d dropped him on his neck.

Not good.

When he didn’t get up right away and had started moaning and twitching, I’d known I’d made a terrible miscalculation concerning my skill level. I’d put Nick’s butt in the infirmary for a week and had been called the “Pile Driver” for several months after that.

Up until now, I’d never been so embarrassed in my life. I wasn’t sure which humiliation was worse, though—failing in front of my peers or smelling like gym socks left forgotten in the hamper.

Sighing, I glanced down at my travel itinerary. There were two transfers: one in Orlando and the other in Atlanta. Hopefully one of those stops had some place I could clean up a little better and grab some food. Maybe they’d also have drivers who weren’t nearing their expiration dates.

I looked around the bus, smothering my yawn with my hand. There were definitely no daimons on the bus; I imagined they’d loathe public transportation. And—from what I could tell—I didn’t see any possible serial killers who looked like they’d prey on dirty chicks. I pulled the spade out and shoved it between me and the seat. I dozed off pretty quickly and woke up a few hours in, my neck cramping something fierce.

A couple of the people on the bus had these neat little pillows I’d have given my left arm for.

Wiggling in my seat until I found a position that didn’t feel like I was cramped in a cage, I didn’t notice I had company until I lifted my eyes.

The woman who’d sniffed the air earlier stood in the aisle beside my seat. My gaze fell over her neatly coiffed brown hair and pressed khaki pants, not sure what to make of her. Had I stunk up the bus?

Smiling tightly, she pulled her hand out from behind her back and held a package of crackers out toward me. They were the kind with peanut butter in the middle, six to a pack. My stomach roared to life.

I blinked slowly, confused.

She shook her head, and I noticed the cross dangling from a gold chain around her neck. “I thought… you might be hungry?”

Pride sparked in my chest. The lady thought I was some homeless kid. Wait. I AM a homeless kid.I swallowed the sudden lump in my throat.

The lady’s hand shook a bit as she pulled back. “You don’t have to.

If you change—”

“Wait,” I said hoarsely, wincing at the sound of my own voice. I cleared my throat while my cheeks heated. “I’ll take it. Thank… thank you.”

My fingers looked especially grubby next to hers even though I’d scrubbed them in the motel bathroom. I started to thank her again, but she’d already moved back to her seat. I stared down at the package of crackers, feeling a tightening in my chest and jaw. Somewhere I’d read once that was a symptom of a heart attack, but I doubted that was what was wrong with me.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I tore into the package, eating so fast I really couldn’t taste anything. Then again, it was hard to savor the first food I’d eaten in days when tears clogged my throat.