Free Demon High by Lori Devoti Page A

standing in the kitchen, holding her pill bottles. “Where’d you get the money for this?”
    I’d given the lie I was about to tell some thought. I knew I couldn’t say I’d gotten a conventional job because Nana would check that out. “Brittany George. She came by the other night. Her mom was friends with Mum.”
    Nana waved her hand, saying she didn’t want to talk about the Georges—something I’d planned on.
    “She needed a tutor in biology.” It was a bit of a lie. Brittany wasn’t known for good grades, but I didn’t think it was because she was lacking in smarts, more likely just another facet of her carefully crafted image.
    “You helping her?”
    It was a direct question, but one easily avoided. I waved my hand at her medications.
    “I know you said you don’t need them, but with me getting some extra money, and there being nothing else we need—” An obvious lie, but manipulating Nana was a bit of an art. “—I figured it would be as good as anything else.”
    Her gaze was on the bottle in her hand. She shook it, listened to the pills rattle, and then turned toward the sink to fill a glass with water. “Since you bought ‘em, I’ll use ‘em, but I don’t want you sacrificing your own grades to make money for me. Like you said, we’re doing just fine.”
    I didn’t glance toward the living room where the piano still sat, but I could feel it there, looming. I held my breath until after she’d opened the second bottle and swallowed that dose too.
    Something inside me unwound then, a wire that had been wrapped around my chest. I exhaled, loud enough she turned to look at me.
    “There something else you need to tell me, girl?” she asked.
    “Nothing much. Just that there are crustless PB&J’s in the fridge. I thought we could have them for dinner.”
    After that the night was a dream, the best one we’d shared in months. Nana flipped on one of her favorite reality shows, and we ate crustless PB&Js while yelling at the judges.
    It was a simple night, probably boring in most people’s book, but I wouldn’t have traded it for anything. I would have faced Kobal a thousand times over just to experience it again.
    And that was the only dark moment of the evening—when that thought snuck out of hiding in my head, and I realized just how true it was. I’d do anything to keep my life like this. Anything.
    And I wouldn’t suffer a second of guilt for the decision.
     
     

Chapter 7
     
    Monday morning I got up earlier than usual. After my realization, I hadn’t slept that well. Nana and our life together was my Achilles heel in the demon world. I couldn’t help but wonder if my mother’d had one too—me, Nana. If that was how she’d got caught.
    Then there was the fact that I had lied to Nana, not directly, but through omission. She wouldn’t see the difference. So I’d tossed and turned, and tried to convince myself none of it mattered because I everything had worked out. That was how you learned, right? Close calls?
    We just needed a few more ground rules. No alcohol being at the top of the list.
    No drunks. No problems.
    I told myself all of this, but despite the fact that I knew getting a regular job wouldn’t bring in the money we needed and that I couldn’t tell Nana what I was really doing to make the cash I’d made, the guilt lingered.
    So, unable to sleep, I whipped on my clothes and trotted downstairs. Nana’s passion for PB and J included muffins with the two tucked inside. I’d taught myself to cook early on. Neither Nana nor my mother had been all that traditionally nurturing. In elementary school, the other kids’ moms always brought cupcakes and brownies for the class on their children’s birthdays. If I wanted to blend, I had to learn to make my own. I learned quickly that muffins were easy. I had about a thousand variations now, but the PB and J ones were Nana’s favorites.
    Baked goods might not make up for demon-calling in my grandmother’s book, but they