Free Cursed Love by Lanie Jordan Page A

good sign.
    I was just about to turn away and move on to
the next target area on my non-list list when I spotted a group of
guys. Two had their backs to me so I didn’t see their faces, but
that didn’t really matter. The boys weren’t what had caught my
attention. No. It was the thing that was floating ten feet behind
them.
    My heart slammed against my chest, and I
wondered if it could get whiplash.
    I had found the Evol/anti-Cupid thing.
    You know what’s worse than admitting you’re
wrong? Admitting your parents were right. Demons were real and
everyone else in the building was oblivious to it.
    It didn’t look at all like I’d expected—not
that I had any real expectations other than something disgusting
and slimy. Perhaps a little…bigger. Okay, I expected something a
lot bigger. Weren’t demons supposed to be larger than life?
    I stood where I was, planted to the spot like
I’d become part of the sidewalk. If demons were real, then the rest
of what my parents told me was probably true. Damnit! Now I had to
actually figure out a way to stop it.
    Okay. All I needed to do, at least until I
figured that out, was get the Evol away from the group, right?
Right. I was debating just how to do that when the two boys that’d
had their backs to me turned around and I finally saw their
faces.
    My jaw dropped with an audible pop and
probably would have hit the ground had it not been attached.
Closing my eyes, I let my head fall against the glass once more and
banged it twice, silently wondering how many puppies and kittens I
must have murdered in a past life to deserve such cruel and unusual
punishment.
    The Evol was moving in on its intended
victim, and for a second, I wasn’t all that sure I wanted to do
anything to stop it. Misery loved company, didn’t it?
    That wasn’t the seriously distressing part,
though. No. Not only did I know its intended victim, but I knew him. As in personally. As in his name was Aaron and he
was a creep.
    And he just happened to be my
ex-boyfriend.
     

Chapter Two
     
    Didn’t it just figure that the love I had to
save was that of my cheating ex-boyfriend who really didn’t deserve
it? Paying for someone else’s mistakes was one thing—but this was
just downright unfair. I had to risk my love for him ?
    My blood boiled.
    He cheated on me , broke my heart and this was my thanks. Great. Perfect. Just another way this
Valentines Day would blow chunks. Another way Fate could kick me in
the teeth. What did he do to deserve my help? Save some of those
puppies and kittens I must’ve tried killing off?
    The longer I looked at him, the more my heart
tore to pieces. Seeing him with that other girl—Inez, one of my
supposed friends—had felt like someone sending my heart through a
dulled paper shredder. I was still slowly trying to put the pieces
back together, but the final product would never look the same.
    I wanted to walk away right then and wash my
hands of him. And I probably would have, if it hadn’t meant
forfeiting love for myself. He might’ve deserved that; I
didn’t—regardless of what one of my ancestors did.
    I gritted my teeth. We hadn’t even been
broken up two weeks yet, for crying out loud. How was it anything
remotely close to fair that I had to be the one to help him when he clearly didn’t deserve it?
    Fine , I thought to myself. I would be
the bigger person. But there was no way I was doing it for him. I’d
already paid the price once by him cheating on me, and was
currently paying another for an ancestor’s mistake.
    I glanced down at my watch and sighed. I had
just over two hours to save him, and I still didn’t know how. “When
the time is right, you’ll figure it out,” my mom had replied when I
asked how to do it. Why did people always tell you that? How was
that helpful? What if I went by the wrong sign and assumed the Evol
was gone and then whoosh , my love was gone forever?
    Or worse, what if there was never a sign or I
just plain missed it? I