Free The Demon's Deadline (Demon's Assistant Book 1) by Tori Centanni Page A

complex. You should go home and get some rest, okay? I’ll talk to you on Monday.”
    “What about the tea thing?”
    “I think maybe that’s a bad idea.”
    For some reason, the fact that I’m now un-invited to the tea party I didn’t want to attend in the first place feels like the biggest blow. I knew she wouldn’t believe me, but it still stings. “Yeah. Okay.”
    She starts to hug me and stops and then gives me a pained look. Then she heads back down the hill toward the coffee shop and her car. I sit and replay the conversation, wondering how insane it sounded. I have no idea what she thinks I’m mixed up in—I’d bet money the drugs theory is still high on her list—but clearly telling her the truth was a mistake.
    I fight back tears as I walk toward my apartment. People always say the truth will set you free, but they don’t mention the part about how much that freedom might cost. In this case, it might have cost me my best friend.

 
     
     
     
CHAPTER EIGHT
     

     
    The black envelope sits in the center of my bed on my faded purple bedspread. I watch it like it might suddenly speak or grow legs and do a dance. Or at least explain why Azmos made my deal at all. Why was he there when the car crashed? Why did he save me of all the people who probably died that day? Why am I, as he put it, an “exception,” and an exception to what?
    After hours of debating whether or not I should make the first move or let him do it, I text Cam a short apology. It’s already six o’clock, so no doubt Mel is at her tea party, and Cam is probably on his way to Amy’s sister’s booze-filled bash. It’s probably a good thing my dad is home and watching television in the living room. If I were alone, I might be tempted to steal one of his beers.
    Thinking hurts. The gaping chasm in my stomach throbs like a physical wound.
    The dreary, violin-backed music I play on my iPod swirls around me. I turn off the overhead light so my room is illuminated only by the white and red Christmas lights I’ve hung up near the ceiling. At least I can set the mood for my misery. I sit against my headboard and stare at the envelope some more.
    The singer on my stereo belts a lyric about being left alone. I check my phone. There’s nothing from Cam or Melissa or anyone else. I toss it aside and pull my knees up to my chest.
    Cam has every right to be mad, which only makes me feel worse. I let him think I was still in danger when the danger had passed. Why didn’t I just tell him? Because I didn’t want to say it and make it real. I didn’t even want to believe it. And I really didn’t think I could take seeing his elation in the face of my misery about the whole thing. But it’s more than that.
    I stare at my name in swirly, silver letters on the black envelope. It wasn’t merely shock and disbelief that kept me from wanting to move on; it was fear. I’m scared of being nothing. Of being unimportant and left behind. Of having no purpose. If nothing else, working for Azmos gave me meaning. And it gave me a place outside the normal rat race, which I never had any aptitude for anyway. I was a square peg who finally found somewhere I fit.
    I liked having a secret identity, a secret purpose. I could fail my math test and know that, even though I wasn’t cut out for Mathletes, I could be somebody.
    There were times the job was a hassle, sure, but it connected me to a world most people will never know exists. Azmos may have annoyed me when he had a job for me at a bad time, but if I’m honest, I never wanted him to stop showing up completely.
    I remember why Xanan came to the coffee shop in the first place: Azmos is missing. Not just from my life, but entirely. The thought scares me more than Cam being mad at me or Mel thinking I’ve completely lost my marbles. How does a demon disappear?
    Maybe he wanted to, I tell myself. Maybe he ’ s moved on. Maybe that’s why I was fired, and whatever he said about having issues with