Free Human by Alycia Linwood Page B

a street lamp. His obsidian black eyes bled to blue as he stepped forward, his messy black hair shining like it was covered with tiny diamonds. If he weren't a demon, he'd be absolutely breathtaking.
    "You..." he started saying and then frowned."Something's different about you."
    I didn't know what to say to that. Could he somehow sense I'd been with an angel not long ago? But that would mean he could sense my sister too, unless her angel powers were still too weak.
    "Different? Really?" I gave him a quizzical look, trying to hide my real thoughts. Damn, I'd forgotten to ask Amadeo could demons read my thoughts, but since he hadn't said anything when I'd said what I was planning to do, then Devin probably couldn't do that.
    "I... Never mind," he said, and we started aimlessly circling the supermarket.
    "So why did you want to see me?" I asked, a little bit impatient. I didn't have time for this. The only thing I wanted was to go to my warm house and come up with a good plan to get rid of him.
    "Are you in a hurry?" There was a hint of a smile on his lips.
    "Homework won't write itself," I pointed out, then remembered he had that magic ability to create perfect compositions out of thin air. "Well, at least mine won't."
    "Tell me about it." He sighed, staring down at his boots as he kicked an empty soda can that was lying discarded in the snow.
    "Can't you use magic on your homework?"
    "I wish." He snorted. "It's not that simple."
    "Strange. I thought it was." I looked at him, and we stopped walking. Why was he even trying to lie to me when I knew better? He was just about to say something when his eyes went black, and he squeezed them shut, placing a hand on his temple like he was having a bad migraine.
    "Are you ok?" I reached out for him, but at the last moment decided against it and let my hand hover in the air only inches away from his shoulder. His eyes were blue again when he finally looked back at me, but his nose was bleeding.
    "I'm fine," he said, clearly surprised that I cared. Did I care? I had no idea, but it was hard to see him as a demon when he appeared so human.
    "Umm, there's blood..." He'd wiped it off with the sleeve of his sweater before I could finish the sentence. Were demons supposed to have nose bleeds? Somehow I doubted it.
    "I've learned a lot of things about this world, but it's so different than I expected." His sudden change of topic surprised me a bit. Was he going to pour out his heart to me? Not likely. He was probably trying to make me trust him or feel compassion for him.
    "Different from Hell?" I felt a smile tugging at the corners of my lips. If Hell was anything like I thought it was, then it was completely different.
    "Yeah," he said, blinking a few times. His eye color changed from blue to black and back again so fast that I could barely follow.
    "Are you sure you're ok?" If he was faking it, then he was doing an awesome job of it, because I actually got worried.
    "Yeah," he said, but blood was again trickling from his nose. I shook my head at him, my gloved hand on my hip, hoping he'd either stop acting or admit something was wrong.
    "If that is ok, then I'm an alien," I said, and he stared at me like I had sprouted a third head. Oh well, maybe he'd never heard of aliens.
    "It's nothing," he said reassuringly, wiping away the blood.
    "Maybe I should go," I said softly. "You need to... take care of that, and I have things to do..."
    "No!" He grabbed me by the arm before I could walk away. His fingers felt like ice even through all the layers of clothing I had on me. I narrowed my eyes at him, and he let his hand drop by his side.
    "You're freezing," I said. "Why don't you..." Go home? Would that be Hell or some place here? I had only a moment to decide what to do next. The first option was to leave him here and go home. The other option was to take him home with me like some stray puppy for a while. There was a fair chance he was trying to make me do exactly the latter. Fine. I could do