Giuseppa grew still.

I leaned forward and spoke clearly, “We both know I’m more than a high school girl.”

Vespar snapped his mouth shut, but not before he snuck another look at Kellan. Then he turned back around in his chair. The small challenge was officially closed, and I was the victor.

I just wasn’t sure if I wanted to be.

All hell broke loose after class.

Well, not immediately after class, but as soon we left school. Kellan told me to go straight home, that he’d deal with Vespar. However, when I drove down our long winding gravel road, I saw that he hadn’t quite “dealt” with our brother. Vespar was smoking, waving agitatedly in the air, and pacing back and forth by the river. Giuseppa sat on the bank, her knees drawn against her chest, and her head tucked between her legs.

I hadn’t gone farther than two steps before Kellan’s car zoomed and braked beside mine. Dirt flew in my face, but I didn’t see it. Some of it nicked my leg, and blood was drawn, but I was intent on Vespar. Never had a Braden disrespected another in public. It wasn’t going to fly now. I took another step and found myself hauled back.

Kellan was there. “Let me handle him.”

“No.” I shoved off his hand. “He pissed on me. I told the truth, Kellan. He didn’t like it, for whatever reason, and he humiliated me! Me! Not you.”

“I’ll deal with it. He won’t listen to you. He’ll fight. He won’t fight me. Let me do this, Shay.”

“No!” I was out for Vespar’s blood. I swung around, ready to charge, and found myself face-to-face with an equally enraged Vespar. His eyes were wide, pupils dilated, and when he shook a finger in the air, I saw the actual air move with it. I wondered if the trees swayed as well.

“You don’t say that! You don’t play with our lives like you did in class!” Vespar yelled at me. Giuseppa stood to the side, anxious, but still alert. Kellan fell to the side, and I surged forward. “He asked me a question. I told the truth!”

“How do you know, Shay?” Vespar laughed mockingly, bitingly. “How do you know there’s a heaven or hell? How do you know when no one else knows?”

“I know because—”

“You know because you’re a demon! Just like us, Shay. We’re all demons. We’re all going to hell. That’s how you know, but are you going to tell them that? Are you going to—” Vespar interrupted heatedly. He shook his finger with each word until he stood an inch from my nose.

I took it. I held firm, and then I cut him off, “What life are you so worried about, Vespar? You can’t die. You’re a demon. We all are. We don’t die!”

“Enough!” Kellan roared and stepped between us.

He didn’t touch us, but his hands sparked, and we were thrown backward. Vespar went farther than me, and as I landed, a little unsteadily on my feet, Vespar fell to the ground. I quickly strode to where Vespar lay. “I spoke the truth. That’s all I did. No one’s going to think we’re demons. No one’s going to ever consider it, so you’re safe, Vespar. Your little hide is safe because that’s all you’re really worried about. You don’t care about me. You’ve never cared about me.”

He looked up, dazed, but I saw the anger still there. His blue eyes snapped back at me as he cradled a hand on his chest, where Kellan had zapped him. “Humans can’t hurt us, but don’t you think there’s something worse for us? We’re half-human, but we’re half-demon, Shay. We can go to hell. That’s our rightful place—”

“Not if we’re smart. Not if we…”

Vespar laughed coldly and rolled to his feet. “Not if we what, Shay? Not if we ignore all the sick, dark stuff we love? Not if we…what? I’d like to know. We’ve got a nature inside. It’s called evil. We’re evil. You’re evil, just like us. You just fight what’s inside of you better than the rest of us, but there’s worse for us, Shay. Worse than just dying.”

I frowned, caught off-guard.

Giuseppa stepped forward with her eyes narrowed and her hair pulled into a hasty ponytail. She murmured throatily, “They can send messengers after us, agents after us. You have no idea, Shay, because you never want to know. You don’t want to know what we are, what you are. You’re one of us. You need to start acting like it.”

Messengers? Agents? A cold shiver slammed down my spine as I remembered my painting. Three angels were descending—I painted that after seeing Kellan portrayed as a demon. It didn’t mean anything. It couldn’t. I shook my head and rasped out, “It’s no excuse. Just because our mother had demon blood—”

“Has,” Giuseppa interrupted firmly, coldly. Her blue eyes studied me as if seeing me for the first time, like she was seeing something she’d never seen before and didn’t like it. She stepped back, retreating, and repeated again, “Has.”

“What?” I frowned, scratching absent-mindedly at my arm. The tattoo was burning…

“You said ‘had.’ Mom has blood. She’s not dead, Shay,” Vespar snapped back. “And you still need to hear us. You can’t go talk about stuff like that. There are people, things, around that are more open-minded than most. They believe in stuff like us, like demons. They’ll figure it out and send messengers after us—”

“—if they’re smart, they will,” Kellan finished for him darkly.