Slumber Party

Chapter 28 of Banished for Love

I kill the engine in Jeremy’s garage and trudge through the backyard into the house. I throw my backpack on the counter and fall back on the couch, physically and emotionally exhausted. I glance at the decorative analog clock on the wall; almost 6:00. I sigh and close my eyes, wishing Jeremy were here. Cheyenne started her three day weekend early and is off on an overnight road trip with some of her co-workers, so I am painfully alone in the big empty house.

 

An hour later the doorbell startles me out of my half slumber.

 

“Who in the world?” I mutter to myself as I stumble over to the front door. I open it to find Brittney standing a bit awkwardly on the porch.

 

I smack the heel of my hand into my forehead. “I completely forgot we had planned a sleepover.” I say to her.

 

“I’m not surprised,” Brittney replies, stepping inside. “I heard what happened with Jeremy, is he okay?”

 

I shut the door and direct her to the living room. “He will be. Devin, however, may not be once I’m through with him.”

 

“Can’t say I blame you,” she responds, setting her own bag on the counter next to mine.

 

“You have no idea how badly I want to hurt him right now,” I say through clenched teeth as I plop down on the couch.

 

Brittney hesitantly sits beside me. “Again, I don’t blame you.”

 

“He wasn’t even surprised when I called him out on lying about his parents.” I say, focusing back.

 

“Seriously? And he still didn’t spill the beans?” Brittney asks, surprised.

 

“No, he said I 'wasn’t ready' to know the truth,” I say, making air quotes.

 

Brittney taps her pristinely manicured finger against her chin contemplatively. “We need to get some dirt on him. We need to do some snooping,” she says with conviction.

 

“I don’t know,” I reply skeptically. “Do you really think that’s a good idea? What if we get caught?”

 

“That’s why we are careful, dummy.” She responds, standing up. “Are you coming or not?”

 

I hesitate, biting my lip before following Brittney out to her pink bug. We drive off to investigate Devin’s house.

Devin’s Point of View

 

I lay in my “sister’s” room, thinking about Kelsey (no big shocker there). The sheets still faintly hold Kelsey’s scent from when I had brought her here. I breathe her in as I think back to the first time I’d seen Kelsey.

 

I had never been a fan of my father’s idea of entertainment. Public executions just weren’t my cup of tea. But for reasons I couldn’t explain at the time, I was drawn to this one.

 

I was lounged out in my own private box seat near the top of the cavern when the executioners cart was wheeled in. I was surprised when there were more people in the cart than just the usual one that was being executed. Perhaps it was a mass execution, I had mused to myself. My eyes scrutinized the lineup. One guardian angel with chocolate brown curls, one guardian trainee with light brown hair, an ordinary human boy with black hair, and one other. My eyes had stopped when they fell on the other guardian trainee, the one with the raven wing hair. She was beautiful and intriguing. The way she clung to the human boy made me think they were together. A new emotion, something I had never felt before had boiled inside me. Only now did I realize that even then I’d been jealous of Jeremy for having Kelsey. They were marched up to a platform not far below my own perch. The boy’s restraints tugged him toward the edge and the two lovers had rushed each other for their chance at a final kiss. I had chuckled to myself, thinking of where their relationship had gotten them; in Hell with one of them being sent to death. A heavenly white light had illuminated the cavern then, archangels swooping in from all directions. I stumbled over myself trying to back out of the room. I had never tangled with archangels and had planned on keeping it that way. That was the last I saw of Kelsey until coming back to town. It was clear to me that that day was when she was cast out of heaven and returned to Earth to have a somewhat hollow relationship with Jeremy.

 

Thinking about their relationship pulls me back to the only relationship I’d ever had. I suppose it was about three years ago that I was with Brittney. It was the first time I had ever been allowed to leave the underworld.

 

She was the first person who had talked to me on my first day at that human school. I knew she was a guardian trainee from the start, I knew she wouldn’t accept me if she knew who I was, so I pretended we were both just average humans. She was so sweet to me, and I had never had contact with anyone other than my parents and demons before, so I wasn’t about to let that go. We dated for a while, I thought I was in love, considering I had never been given the chance to feel this way before.

 

One day, my father summoned me downstairs. Somehow, he had found out about me and Brittney and, as you can imagine, was furious. He told me he had posed as another guardian trainee and contacted Brittney’s training partner, convincing her to go to the high council with proof of our relationship off of Brittney’s phone. He locked me in the underworld until after Brittney had fallen so I wouldn’t have the chance to defend her. When he finally did let me out, I was forbidden from visiting towns within a thousand mile radius of Brittney when I did visit Earth.

 

Until, of course, he got a reason to send me back to Big Sur: destroying Kelsey.

However, he couldn’t stop me from using the powers being his son had given me to have been watching Brittney occasionally over the years. She had turned bitter and bitchy and nearly every ounce of the sweet innocent girl I had fallen for had been sucked out of her from years of being a fallen angel. I had dated other girls over the last three years, in other towns. They had given me the experience and perspective to know that I did love Kelsey. It wasn’t just, as my mom had said, my human emotions getting the best of me. I had learned to differentiate them, to understand them.

 

I hear a soft noise in the foyer of the house and my head whips toward the door of the room. Using my skills of stealth I silently slip off the bed and out into the hallway. Sticking close to the shadows, I slink my way down the hall to peek into the foyer. What I see causes a dark grin to crack across my face. Brittney and Kelsey are crouched by the front door trying to close it silently. Clearly they had broken into my house, presumably to do some snooping. I melt back into the shadows, ready to have a little fun.