The Unlikeable Demon Hunter (Nava Katz #1)(32)

I stood, snatching up my dirty dishes. “I may not want to be here any more than you want me here, but that doesn’t give you the right to treat me with a lack of respect.” I dumped them into the sink then whirled to face him. “Now,” I continued, “we’re going to set some ground rules. The first is, you’re going to remember that unlike the rest of you, I didn’t get to spend my entire life training and studying because Demon Club was so short-sighted, they couldn’t see that a girl was the chosen one.”

Rohan pushed to his feet in one fluid move. I was going to have to learn that trick. My standing up always involved weirdly jutting out body parts.

“Fine,” he said, getting in my face. “Then the second has to be that you shut up and listen. Yeah, we threw you in the deep end. There’s no time to pussyfoot around with you. Your magic is active. That means you need to know how to use it because I guarantee that demons are gonna be a regular part of your life now.”

“You still played dirty,” I said. “I get that I’m a huge target, but I thought you guys were supposed to have my back.” He opened his mouth but I held up a hand, cutting him off. “How far would you have let it go with the curupira before you stepped in to help?”

His hesitation told me everything I needed to know.

I slammed on the tap to rinse off my plate, my back to him.

“We would never have let it kill you,” he said in a low voice.

I blinked rapidly, my eyes hot and itchy. I gave myself to the count of five to compose myself and face him. “I’m still the special unicorn Demon Club wants protected. I can make your life very hard if I want to.”

“Back at you, Lolita.”

I bit back my retort for the sake of my Ari plan. “I better return to my training, then.” I’d almost made it to the doorway when something pointy hit my back. I turned around to see my schedule, now in paper airplane form flutter to the ground.

Rohan smirked at me, but I gave him a sweet smile, picked up the damn schedule, and left. I saved my outburst for my bedroom later that night, flinging my bag at the wall. The thunk that the demon primer made as the bag connected wasn’t nearly satisfying enough.

Ari poked his head in. “What happened?”

“They threw a demon at me.”

Ari’s eye bulge was gratifying. “On your first day? It took me years to get up close to one. Under major supervision.”

“Yeah, well.” I snatched up my bag, dumping the contents out on my bed. Perhaps a tad viciously.

Ari picked up the book, glancing at the cover with a soft laugh before turning back to me. “That was kind of shitty but they made sure it was a relatively harmless one, right? An imp or a–”

“Curupira.”

Ari stilled, turning an interesting shade of red. “A what?” His voice chilled me.

I tugged the book from his hands. “Ace.”

“No. You could have died.”

“I killed it. In the end.” He gave a choking cough like he didn’t believe me. I slammed the book down on my mattress. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, bro.”

Ari crossed his arms. “On your first day? You killed a curupira?”

I crossed my arms right back. “Technically, it was my second day. And my third kill.” You know, put that way, I had a pretty sweet success rate.

His eyes narrowed. “No one helped you?”

“Screw you. Is it so tough to believe I did it?”

“Yeah, all right? It is.” He slammed the door on the way out and I flopped down on my bed.

Even when I beat the odds and did well, somehow things overwhelmingly sucked. Thanks for nothing, universe.





9





The next few days were a blur of training, training, and more training. I’d gotten to the point where no matter how Baruch lunged at me or otherwise tried to surprise me, I could turn my power on, going all shocktastic on him. With no more screaming and running. My defense was awesome, too. I was queen of blocking and could break most holds.

The first time I earned a “tov meod” or “very good” from Baruch for my efforts, I swear, cartoon birds danced around my head. I even had a new self-anointed superhero name–Lady Shock and Awe. Ari and his pop psychology could suck it.

On this drizzly Thursday morning, or as I called it, Nava’s Origin Story, Day Five: In Which Her Last Bit of Skin Gets Pummeled by Tree Trunk, I found my brother in the kitchen, still dressed in yesterday’s clothes, asleep on his homework. Our paths had barely crossed since our fight the other night, but even our brief encounters were enough to note his descent into depression. Careful not to wake him, I moved the binder out from under his cheek, finding a scrawled “I hate my life” at the top of his chem equations page.

I bowed my head, exhausted and frustrated at being no further along with my Ari plan. Rabbi Abrams had been detained on business and Ms. Clara, though sympathetic, was unwilling to put me in touch with the Executive. The one bright spot was my brother was too bummed to go out and fight demons himself.

I couldn’t let him keep spiraling downward. Dad always said to take emotion out of the equation and see what things boiled down to. The Brotherhood already owned my ass. Still, a hot start up garnered more attention and resources than a dud subsidiary. I needed a win. A big one. And the biggest potential win I could think of was already sending spider demons after me.