Grave Mistakes (Hellgate Guardians #1)(29)

No more demons for me...ever. I clearly can’t be trusted, and Hell is not on my travel bucket list. There’s no way I’d be coming back from that trip unscathed, even if what they say about me being powerful is true. And it can’t be true. I’m not a demon. I’m Delta Gates, daughter of Tanya and Ray Gates, and I am human.

I hope.





7





I grumble to myself as I peek through the blinds of my front window and scan the empty street for the fiftieth time this morning. It’s been a week since I ran my happy ass out of a well-paying job to potentially guard a Hellgate, and not one of those hot demons has bothered to track me down. I’m not sure if I’m relieved or insulted.

I activated my hermit mode this past week, which hasn’t been much of a struggle since I’m unemployed and have no life, but it’s Sunday, and Sundays are for family, potential demon threats or not.

I pace from my living room back to my kitchen and boredly open the refrigerator door to stare at the abysmal contents. Looks like I’ve avoided grocery shopping for about as long as I can. I’ll have to restock on my way home.

I return my stare to the front window, as if I’m expecting that someone’s going to break down the door and demand I accept my fate as a Hellgate Guardian, but there’s no one there. Just the same old quiet street as always, the same lines of dilapidated houses bordering each side of the cracked and cratered pavement.

I shake my head. Clearly, no one is coming for me. I couldn’t have been that important if they haven’t even attempted to find me. I just wish I could figure out why that seems to bother me so much.

I mean, maybe I was hoping that they’d at least email and offer me back the job that I thought I signed up for. I’m sure the graveyard itself should be watched over while they find someone else to do that whole Hellgate Guardian thing, but I haven’t heard a peep.

Now, I find myself looking at every new job position that comes up like it’s a trick. Maybe that one job listing for the phlebotomist was actually for vampires, or the dog groomer one was for werewolves. There’s just no telling what the hell is going on in this world anymore. Now that everything I thought I knew has been burned to the ground, I’m reaching epic levels of paranoia.

I back away from the window with irritation and then swipe my keys off the counter. Enough. No one is coming for me, so it’s time I stop hiding.

I eye the weird scythe-stick still chillin’ in my umbrella holder by the door before walking out of my house for the first time in a week. I high five Fern as I leave, and then I strap my helmet on while watching the empty street and shadows around my house. I quickly rev up the ol’ moped, and despite the fact that all is quiet around me—aside from the sputtering and growly two wheeler beneath me—I can’t shake the feeling that I’m being watched.

I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been living off granola bars for the last two days and the lack of calories is taking its toll, or if I’m really being spied on somehow, but I doubt it’s the latter. I don’t see anything out of the ordinary as I make the familiar drive to visit my parents, so I chalk up this round of heebie-jeebies to low blood sugar and paranoia.

I drive around the outskirts of Sandpiper City until I reach a set of tall, barred, iron gates that are wide open and welcoming. Driving through them, I take a right, a left, another right, and then park off to the side of the main road and glance around at the quiet land. I get off my moped, grab the tarp and the blanket that are always tucked under the seat, and step onto the crisp bright green grass that leads the way through Sandpiper’s Cemetery.

Cooled dewdrops that the rain from the night before delivered to the ground, kiss my black boots as I walk. I try not to think too hard about the panic attack I had last night until the storm finally stopped in the early hours of the morning. I need to get a TV for my bedroom so I can blare rock music in there when a storm hits at night, but money is tighter than that pair of jeans I’ve saved since I was a high school senior. Still, there’s only so much sleep a girl can get on the threadbare couch that I own.

After walking for a couple of minutes, I reach my parents’ headstones and smile, noting that the tops of them are still damp and smell like last night’s storm. I wipe away a couple of leaves that are stuck to the front of my dad’s headstone and then spread out my tarp and my blanket before stepping between each of their final resting places.

“You guys will never guess how crazy this last week has been,” I tell them as I lean against the side of my dad’s headstone and trace one of the edges of my mom’s. “Good news is, I bought everything I need to finally refinish the floors. Bad news is, I lost that sweet job I was telling you about last week, so I might have to return everything.”

I snap off a blade of grass and swivel it between my fingers.

“Now, before you start in on the lecture,” I go on. “This is one hundred percent not my fault. My bosses turned out to be demons, and I don’t mean that they were shitty to work for, I mean legitimate demons, horns and all. Well...not all of them have horns, but you know what I mean,” I say, my chuckle morphing into a weary sigh.

I place a hand over the carved letters of my mom’s name before closing my eyes and dropping my head. “Do you guys know what I mean?” I ask quietly, uncertainty quivering in my tone. “Were you demons and just forgot to mention it? Because these guys say I am one too, and as much as I’m thinking they’re fucking crazy, there’s this other part of me that thinks...maybe they’re not wrong.”