Grave Mistakes (Hellgate Guardians #1)(30)

I run my fingers through my purple hair and press my cheek against the cold damp stone standing guard over my dad. “You used to joke that I was evil spawn on my extra sassy days. Was there truth in the teasing?” I ask him, wishing there was some way he could answer me. I fall silent, feeling the wounds they left behind when they died break open inside of me, and I have no choice but to sit here and just breathe through the sadness that hammers at me.

It’s been a while since I felt this small and lost, and I hate coming here and being this way. I wish I had good news to share with them, or questions about which project in the house I should work on next, but everything feels deep, biting, and existential today. I just feel so...alone.

“I think I got my hopes up just a little too much,” I finally admit when I’m able to swallow down the tears I refuse to shed and can talk again. “Mom, I know you would’ve said it was all too good to be true, and I hate that you would’ve been right, but I just thought for once that things were going to work out for me, you know? That all the hard work and struggling amounted to this awesome new start, and things would fall into place.”

I rub my face, suddenly feeling in my bones tired. “Anyway, don’t worry about me. I’ll figure it out. I always do,” I reassure them. “I guess if this whole demon thing turns out to be legit, then I’ll know why my guardian angels have been dropping the ball so much. Demons probably don’t have any,” I tease. “Think guardian demons exist?” I ask, though my laugh sounds hollow, even to my own ears.

When I hear a noise, I look up to find Mrs. Lee’s car making its way down the winding path. Her red Cadillac maneuvers closer, and I look to the right of the row of headstones in front of me where I know Mr. Lee is buried. I see Mrs. Lee every Sunday. She likes to sit under the huge oak tree about fifteen feet away from her husband’s grave and read to him. We don’t talk or acknowledge each other, other than the occasional nod and wave, but it feels like she’s as close of a friend as I’ve ever had. She and I both know what it’s like to lose someone.

“So, what’s new with you guys?” I say, changing the subject as I watch Mrs. Lee park just in front of my moped and climb out of her boat of a car.

She’s wearing her prized fur coat like she does every time the temperature outside is under eighty. I like to speculate that the coat must have been a gift from Mr. Lee. I always see her walk to his headstone and say something to him while she pets the front of the gray and white fluffy jacket.

She makes her way closer to me, and I ready my friendly wave, but the kind smile on my lips promptly dies when she gets closer. Instead of the face of Mrs. Lee that I’ve come to know and recognize, there’s a gaunt, gray-skinned, skeletal face, with small antlers sprouting from her forehead.

What the hell?

I flinch back, the blood leaching from my face as I watch, stunned and completely at a loss for what my eyes are showing me. Demon. Once again, the word reverberates in my skull, bouncing around like a ping pong ball, but I know instinctively that it’s right.

Unaware of my shock, she lifts up a frail hand and waves distractedly to me as she passes by. I return the gesture numbly, my autopilot manners kicking in. I drop my eyes to the plaid pattern of the blanket I’m sitting on and try not to hyperventilate. Shock and panic slam through me like a hurricane, once again decimating the rules of the world I thought I knew.

I sneak another peek at Mrs. Lee, hoping that with enough blinks, she’ll revert back to the elderly Asian woman I’ve come to know. But the antlered, skeletal being that’s wrapped up in a giant fur is still there. She just leans against the tree trunk and goes about her visit, just like she has every Sunday since I was nineteen, like nothing is out of the ordinary.

What the hell is going on?

I kiss both my parents’ headstones quickly, ending my visit early. I need to get the hell out of here before I lose it. I grab the blanket and tarp and speed walk back to my moped, trying not to get caught staring at Mrs. Lee as I go. I putter away, trying to grasp any kind of relief from the distance I put between me and whatever the fuck she is, but it doesn’t come.

Am I losing it? Am I seeing demons where there are none? Or worse, am I seeing them where there actually are?

Why now? It doesn’t make any sense why I would all of a sudden see demons where, before, Mrs. Lee was one hundred percent human. So what the fuck did Iceman and the others do to me?

I turn to head home, my whole body practically shaking, but my stomach suddenly rumbles in protest, reminding me that I have to make a grocery run.

Shit.

I fight my instincts to flee home and turn in the direction of the store instead. I’ll just get in and get out quickly, and then I can go home and have a proper freak out.

I repeat the word fuck in my head the entire drive, because I’m terrified to look at anything for too long, and that’s not a phobia one should have when they’re trying to drive. I screech into a parking spot, cursing myself for not hiding a back up pair of sunglasses somewhere on this piece of shit moped. I usually judge people for wearing sunglasses inside, but now I feel like it might be a much needed lifeline to make it through the rest of this demon-seeing day.

“I take back every ounce of judgment I aimed at some sunglasses-wearing freak inside a store,” I grumble to myself as I give up searching my moped for a pair. “I clearly had no idea what demons they might have been wrestling with...some of them quite possibly literally.”