Betrayed by Ednah Walters

tel them about Valafar’s cal .
    “Are you guys hunting tonight?” I asked.
    “I don’t know. Depends on what Haziel says.
    The Council and the Cardinals let him choose our missions now.”
    “Then let’s talk after I’m done with my homework and you guys….” Sykes and the girls pul ed up three driveways down the street. “Are not so busy.”
    Remy fol owed my gaze and grinned with anticipation.
    “Yeah, see you later.” He backed out of my driveway, stil smiling.
    I walked to the side door that led to the garage and the kitchen. The house was quiet, yet I felt Celeste’s energy. Bread, jel y, and peanut butter sat on the kitchen island counter along with the remnants of a sandwich. She often visited and knew her way around my house.
    “Celeste?” Placing my backpack on the side kitchen counter, I fol owed her psi to my bedroom, where she was fast asleep on the recliner. The T.V.
    was on. I switched it off, closed the door and went back to the kitchen for a snack and to do my homework—Pre-calc and Spanish, physics and reading Pride and Prejudice. Reading could wait.
    I poured myself cinnamon crusted cereal in a bowl and added milk then zipped through math and Spanish, leaving the hated physics for last. If Grampa didn’t give me grief over it, I would’ve dropped the subject a long time ago.
    ‘You don’t run away from chal enges, my girl.
    You conquer them,’ he often said.
    Easy to say when you were his age and wiser than Socrates.
    When the knock came, I was ready to throw the stupid physics text book across the room. I hurried to the living room to open the front door, but Celeste already beat me to it. From the scowl on her face, she didn’t like our visitor.
    5. A Gypsy Trick
    Kylie and Cade stood on the other side of the door, a huge space between them. Usual y, they were glued to each other’s side, which was cute because he was as tal as me while Kylie was pint-size. She stared pointedly at Celeste, waited until the girl left then pushed the coat into my arms. “Your cel is in the pocket.”
    “Did it ring again?”
    “Nope.” She inclined her head toward Cade.
    “I told him it was broken but he wouldn’t listen. Can he take a look at it so we can go home?” I wanted to say no. It was obvious they had fought over it, but Cade wore an expectant expression. Stepping back, I waved them inside.
    Cade looked around with interest, his gaze zeroing in on the circus paintings near the fireplace. He’d never been to my house before.
    “What happened?” I whispered to Kylie.
    She scrunched her face then glared at her boyfriend. “On the ride to and from the bookstore, al he talked about was your phone. When we got online, he Googled stuff and total y ignored me.” Cade heard her and came to join us. He was a lanky guy with the sad eyes of feigned boredom.
    When he took her into his arms, I scurried to the kitchen to give them privacy. After a few moments, his deep voice mingled with hers. Cade was a guy of few words but he loved Kylie, Brain Freeze—his garage band—and playing his iPod too loud.
    A laugh came from the living room, and I angled my head to catch their conversation.
    “See that? I told you her family’s been in the circus for generations,” Kylie said.
    I groaned. Maybe I shouldn’t have framed and hung up the paintings. They drew too much attention.
    I found them along with black and white photographs of my grandparents in a storage box under Grampa’s bed when we moved from our trailer. I couldn’t resist. According to Grampa, one of the paintings was done in the early 1900s by Picasso. I stopped rol ing my eyes whenever he told me such things because they might be true. Grampa lived with the circus Gypsies in Europe during that period.
    “This one is her great-grandpa, her great-great-grandpa, and her great-great-great-grandpa,” she said, repeating what I told her months ago. “And the one in the black and white pictures is her grandmother. She was a powerful