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Beautiful Demons

by

Sarra Cannon

Published by Dead River Books

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author'due south imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely casual.

Copyright 2010 past Sarra Cannon Bittmann

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in whatever form whatsoever.

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Acknowledgments

My heartfelt thanks goes out to my critique partners and best friends, J.D. Robinson and Erica Reeder. This book would not take been possible without your constant support and willingness to read everything I write. Cheers also to Alok Baikadi for your insightful comments on my manuscript. My writing is better because of all of yous.

To my parents, Dave and Ballad Cannon, for always educational activity me that I tin can exercise annihilation I set up my mind to. Thank you for always being there for me and believing in me no matter how impossible my dreams might seem.

A debt of gratitude is owed to Karen Anders and Jennifer Harrington for all that you have taught me nigh writing. Thank you for your years of encouragement and guidance.

And finally, my deepest and happiest thanks to my amazing husband, George. Yous are everything I e'er wanted just never believed I deserved. Thank you for being my dear, my raised bar, and my muse. I love you.

Table of Contents

This Is Your Last Hazard

Do Not Touch My Things

Problem E'er Finds Me

Guys Like Drake Just Appointment Cheerleaders

Voices At My Window

The Large Rock Demon Statue

I Must Be Electro-Charged

Someone Might Go Hurt

What Is It With This Town And Cheerleaders?

My Best Attempt

Maybe He Wasn't A Demons Fan

That Necklace Was Everything To Me

Tori Has A Hush-hush

For A Daughter Like You

What With Tori'south Disappearance

You lot'll Need To Come up With Us

No One Ever Believed

Is That You?

This Town Isn't Similar Other Places

Sit Down Girl

I Must Be Dreaming

I Wasn't Supposed To Forget

Claire

Not Anymore

A Better Life

I Must Accept Seen It Wrong

It's Not That Simple

Promise Me

This Calendar week Is Going To Exist Tough

Is This Supposed To Be A Good Luck Amuse?

A Demon On His Back

I Have Carried My Fearfulness

We Were Connected Somehow

It Totally Worked

The New Demons Cheerleader Is...

A Night To Remember

They Choose You

A Part Of Me

A Beautiful Demon

This is Your Last Chance

Six foster homes in one year had to be some kind of tape. I ran my sapphire pendant along the silver concatenation around my cervix and looked out at the pine trees zooming past. Where would they send me next?

"I don't know what got into you, Harper," Mrs. Meeks said. Her hair shot out every which way and she wasn't wearing any makeup. The call to come up pick me upward probably came in after she'd gone to bed for the night. "I can't keep doing this."

I eyed her. Was she passing me off to another case worker? Mrs. Meeks had been there with me from the beginning. Since the fire. I didn't want her to abandon me now.

"It was an accident," I said. I sabbatum up direct in my seat and studied her tired face. I needed her to believe me.

"An accident?" she said. Her vox took on the shrill tone I had come up to expect from her. "Mrs. Sanders said y'all threw a lamp at her. How could that take been an blow, Harper?"

"I didn't exactly throw it," I said. I scrap my lip. How could I mayhap explain it to Mrs. Meeks? Or anyone for that matter? I second I was arguing with Mrs. Sanders about a party she wouldn't let me become to and the side by side, well, everything in the room that wasn't nailed down was floating iii inches in the air. "It but sort of-"

"Sort of what? Threw itself." Her confront contorted into an aroused grimace. She didn't believe me.

I sank into the leather seat and sighed. No 1 always believed me. Instead, they called me names like 'witch' and 'freak'.

"Harper," she said, her voice softening. "I've always tried to identify yous in the very best foster homes in the city. Places where I thought they would endeavor to understand your..." She searched for the word. "Your unique issues. But this is the 6th foster dwelling you've been kicked out of this yr. And with your history." She glanced over at me and sighed heavily. "It'south getting harder and harder to place you."

My history.

I leaned my brow confronting the window and felt the cool glass confronting my skin. After everything I'd done, it made sense that no one wanted me. I closed my eyes and remembered the beautiful porcelain pare of my adopted mother, Jill. I never meant to hurt anyone, especially non her.

"At this betoken, there'south no other choice," Mrs. Meeks said.

I opened my eyes and looked over at her. In the light from the dashboard, she looked onetime. Worried. Angry. A wave of nausea rolled over me.

"No other selection than what?"

She looked over and patted my leg with her hand. Not a expert sign.

"I'm taking yous to a place chosen Shadowford Home," she said. "It's in a town south of here. Peachville. And the woman who runs information technology is well known for taking in girls who are struggling in the regular arrangement. Girls like y'all."

In that location are no girls like me, I thought. "I've never heard of it."

"Peachville is a small-scale customs. Very different from Atlanta. I call back it'll exist a adept place for yous. Atlanta is just too big. Also full of opportunities to go far trouble or get mixed upwardly with the wrong crowd." She pulled the automobile off the interstate. From the looks of it, we were in the middle of nowhere. "But I accept to be completely honest with y'all, Harper. If you tin can't make it work at Shadowford, I'll have no choice only to take yous to juvenile detention until you turn eighteen."

I sat up. "What? You tin't exist serious."

A dwelling house for troubled girls was bad plenty. I certainly didn't vest in juvie. I'd known people who had gone to the i in Atlanta. Information technology was practically like prison for teens. Constant supervision. No freedom. Strict rules. My entire body tensed just thinking almost it.

"What did you look?" she said. "Since you were eight years old, I've placed you in foster home afterwards foster habitation, and you've been nothing but trouble for these families. Throwing lamps. Breaking windows. Fires."

"None of those things were my fault," I said. I could experience the stirring of anger and frustration deep in my stomach. How cartel she bring upward the fire. I had merely been 8 when that happened, and information technology wasn't my fault. It wasn't!

Change rattled in the loving cup holder that sabbatum between us in the car. Quickly, I slammed my hand down over the top of information technology. Not at present, I begged.

Mrs. Meeks continued on, thankfully not noticing the rattling racket. "It'due south time y'all learned to accept responsibility for your actions," she said. "Make things work at Shadowford or you'll go to juvenile detention for the next ii years. I'1000 sorry, only this is your last gamble, Harper."

/>   Exercise Non Touch on My Things

We spent the nighttime in a hotel simply off the interstate. First thing in the morning, we were dorsum out on the road, heading to Peachville, Georgia. I had never lived in a small boondocks before. Or a group home for that affair.

The light was shining through the thick pine trees as we turned down an unmarked gravel road an hour later. "We should be close," Mrs. Meeks said.

A large, weather-worn sign that read "Shadowford Plantation" came into view. I sat up straight and peered through the dense trees. A winding scarlet dirt road led dorsum to a clearing. Mrs. Meeks stopped the auto at the top of the hill and nosotros both stared open-mouthed at the huge white plantation house beneath.

Shadowford stood three stories tall with long white columns running from the roof to the wraparound porch. Paint flaked off the white walls and green ivy blanketed the sides of the porch, as if nature was slowly reclaiming the house for itself. Centered on the second floor level was a big balcony with a wrought-iron railing. A girl with bright cherry hair stood on the balustrade. She waved toward us, and then disappeared into the house.

As nosotros drove the rest of the road upwards to the house, a arctic ran downwardly my spine. In that location was something different about this place I couldn't quite put my finger on. The house itself, though quondam, was breathtaking. Just there was also something dark about information technology. Unsettling. The firm grew slowly larger, and my stomach lurched. I wanted to tell Mrs. Meeks to plough around and take me back to Atlanta. To juvenile detention if that was the only option. This house was... what?

Evil.

The word popped into my head and I shivered. That was ridiculous. A house couldn't be evil. It was just my nerves getting to me.

A pretty heart-aged adult female had stepped out onto the porch. She wore a faded blueish dress and her brown hair was piled high in a messy bun at the top of her head. When I looked up at her, she smiled. Her night eyes were warm and kind, immediately putting me at ease. I realized I'd been holding my breath, and I exhaled. Mayhap I had only imagined the creepy aura around this place. Possibly everything was going to be alright.

I stepped out of the car and grabbed my bag from the backseat.

"Y'all must be Harper," the woman said. She walked over and gave me a gentle hug. "We're and then happy to have you here at Shadowford."

"Thank you."

"I'm Ella Mae Hunt. I help Mrs. Shadowford out quite a fleck, and so we'll be gettin' to know each other pretty well." She had a lilting southern accent that was sweet and gentle.

Ella Mae took my purse and gear up it simply outside the front end door. "I'll requite you a few minutes to say farewell, and then I'll take y'all inside and innovate y'all to our other girls."

I walked over to Mrs. Meeks and she gave me a big hug. "I'k sorry," I said.

"Everything could exist different for you here," she said. "Treat this like a fresh outset. A clean slate."

I squeezed her dorsum briefly, and so let become. Peradventure she was right and things really could be different hither. A new school in a new town. No ane here knew my history.

"I'll do my best," I told her.

"I know you will."

With a sad grin, she got in her car and drove away. I watched until she disappeared from sight, then turned to my new dwelling house. Ella Mae was waiting for me by the front door.

"I think y'all'll actually like it here," she said, opening the door to the big firm. "Girls, come on down hither and run across Harper."

Ella Mae's voice echoed through the high ceilings of the front hallway. Honey-colored woods floors shone beneath her anxiety and a big staircase rose upwards to the second floor landing. Iii girls made their manner downwardly to the states.

"This is Courtney James," Ella Mae said. A alpine girl who looked to be slightly younger than me stepped forward and held her hand out to me. Her long, straight blond pilus lay over her confront, roofing nearly the entire left side. She kept her head downwardly, her eyes on the floor. When I touched her paw, information technology was ice cold and limp.

"I'thou Agnes." The redheaded girl I'd seen on the balustrade stepped out from behind Courtney and gave me a big welcoming hug. Her eyes were light light-green and she seemed to grinning from within. I liked her immediately. "You lot'll be in the room next to mine," she said. "I'1000 so excited to accept another house-mate here, yous accept no thought. Where are you lot coming from?

"Atlanta."

"Oh cool, I've never been to Atlanta. In fact, Peachville's fifty-fifty bigger than the crappy town where I was born, and believe me, that's saying a lot."

I laughed. Her bubbly mental attitude was contagious and I felt all of the feet about the house begin to fade away.

"This is Mary Anne Marsters," she said, pulling me over to meet the third daughter who was however continuing on the bottom step. "She doesn't actually talk much."

Mary Anne was obviously younger than the rest of us. I'd approximate she was near xiii or so. Her short blackness hair was tucked behind her ears and her pale peel was flawless. I reached my mitt out to her, but she merely stared at information technology for a second, and so turned effectually and walked back up the stairs.

"Don't mind her," Agnes said. "Information technology takes her some time to get used to people."

Ella Mae picked upwardly my tattered purse and handed it to Agnes. "Accept this upwards to Harper's room now, would y'all Agnes? I'one thousand going to take her in to meet Mrs. Shadowford. I'll send her upstairs in a few minutes and you tin evidence her around."

"Certain thing," Agnes said, and then bounded up the stairs ii at a time.

I wondered why Mrs. Shadowford hadn't met u.s.a. out front, merely when I entered her night, lush office, I understood right away. She was in a wheelchair. An older woman, she had shockingly white hair that ran in a single braid pulled over her shoulder. Her stake blue optics seemed to pierce through me as she turned and sized me upward. Butterflies danced around in my belly. This adult female was unlike anyone I had e'er met earlier. She had an energy nigh her that was potent and powerful. I knew right away that she was not the kind of person I wanted to cross.

"Harper Madison," she said. She studied me for a long moment, her eyes squinted and her lips pursed together in a tight, thin line. "I hear you've had some trouble in the past with both your adopted parents and several foster homes."

"Yeah, ma'am." My vocalization trembled a scrap, betraying my fear. I shifted my weight from one human foot to another and studied the thick, patterned carpeting on the floor.

"It'south no surprise that no one else wants you."

Her words stung. I wondered if I'd even heard her right.

"You're damaged. A cleaved girl," she said. "And some of the things you've done to the people taking care of you? Well, some of those things are unspeakable."

My face grew hot. Yes, some of the things I had done were terrible. Someone was dead considering of me. I had to carry that guilt with me everywhere, only no ane had e'er said it out loud like that. The tone of her vocalism was bitter and cold, similar she believed I had done those things on purpose. I opened my mouth to defend myself, but the await in her eyes stopped me.

"I don't want to hear your excuses."

"I never meant to hurt anyone." I stepped forward, putting my hand on the mahogany desk that separated us.

"Do not touch my things," Mrs. Shadowford said through gritted teeth. Her eyes grew wide and intense. I pulled my hand dorsum speedily, only I could see that I'd made the old woman angry. On the desk, her tea cup rattled in its saucer. She reached out apace to still the loving cup and the room grew silent. Fear gripped my chest, making it hard to breathe.

The air in the pocket-size office grew thick and warm. Mrs. Shadowford cleared her throat, and then took her mitt off the minor loving cup. "That's enough for this morning. Ella Mae volition take you lot through the house rules."

I stepped away from Mrs. Shadowford's desk slowly, and so turned to exit the room. My hand closed around the cold brass knob of the door and a small daze of electricity went through my body. I yanked my paw back, surprised.

"Harper," Mrs. Shadowford said from her spot behind the desk.
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br />   My body tensed every bit I turned to find her blue eyes staring direct into mine. I tried to swallow, but my rima oris had gone completely dry out. "Yeah ma'am?"

"I'll be watching you."

Trouble Ever Finds Me

"The rules are as follows. No back talk or boldness, especially when it comes to the staff. You will need to go along your grades upward at Peachville High. We expect to see A's and B's only. If any of your examination grades are lower than a B, you'll need to bring them habitation for one of us to sign."

Ella Mae went on to list rules that were pretty common for foster homes. Lights out at eleven. No boys allowed upstairs. Keep your hands to yourself. Don't accept annihilation that doesn't belong to you. All standard rules. Then, as if it were merely another rule, she said, "And never, under any circumstances, are you to go up to the third floor."

Immediately, a strange tingle went through my body. If she had never mentioned information technology, I probably wouldn't have given the third floor a 2nd thought. Only now it was mysterious. Forbidden. Tempting. What could they maybe be hiding up there that would be so of import to protect?

"Allow me be completely clear about this. If you lot are found breaking any of the rules nosotros've talked about today, y'all'll be expelled from Shadowford without a second chance. Exercise you understand?"

I nodded.

"And from what your case manager said on the phone when she called concluding nighttime, you'll go straight from here to the detention heart in Atlanta. You seem similar such a sweet girl. I would hate to see you end upward at a identify like that."

I didn't want to encounter myself end up there either. Juvenile detention was like a jail sentence. Non to mention that going there for my last few years of high school would kill my chances at ever getting into a proficient higher. I had to brand things work here, no matter what. That meant putting whatever was upward on the third flooring out of my heed. Not to mention any had happened with Mrs. Shadowford'south teacup. I told myself information technology was zilch – that it couldn't be the same thing that happened to me when I got angry – so followed Ella Mae through the commencement floor of the house.

Shadowford was even bigger than it looked from the outside. The large staircase split the floor in half. On one side was a formal sitting room with a big brick and tile fireplace. Heavy gold drapes hung in the windows and the antique article of furniture looked ornate and expensive. Ella Mae told me that the sitting room was only used for formal meetings and sometimes for special occasions.

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