It didn't make any sense. It couldn't be real. And if it was… if I was half demon, what did that mean? Was I evil? Would I suddenly go all dark side and want to eat souls or something?
I had to talk to my mom. I'd demand that she tell me everything she remembered about my real father. I'd always imagined that he was some kind of monster for abandoning us, but I never would have believed he was a literal monster.
Then I could figure out what I was going to do next, because at that moment I had absolutely no idea.
The first thing I heard when I entered the house was yelling. It was Robert's voice, raised as loud as I'd ever heard it during his usual temper tantrums over the last couple of months. He was yelling at my mom. Nothing new there, but it immediately made me angry.
Husband #4 was definitely in the running for the title of Biggest Jerk.
"Dammit, Susan, don't walk away from me when I'm talking to you!"
I walked into the kitchen and his back was to me, his fists tight at his sides.
"You need to calm down, Robert. Honestly, I can't reason with you when you're like this." Mom's face was flushed red, and her gaze darted over to me from where she stood by the fridge, holding a glass of water. "It's okay, honey. Just give us a minute."
"What else is new?" I asked, refraining from rolling my eyes. "Another day, another fight. It's like a really loud soap opera around here."
"Robert simply doesn't understand that when we got married I didn't sign up for having his dinner ready every night at six o'clock on the dot. When he's hungry he gets cranky."
"Call Pizza Pizza," I suggested. "Thirty minutes or it's free."
Mom smiled. "An excellent idea."
Robert looked over his shoulder at me and then back at my mother. "Are you two mocking me? That's just great."
"Robert." Mom sighed. "Calm down, would you? You're being ridiculous."
"I'm sick of this, Susan."
Her eyes narrowed. "That makes two of us. Now I suggest that you relax or you're going to have to take your temper elsewhere."
"This is my house."
She smiled thinly at him. "Our marriage certificate makes it half mine. Don't you forget that."
"Shut up!" He slapped her hard across the face and she gasped.
The glass she held flew out of her hand and shattered on the floor. Without a word, but with her face reddening further with obvious anger, she crouched down and immediately started picking up the broken shards, focused on her task.
My headache from hell shot through the rest of my body and pain exploded in my stomach. I closed my eyes and when I opened them, I had Robert by his arm, twisting him around to look at me.
"Never hit my mother again," I snarled at him, and then I felt something break.
It was his arm.
He yelped in pain and his expression quickly changed from rage to surprise at my unexpected strength. "Let go of me!"
I did, letting him go as if he had just burst into flames. He held his injured arm to his chest and ran from the kitchen. I heard the front door slam shut and then his car start up, tires squealing as he left the driveway.
I felt strange and out of control. My skin tingled and my eyes began to burn. I squeezed them shut. What was wrong with me?
"Nikki, what just happened? Come back here-" I heard my mom say as I ran out of the room and up the stairs to my bedroom.
I stood against the door and tried to breathe normally, tried to will the pain wracking my body to go away. I was so mad. So unbelievably furious that anyone would treat my mom like that. The yelling was one thing, but hitting? No way. Not going to happen. Out of all of her crappy marriages over the years, the men hadn't been princes, but they hadn't been abusive either. It wasn't going to start now. I wouldn't allow it.
I breathed out. "Relax, Nikki. Relax."
I felt like if I didn't calm down something really bad would happen. Something worse than snapping Robert's arm like a twig. I moved to my vanity mirror and sat down heavily in front of it. My hair was a mess, a windblown and tangled blonde bird's nest. My face was flushed with anger. But my eyes. .
Oh, my God. ~My eyes.
They weren't hazel anymore, they were red. Bright, glowing red, and the pupils weren't round, they were slits, like a cat's eyes. No wonder they were burning so much. Had Robert seen them change? I didn't think so. He'd only looked shocked-not scared or freaked out. Red eyes like these would definitely freak somebody out.
I squeezed my eyelids shut and forced myself to relax until the pain began to go away, until my heart stopped pounding like crazy, until my face cooled and the tightness in my body lessened.
Slowly I opened my eyes again.
They were back to normal. But it didn't make me feel any better.
It's true, I thought, a sick feeling replacing the pain in my gut. Michael was right. He was right about everything! I'm part demon.
I'd wanted to kill Robert, not just hurt him. And it would have been so easy. Too easy. It felt natural.
That scared the hell out of me.
There was a knock at my door.
"Honey," Mom said. "Can I come in?"
"Y-yeah," I managed. I cleared my throat. "Come in."
The door creaked open. She had her arms crossed, a look of worry on her face. Had she seen my eyes? Did she know what I'd done? What I'd almost done?
"What on earth just happened in the kitchen with you and Robert?" she asked.
"I… I think I hurt his arm when I grabbed him." I sucked in a breath. "I didn't mean to, but he deserved it."
"I'm so sorry you had to see that," she said. "I'm sorry you had to get involved with something so unpleasant."
The fact that she wasn't grilling me on being a super-strong, red-eyed demon girl was evidence that she hadn't noticed anything too bizarre. I would have felt a sense of relief at that if I wasn't so stressed out.
"Was that the first time he hit you or is this a regular thing?" My voice was strained.
She sighed. "He's never done that before. Trust me, if he had we would have been out of here. I can forgive a lot of things, but I'm not a big fan of bruises, if you know what I mean."
"Good."