Bitter Demons

7. She's Just Different Now

"Wow, you look fantastic today," Lark said as I walked toward our meeting place near the demon statue.

"Cute boots," Allison said.

"Did you go shopping last weekend?"

"There's definitely something different," Lark said. "New conditioner?"

"Not exactly," I said. I raised one eyebrow. I didn't want to come right out and say that I'd used a glamour. Not with Allison right there.

It took her a second to figure it out. "Oh," she said, finally realizing what I meant. "Nice."

"What?" Allison said. "I don't get it."

Lark made a move toward the building, ignoring Allison's comment.

"Aren't we going to wait for Brooke?" I asked.

Lark turned. "She told us not to wait for her in the mornings anymore," she said.

"Since when?"

"Since after you went into the hospital." She shifted the strap of her backpack and nodded her head toward the building. "Come on, let's go before we miss the bell."

I jogged to catch up with her. "Wait a second," I said, matching her pace. "You can't just drop a bomb like that on me and expect me to forget it. Did something happen? Did you guys get into some kind of argument?"

A guy I didn't know whistled as he passed by us, looking me up and down. I cringed and shook my head. That was weird.

"Not an argument, exactly," she said. We stopped by her locker and she twisted in the combination on the lock. "She's just different now. You know, ever since she turned eighteen. It's like she gets initiated into the Order and suddenly she's too good for us trainees."

Allison finally caught up with us. She leaned against the locker, slightly out of breath. "Geez, you guys training for a marathon or something?"

Lark rolled her eyes and pulled open her locker door.

"What are you guys talking about, anyway?"

"Brooke," Lark said.

"Oh." Allison crinkled her nose. "I don't get her these days. She's really been absent, you know? I think it's all those late-night sessions talking to her boyfriend."

"Boyfriend?" Man, I really had missed a lot in the week I'd been out.

"The governor's son," Lark said. "For years, all Brooke could talk about was how much of a major crush she had on Foster and how she wished he and Tori weren't together. Then, the second she gets him to fall for her, she dumps him like he's trash and goes after the governor's son."

"It's like, suddenly she's all about politics and getting into a good school where she can study foreign affairs or some crap."

I thought about Brooke's birthday confession to me that she'd always wanted to work with horses. Sometimes I wondered if being a member of the Order meant giving up everything you wanted out of life. Did Brooke really have a choice about her own future? Or had they decided it for her?

Lark slammed her locker door shut. "It doesn't matter," she said. "We've still got each other, right?"

I smiled at her and nodded. "Of course," I said. "I don't plan on changing anytime soon."

A group of guys I recognized from the basketball team walked by and a few of them said good morning to me. I raised my hand in a slight wave, confused. I'd been in school at Peachville High for months now and those guys had never once said hello to me. Heck, I didn't even know they knew my name.

"Maybe you've already changed," Lark said.

Her comment stuck with me for the rest of the day. Maybe she was right. I mean, sure, I was wearing different clothes today because of the glamour, but new clothes shouldn't be making this much difference. Even my teachers were paying more attention to me. A few of them even let me slide on the assignments I'd missed the week before.

In each of my morning classes, I caught several people turning in their seats to look at me. I was kind of a sit-in-the-back kind of girl and most of the time people ignored me. Being part of the Demons cheerleading squad earned me a little bit of popularity, but in class, I tended to blend in. These people had all grown up together and had been in the same class since Kindergarten. I couldn't compete with that. The novelty of being the new girl wore off weeks ago, and I became just another body to fill the seats.

But today was different.

I felt like a magnet that was attracting all sorts of attention. Teachers called on me for my answers in every class and complimented me for my "astute observations" or my "unique take" on the subject. In the hallway, heads turned as I walked past. It was definitely weird. I even made three extra trips to the bathroom to make sure I didn't have something weird smothered all over my face or something stuck in my teeth.

Before lunch, I ducked into the girl's bathroom one more time, just to check. I stared at my reflection in the mirror. The glamour was in place. No flaws that I could see, anyway. My hair was more bouncy and full than normal, and of course, the clothes were nicer, but none of that accounted for the drastic change in everyone's behavior toward me.

It was my eyes that were most different. Normally, they were just a plain chestnut brown. Nothing special. But today, there was something about them. They seemed to sparkle. I leaned closer to the mirror to get a better look.

The brown was infused with golden flecks and my eyes seemed lighter than usual. I couldn't quite put it into words. It was as if someone had filled me up with some kind of sparkling energy.

And power from their demons.

I shivered. As fun as it was to suddenly be popular, I knew it came at a price. One step closer to being Prima meant one step closer to losing myself. Hadn't they already changed me enough? Where would I start to draw the line?

And when would it be too late to turn back?