Betrayal by Amy Meredith Read Free Book Online Page A

still had a little of that yummy Luke smell.
    She clicked the remote, but nothing on the TV could hold her attention. Her mind was doing some channel-surfing of its own, flashing images – all of them unpleasant. Dead squirrel, dead squirrel, dead kitty, Jess’s scared face, blood on the lawn, and Eve herself, standing paralysed in the woods, her entire body coated with ice. Not that that’s exactly what had happened, but that’s what her brain was showing, probably because that’s what it had felt like to Eve. She’d felt like she was encased in ice.
    You’re fine , Eve told herself. And she was. There were still no after-effects from that moment in the woods.
    Still, maybe she’d stop by the power plant in the morning before she met up with Jess. A smile tugged at her lips as an idea occurred to her. There was no reason for her to wait until tomorrow. She could juice up a little right now, right here.
    She reached over and slipped her hand under the shade of the lamp on her bedside table. The light bulb went out with a soft pop, and Eve felt a corresponding pop inside her, a little pop of new power.
    Nice. But more would be nicer. Especially with the possibility that a demon was in Deepdene.
    Eve scrambled to the edge of her bed, leaned forward, and pressed both hands against the large screen of her TV. With a crackle, it went out, and Eve instantly felt that power joining the hot core inside her.
    She glanced around the room. What else?
    She realized she’d been kind of destructive. All she’d been thinking about was the power. She didn’t want to ruin her computer or her CD player or anything else. But why not go right to the source?
    Would it even work? Eve didn’t know. But she slid off the bed and sat cross-legged in front of one of the power outlets. Gently she pressed two fingers against the slots for a plug. She couldn’t stop herself from giggling as the hot electric sizzle zipped up her fingers and zigzagged through her entire body.
    ‘If you’re out there, demon-breath, bring it on,’ she whispered. Right before the overhead light went out.
    ‘Why is the power out again?’ her mother exclaimed. ‘This seems to happen every week!’
    ‘Maybe someone ran their car into an electric pylon,’ Eve heard her dad suggest.
    ‘I’ll go get the candles,’ Eve called to them. Not that she really needed them. If she wanted to, she was pretty sure she could light up the whole town.
     
    ‘I hope they still have that dress at Cynthia Rowley,’ Jess said on Sunday.
    ‘If they don’t, it’s not meant to be,’ Eve told her. ‘We must trust the prom gods.’ She and Jess were walking down Main Street. Neither of the guys were available for shopping that afternoon, so they’d decided to make the jaunt to East Hampton to check on the possibly perfect prom dress Jess had seen.
    ‘Are you sure you want to go through the woods after what happened yesterday?’ Jess asked. ‘You felt pretty sick, and those squirrels are probably still there. We could just hop on the train.’
    ‘No, I’m up for walking. That was pretty bizarre yesterday, but I feel fine now,’ Eve assured her. ‘In fact, I felt better almost right away, and whatever it was never came back.’ She spotted something white and floaty out of the corner of her eye and whirled towards it. A soft ‘oooh’ escaped her lips as she took in the phenomenally gorgeous dress in the window of the Dolce & Gabbana boutique. Strapless, form-fitting until the knees, where it flared into a cascade of chiffon layers that went to the floor with just a few ruffles. Romantic, classy, a little bit princess, and just so, so Eve. ‘Dibbies!’ she cried, pointing to it.
    Eve and Jess had created the dibbies system years ago. It made shopping together much more fun and much less stressful, because there were always things they both liked and both wanted, but it’s not like they could buy matching clothes. That would be ridiculous. So they each got to call