Daimon by Jennifer Armentrout Read Free Book Online

mom and demand we go back to the Covenant and face whatever had sent us fleeing in the middle of the night.
    Together—we could’ve done it together.
    My fingers dug into my hair and I pulled. A tiny cry worked its way past my clenched jaw. I yanked on my hair, but the hot flash of pain zinging across my scalp did nothing to relieve the pressure in my chest or the yawning emptiness that filled me.
    As a half-blood it was my duty to kill daimons, to protect the pure-bloods from them. I’d failed in the worst way possible. I’d failed my mother. There was no way around that.
    I had failed.
    And I had run.
    My muscles locked up and I felt a sudden rush of fury rise inside me.
    Balling my hands over my eyes, I kicked out. The heel of my sneaker slammed through the cabinet door below the sink. I pulled my foot free, almost pleased when the cheap particle board scraped my ankle. And I did it again and again.
    When I finally did stand and leave the bathroom, the motel room was pitched in darkness. I tugged the chain on the lamp and grabbed the spade. Each step back into the shabby room hurt after forcing my sore muscles into such a cramped position in the bathroom. I sat down on the bed, not meaning to collapse there and not get back up. I’d wanted to check the door again—maybe block it with something—but exhaustion claimed me and I drifted off into a place where I hoped no nightmares could follow me.

CHAPTER 8
    NIGHT TURNED TO DAY, AND I DIDN’T MOVE UNTIL THE
    motel manager knocked on the door, asking for more money or for me to get out. Through a tiny crack in the door, I handed him the cash and went back to the bed.
    I went on repeat for days. There was a general sense of time changing when I would get up and wobble into the bathroom. I didn’t have the energy to shower, and this wasn’t the kind of place that put out little bottles of shampoo, anyway. There wasn’t even a mirror in here, just a couple of little plastic brackets framing an empty rectangle above the sink. Either moonlight or sunshine would break through the window, and I kept count of each time the manager visited. Three times he’d come to ask for money.
    During those days I thought of my mom and I cried until I gagged into my hand. The storm inside me thrashed, threatening to pull me under, and under I went. I curled up in a small ball, not wanting to talk, not wanting to eat. Part of me just wanted to lie there and fade away.
    The tears had long since come to an unsatisfying end and I just lay there, searching for a way out. There seemed to be an empty void looming up ahead. I welcomed it, rushed in, and sank into its meaningless depths until the manager came the fourth day.
    This time he spoke to me after I handed him the cash. “You need something, kid?”

    I stared at him through the gap. He was an older guy, maybe in his late forties. He seemed to wear the same pinstriped shirt every day, but it looked clean.
    He glanced down the hall, running a hand through thinning brown hair. “Is there anyone I can call for you?”
    I didn’t have anyone.
    “Well, if you need something, just call the front desk.” He backed away, taking my silence as the answer. “Ask for Fred. That’s me.”
    “Fred,” I repeated slowly, sounding like an idiot.
    Fred stalled, shaking his head. When he looked back at me, his eyes met mine. “I don’t know what kind of trouble you got yourself in, kid, but you’re too young to be out here and in a place like this. Go home.
    Go back to where you belong.”
    I watched Fred leave and I shut the door behind him, locking it. I turned around slowly and stared at the bed—at the garden spade. My fingers tingled.
    Go back to where you belong.
    I didn’t belong anywhere. Mom was gone now and—
    I pushed away from the door, approaching the bed. I picked up the spade and ran my fingers along the sharp edges. Go back to where you belong . There was only one place I did belong and it wasn’t curled up in ball on a bed