Demonosity Read Online Free PDF Page A

the most basic decisions, her mom suffered from no such affliction. Hence, her ability to dump her family for
five
years and live in Boston. And then, just as casually, to change her mind and move back as if no time at all had passed. Oh, yeah, her mom knew all about making choices.
    “Okay, honey. I’m not here to fight with you. Besides, I’m sure your father would be pleased if you did it. It’s his favorite Shakespeare play.”
    Just like sushi is his favorite food.
    Cassidy didn’t bother to answer. Especially since she’d watched Baz Luhrmann’s version at least a dozen times when she’d gone through her Leo phase and her dad had never even blinked an eye at it. However, her mom seemed to take her silence as some kind of tacit agreement, and she carefully put the book down on the corner of the messy bed.
    “All I’m asking is for you to consider it. And now, if you’re ready, it’s time to go. We don’t want to be late.” Then without another word she left the room, and Cassidy reluctantly followed her. It was going to be a long night.

FOUR
    “Y ou look like shit.” Nash glanced up from the book he had been studying, once again oblivious to the group of girls who were whispering and pointing at him.
    “Gee, why don’t you tell me what you really think?” Cassidy dumped her purse on one of the many wooden tables dotted around the back lawn of Raiser Heights High and then joined him on the narrow bench seat. The school was a large redbrick box full of well-dressed, badly behaved, middle-class kids who looked pretty much like middle-class kids from every high school across the United States. Cassidy and Nash tried to avoid the school and the other students as much as they possibly could. Especially since it would be Halloween soon, and that just seemed to make everyone act more freakish than ever.
    “You don’t pay me all that money to lie to you,” Nash protested before rubbing his chin.
“Oh, wait, you don’t pay me at all.”
Then he leaned forward and studied her face before pushing back a strand of her thick, dark red hair and shooting her a concerned look. “Tough night?”
    “You could say that.” Cassidy sighed as she tried to remember a time when she had been just a normal person who hung out with her friend and talked about algebra tests—okay, so in Nash’s case, he preferred to talk about the Medicis and how they had proved that art and politics could exist side by side, but details schmetails. Her point was, since her mother had moved back in, she had not felt normal. “My mom dragged us all out for sushi.”
    “Sushi? You and your dad—heathens that you are—hate sushi,” Nash reminded her in an unimpressed voice, since his own food tastes were slightly more highbrow than Cassidy’s.
    “Thank you. Unfortunately, the sushi actually ended up being the high point in a truly craptacular night.”
    “So I gather they didn’t change their mind about your tagging along today?”
    She gave a frustrated shake of her head. It had been an ongoing argument for the last week, and despite her best efforts, neither of her parents would relent. She had tried again this morning, purposely waiting until her mom was in the shower before she made her dad a cup of tea—something that he claimed every Irishman needed before he could even consider opening his eyes. But if she had hoped that she might persuade him when her mom wasn’t around, she’d been wrong, and the party line was that it would be stupid for her to miss any school for a routine operation. Then he had pushed the tea aside and reminded her that he could only drink water before his operation.
    “Oh, and if that’s not bad enough, she also wants me to audition for the school play.”
    “She obviously doesn’t remember the dance recital disaster.” Nash widened his pale blue eyes in surprise.
    “She thinks it will be good for my college applications,” Cassidy explained as she angrily traced her finger around some of the