Renegade (Heven and Hell #4)(10)
Author: Cambria Hebert

She didn’t sound one hundred percent convinced, but I wasn’t going to point that out. I was hungry and didn’t want her to kick me out before I got to eat.

“What in the world are you doing to that baguette?” She gasped and snatched the knife out of my hand.

“Cutting it?” I asked. “Like you told me.”

“More like maiming it!” She laughed. “Maybe you should sit down before more innocent bystanders are harmed.”

I snatched a hunk of the mutilated bread and jumped up to sit on the counter. “Doesn’t taste mutilated.”

Ana shook her head. “We have chairs.”

“I didn’t want to rob you of my presence by going way over there.”

She laughed out loud. I wanted to hear the sound again.

A few minutes later, she handed me a full plate with buttered bread, an omelet with veggies and cheese, and a side of bacon. I shoved as much as I could into my mouth. “This is way better than Jeeves’s.”

“So if you don’t cook and this Jeeves is so bad at it, what do you eat?”

“Power bars, snack cakes, mostly junk. I do go up to Earth and get pizza and stuff sometimes.”

“I don’t know what any of that is,” Ana said. “Except for pizza. That’s pretty good.”

“All these years and you’ve never had Ho Hos?”

“What?”

I set down my now empty plate and grabbed my bag. I dumped the contents onto the counter where we were eating. About a dozen snack cakes fell out along with an iPod, some ear buds, and some power bars.

“What is all this?” Ana asked, smiling.

“Treasure,” I said, pushing aside the oatmeal cream pie and the Nutty Buddies and grabbing up the package of Ho Hos. I tore open the clear wrapper and snatched Ana’s fork out of her hand and shoved one of the chocolate covered rolls under her nose. “Eat this.”

She took the snack in her fingers and smelled it.

“A bite. Take a bite,” I said.

She bit into the chocolate and then pulled it back. I could see the swirls of white cream in the center.

“Well?”

“I see why you live off these. It’s heavenly.”

I smiled smugly. “Coming from an angel, that’s high praise.” Then I paused. “You are an angel, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” she answered, but she wasn’t looking at me. She was peeling the chocolate coating off the cake and eating it. I watched, fascinated, as she ate all the icing and then began to unroll the chocolate cake and use her finger to eat the white cream.

“What are you doing?” I asked. I usually shoved the whole thing in my mouth at once.

She looked up. The bright green of her eyes shocked me sometimes. “Enjoying this.”

I opened up an oatmeal cream pie and the Nutty Buddies. “Here, try these.”

“All of them?”

“Won’t know which one you like best until you do.”

I ate the bacon off her plate while she tried all the different snacks laid before her. When she sampled them all, I asked for the verdict.

“I like this one best,” she said, pointing to the Ho Hos.

“The ladies love chocolate,” I said, half to myself.

“What ladies?”

“Never mind,” I said, finishing off the oatmeal cream pie. “So where’s your wings?”

“My wings? I don’t have any. There’s no need with the job I do here. They would just get in the way.”

I looked down at her plate of food and she pushed it toward me. I didn’t have to be told twice so I picked it up and started eating.

“You know you could learn to cook,” Ana said as she peeled the icing off the second Ho Ho.

“I don’t have electricity in my castle. How is it you have it here?”

“Magic,” she said simply as she licked the cream off her finger. I momentarily forgot what I was talking about.

“Magic.” I echoed.

She nodded.

Seemed to me there was plenty of power and magic in hell so I wasn’t really sure why Beelzebub didn’t use some of his to make his castle a little more comfortable.

“So have you found the stolen souls yet?”

“No.”

“Well, hell is a very big place. I am sure it will take time.”

“Yeah.” I agreed. I didn’t want to admit I hadn’t really been looking that hard. At first, I looked around, banging some demons’ heads to try and find the place, but I came up empty. Then the demons started challenging my position down here and my focus switched to keep the power and position I had—and yeah, gaining more. I liked power.

But sitting here now—with Ana—I felt a little guilty I hadn’t tried harder.

I didn’t like feeling guilty.

“Well, I gotta be going.”

Ana’s eyes widened a bit—in disappointment?—before she smiled. “Yes, well, I am sure you are very busy.”

I shoved my things back into my backpack—leaving behind the other unopened package of Ho Hos—and zipped it up. “Thanks for fixing me up. I don’t heal as fast down here.”

Ana nodded. “Whatever you broke would have taken weeks to heal.”

“Good as new now,” I said, standing in front of her, dragging out my time here.

“Well, if you happen to need more, you know where I am. Good luck with the search.”

“Thanks.” I stood there a second longer. Then I turned and headed for the doors.

“Oh, and thank you for the junk food!”

I grinned to myself but didn’t turn around. I walked until I came out the Devourer’s cave on the side of hell. It looked even more depressing than usual. The brightly colored dragon was there and turned its eyes on me as I came toward it. An idea formed in my head.

“I need to find some stolen souls and you’re going to help me.”

Chapter Five

Heven

Riley never called me back. Over the past two weeks or so I left several messages, none of which ever got a return call. I was beginning to agree with Sam in that relying on Riley might not be the best thing to do. I wanted to like Riley—part of me did like him—but I couldn’t ignore the things Sam said about him anymore. Riley only did something if it got him something in return. He wasn’t reliable. He wasn’t nice. He’d most likely betray me again, and maybe it was time I just face the facts.

Riley wasn’t going to help me.

I took a seat at the lunch table next to Sam, who was already inhaling his first sandwich (Gran packs him two). He smiled and leaned over to give me a kiss on the cheek as he chewed. He smelled like turkey. “Enjoying that sandwich?”