Read Online Those Who Fight Monsters by Justin Gustainis - Free Book Online

And she sure doesn’t know that I’m training to be a demon hunter, too.
    I took a sip of my punch and almost spit it out. Whatever it had been spiked with tasted nasty. Not that the taste was slowing Mindy down.
    “My mom would ground me for a year if she knew I was here, and you know your mom would, too.”
    She lifted a shoulder. “So?”
    I love Mindy, don’t get me wrong, but she’s been kind of a pain lately. Her parents are getting divorced, so Mom says I’m supposed to be patient with her. But I wasn’t entirely sure that meant that I was supposed to let her drag me to forbidden parties.
    “You’re not going to have fun if you don’t relax a little,” Mindy said. “Honestly, Allie. It’s not like we’re picking up guys on the beach or hitchhiking on the Coast Highway. It’s a party. And everybody we know is here.”
    I took another sip of my drink, felt my head do a spinning thing, and saw Jeremy smiling at me from across the room. I wasn’t sure I entirely agreed with Mindy’s assessment, but I had to admit that at the moment the perks were pretty good. Party. Friends. A boy who liked me. And, yeah, I know I had the whole justification thing going about so not needing a boyfriend, and so not wanting to deal with the stress of kisses and bodies and all that hormonal stuff, but at the same time, it’s not like I could just flip a switch and not be fourteen anymore. I was a hormonal mess. I knew it, because not only did my mom spend half her life saying so, but also because I got the only A on our health quiz this semester. Trust me. All fourteen year olds are hormonal messes.
    Jeremy made a beeline for me, his smile just shy enough to make my stomach do flip-flops. “Did you miss me?” he said. Like Mindy, he had to lean in close, and his breath tickled my ear. I caught Mindy’s eye as Carson drew her away toward the makeshift dance floor. She wasn’t saying anything, but was making embarrassing “go for it” expressions — embarrassing enough to make me think that already she’d hit the punch bowl once too often.
    Right as I was thinking that I needed to cut my best friend off, she stumbled over her own feet, a sure sign she was trashed. Instinctively, I took a step forward, but stopped right away, because someone caught her — and he wasn’t Carson. Instead, he was an absolutely dreamy guy who couldn’t have been more than sixteen years old. The kind of guy you see in magazines advertising deodorant soap, the idea being that if you don’t stink, you can land a guy like that.
    “Marlin Wheatley,” Jeremy said, leaning close.
    I didn’t turn around. How could I, since that would mean I had to stop staring?
    “No way is he in his twenties,” I whispered, remembering what I’d been told about our host. “He’s got to still be in high school.”
    Jeremy moved slightly, and I imagined he was shrugging. “Dunno. Guess he’s just one of those guys.”
    I guessed so. One of those gorgeous, model-perfect, Greek- God-on-a-mountaintop kind of guys with a fabulous mansion overlooking the ocean, who throws awesome parties with cutting-edge music and tables and tables topped with amazing food and mindblowing drinks. Yeah. One of those guys.
    Now, that guy was holding Mindy tight while she regained her balance. But he wasn’t looking at her. Instead, he was looking right at me. There was something so familiar about his eyes. If I wanted to, I really thought I could float away in them.
    Except part of me didn’t want to. Part of me thought that would be a very bad idea. There was something about him … something deep in his eyes…
    “Allie!”
    I started, the movement breaking eye contact. I’d been thinking something … worrying about something, and I glanced back at Mindy, but she was upright and holding hands with Carson and everything seemed hunky-dory.
    I turned to Jeremy, confused.
    “Hey,” he said. “Are you okay?”
    “I…”
    “You got this look. All worried and … I