Lying Liars Who Don't Tell The Truth

Chapter Six

Ansel paced back and forth in front of the front door, his hands clasped behind his back, looking every so often out the side window for approaching headlights. I had tried to be nicer to him that I might have been otherwise since I accidentally outed him to Naja earlier, but he was testing my kindness. He had obsessed endlessly about everything that could go wrong at the Quarry and insisted on telling Peter and Gallem that we were going out to meet other Haven High students when I fought hard for the three of us to lie and say we were just going to grab dinner or ice cream or something annoying Naja and Ansel would presumably like. I could have convinced Naja if it weren't for Ansel's guilt complex. We compromised on telling them we were meeting some friends at a diner a town over, which Gallem accepted easily and Peter only questioned for about fifteen minutes.

Ansel might act like a prat, but he certainly wasn't ugly, I thought as I sat with Naja on the stairs. He let me dress him in one of Scott's old tee-shirts and, at my insistence, worn dark jeans instead of his usual tan khakis. With the more slimming clothing, his height and bone structure were accentuated. I always thought he had nice hair, and he finally let me style it for him, pulling and shrinking his mass of curls into an even, neat nest on the top of his head. He wouldn't let me go so far as to give him some blush and lip color, even though I promised him it would make him look less sallow. For a Demon, Ansel wasn't all that threatening, but he was boyishly good looking and, with some practice, I think I could even bring him to charming.

Naja was a different story. She put up almost no fight to my making her over a little, and it was almost too easy to bring her subtle, unique beauty to life. I stand by what I thought the moment I flashed into the Abara house: Scott and Ansel might be symmetrical, but Naja was beautiful. I fit her in one of my stolen black crop-tops from New York and she supplied her own jeans, which I cuffed and pinned in the back to tighten around her waist. Her face and hair needed almost no help, though I did touch her with a thin line of eyeliner and a bit of red on her lips. Sitting next to Naja on the stairs, I could already feel the excitement buzzing off of her. She must know now that she looks hot, right? She can't possibly be that thick.

What I was wearing didn't really matter. I had small arms and a nice butt so, for the most part, I could wear whatever I wanted and boys would pay attention to me. I actually found it tiresome more than I enjoyed it.

"He's here," Ansel squealed, even though he had been preparing for the past four hours. Naja, too, jumped up a little too quickly and immediately started fiddling with her jeans. I knocked her hand away and walked to the door, apparently the only one of us with any sense.

When I walked outside, Mark was standing outside his car. "I would have come get you," he said, his eyes rolling over my body. "You look great."

"And you," I said, and he really did. "Nice car."

He thanked me and then told me a lot of information about the car I did not understand nor care about. I offered him a fake, "Wow," before he nodded to Naja and Ansel behind me.

"Hi Naja. Angle."

"It's Ansel," he corrected, sneaking a peak back at the house and probably considering making a run for it. Naja wrapped her hand around his arm and pulled him to the car anyway and I mentally sent her a thousand thanks.

We piled into his whatever car and started on the drive to Bellman's Quarry. His radio station hummed an electronic pop song I had heard a few times over the summer. Since growing up Mormon, pop music wasn't a commodity easy to come by so I reveled in being able to freely listen to men and women sing about sex and drugs.

"So, how are you liking Haven?" Mark asked, his voice straining to reach over the sound of the radio.

"It has its ups," I said, flicking my eyes over him. He met my gaze and nearly ran a stop sign.