Ruined

Ruined The Eternal Balance - 1 by Jus Accardo

For my parents…

Chapter One

Jax

Why? Why the hell had I picked up the phone?

Because I was a damn masochist, that’s why. Finally, the years of violence and torment had fried my fucking brain.

I’d already been on a bus speeding down Route 11, no more than six miles from Uncle Rick’s house, when the cell went off. I ignored it at first. Picked it up, saw the number on the caller ID, and tossed the phone back into my pocket without giving it a second thought.

Then it rang again. And again. And again.

I caved. It was either that or hum the thing out the window. Since money wasn’t something I could magically pull out of my ass, replacing the phone wasn’t an option. But listening to it scream wasn’t either. The bastard calling wouldn’t have given up anyway.

Now, instead of sticking to my vow to stay the hell away from my hometown, I was standing in the shadow of the alley next to McCarthy’s, the local diner. This was my uncle Rick’s fault. The only reason I’d agreed to come back to this pit was because he swore my twin, Chase, would be out of town.

He’d lied.

Or maybe he hadn’t. Maybe Chase had played him. The guy was sneaky. I wouldn’t put it past my brother to weasel the info out of the old man. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d done it.

Rick had a blind spot when it came to Chase. The whole damn town did. He was the golden boy. The shining example of perfect manners and intelligence wrapped in a snappily dressed charmer.

I on the other hand was rotten fruit. The deformed apple that fell to the ground too early and had gotten picked at by animals. I was all the bad habits and diseased bits from the drain of the Flynn family genetic tub.

But none of that mattered now. Chase had called and said it was an emergency. There was something he needed to talk to me about before I went to see Rick.

So here I stood. On the sidewalk. Trying to drum up enough strength to walk inside.

There were so many reasons I shouldn’t be here. At the diner. In town. On this godforsaken earth…

The main one, though, was a nasty little affliction passed down from a family curse that forced me to share my body with a demon. A violent, cruel monster that survived on the pain and misery of others.

Descendants of Cain, the world’s first murderer, some of the male children in my line came into this world with a demon attached to their soul. Infested, my father said once. Cain killed his brother, Abel. I figured that was why the thing inside hated Chase so much. We were destined to keep repeating the same mistakes.

Fratricide at its fucking finest.

Unhappiness was like chocolate to the damn thing. And rage? Like pure crack.

Demons, in general, were like that. They fed on negative human emotions, sucking them down like high-end whiskey. There were differences between them; for example, I was unique. A human saddled with a demonic stowaway, while the others were purebreds. They did share common traits, though.

I stepped out from the alley and took several steps toward the diner. Wanda Falkner walked past with an armload of groceries. She stooped down as she went, lifting a hand to wave, then froze when she saw me.

I knew that look. Horror and disgust mixed with fear. It was the expression everyone in this damn town wore when staring me down. Just another reason to get this shit over and done with and leave this place in the dust forever. I was like a plague to these people. The Antichrist and Hitler rolled into one horrible package.

Wanda straightened and scurried away as fast as she could.

I was proud of myself. I hadn’t even flipped her off. That was progress.

Three years ago I’d walked away. Turned my back on everyone and everything I loved. It was fine. I did what needed to be done. It wasn’t a huge loss. No one here missed me. Uncle Rick was able to move on with his life without having to worry about finding a corpse in Chase’s bed each morning, and Chase, well, he’d moved on just fine, too. He spent his days as a successful photographer, and his nights screwing a path across Jensen County.

The only thing that made leaving hard was her. Samantha Merrick. The girl who, to this day, still pulled me from the mire and made it possible to go on, even if she didn’t know it. She was my anchor and kryptonite all at the same time. Salvation and damnation in one beautiful, unattainable package.

Thank fucking God she wasn’t living in Harlow anymore. She’d gone off to college several months ago. I could probably suffer being in the same room with Chase for a few minutes, but being forced to pull a face-to-face with Sam? That would have gutted me.

The smell of demon wafted through the air, faint but noticeable. A quarter mile, tops. They were everywhere. Schools, shopping malls, local food stores. No place was safe. Like a permanent rodent infestation, they were always around. Always lurking in wait for scraps.

I could see my brother through the diner window, at the back booth. Of all the horrible things I’d done, none were worse than what the demon wanted me to do to Chase. The monster hated my brother.

It flashed an image of Chase, pinned against the wall and struggling for air. I could feel his skin beneath my fingers in the all-too-real vision, and as I leaned in closer to savor the fear and confusion, Chase let out a scream that made the hairs on my arm dance. It wasn’t real, but it sure felt that way. One quick movement. That’s all it would take to snap his neck. Dead, brown eyes would stare into the distance as the demon rumbled with satisfaction. The contented warmth it felt would flow through my body, and for just a moment, I wanted to do it. To walk into the building and end my brother’s life, if only to gain a moment of peace.

The flash ended and left me breathless. I slammed a fist into the tree behind me. “Fuck!”

I waited until everything evened out before turning back to the building. One step toward the alley. Then another. This wasn’t going to happen. It couldn’t. Chase was leaning forward again, as the person sitting across from him did the same, giving me a perfect view of her profile.

A wave of fury rolled over me. “Motherfu—”

Samantha Merrick, who was supposed to be away at Huntington College, was about to kiss my brother.

Chapter Two

Sam

Chase Flynn flashed a lopsided grin as I slid into the booth across from him.

“You never get anything different. Always pie.” I tugged the menu from my best friend’s hands and skimmed the dessert section.

McCarthy’s was his guilty pleasure. They made the best key lime pie on the East Coast—according to Chase. The tartness of lime always turned my stomach.

I preferred excessively sweet things like chocolate mousse or strawberries slathered in homemade cream. One of the few vivid memories I had of my mother was Saturday morning strawberries and cream…

“Amen to pie, baby,” he said with an easy laugh, eyes fixed on mine. Today he was dressed in a tight-fitting forest-green T-shirt and well-worn jeans with a small hole in the left knee. On another guy, the outfit would have been weekend casual. On Chase, with his classic features and Greek god cut, it was runway chic. Although he could have donned clown shoes and a series of strategically taped paper bags and still caught the attention of every girl in the room.

Chase had lived in the house next door with his uncle and brother from the time I was six. He’d stolen my Aunt Kelly’s heart from the instant he’d arrived on the doorstep with a plate of warm brownies and that infectious charm that seemed to ooze from every pore. From that moment on, my aunt was determined to hook us up despite the fact that Chase—ironically named—was with a different girl every other day. Pass. I wasn’t interested in being anyone’s flavor of the week.