How to Save Your School From Soul Stealing Demons

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

I reach up to take her hands from my face and back up towards the rest of the group. She continues laughing as her eyes travel over the four of us.

"I commend you all for your efforts, but Kayla Adkins's body was possessed by Bozzanath. Not by me."

My heart wrenches as it's forced to accept that this is Joan. That Hemani's body has become a host for the ancient parasite. 

And that to get rid of Joan... the host must die.

"I don't understand," I manage over the lump in my throat. "Why Hemani? How?"

With a sigh, she stops laughing and begins in a bored tone. "Kayla was less than thrilled about the role she played in all this. She always was, since she was a child and first learned that she'd be my host. The day before my arrival, she gave the necklace to Hemani as a gift. An attempt to escape her destiny." She sends a look at the dismembered corpse. "Doesn't seem to have worked out too well for her, does it?"

Renny looks over to the body she decapitated just minutes before. If I had to guess, I'd say she's feeling something a lot like what she did after Bernadette. Like there was something else we could have done. Like Kayla didn't have to die, like she didn't have to kill her.

Hemani's mouth rises into a smirk, eyebrow arching as Joan watches Renny. "How does it feel? Taking two lives?"

"You took their lives." Watts is still holding the open book in his hands, but his furious eyes are trained on Hemani's face. "Not Renny. But we won't let you get anyone else."

She laughs sharply at that. "Is that so?"

"Everybody's safe now." Ambrose raises his sledgehammer to his shoulder. "You missed your chance. We'll kill you before you get to whoever else you're after, and we'll find the rest of whoever you've indoctrinated into your cult and kill them too if that's what it takes."

"Indoctrinated? Cult?" She laughs, throwing her head back. "Oh, you poor things. Apart from the idiotic Adkins family and you, no one knows about my return. For the time being, anyway."

"Bull," Renny snaps. "Why else would Paul help you get your victims? Why did we see him in the library—and what about Bernadette?"

"Bozzanath jumped bodies. Kayla, Bernadette, Paul, whoever. And when they weren't possessed, it wasn't hard to tamper with their memories. They couldn't connect themselves to what was happening when they didn't remember making their new friends in the first place. 
"As for the library... I just felt like having a little fun. Thought you might like to see how you'd end up if you kept looking into things you should've left alone."

"Well we didn't end up that way," Watts speaks through gritted teeth.

"And if you're the only one left to kill, then our night'll be shorter than I expected," Renny snarls. "I hope you're prepared to die for the second time."

She raises a shoulder, as if totally unbothered by the threat. "If you're going to kill me, you'd better do it fast, because there's only one more soul I need to take. One more person whose ancestor lit the fire that ended my life." 

Her brown eyes move from Renny's, only to stare right into mine. "Diego Rivera."

My body goes rigid as the room seems to freeze. Me?

That can't be true. It can't be true. It isn't possible. 

My heart is pounding so loudly that I can barely think, but everything starts to click—the way Bernadette honed in on me in the band room. The way Kayla did the same back at Norman's house before realizing Watts had the journal. Miguel showing me Joan's death. The way he forced me to see it happen, the way he took place in the ritual.