Personal Demons 2 - Original Sin by Lisa Desrochers Page A

new girl in Luc’s building who’s gonna come with us.”
    She looks at me and winces. “Are you taking in strays again, Fee? Remember what happened with Riley….”
    I smile as I cut out a picture of Angelina Jolie’s lips—life-sized. No, in the case of her lips, larger than life. “She doesn’t know anybody. Oh—and she’s going to State too.”
    â€œWhatever.” Taylor rips the magazine clipping out of my hand and holds it up to her mouth. She gets up and inspects herself in the mirror. “Do you think my lips are too thin?”
    I bite mine to keep from laughing and toss the bottle of glue onto the dresser in front of her. “Yeah. Just go ahead and glue those puppies right on.”
    â€œHa, ha. That’s a good one.” She looks around at my walls, which are covered in magazine clippings we’ve pasted up over the past year. “You’re running out of wall space. You sure you don’t want to repaint before you leave?”
    â€œI can’t think of anything more depressing than coming home from college and having to start all over.”
    â€œI guess. Looks like a few spots up near the ceiling still.” She points to the corner over my door.
    â€œYeah. That’ll work.”
    Her eyes catch mine as I start to pull myself off the bed.
    â€œWhat was that at Gallaghers’ last night? You guys just took off.”
    â€œThere was a guy that Luc knows from before—where he used to live. It’s some kind of feud or something.”
    Her eyes spark and a smile turns up the corners of her mouth. “Like gangs?”
    â€œSort of, I guess. But Luc was never really in a gang. Not like that , anyway.”
    Her expression turns wistful, her eyes clouding over a little. “I always knew there was something dangerous about him.”
    If you only knew. “Taken, Tay.”
    Her eyes clear and snap back to mine. “Yeah. You bite, you know that?”
    â€œNo. Thanks for telling me—again. I missed it the first hundred times you said it.”
    â€œYou bite.”
    â€œGot it.”
    â€œSo, if that guy is from where Luc used to live, it must not be too far away.”
    â€œI guess,” I say, not knowing where she’s going with this, but sure it’s somewhere.
    â€œSo, where is it?”
    I spread glue on the back of Angelina’s lips. “South.”
    â€œLike Southie? Really? I thought everyone in South Boston was Irish. No way in hell Luc’s Irish.”
    â€œNo way in hell,” I repeat. “I don’t think he’s from Southie.” I pull my chair over to the door and reach up to stick the lips near the ceiling.
    Taylor pulls a red Sharpie out of her bag and shoves me off the chair. She climbs up and scribbles Angelina Blomie in big loopy letters under the lips, then turns and looks at me with a grin.
    I look around at all the clippings on my walls with captions authored by either Riley or Taylor. “Why can’t you ever write something that’s not about sex?”
    She grins at me again as she jumps down from the chair. “What else is there?”
    Breaking Benjamin blasts from Taylor’s bag on the floor. She pulls her phone from the front pocket and sprawls on the bed. Her eyes glint when she looks at the screen.
    â€œSpeaking of sex…,” she says with a lascivious grin. She lifts the phone to her ear. “Hey, Reef. You got a number for me?”

8

Heaven on Earth
    Matt
    It’s taken two days to work up the guts to do this. I’m so nervous. And I feel like a total loser. I’d be sure I was going to puke, except I don’t have a stomach.
    I watch Lili slide out of her truck from the demon’s window.
    What am I doing?
    Frannie nudges my shoulder and shoots me a dubious smile. “So, you ready for your big debut?”
    Honestly, I’m not sure. But I smile back. “You bet.”
    Her eyes sparkle as