Careful What You Wish For

Table of Contents

 

 

 

GROSSET & DUNLAP
Published by the Penguin Group
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eISBN : 978-1-101-43710-0

For Jordan E. Petroff,
a truly remarkable man.
A lot of people say they have the
world's best brother,
but in my case it's true.
I love you.

There are many people who helped make this book a reality. I'd like to thank:

 

Judy Goldschmidt, an incredible editor who truly helped Angel and me find our way. Thank you for your support, time, and top-notch editing skills.

 

Francesco Sedita, Bonnie Bader, Lana Jacobs, and all the amazing people at Penguin who worked on Bedeviled. I can't thank you enough.

 

Cover illustrator J. David McKenney for another great job.

 

Jodi Reamer, my fabulous agent, for always being in my corner, as well as Alec Shane and the team at Writers House.

 

My friends, colleagues, readers, and the librarians and booksellers who've supported me. It means a lot.

 

My wonderful family—all the cousins, aunts, and uncles for your encouragement. My sister-in-law, Andrea, who always knows the right thing to say. My mom, who is my strongest champion and biggest fan. And my dad, who always supported my dreams.

 

You are all in my heart.

Cole. Daniels. Was. Kissing. Me!

Who needed the devil? My wish was coming true all on its own. That's right. I, Angel Garrett, freak show extraordinaire, snagged the cutest guy in the whole school right out from under Jaydin Salloway's mean but perfect little nose.

And he was kissing me!

Nothing else mattered. Not that I was the daughter of the devil or inherited whacked-out powers that went off at the worst possible moments or even that I was wearing the ugliest dress in the history of dresses at the big school dance.

None of it.

Because Cole chose me. This was totally my Cinderella moment. Well, except for the dress. It really was hideous. I had my powers to thank for that. But so what? Cole didn't seem to care that I looked like the prom queen from clown school. Which had to be a definite sign he was into me. That, and the fact that HE WAS KISSING ME.

It was like I had little wind gusts twirling around in my stomach that shot to my head and all the way down to my toes. And our lips had only touched for three seconds. But still, they felt all tingly and—

“Mm-hm.” The sound of someone clearing their throat interrupted my thoughts—and my kiss.

I expected it to be Jaydin, or worse, her commander-in-chief Courtney Lourde, there to tell me off. To let me know that no one messed with Goode Middle School's in crowd and got away with it and that I should be prepared to pay.
That
I would have been ready for. Courtney and Co. made it their mission to make my life miserable. But this,
this
was way worse. I opened my eyes to see my science teacher, Miss Simmons, hovering over me. Talk about mortifying.

“Break it up,” she said.

Not that she needed to. Cole had already jerked his foot away from me as if I had sprayed him with Angel repellant. Miss Simmons just stood there. I could feel my cheeks getting warm, and my eyes darted to the ground.
Can you get detention for kissing?
I honestly had no idea.

“Sorry,” I mumbled to her. I didn't want to get Cole in trouble. Not for kissing me. I only wanted him to associate that with good things, like minty-fresh breath and cotton candy lip gloss.

Luckily Miss Simmons didn't lecture us or anything. She just walked away.

I snuck a look at Cole. He had this sheepish smile on his face. “I think everyone may have seen that,” he said, stepping back toward me.

He was kind of right. A whole bunch of people were staring at us. And those who weren't seemed to be getting an earful from those who were. It was way embarrassing. Of course, in the grand scheme of things, this was nothing compared to some of the humiliating situations I had gotten myself into in the past. Like accidentally making my shirt disappear in front of everyone—including Cole—and getting the nickname Double-A based on . . . well . . . you can guess why. . . .

“Yeah,” I responded. It wasn't the cleverest thing to ever come out of my mouth, but I was at a loss. What if Cole didn't want people to know he liked me? Maybe he just wanted me to be his nerdy little secret that no one knew about.

We stood there looking at each other for a moment. “Well, I guess that was one way to tell people we're back together,” he said, pushing his hair out of his eyes. “We
are
back together, right?”

I didn't even realize I was holding my breath until I let out a huge sigh of relief. Cole wanted me to be his girlfriend again. And he didn't care if the whole school knew. This was the best moment ever! “Definitely!” I told him.

“So no more avoiding each other, right?” he asked.

And just like that, my moment ended. I wanted to say yes. To tell him I wouldn't ignore him anymore. But I wasn't sure I could. The whole reason we stopped hanging out in the first place was that I was afraid to be around him. My powers tended to go off when my emotions went into overdrive, and that happened a lot around Cole. The last time he tried to kiss me, I accidentally set off fireworks in his backyard. But nothing bad had happened this time. Maybe I had everything under control.

I caved. “No more avoiding each other.”

Hanging out with Cole was worth the risk.

When he took my hand again, I knew I had made the right call. It was like a shot of warmth surged through me, and I didn't want it to end.

“Good,” he said. “I missed hanging out with you.”

“Really?” I know he just said it, but I wanted to hear it again.

He nodded, and this time he was the one to look down. Was he getting shy? Around
me
?!

“I missed you, too,” I said.

That made him look back up. Our eyes connected, and for a second I thought he was going to kiss me again. But he didn't. Instead, his gaze shifted over to Miss Simmons. Mine did, too. Only I was in for a surprise. Right next to my teacher was my father. Lou was at the dance for everyone to see. The only thing worse than having your father show up to a dance is having your father show up to a dance when your father is the devil.

“Isn't
Zombie Zone Four
opening next Friday?” Cole said, not thinking twice about who was standing next to the punch bowl.

“Yeah.” I didn't know what to focus on—what Cole was saying, or that my father, Lucifer himself, was watching everything. What if he had seen Cole kiss me?

“I was thinking we could go,” Cole said.

I dropped his hand. I heard regular dads were way overprotective of their daughters. What if a devil dad was worse?

Cole looked from his hand back to me. His smile was gone.

Oh no. He thought I wasn't interested. “I want to go to the movie. With you.” I quickly added in the last part. Cole knew I was really into horror movies. He wasn't a huge fan, but he was willing to go because of me. That made the invitation even sweeter.

“You don't have to.” He jammed his hands into his pockets.

“I want to.” It was time to open up to Cole. To tell him the truth. As much of it as I could, anyway. “I know I'm being weird again,” I admitted. “But remember how I told you the dad I hadn't seen for thirteen years reappeared in my life?”

He nodded.

“See that guy by Miss Simmons?”

“The sub?”

“Yeah.” Lou had turned himself into our substitute teacher for a day to try and get closer to me. “Well, that's my father.”