Cracked

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Charmingly wicked half-demon Meda hides form Hell’s army in a school for demon-hunters—who mistakenly believe she’s a saint. The demons attacked the school to get Meda and three students helped her to escape.

Meda has done some bad things in her short life, and believes she’s irredeemable. She’s never had a friend before. Jo is a clever Templar girl who’s bitter and mean because she was previously badly injured, and, as a cripple, can never become a “real” demon-hunter. The two damaged girls can’t help but start respecting each other, then become friends, as the story goes on. In this scene, they’ve stopped for some fast food and get toys from a little coin-operated machine. Previously Meda had met someone that she mentally referred to as “the man behind the curtain” (there’s Wizard of Oz references throughout) and she (half-joking) wished for a heart:


I pop open my plastic egg, and inside is a tin heart. Mr. Wizard heard my prayer! But what’s this?

“It’s broken.” Damn you, Mr. Wizard.

Jo peers over my shoulder and plucks it from my hands. “No it’s not. Haven’t you ever seen these before?” She struggles with the thin cheap chain, then frees the mass of slick shiny snakes into two necklaces. Suspended from each is half of a heart, cracked right down the middle. “See, 'best friend'.”

She hands them to me, and indeed, each heart has one of the words. Great, so I have two broken necklaces.

She laughs at my expression and explains. “You take one half and your BFF gets the other.” She points to where they hang them between us, one from each of my hands. “You want 'best' or 'friend'?”

“You’re my best friend?” I’m horrified.

She raises an eyebrow. “Oh I’m sorry—you have someone else in mind?”

No. “Wait, I’m your best friend?” An interesting accusation.

She snorts. “I think you might be my only friend. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but…” she drops her voice to a whisper, as if she is imparting some great secret. I like secrets. “People sometimes find me hard to get along with.”

Well, that’s no secret.

“Naw. I don’t see it.” My eyes are wide and innocent.

She laughs. It’s hard to hate someone who so freely embraces their horridness.

“So which do you want?” I ask as I dangle them between us, tin tokens of friendship between a demon and its hunter.

"Obviously, this one,” she snatches up the one that says best, leaving the other one to me. “I think it best defines me as a person,” she says loftily.

I rub my fingers over the small scratched letters before slipping it around my neck. Friend. I wanted this one anyway.

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