Deceitful (Rules of Deception 1)

“No, Devon’s here.”

He propped himself up on the doorframe, blocking the light with his muscled body. “Listen, I know you’ve been avoiding me, but we really need to talk.” I didn’t like the commanding tone he used, or the way his eyes bored into my skull. If he’d always treated Madison like that it wasn’t surprising that she wanted to get away from him. He was trying to intimidate me.

“I really don’t have time now. How about we talk tomorrow during lunch?”

Upstairs, I heard the water stop. I had a feeling Devon and Ryan would get in a fight if they confronted one another. I’d noticed the scowls they exchanged in school. I started to close the door but Ryan thrust his foot forward, blocking it. Maybe Madison had let him act like that but the new version of Madison was not going to let that fly. “Move your foot or I’ll break it.”

He took a step back in surprise, something changing in his olive eyes. I’d never threatened anyone before, had never thought I could, but it felt good. “Why are you acting like this? You know I love you,” he said. The pizza guy chose that moment to drive up on his moped. I relaxed. The pizza carton was wider than his shoulders. Good God, what kind of monster had Devon ordered?

“Please leave,” I told Ryan again and this time he listened. He hunched his back on the way to his car, and he was so distracted that he barreled into the pizza guy. He looked up, startled, and hurried on without an apology.

I paid and carried the hot cardboard into the living room, my thoughts still lingering on my encounter with Ryan. Did he really love Madison? And what had he wanted to talk about? I set the pizza box down on the living room table and opened the lid. “Hot mess” deserved its name. The toppings consisted of jalapeños, bacon, peppers, pepperoni, sausage, and lots of cheese. At first it burned my taste buds but after the second bite I’d gotten used to it, and I was too hungry to care.

“Leave some for me,” Devon teased as he walked into the room. His hair was wet and disheveled and his shirt clung to his body. Wrestling had really shaped him up nicely. I tore my eyes away and took another bite. The real Madison would’ve never ogled her own twin brother.

Devon went to the shelf that held the DVDs and pushed one into the player before plopping down on the sofa beside me and grabbing a pizza slice. He threw his feet up on the table and started the movie. “Terminator. Sorry Maddy, but I’m not in the mood for a chick flick.”

“I love Terminator,” I said before I could stop myself. Tessa had spoken, not Madison.

He looked at me, his eyebrows half disappearing into his hairline. He still hadn’t taken a bite of the pizza. “Uh, since when?”

I shrugged and stuffed the crust of the pizza into my mouth. “Delicious,” I said between bites. “You should have some before I eat it all.”

He leaned back and shoved almost half of the slice into his mouth, staring at the screen. After he’d swallowed, he spoke again. “You’re kinda different, you know?”

This was exactly what I’d dreaded. I picked a piece of sausage off the pizza and popped it in my mouth while I tried to keep my eyes directed at the movie. “What happened kinda got me thinking,” I began, trying to come up with a logical explanation. “Life is so short. I decided to change a few things.”

Devon seemed to buy my story. We watched the movie in silence. But even one of my all-time favorites couldn’t keep me from thinking of Yates.

“After I broke up with Ryan . . .” I tried to sound casual, keeping my eyes glued to the screen where the Terminator had just killed a guy. I could feel Devon’s eyes on me. His shoulder leaned against mine and his warmth crept into my body, stirring something in my stomach. “Was there someone else?”

I’d asked him this question before, but he was relaxed and unsuspecting now—the best time to take him by surprise and startle a reply out of him. Not that I still needed one, now that I knew about Yates, but if Devon had known about the affair, that changed the situation.

He wrinkled his forehead like he was thinking really hard about it. I placed my hand on his forearm; the touch—skin on skin—sent a shiver up my back. My head jerked up and our eyes met. He looked puzzled, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing.

A horrible thought crashed into my mind. Had I changed back to my own body by accident? But no, it couldn’t be. Devon didn’t look freaked out enough for that. If he’d seen his sister shape-shift into a stranger, his face would have shown something much greater than puzzlement. Still, something had happened. A nearly imperceptible spark had soared through my body at his touch.