Blood Cruel (Gods of Blood and Shadow Book 1) Read Free Page A

rays of daylight.
    The bus had a lot of adults coming home from work. They all looked tired, staring at their phones. One had a newspaper, which seemed out of place. She recognised all of them, though. They took the same bus every day. Just like she’d see the same faces the next day on the bus to school. Fredrikstad wasn’t a big place; after a while, you recognised almost everyone you saw.
    The bus stopped and Katie unstrapped, hurrying to the door to disembark. As soon as she stepped onto the pavement, however, her feet didn’t seem to want to move any further. Her father had been bad in the last few weeks, getting worse every day. She didn’t know what would be waiting for her at home. Part of her wanted to turn around and walk the other way.
    Forcing herself, she moved, back to the blue house with the peeling paint and muddy garden, far away from any other houses. She heard a shout as she walked up the driveway, a guttural cry that let her know her father’s demon was plaguing him again.
    With careful, quiet steps, she took her key from her pocket. When she got to the front door, she slipped it in and turned, wincing as the lock clicked. She cracked the door open and looked through the gap. The hallway was a mess, but there was no sign of her father. She could hear his shouts from the living room. Slipping inside, she closed the front door and locked it behind her.
    As the lock turned over, the shouts stopped. The silence made her heart jump. She turned and ran for the stairs, hearing the living room door open behind her. Running feet pursued her as she lunged up the stairs for her room. She didn’t look back until her doorway. As she slammed it shut, she caught a glimpse of her father’s face at the top of the stairs, purple with rage and pain.
    She drove the main bolt on her door home, just as it shuddered from her father’s charge. She pushed the other three bolts on the left of the door, then the three on the right. Finally, she put the key in the lock and turned it, adding the pathetic built-in lock to her defences.
    Taking a deep breath to try to calm down, Katie took off her school bag and threw it on the bed, then went to her desk and sat. The door shuddered again and again as her father tried to break in. The locks rattled with each charge. She knew he’d feel the bruises in the morning, but the locks would hold. He starved himself to keep his weight low. Too low to get through the door, no matter how he ran at it.
    She tried to ignore him and turned to her computer, switching it on. Taking her headphones from the desk, she took another deep breath. She couldn’t help but glance back at the door. Even when she turned her music on, she could still hear the impacts of her father’s body on the thick wood.
    A few clicks brought up the document she’d been working on: her study of the moon. She had her space blog, with its three loyal followers, but she barely updated it anymore. Not since her father had gotten worse. She stared at the text for a while, but she couldn’t concentrate, so she closed the document and opened her browser in private mode instead.
    Her fingers automatically typed in the long, complicated website address. An address she’d long since memorised, at the insistence of her father: http://www.eMffpxfJfKrSW7MKAVGEAQ6.org
    For some reason, the .org always threw her. The browser chugged for a moment, then displayed the one reassurance her family wasn’t alone. Godchosen Hub looked like a website from the 90s, but it had enough pages to reassure her—
    The door slammed hard, something other than her father hitting it. Katie took off her headphones and looked over, but nothing else happened. Whatever it was had been heavy. She worried her father had found something to use as a battering ram. Her gaze went over to the rope ladder coiled in front of her window. If need be, she could escape for the night, but it was cold outside, and she didn’t have anywhere to go.
    After a moment of