ChaPter 2 - Carnival of Souls by Melissa Marr

Carnival of souls
an MP3 player. She trained for reality—not that she could say
that to the people who looked askance at her.
She pulled the door shut behind her, slipping away from
the safety of her warded house and watchful father and into the
soft violet of the last moments of night. Something about the
peculiar purple-gray skies made her relax. It felt right in a way
that the harsh midday light never did. This was the time when
her body felt intensely alive, as if her very skin were too tight to
contain her and the only way to relieve that pressure was to be
outside. The only other times she felt that pressure were when
it had been too long since she’d seen Kaleb. In that case, too,
she knew how to cure the tension—she simply needed to be
nearer to him.
The feel of the ground under her feet was a comforting
rhythm as she set out on today’s path. She had a series of routes,
and before each run, she drew a letter from an envelope she
kept in her dresser. That kept her routes random, which made
her harder to follow or stalk; unpredictability was a priority
when hiding from daimons. Today’s path took her toward the
community college, along the river, and around the shopping
mall. One of the things she looked forward to each time they
moved to a new town was charting her run routes. Make the
moves fun, her mother had often said. Mallory still tried.
Not quite a mile from the house, two men ran up on
either side of her like they’d been waiting for her. A quick
glance verified that they didn’t have witch eyes, but they
didn’t look like they were in shape to be running easily beside
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