Love Struck Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  chapter 1

  chapter 2

  chapter 3

  chapter 4

  chapter 5

  chapter 6

  chapter 7

  chapter 8

  chapter 9

  chapter 10

  chapter 11

  chapter 12

  chapter 13

  chapter 14

  chapter 15

  chapter 16

  chapter 17

  chapter 18

  chapter 19

  chapter 20

  chapter 21

  chapter 22

  chapter 23

  chapter 24

  chapter 25

  chapter 26

  chapter 27

  chapter 28

  chapter 29

  chapter 30

  chapter 31

  chapter 32

  chapter 33

  chapter 34

  chapter 35

  chapter 36

  chapter 37

  chapter 38

  chapter 39

  chapter 40

  Teaser chapter

  GROSSET & DUNLAP

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  (USA) Inc. All rights reserved. Published by Grosset & Dunlap, a division of

  Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  GROSSET & DUNLAP is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  S.A.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-44590-7

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  To Andrea S. Petroff,

  The sister I always wanted and finally have.

  You’re a wonderful addition to the family.

  Love you.

  A lot of people helped me bring this book to life. I’d like to thank:

  My wonderful family and friends for all of their love and support.

  With special mention to my mother, Marilyn, who has gone above and beyond for me. My brother, Jordan, who has acted as the perfect sounding board, consultant, and friend. And my father, Robert, who will always live in my heart.

  My agent, Jodi Reamer, for her advice and guidance. As well as Alec Shane and the rest of Writers House.

  J. David McKenney for his fabulous cover illustration.

  And, of course, the people at Penguin. To Francesco Sedita and Bonnie Bader for believing in both the series and me. To Judy Goldschmidt for her support through this whole process, her editorial input, and for making Bedeviled everything it can be. And to everyone who has worked on the series and helped make it a reality.

  And of course the booksellers, librarians, and readers who have spread the word about Bedeviled and who love Angel just as much as I do.

  Thank you all!

  chapter 1

  “Marc is looking at you,” I whispered to my BFF Gabi Gottlieb, hiding my mouth with my burger.

  Gabi glanced over to the popular table and then back at her Tofurky sandwich. “Probably wondering why he ever hung around with a dork like me,” she mumbled.

  “That’s not true,” I protested.

  She gave me a long, hard stare as I tried to think of something brilliant to say that would cheer her up. But as I studied the intricacies of the ketchup packet lying on my tray, nothing sprang to mind. Nothing other than that I should never have brought up Marc Greyson to begin with.

  Gabi had a big crush on Marc. And for a brief second not too long ago, it looked like he had liked her, too. Only his feelings weren’t real.

  They were the result of powers. Mine, to be exact.

  Angel Garrett, daughter of the devil, struck again. I’d accidentally made all of Gabi’s wishes come true. And that included having Marc like her. As well as Cole Daniels. And who is Cole Daniels, you ask? Cole Daniels is my boyfriend.

  It was awful, to say the least. For me, anyway.

  Everything eventually got back to normal—including Marc’s feelings. But now Gabi was stuck crushing on a guy that only saw her as co-captain of the nerd herd. Not exactly the image she was going for.

  “Once Marc really gets to know you he’ll want to go out with you,” I said, dropping my burger.

  Gabi glanced back at Marc. “No way. Have you seen him? He can get any girl he wants. He’d never pick me.” She let out a sigh.

  “You don’t know that,” I said. “He could surprise you.”

  “Soooo.” Gabi tugged at her braid. “Any more Lou sightings?” she asked, changing the subject from one she didn’t like discussing to one I hated even thinking ab out.

  “No, thank goodness.”

  My father, better known as Lou Cipher, aka Lucifer, and I were not exactly on speaking terms. I found out he hadn’t given up all of his evil tricks. He’d made excuses for why and said it wasn’t his fault, but I wasn’t buying it. I told him I would let him into my life if he stopped granting wishes in exchange for people’s souls. And until I knew for sure that he had changed for good, we were done. In the meantime, I asked him to stay away. So far it had been a week, and no surprise visits. My fingers were crossed that it would stay that way.

  I could tell Gabi wanted to say something, but she shut her mouth. It was a good thing, too, because I knew what she was going to say. That I was being too hard on Lou. We’d had the same conversation about a dozen times and it always got me riled up. I wasn’t looking for a fight. Especially not with Gabi.

  The whole wish-granting/Cole-stealing fiasco had put a temporary strain on our friendship. We’d gotten past it, but I wanted to stay on neutral territory for a while. So I switched to something we could both agree on.

  “I cannot wait to meet Lance tomorrow!”

  Lance Gold was the hottest actor on the planet. That’s not even an exaggeration. He won the title eight weeks in a row in Teen Wow magazine. And his reign was probably going to last forever.

  “If we can even get close to him. The mall is going to be swamped.”

  “That’s where my special gift comes in,” I said, wiggling my fingers.

  “Angel . . . ,” Gabi sa
id in her control-freak mother’s reprimanding voice.

  “What? I’m not going to do anything stupid. I learned my lesson. No advanced powers for me. I’ll stick to the basics.” The only powers I had under control were moving objects (including people) and stopping them in their tracks. Not as cool as turning green beans into hundred-dollar bills, but it did have its advantages. “I can just part the crowd and we can walk right on up to Lance. Simple.”

  “Nothing with you and your powers is ever simple,” she said, popping a soy apple crisp into her mouth.

  “You’ll see,” I assured her. “But it doesn’t even matter. I won’t need to use my powers. The whole reason Lance is here is because of you. It would be just plain cruel if they didn’t give you a personal introduction.”

  Lance had gotten caught up in Gabi’s whole wish-making disaster. She was starring in her own reality TV show, and he was supposed to do a photo shoot with her. It never ended up happening because the wishes got reversed. But since Lance was already scheduled to come to Pennsylvania, his producer had turned the visit into a mall appearance set for tomorrow. Everyone was going to be there.

  “Are you kidding? Personal introduction?” Gabi practically shrieked. “Without the show, I’m a nobody. I’m not getting any closer to Lance Gold than anyone else at the mall.”

  She needed more faith. “Just wait,” I assured her. “You’ll see.”

  Just then I saw Cole approaching our table. “See what?” he asked.

  “We’re just talking about tomorrow,” I said, covering my stomach with my arm. It always did this wild hula dance whenever Cole was around. I knew it wasn’t visible to the human eye. But still, I wasn’t taking any chances.

  “It’s okay that I come with you guys, right?” he asked looking from me to Gabi and then quickly back to me.

  “Of course,” I said.

  Gabi nodded her head slightly. “Yeah,” she said quietly.

  “Cool.” Cole was only allowing himself to look at Gabi out of the corner of his eye.

  Things had been kind of weird between the two of them since she accidentally made him want to date her. Cole doesn’t know anything about powers. So he thinks he’s to blame for momentarily dumping me for my best friend. He’s apologized a zillion times and begged me to forgive him. And I did. I had to. He never would have done it if I hadn’t given Gabi wish-making capabilities.

  “Do you want to sit?” I asked Cole.

  “That’s okay. I should be getting back to my table in a minute.” Cole hadn’t sat with us all week. I think he was embarrassed to be around Gabi because of the whole crush thing. But I needed him to get over it. I couldn’t go through life with my boyfriend being all awkward around my best friend. I wanted us to be able to have fun together—not feel like we were stuck in detention.

  “We finally finish up Romeo and Juliet next week,” I said, trying to break the tension.

  “About time,” Cole and Gabi said at the exact same time.

  That got them to laugh, and they smiled at each other.

  I was so relieved, I wasn’t even jealous that they made eye contact. “I can’t wait until we get to write our own plays and then act them out,” Gabi said.

  That was going to be our next English assignment. I wasn’t as excited about it as she was, but it sure beat Shakespeare. “Mrs. Torin better let us pick our own groups,” I said.

  “She probably will.” Gabi clapped her hands together. “We can even add some songs. Make it a musical.”

  Gabi had a great voice.

  “I could help write the music,” Cole said, actually getting excited. “I’ve been working on some things.”

  Whoa! I did not know Cole wrote songs. Sure, he was way into music. But I thought he just liked to listen.

  “Like that piece you played for Jason after Hebrew School?” she asked.

  Hmmm . . . Gabi, on the other hand, knew all about it.

  “Yeah,” he said, kicking a napkin on the floor. “I didn’t know you heard that.”

  “It was really good,” she said.

  He gave her one of his amazing, lopsided smiles.

  Okay. Now I was starting to get a little uncomfortable.

  She smiled back.

  Enough was enough.

  It was definitely time to find Gabi a boyfriend.

  Her own boyfriend.

  chapter 2

  “Forgot to tell Cole something,” I said to Gabi as we headed to French. “Meet you in class.” I ran off before she could answer.

  Okay, it was a teeny lie. I hadn’t forgotten anything. I just needed a second alone with Cole so I could talk to him. I wanted him to convince Marc to ask Gabi out. Gabi would have chained me to the trophy case and stuffed my mouth with a sweaty sock before letting me go through with this plan.

  “I need you to do me a favor,” I said, meeting Cole at his locker.

  “Sure, what’s up?” he asked.

  When I told him what I wanted, his face got all twisty. “I don’t know,” he said.

  My stomach felt like someone, someone like Cole, was stabbing it with toothpicks. Didn’t he want Gabi to have a boyfriend? Or did he secretly want her to be alone so he could have a chance with her? I pinched my arm. I was being stupid. Cole liked me. “Why not?” I asked, before I could come up with any other scary scenarios.

  “Just don’t think it will work. They’re so different. He’s popular and she’s—,” Cole stopped himself.

  But I wasn’t letting him off that easy. I crossed my arms over my chest. “She’s what?”

  Cole studied his locker, almost like he was debating shutting himself inside instead of finishing the conversation with me. He shrugged his shoulders. “They’re just from different groups.”

  Bad answer.

  “We’re from different groups and we go out,” I said, staring him down.

  “That’s different,” he said.

  But it really wasn’t. Cole was super-popular. And I was as big an outcast as Gabi. Maybe even a bigger one. “Yeah, how?” I asked. The stabs to my stomach were getting stronger.

  “It just is,” he said.

  My whole body clenched. “No, it’s not. So I guess this means you don’t like to be seen with me, either? Am I too embarrassing for you?” Okay, I know that wasn’t completely fair, but I was angry.

  “No, that’s not what I meant. It’s just, Marc is different. He’s more into what people think.”

  “Whatever, Cole,” I said and turned around. “I’ll ask him myself.” Marc and I were not exactly buddies. Not even close. But I was going to talk to him, anyway. To help out Gabi. That was the kind of friend I was. Unlike some people . . .

  “Wait.” Cole let out a deep breath. “I’m sorry. Don’t be mad at me. I’ll talk to him.”

  “Yeah?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Cole said.

  Now was that so hard? Why couldn’t he have just agreed to begin with? “Let’s do it now,” I suggested.

  For a second Cole looked like he was going to say something, but he just closed his mouth and walked over to Marc, who was getting books out of his locker.

  I held back my smile.

  “Hey,” Cole said as he stood in front of Marc. I hovered behind him.

  “Hey,” Marc answered, searching his locker. It was like mine—a total disaster zone.

  “Hitting the mall tomorrow?” Cole asked.

  “Yeah, I think everyone is,” Marc said.

  I gave Cole a nudge. The bell was going to ring any minute. He needed to speed up his pitch.

  “Well, Angel and I are going. And Gabi, too. You should come with us.”

  “Maybe,” Marc said, still rummaging through his locker.

  “Cool,” Cole responded.

  Cool? It wasn’t cool. A maybe was halfway to no. It stunk. It was time for me to step in. “You know, Gabi is pretty amazing. Not only is she killer smart, but she’s so much fun. You used to like her, right?” There was no time for subtlety. “I don’t blame you.
She is the prettiest girl in the whole eighth grade. How could you not?”

  Both Marc and Cole were looking at me like I was nuts. Like a windup doll that just kept going and going and going even when no one wanted to play with it anymore. But I didn’t care. I was on a mission.

  “Looking for your homework?” I went on. There really was no stopping me. “If you can’t find it, you should just ask Gabi. She’s great at homework. I’m sure she’d be happy to help you. She’s a whiz. She’s good at everything. Don’t you think?”

  This time it was Cole’s turn to nudge me.

  Fine. Maybe I wasn’t handling this the best possible way, but I was on a time limit. The bell was going to ring.

  Marc didn’t say a word.

  “Well,” I said, “can’t wait to see you at the mall tomorrow. I know Gabi can’t, either.” She would have killed me if she knew what I was up to.

  “Gabi?” Courtney Lourde said, walking over to us.

  Figured. She had a knack for butting her nose in at the worst possible times. At least her little followers, Jaydin and Lana, weren’t with her.

  “Marc is going to be hanging out with me and my friends,” she said, flipping her long, blond hair over her shoulder.

  Gabi and I definitely didn’t fall into that category.

  “You’re welcome to join us, too, Cole,” she said, resting her hand on his arm.

  “I’m going with Angel,” Cole said, acting like he didn’t notice what Courtney was doing.

  “Too bad. If you decide to ditch Double-A—or is it Double-D now?” (She calls me Double-A because that’s my bra size. But when I accidentally used my powers to turn my nonexistent chest into monster boobs, I was Double-D for a minute.) “Either way, if you change your mind, Cole, let me know.”

  Her hand was still on his arm.

  I bet her boyfriend, D.L. Helper, would have loved that as much as I did.

  The bell rang and Courtney turned her attention to Marc. “Let’s go before we’re late.”

  He didn’t even say good-bye to me—or Cole. He just followed Courtney like an obedient little puppy dog. No way was I going to accomplish anything with Courtney in the picture.