I blinked, mentally denying everything hed said. So, Im getting ethics lectures from demons now? That was new.
You misunderstand. His smile was back. I stand in full support of your thirst for vengeance. I would gladly feed it to you drop by decadent drop. I would see you nourished and strengthened by the taste of blood spilled in anger. Of course, that offer comes with a price....
Were done here.
He rolled Ms. Hirschs eyes. And sanctimony rears its ugly head again. You are in denial, child. You wont be satisfied until you get what you crave, and that cant happen until you admit to yourself what it is you truly want.
Youre wrong. Hellions couldnt lie, but they could be wrong. Way wrong. Im not looking for revenge. I want justice for Emma and Alec, and everyone else Avari has hurt or killed.
And for yourself? Dont you want this justice for what hes done to you? For commandeering your body? For putting possessed hands on you? For making you the instrument of your friends death? For abducting your loved ones? You seethe with anger, little flame. You practically glow with it. And some of that ire feels very, very personal.
You dont know what youre talking about. My pulse whooshed in my ears, which rarely happened now that I was dead. He was wrong. He had to be. Get out of Ms. Hirsch. Now.
Dont you at least want to know the price for your vengeance? It may be less than you think. Im feeling generous.
No. Get out. I turned and headed for the door.
Youll be back, little flame, and Ill be waiting. When youre ready to deal, you may summon me. You have my word that I will answer. You need only bleed and use my name.
I fled the office as fast as I could go without running. I left Ms. Hirsch in the hands of a hellion, not because I didnt know how to evict him without being expelled for attacking a staff memberthough that was truebut because I was scared to listen to him anymore. I couldnt hear one more loaded word from the hellion of wrath, because deep down, part of me wondered if he might be right.
And that wasnt a question I was prepared to answer. Not yet, anyway.
On my way back from the counselors office, I was texting Tod to fill him in when I looked up and realized Id wandered down the wrong hall. I was standing in front of the nurses office, which reminded me of Marco. Because thats where wed left him the day beforeunconscious in one of the two empty patient rooms.
I should check on him. And I would check on Ms. Hirsch, too. But I just couldnt bring myself to hit my guidance counselor in the head, even to expel a demon.
I ducked into the bathroom, glanced around to make sure it was empty, then let myself fade from all human sight. Then I blinked into nearly two dozen different classrooms until I finally found Marco Gutierrez in a fourth period senior AP English class. Another jock with a brain. Which meant he was too smart to inhale unfamiliar substances from balloons just because some idiot like Doug Fuller handed it to him.
Marco looked okay. He was wide-awake and taking notes on Heart of Darkness, whichbased on the title alonesounded like a good reason to dread senior English. I had plenty of darkness already without reading about someone elses.
A glance at the clock over the whiteboard told me most of the period was over, and I now had an unexcused absence for English. So I decided to wait and talk to him after the bell. One minute before class ended, I blinked into the hall, checked for onlookers, then willed myself back into human sight. When the bell rang, I stood outside his class, and when Marco appeared, I fell into step beside him.
Hey, Marco, can I talk to you for a second?
He glanced at me in surprise. I couldnt blame him. Wed never said more than three consecutive words to each other, and none of those had been since Nash and I had broken up, officially severing any connection I had to the baseball team.
Finally he shrugged. If you can walk and talk at the same time. I cant be late for statistics.
So, I kinda just wanted to check on you. I heard you were sick yesterday? Or hurt?
Marco frowned and stopped in the middle of the hall, and the steady flow of traffic parted around us. Look, I dont care what youre into, or how many starting players you have left on your list, but Im not into that kind of thing. I have a girlfriend, and I like her, and Im not gonna...
My horrified expression must have made an impression. If not that, my sudden inability to form a coherent reply obviously did the trick.
Wait, thats just some stupid rumor, isnt it? That youre working your way through the baseball starting lineup?
Yes, its a rumor! I guess. I hadnt actually heard that one. A totally fallacious and false rumor, thats completely unfounded in truth!
Sorry. I would never have believed it, except I know you were with Nash. And there was that thing with Scott. And there was talk about Doug. And someone saw you dancing with Brant Williams. And that guy you made out with in the hall after school. That was Tod. And the only part of what hed heard that was true. So it did kind of look like you were...interested.
Well, Im not! There was never a thing with Scott or Doug. And I was never with Nash. Like that. Why, did he say we...?
No. Not to me, anyway. But we all just assumed, because you were with him for so long.
Well, unassume!
Done. He smiled, and he looked friendly. Like he might not be such a bad guy. Which meant he definitely didnt deserve to be possessed by a hellion or knocked out by my undead boyfriend. So, youre really just checking on me? He started walking again, and I kept up.
Yeah. I saw you in the nurses office, and you didnt look so good.
Thats what I hear. I dont know what happened. I dozed off in third period, and the next thing I know Im lying on a table in the nurses office with a cold pack on my head and another one on my...lower. The nurse said she found me there, and no one even saw me go in.
So...youre okay?
Except for the part where my dad wants me to see a shrink. He says blackouts are a sign of a more serious underlying problem.
I gave him as confident and reassuring a smile as I could muster. Youre not crazy. Just...dont fall asleep in school anymore.
No shit. That all you wanted? He stopped walking outside his next class, and I was dimly aware that mine was all the way across the building and up a floor.
Yeah. Oh, wait. I stepped closer and lowered my voice, uncomfortably aware that anyone who saw us would assume the rumors about me were true. One of the rumors, anyway. I also wanted to ask you a question. He nodded, so I continued, I heard that back before he died, Doug gave you a sample of this stuff he had. The stuff in the balloon.
Frost? he asked. When I nodded, his expression darkened and he motioned for me to follow him closer to the lockers, out of the main stream of traffic. Stay away from that shit, Kaylee. They say it cant be detected in a drug test, but everyone else I know whos tried it is dead now. That cant be a coincidence.
Everyone? So, he didnt know Nash had used, too?
Yeah. There were some other guys who wanted to try it at Dougs last party. Right before hed died. But then Nash threatened to kick the shit out of the guy with the balloon bouquet if he didnt get lost, and that night Doug died. I havent seen any balloons since. And the more time that passes, the happier I am about that. You shouldnt
Im not, I assured him. I was just...curious. Thanks, Marco.
I sped off into the thinning crowd before he could say anything else, and the one time I looked back, he was still staring after me, looking thoroughly confused.
Chapter Seven
Are you girls ready? Long blond curls fell over Harmonys shoulder as she twisted in the drivers seat to glance at Emma, then met my gaze in the rearview mirror.
I will never be ready for this. Em stared through the windshield at her house. Her former house. Which held her former room and all her former stuff. Even her former dog, Toto, who was still a dog but no longer hers. Lets get it over with.
Harmony laid one hand on her arm. Were sure your moms still at work?
Yeah. I leaned forward between the front seats. I called to verify, and she said Traci would be here to let us in.
Thats her car. Em pointed to the dusty Chevy parked in front of us in the driveway.
Okay. I just need one of you to ask for a drink. Harmony pulled the keys from the ignition and leaned to one side so she could slide them into her pocket, and again I was struck by how young she lookedthirty years old, at the most. Youd never know from looking at her that her sons were eighteen and twenty. Well, Tod would have been twenty, if hed lived. Ill take care of the rest, she continued. If youre sure youre up to this.
No choice. Em unbuckled her seat belt, and her hand trembled with the motion. We cant afford to put it off any longer.
I unbuckled my own belt, one hand on the door handle. If its too much for youif she gets upset and you cant control the syphoningjust let me know, and well get you out of there. She had been through so much already, and my heart ached at the thought of what lay ahead for her and for Traci. A decision no woman should ever have to make. A choice no human could ever anticipate.
Another devastating decision neither of them would be facing if theyd never met me.
I was a disease, infecting everyone I came into contact with, and the rot spread too fast to be contained. I went around with my scalpel, excising the infected bits of tissueoperating on lives and memories I didnt have the right to slice upbut the only way to truly stop the infection was to cut off the source.
Another devastating decision neither of them would be facing if theyd never met me.
I was a disease, infecting everyone I came into contact with, and the rot spread too fast to be contained. I went around with my scalpel, excising the infected bits of tissueoperating on lives and memories I didnt have the right to slice upbut the only way to truly stop the infection was to cut off the source.
To excise me.
Id been struggling to clean up my own mess for so long that I could no longer tell if continuing to fight made me brave or selfish.