I kick and cheer until my voice is hoarse. It’s a clear night, with just a thin veil of fog, and I’m glad since the entire island has taken to the stands for this showdown between East and West. You’d think a major championship were on the line. Although, Logan filled me in during halftime that the bragging rights attached to this game are very real.
Eventually, after a staggeringly embarrassing ass-kicking, the game concludes and East wins by twenty-four points. I’m sure both Logan and Gage will be lamenting for a small eternity over their senior year defeat from our crosstown rivals. I stare out into the crowd and imagine the three of us attending these games decades into the future—reliving our glory days as if this time at West were as golden a moment as time could afford.
Ms. Richards gets the homecoming procession underway, and we each jump into our prospective vehicles, with me leading us in a big giant circle. I honk my way around the circumference of the field, twice, waving at Mia and Melissa up in the stands. It’s hard to believe they’ll be here next year. Mom and Tad will have their baby, and Em will, too. Most of my friends will be off the island. I glance back in the rearview mirror at Logan behind me and Gage after him.
And where will we be a year from now?
Dear God, where
will
we be?
I pull up next to the makeshift stage that sits near the stands and park before heading over to the squad.
“This is it.” Brielle links her arm with mine. “Homecoming, senior year. We’ll never get this night back, Skyla.” She hops like it were the best news in the world, not some dismal truth that holds the expiration date to our childhood.
Principal Rice takes the stage with her squatty features, her bright blue knit cap that I’m assuming she’s donned in the name of school spirit.
“I’d like to thank the senior class of West Paragon High for putting on such a spectacular show.” She ushers in an applause, and the crowd erupts in cheers.
Logan and Gage come over, their helmets already abandoned in the gym. God, they look hot with their streaks of black war paint smeared beneath each eye. They look like warriors, like champions, and they both
are
in the arena of my heart.
“We miss anything?” Logan drapes his arm around my shoulder, and I catch Gage giving him a sideways glance.
This will never work.
“Nope.” Brielle slings her arm around Gage as if to distract him. “They’re just about to announce the super couple of the year. You know—homecoming queen is way overrated.” She flicks her wrist at the drama as Principal Rice opens an envelope to the quaking of a drumroll. “This is so lame.”
“The homecoming king of West Paragon High is Drake Landon.”
Swear to God, you could hear a pin drop before the fanfare picks up again.
“Drake won,” I say it more as a question than a statement. I glance over nervously at Bree. I’m going to have to stop some major emotional bleeding if Principal Rice calls out Em’s name next. I wouldn’t put it past Emily to use her voodoo black magic just to get herself elected, although, something about Em doesn’t strike me as the homecoming type.
“And the homecoming queen of West Paragon High’s senior class is…” She holds up the paper victoriously. “Brielle Johnson!”
“Oh, my God, that’s me!” Brielle screams and jumps because apparently it’s not so overrated and lame to be the homecoming queen.
I pull her into a giant hug before pushing her in the direction of the stage. I couldn’t have been happier if it were me and—Logan or Gage.
“Messenger, get the crowns,” Miller barks under Chloe’s supervision.
“I’m on it.” I run over to the Mustang and pop open the trunk. A row of shiny cubic zirconia’s stare back at me as I reach in to snatch it. I go to toss it to Michelle and can’t help but notice how freaking heavy this tiara is.
I glance down. It looks to be attached to a helmet or a…blonde head of hair?
Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh
shit!
I’m holding a
head!
Fuck. And it belongs to
Kate!
Double fuck!
Without thinking. Without considering the aftermath, or the quite literal fallout, I toss the blonde globe high into the air.
The crowd gasps.
Natalie screams in a low demonic pitch that makes the entire scene feel as though it’s in slow motion. Then, with a rotating pitch, and the curse of gravity upon it, Kate’s familiar face comes barreling back to the field and coldcocks a brunette smack in the face—Chloe.
Brilliant.
Well played, Kate, well fucking played.
Paragon sparks to life from the viral shock of Kate’s corporal apex being tossed about at the homecoming ceremony.
Chloe and her incessant need to terrify—to
ram
me into a corner and watch my insides bleed out had finally gone about as far as I could let her. She killed time and time again and spread her hatred like a disease from me to my father, Logan, and now Kate with her face staring out at the crowd, her mouth misshapen as if she were about to be sick—this was the bottom of the barrel even for Chloe Bishop.
“Fuck!” Ellis barks. “Is that thing real? Is that really, her?”
“No.” I try to run with it. I’d hate for her mother to have witnessed the abomination.
Demetri runs over and peers under Ellis’s T-shirt. He looks up at me and shakes his head as though I were directly responsible.
A mass of humanity swells around the stage as school officials bleed from every orifice to tend to the nightmare.
I catch Michelle hustling Chloe into the gym to sanitize the shit out her no doubt. Although, I think we all know there’s no way to cleanse that wicked soul. I’ve had about enough of her shit, and I’m going to make sure she understands exactly that at some point during this catastrophe of an evening.
Ms. Richards dismisses the assembly, and the field starts to drain.
Giselle comes up with a frightened look on her face with Logan and Gage as her stoic bookends.
“What was that about?” She has a look of horror plastered to her face, albeit childlike and in no way true to Emerson’s stone cold affect. “Chloe said the big plan was canceled! That I shouldn’t worry my pretty little head about upsetting you.”
Shit. Between my mother and Giselle, I’m sure Chloe has done the resurrection math by now. My insides boil at the thought.
Gage comes over and locks me in an embrace. “I swear to you. No one got anywhere got near Kate’s grave last night. I locked the gates myself.”
“I bet they did it earlier in the week.” I let out an exasperated breath.
“She’s pegged this on you.” Logan looks more than a little pissed.
Before I can respond Mom, Tad, and Demetri speed in this direction.
“What the hell was that head doing in the trunk of your car?” Tad goes off like a half-cocked ballistic missile, clearly missing his intended target because I, for one, had nothing to do with the cranial kidnapping.
“It was…” Shit. I’m at a loss, myself.
Demetri steps in with a determined smirk. “It was clearly planted. I suspect a senior prank is at hand. Do you know anything about this?”
“I do!” I dart a quick glance at the gym. I will so sing like a canary if it gets Chloe and friends booted off campus. “I mean I have an idea who could have put it there.”
Demetri glances around at the crowd encroaching in on our conversation and motions for me to follow him off to the side.
“You and I both know Chloe Bishop is responsible,” I hiss. “Use your Fem grave-ray vision, or light drive back in time and witness the unholy scene for yourself. Chloe is as sick and twisted as you are.” Perhaps I should have refrained from that final dig, but I couldn’t help it.
He blinks off into the forest a moment. “Ms. Bishop may have dented your reputation, but I can assure you, Skyla, you’ll have the last laugh.” He takes in a breath, and his chest expands beneath his thick, wool coat.
“I need that pendant back from her.”
“Back?” He scoffs at my erroneous claim. “Was it ever yours to begin with?”
“No, but Logan wished he had gifted it to me. And I need it more than ever to help—” I stop shy of mentioning anything about Marshall’s impending banishment, and that I’m sure Logan has a few interesting reason’s himself. “Will you help me?” It comes out desperate. My words bloom like a smoke signal that spells out hopelessness more than anything else. It seems no matter where I turn, no one has the power to make Chloe
gift
me anything.
“Perhaps you haven’t discovered your enemy’s weakness yet. Target that, and the world shall be yours for the asking.”
If he knows so much about gaining the world, why isn’t he living the dream with my mother?
Mom crops up beside him with the baby bundled like a cute little Eskimo.
“It’s all under control, Lizbeth,” Demetri purrs while touching his hand to her cheek. “It appears Skyla, here, was victim to a most unfortunate prank.”
“Oh, this so awful.” She tucks her face against his chest for a moment. “Thank you so much for helping my daughter like this. She means the world to me.”
I swallow hard. It looks as if “helping me” is just another way Demetri is utilizing to bring his game. And now my mother
is his for the asking.
“Have you spoken to Darla regarding the details of our upcoming nuptials?” He smears his words with a satisfied smile.
Mom cringes as if Demetri’s wedding were as disgusting as Chloe’s graveyard antics.
“I think”—she spears Demetri with a disgruntled look—“some of the ornaments Darla insists on having will takes months to ship from overseas. You may have to postpone the wedding. You wouldn’t want to upset your bride.”
“I’ll help you get them!” I volunteer. “You can get all kinds of crap shipped next day air, and Demetri’s loaded, so money is obviously no object.”
“That’s right, Skyla,” he says never taking his eyes off my mother. “I’m sure you could help expedite the project. I have no doubt you’ll have all of Darla’s wishes granted by the time next summer rolls around.” He twirls his fingers in a sinister wave as he heads back toward ground zero where Kate openly gapes at her once-upon-a-classmates.
“It’s just not right,” Mom whispers.
“I know. It’s sick and twisted, and I’m not going to be made to look like a fool anymore.”
Mom opens her mouth then closes it. “Oh, that head thing.” She pulls her lips back in disgust.
That
head
thing? She’s acting as if it were every day that severed heads rained down on Paragon. Figures. The only thing “not right” to Mom is the fact Demetri is getting hitched to someone other than her.
The baby starts to squirm and grunt. Mom hoists him in the air and sticks her nose in his bottom.
“I’ll catch you back at the house,” she says, peeling the pants off Drake’s firstborn. Little does she know there will be a lot more Landon butt sniffing for her in the not-so-distant future. “Do you think I could use the bathroom in the gym?”
“Sure, go ahead. Chloe is in there now. Maybe Beau can drop something else that’s unexpected on her head and really finish off my night.”
She makes a face. “I’d really like to see Chloe and you settle your differences.”
Mom jogs off while plucking and pulling at baby Beau’s accouterments.
“Don’t worry, Mom. Chloe and I will work everything out,” I whisper into the wind.
Once Chloe is dead, all our differences will be settled and buried.
***
The school officials decide, with all their authoritative capacity, that Kate’s head be damned, the dance shall go on.
I speed home and do a quick change for homecoming. Marlena’s dress fits as if it was made for me, and this naturally raises my suspicions. I can’t help but stare at how freaking hot it is. It’s got that whole naughty corset thing going on up top, complete with sexy laces that make their way up my back and an almost barely-there skirt that plumes out in a puff of midnight tulle.
“Sweet,” I say as I spin for Snowball—as if that blob of feathers actually cares what I wear tonight. Anyway, Brielle and I were going to help each other get dressed, but she had to get back to the field to take pictures for yearbook. Principal Rice was nice enough to let them have a do-over after the coroner took off with Kate’s remains.
Once I stop admiring Marlena’s fashion sense, I spend an inordinate amount of time applying Halloween worthy amounts of makeup, finishing my lips off with a pink-tinted gloss.
“I look like a Barbie.” I give a smirk into the mirror before wiping off the gloss and applying a blood red lipstick, dry and heavily pigmented.
“I look like a hooker.” I wrinkle my nose and wipe it off before reapplying the pink gloss I started out with. Everything needs to be just right. I really want to finish this night off with good memories, unlike the grotesque filth Chloe decided to impinge upon the entire island.
There’s a light peck against my bedroom window, and I see the flap of ebony wings expanding on the other side. I let Nev in and watch as he glides around the cage set in the corner, inciting my psychotic little pet into a fit of seizures.
“OK, we get it, you’re bigger and better—and you’ve got your freedom. You can knock it off, now. It’s bad enough Tad hates that thing. No offense, Snowball.”
Nev lands softly on my bed, and I bounce onto the mattress next to him.
“What’s up?”
I’m to monitor you this evening
.
“Per whose instruction?” I’m secretly hoping it’s a direct order from my mother. I hate that I’m getting the cold shoulder from her.
Master Oliver
.
“Which one?”
My former employer
.
“That’s sweet of Gage, but I’m not sure you can protect me against Chloe. I need that pendant back, Nev. Tell Ezrina I need to brainwash Chloe into gifting it to me, or too many people I love will be hurt.”
Sounds like an impossible situation. But I’ll pass on the word in the event there’s a remedy
.
A light knock emits over my door, and Nev hops right out the window.