Envy (Fury) (32 page)

“Hi, Pierce,” she said, offering her best pageant smile.

Pierce’s shock crushed her almost instantly. It was more than surprise. It was discomfort. It was disappointment.

“Skylar?” He could barely speak. His mouth opened and closed like a cartoon guppy. “Hey. I wasn’t . . . um . . . What are you . . . Where’s . . .” He trailed off, looking mystified. And slightly angry.

“I know you weren’t exactly—expecting me,” she said, fluttering her eyelashes. “But . . . hi.”

“I don’t understand,” Pierce said, staring at her and then at his snow-soaked boots. “I’m sorry, I’m confused. It wasn’t supposed to be—”

“I know,” she interjected. “But it
is
supposed to be me, Pierce.” She gazed at him, waiting for him to understand her meaning.

“I—I don’t get it, Skylar.”

“It’s been me all along,” she said. “Online, at school, at parties—we have a connection, don’t we? We’re perfect for each other. Don’t you see it? I’ve known since that first day in the cafeteria—when you lent me your sweatshirt? I’m just right for you. And you’re just right for me. You know?”

He backed away ever so slightly. He ran a hand through his hair. “What the hell, Skylar?” He shook his head. “All this time—all this time, when I thought I was talking to Gabby, it was really . . .” He couldn’t even finish.

Oh god. This wasn’t working. Panic palpitated through Skylar’s whole body.

“Pierce,
wait
. Can I explain? I mean, look—” Her words got all jumbled, and she was fidgeting with the tassels of her scarf. She looked and sounded like a scared little girl. This was nothing like the impression she’d hoped to make.

He cleared his throat and shifted his eyes toward her. God. He
looked so uncomfortable. “Hey, Skylar,” he said. “I know you have a thing for me. And look, I don’t mean to say . . . You’re great, okay? You’re a nice girl. But I just—” He looked down again.

A nice girl
. He might as well have reached out and slapped her. She knew what he was going to say next. “Gabby doesn’t want you, Pierce,” she said, suddenly regaining the ability to articulate. “So think about that.” She crossed her arms and stood there.

For a moment it seemed like he was softening. Their eyes met. He smiled a little bit. Skylar’s heart soared. To hell with Gabby—she had won Pierce after all. Her arms fell to her sides, fingers tingling, waiting for him to come closer.

Then Pierce just shook his head. “I’m sorry, Sky.”

“But—but . . . I’m just as pretty as her,” Skylar said, knowing she sounded desperate and jealous, but unable to stop the words from gushing out. “And I . . . the dance—I thought up all the stuff for the dance. Did you know that? And we’re in the same class, you and I!” She swallowed a massive lump in her throat. “Why are you so obsessed with her? Why is everyone so
obsessed
with her?” She was near tears now.

Pierce gave her a sad smile. “There’s just something about Gabby,” he said. “She’s a good person. She’s always thinking about other people. She doesn’t have anything to prove. She’s just . . . fun.”

Just fun. A good person. Nothing to prove. Nothing like Skylar, was more like it. In an instant it became clear: She wasn’t
anything like Gabby, no matter how much of Gabby’s personality she’d tried to usurp.

Pierce started to walk away. “Wait!” she called after him weakly. He just kept going.

She stood there for a moment, motionless, trying to regain her breath. And then she heard something, a sound simultaneously far away and near. Like a shriek of laughter or a high-pitched creak. Or maybe . . . a footstep? Had Pierce changed his mind? But the sound was behind her. Skylar spun around; by now her eyes were well adjusted to the dark. Something was glinting on the table where Gabby, Em, and their crew usually sat. The popular table. The table directly below the Gazebo’s glassed-in roof, the one where she’d sat for the past few glorious days.

She walked closer. It was a glossy photo with two figures on it. She leaned over to pick it up, but as she got close enough to see it, her heart started drilling in her chest. She staggered backward.
No
.
Impossible
.

It was the picture. The picture of her and Lucy that she’d destroyed weeks ago, when she’d first moved to Ascension. The photo she’d torn up. The memory she’d tried to get rid of. It sat in the middle of the table, taped together like an elementary school art project. The hair on the back of Skylar’s neck stood on end. She didn’t dare touch the image. She just stared at it as though it was alive. Like it was going to bite her, or slither up her side.

She was so focused on the picture that she barely heard the faint groaning from up above.

But then the sound got louder, and Skylar knew something was wrong. It was like the sky was moaning. She squinted out into the parking lot. Nothing. She looked out through the door Pierce had walked through. Equally still and silent. But something was coming at her—she could feel it, she could hear it, she could sense it.

The rumbling got louder still, something like a train coming from the distance, until it was whooshing into her ears. All this in a matter of seconds, but still she had time to wonder:
Is there going to be an earthquake
? And then:
It’s like the sound of a bending ice cube tray, only a million times louder
.

That’s when she felt the blast of cold air hit her scalp. She looked up with just enough time to see the ceiling collapse into a million deadly pieces under the weight of the snow.

It felt like slow motion; the way the snow mixed with the splintered glass was almost beautiful, like sharp white feathers. It took her breath away. Rooted to the spot, she marveled at their terrible beauty even as the giant shards rained down over her hands and face in a freezing blur. Through the almost deafening roar, she could swear she heard girlish shrieks again—maybe laughter—as her head hit the linoleum floor.

Then the roar, the laughter, became a searing fire of pain.

Then darkness.

VENGEANCE, OR THE LAST DANCE

An accident?
Bullshit.
Em knew better.

They were saying there was something “structurally unsound” about the Gazebo roof, but the whole thing felt off to Em. Why had Skylar been at school so late in the first place? She’d been marked by the Furies—Em was sure of that—and now she’d paid the price. And hadn’t Ty just said Em should watch out for her other friends? Not that Skylar was a
friend
, but her “accident” seemed all too coincidental.

While everyone else buzzed about what had happened and about the Spring Fling—which, it was decided, would still take place as planned (“The kids really need something positive,” the administration had said)—Em was lost in darker thoughts, wondering how the Furies had lured Skylar to Ascension High in a
snowstorm, how they’d tampered with the glass so that it would break right over Skylar’s face. And what she could have done to prevent it, or at least better warn Skylar.

Still, as guilty as she felt, Em was also furious with Skylar for putting herself in this situation, for not listening.

She had to go see Skylar. She had no other choice, even though she was sick to death of hospitals. First Sasha. Thinking of that night still made Em’s skin crawl. Sasha’s dead eyes, her bloody smile . . .

Then Gabby. Surrounded by flowers—white, pink, yellow. No orchids, thank god. The hospital was not exactly a place you wanted to see your best friend.

And now Skylar, in a quiet hospital room, with her weird aunt Nora slumped and sleeping in a chair in the lobby. Em considered waking her up to find out what she knew. What she’d seen in Em that day at Skylar’s house. Em harbored a strong suspicion that Nora was connected somehow to the Furies. But the poor woman looked so drained that Em decided to spare her further distress, at least for now. She still wanted to keep the Furies a secret from anyone who
didn’t
know of them. The risk was far too great.

Skylar lay in the hospital bed; her face was totally bandaged, but her eyes were open, and they looked simultaneously wild and drowsy. She was probably delirious from the pain meds they’d pumped her with. All around her, machines beeped and buzzed in irregular rhythms.

“Skylar? It’s Em,” she said, standing about three feet from Skylar’s metal hospital bed.

“Hiiii . . . ,” Skylar mumbled. It sounded like she was speaking through a mouthful of tissues.

“How are you feeling?” Em asked, taking in the IV tube inserted into Skylar’s arm and the part of Skylar’s head that had been shaved so that the doctors could stitch up a gash on her scalp.

For a second Skylar just stared at Em blankly, and Em wondered if this whole thing was pointless. Was Skylar too out of it to even have a conversation? But then Skylar croaked out, “I—I did something. I did something bad.”

You sure did
, Em thought.
But what?

“I made my sister Gabby hit her head,” Skylar slurred.

“Your sister? What are you talking about?” Em leaned closer to make sure she didn’t mishear.

“She’s damaged,” Skylar said. “I’m so ashamed. Is this why this happened to me? Is this why I can’t be the queen?”

Em shook her head. She had no idea what Skylar was talking about. Gabby? Did Skylar somehow feel guilty about Gabby’s allergic reaction, like she did? “If you think this is payback, you should consider yourself lucky,” Em said. “Your
friend
Meg could have done a lot worse.” She waited to see Skylar’s reaction to Meg’s name.

Through the bandages, Em could see Skylar’s eyes narrow. “She told me . . . she told me I would be the queen of the dance. . . . They said it would all happen tonight,” Skylar murmured, and Em’s
stomach dropped as she remembered Ty’s words in the nail salon—
Spring is my favorite season.
An idea began niggling at the back of Em’s mind.

Were the Furies planning on crashing the dance?

She thought of Gabby, who had put so much effort into planning the event, and her friends, who were excited to dress up and gossip about boys and stare at girls in too-short skirts. Normal high school people, doing normal high school things. And JD, and her plan to fix things between them tonight.

Em needed to know what Meg had told Skylar. She needed to know everything, “Skylar . . . ,” she began.

But Skylar interrupted her. “Are you Ty or are you Em?” she asked in her dreamy, drug-induced haze.

“What?” Em froze.

“Sometimes I can’t tell the difference . . . ,” Skylar said, her eyes drifting over Em’s face.

Em shuddered and stood up straight. “You—you think we look alike?”

“Ummmhmmm,” Skylar said, starting to doze off, “both so pretty . . .”

Em remembered how she had thought the same thing when they were grappling in the gravel outside of Benson’s Bar. Their long, wavy brown hair and their tall, lanky bodies. Now that she thought about it . . . she and Ty did look, if not identical, then at least . . . similar. Like they could be from the same family.

The very thought made Em feel like she’d swallowed something too big, or too hot. She watched as Skylar’s head slumped to one side; Skylar was fully gripped now by a doped-up sleep. Em wouldn’t get any more answers from her. Not now, anyway. She slipped out of the room as quietly as she could, hoping to avoid disturbing either Skylar
or
her aunt.

As she drove home she thought about what Skylar had said.
The queen
.
The dance. It would all happen tonight.
The more she turned the words over in her head, the more certain she was that the Furies were planning something that would go down this evening. Something that would affect not only her, not only Skylar, but Ascension as a whole. As Drea had said, the Furies could be plotting revenge against the whole town.

While she’d been determined to make an appearance for her own reasons, this new information made her less sure about whether to risk going to the dance or not. Would it be smart to show up and try to disrupt their plans? Or would it be safer for everyone if she stayed home? Were the Furies really after everyone—or just her?

Her brain spun with conflicting thoughts, plans, and desires. She was burning up; she checked to make sure the heat was off and then rolled down her window a bit to let in some cold air, gulping it in like it was water in a desert.

When she arrived at home, she ran upstairs and flung herself on her bed, burying her head in the pillows. She spoke to herself:
Calm down, Em. Okay. Relax. Take deep breaths.

She tried to think rationally: What was her next step? The dance. She had to get to the dance and talk to JD.

She looked out her bedroom window and saw that JD’s light was off.
Shit.
She grabbed for her phone. Dialed his cell; let it ring. No answer. She tried his land line.

“Hey, Mel?” she asked when JD’s little sister picked up. “It’s Em. Where’s JD? I know his car isn’t there”—she didn’t care if she sounded like a stalker to a twelve-year-old—“and I need to talk to him. Like, now.”

“Hiiiii, Emmy,” Melissa drawled. “JD went to that Spring Fling thing. Weird, huh? He’s so
weird
recently.”

“Thanks,” Em said hurriedly before she hung up. So he was going to the dance. She found herself wondering what he would wear: a crazy tuxedo like he did last year, or one of his top hats, like he did the year before? She spun a full circle around her room. She had to get ready quickly.

With every second that passed, Em felt increasingly sure that she was making the right choice. If the Furies wanted a fight, they were going to get one. She wouldn’t let them stop her from attending the dance; she needed to find JD and Gabby and let them know how important they were to her.

She looked in the mirror.

It was time.

Somehow she’d make the Furies vanish, like smoke after a fire, or snow in the spring.

Skylar drifted in and out of consciousness, riding a wave of awareness that pulled her slowly into her surroundings, allowing her to tune in to the sterile hospital room, the faint and constant beeping and buzzing, and her physical pain for just a moment before quickly tugging her back into a sea of memories. She floated helplessly, willing her thoughts back to shore but unable to escape the riptide that swirled in her brain.