Authors: Stacey Jay
But if anyone can summon goodness inside me, it is her. My love, my enemy, my other half, my Juliet. Perhaps she can coax the knots from my soul, melt my frozen heart, banish my demons. Perhaps I will wake the morning after the spell that frees us and no longer delight in the suffering of others, no longer take pleasure in pain.
“And then we shall share true love’s kiss, and live happily ever after.” The words make me laugh. And laugh and laugh.
I laugh all the way to the edge of town, to the row of brittle, peeling houses where my new body lives. I laugh through the dented door, into a dingy room I can guess smells of smoke and
sadness and death. I laugh when a man’s voice yells from the room down the hall, threatening to “beat my ass” if I don’t “shut the hell up.”
I know the man will make good on his threat when he finds that his son has destroyed his car. I know Dylan’s father will be relieved when I leave this shell and his son’s corpse is all that remains. These thoughts make me laugh as well.
I laugh into my new room, where posters of other angry young men glare down at me from the walls. I laugh at this body’s pathetic dreams of becoming a rock star, of becoming famous and making everyone “sorry.” His dad for his loose fists, his mother for leaving, the entire stupid world sorry for daring to make him work for the things he desires.
I treasure his death, a warm stone in my fist, a bright, sparkling thing that keeps me smiling through yet another long, sleepless night. The two-hundred-thousandth such night or more. I’ve lost count. I could work the numbers, but I don’t. There’s no reason, not when the end is so very near.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow I will find her and teach her and she will love me and fear me and she will never be the same.
And neither, perhaps, will I.
I’
m so cold I know I’ll never be warm again. My fingers press against the heat gushing from my chest—pushing, clinging—as if I can hold my life inside me with trembling hands. But my hands aren’t much larger than a child’s. I didn’t realize I was so small, so foolish
.
Not until now, until it’s too late to make a difference
.
Too late
.
“It’s not too late, Juliet.” Nurse leans over me, cupping my face in her dry, papery hands. “If you want to live, I can help. I know you still have love in your heart.”
Do I? Do I have love in my heart? Can I hold anything inside me when I’ve been cut open and all my stupid little-girl dreams are spilling
out onto the floor? I look into her soft gray eyes and say nothing. I don’t know what to say. I’m
not
sure, not sure enough to promise, sure enough to
swear.
But then the cold grows even colder and fear rises, a tide that will drown me if I hesitate a moment more. I raise my hand. I repeat the words she whispers, taking the oath, committing myself to the Ambassadors. I don’t want to die. I want to live. I want to prove that my hands aren’t so small. To prove I can fight
.
The final words of the spell burn through my veins, making me cry out, scalding my soul from my human flesh. Nurse urges me to sleep, to rest until I’m needed, but I fight to keep my eyes open. I fail. My lids close, and behind them there is only the mist. And it is cold and endless and my body is gone. Nurse warned me it would be like this, but I didn’t understand. I didn’t dream …
I realize I am nothing and scream, panic racing through my formless being, banishing hope in a great wave of—
“
Wake up. Wake up
, niña.”
I awake to find … Ben. He lies beside me, hair rumpled from sleep, arms holding me tight, banishing the nightmare. With gentle hands he wipes the tears from my cheeks. “It’s all right. I won’t let anyone hurt you.” His lips are warm against my forehead, sealing the promise with skin upon skin
.
Relief floods through me, gratitude so profound it makes me shake. It’s all been an awful dream. I sigh against his chest, finally protected, finally whole. “I love you.”
“I love you too, sweet.” The lips on my forehead grow hot … sticky. I pull back to see Ben’s face, to wipe the damp away, and scream
.
It’s Romeo. And his mouth is full of blood
.
He laughs as I scramble from his embrace, more red horror dripping from his lips. He’s lapped my blood from the floor of the tomb, but the terrible secret won’t stay inside him. “Soft, what light through
yonder window breaks? Break. Break. Break!” His screeching reaches a torturous crescendo and his teeth shatter into tiny daggers. They fly into my eyes, blinding me
.
I scream and scream and—
“Ariel! What’s going on?”
My eyes blink against the harsh light and my heart races even faster. Where am I? I blink again. An angry woman stands at the door, blond hair sticking up on one side, eyes swollen from sleep. Who is she? What’s happening? What—
“Answer me, honey.” She crosses her arms and furrows her brow. “What’s wrong? I thought you were hurt. Why were you screaming like that, Ariel?”
Ariel
. That’s right. The twenty-first century, California, the girl with the white-blond hair. Romeo in the car, and nothing in the mirror.
Nothing. Late, late into the night, using a dozen different mirrors, and still
nothing
. Nothing and more nothing until the absence of the golden light brought tears of frustration and fear, until I curled into bed in my bloody clothes, too tired to bother with the shower down the hall.
I pull the sheets to my chin, not wanting Melanie to see me in the clothes I wore last night. “I was just … I was having a bad dream.”
She lets out a long, tired breath. “God. Some dream. I thought—”
The honk of a horn makes her turn to look over her shoulder, then back at me with a puzzled expression. “Is that Gemma already? What time is it? Why aren’t you ready for school?”
Oh no. I forgot to set an alarm! I allowed my focus to be
eaten alive by worry, and now I’m going to be late for my first day of school. Unless …
“I’ll be ready in five minutes. Will you tell her that I’ll be right out?”
“I’m supposed to be sleeping,” Melanie says. “I have to work until two a.m. tonight, Ariel.”
“I know. I’m sorry. But please, Mom? Will you—”
“Fine.” She sighs again and recrosses her arms, huddling against the morning. “But then I’m going back to bed and you need to get your act together. Senior year isn’t over yet.”
As soon as she turns to leave I leap from the bed, pulling off clothes and hurling them into the air, stumbling over my feet as I grab clean underwear and a pair of jeans from the drawers. Socks of two different colors come next, and then a white camisole. I spin, scramble over the bed, grab the first sweater my hands brush against from the closet and pull it over my head. It’s pink, with brown yarn knots on the front. I grab brown shoes to match the knots, making some effort to look as if I’m not falling apart. Romeo could be at school today.
I swallow, my throat tight, the memory of my dream making me shiver. I can’t let him know I’m afraid, can’t let him see that I’m lost, abandoned. I hurry to the vanity, pull my brush through hair that still smells of baby wipes. Ben was right; they really do clean up everything.
Ben
. My cheeks burn. I dreamt about him, too, about the way it would feel to … love him. I’ve never loved anyone but Romeo; I know I will never love anyone again, but still the dream felt so real.
“Ariel!” Melanie’s shout startles me from my thoughts. “Move it! Gemma’s waiting.”
I throw the brush back onto the vanity, grateful that Ariel’s hair is stick straight. It doesn’t look as if I bled on it, wiped it clean with baby wipes, then slept on it while it was damp. I look pretty, considering I’ve dressed in less time than it takes most people to roll out of bed. I know Melanie won’t be pleased to see me leaving the house without makeup, but what she doesn’t know …
I wait until I hear her bedroom door slam before slipping out of my room and hurrying down the hall to the bathroom. I brush my teeth and smear on sunscreen, remembering that Ariel has to be careful to protect her skin, and am running through the kitchen less than five minutes from when I woke.
I grab my backpack and Melanie’s cell and consider trying to find something to eat, but then remember the way the hunk of cheese rolled in my belly and dash out the door. There’s a bakery not far from school. Maybe Gemma will want to stop there. We’ll have time; I haven’t kept her waiting for long. Five minutes isn’t unreasonable.
Unfortunately, she doesn’t seem to agree.
“What the hell were you thinking, Ree?” Her first words don’t inspire faith in our lasting friendship; neither does the shocked look she shoots me from the driver’s side as I slide into the cool leather seat. Gemma Sloop’s sleek BMW is as luxurious as Ben’s car is plain and worn, and Gemma herself makes me feel shabby in comparison.
Her rich chocolate-colored hair swings around her shoulders, gleaming even in the gray morning light, the jagged layers emphasizing the lovely planes of her face. A gypsy shirt encrusted with hundreds of stones flutters around her torso, and fitted jeans hug her narrow thighs. Hunks of sapphire too
big to be real—but I know they are—sit in her earlobes, and another chunk perches on her right hand, gifts from her father for her sweet sixteen.
“And wow … no makeup.” She shakes her head. “That’s a choice. One I would recommend
not
making in the future, FYI. I haven’t seen you look that scary since sixth grade.”
“I didn’t want to make you wait,” I say, too stunned to be angry. I’d been prepared for Ariel’s mother to be a monster, but not her best friend.
This
is Gemma, the girl Ariel is so terrified to lose?
“You could have brought it with you. I have mirrors in the car, Freak.” Her tone is light, teasing, but I know the words would hurt Ariel. Ariel hates that word,
freak
, the nickname the kids at school gave her in fourth grade, after something awful happened. At recess. Something … The memory is fuzzy, and I can tell Ariel’s tried hard to forget it. All I know is that was the moment she became the Freak, an outcast only another outcast would befriend.
To look at Gemma, it’s hard to believe she’s an outcast, but she is. Her parents own the largest winery in the area and employ most of the town as factory hands, vineyard workers, tasting-room experts, distributors, and seasonal help. Even if Gemma didn’t dress like the daughter of a millionaire and speak her mind to the point of cruelty, school would be awkward. As it is, she’s ostracized by almost everyone.
But she doesn’t care. She insisted on staying in public school, even when her grades improved and her parents pressured her to go back to the private school in Los Olivos at the beginning of her freshman year. She’s the type of person who only needs one friend, one follower, and sometimes doesn’t even seem to need that.
“Whatever.” She shifts into reverse and backs down the drive.
Rain pounds the roof as we slide from under the carport and spin in a tight circle before zipping down El Camino. The day is gray, colorless. It’s no wonder I overslept. If it weren’t for the nightmares, I’d wish I were still asleep. I’m so tired. I should be filled with Ambassador magic by now, feeling strong enough to take on the world—or at least the Mercenaries. But I don’t. I feel … off, exhausted.
“I guess your new
boyfriend
doesn’t care what you look like,” Gemma says, hitting the word
boyfriend
hard enough to break a rock.
“What?”
“Melanie told me,” she says. “I can’t believe you told your mother—who you hate like ass sores—that you were going on a date, but didn’t tell me.”
“Oh.” The date. That’s why she’s angry. Ariel decided not to tell Gemma until afterward, when she’d hopefully have a real story to tell.
“ ‘Oh.’ That’s all you have to say? ‘Oh’?”
“Sorry. I didn’t want to say anything unless we had a good time.”
“Well, did you?” she asks, a twinkle in her eye. “Who’s the guy? Where did you go? How late did you stay out? Did you finally see a penis in real life? Tell me everything. Immediately.”
I surprise myself with a blush. “No.” How much to say? I know Ariel won’t want Gemma to know the date was a joke. “It was awful. Dylan’s not—”
“Dylan, as in Dylan Stroud?” she asks, enthusiasm draining from her tone.
“Yeah.”
“You went out with Dylan?” Her lips press together, the bright red of her lipstick making her mouth a crooked slash across her face. “Wasn’t that … awkward?”
“It was,” I say, not sure why the moment has become strained. “Like I said, it was awful.”
“Right …” She turns her gaze back to the road. “Well, of course it was. I could have
told
you it would be if you’d given me the heads-up. He’s
Dylan Stroud
. He’s a sociopath.”
“I know. He just seemed so nice at rehearsals.”
“That’s because he’s pretending to be someone else,” Gemma says, making a valid point. Ariel’s crush on Dylan developed while she was watching him play Tony, the boy who falls in love with the little sister of the leader of the opposing street gang in
West Side Story
.
West Side Story
, the musical based on Shakespeare’s
Romeo and Juliet
. Which means that—should Romeo decide to continue with the drama club—he’ll be playing
himself
. I’m sure he’ll find the irony delicious.
“I mean, don’t you think there’s a reason a gorgeous guy like that doesn’t have a girlfriend?” Gemma asks. “Or even some steady friends with benefits?”
“Because he’s a jerk.”
“He’s insane. He and Jason both are, and their band is embarrassingly lame. Dylan can sing, but I swear he looks like he’s having a seizure when he plays guitar.” She turns left and then almost immediately right, taking us into the heart of Solvang’s tourist district, a place Ariel thinks of as Disneyland for grown-ups who like wine.
The town is built to look like an old-fashioned Danish village, with wine-tasting rooms on every corner, testimony to
the region’s growing industry. Gemma’s parents’ tasting room is the largest, taking up two stories of a redbrick building on Mission Drive. We pass it on our right.