Become

by Ali Cross

  With small waves of my hand, and as few words as possible, I directed Miri to Lucy’s apartment—even though I’d only ever been there once before. It must have imprinted itself in my memory as the only place in all the worlds I could feel safe.

  It wasn’t until I slipped the key Lucy’d given me into the lock, and stepped inside her apartment, that the fog lifted and I realized where I was. What I was doing. There wouldn’t be any comfort for me here.

  “Hello?” Miri called into the quiet. “Lucy?” When she heard no response, Miri turned to me. “I don’t think she’s here.”

  “No, she’s not.” I shook my head. “Because I killed her.”

  chapter twelve

  I sank to the floor in the middle of Lucy’s living room. The soft, shag rug did nothing to comfort me. I shut my eyes tight against the pieces of Lucy screaming at me from every corner, every surface, everywhere. Too much warmth, too much of Lucy’s zeal for life.

  She was gone.

  And I had killed her.

  Miri put her hand on my back, kneeling down beside me. She patted and rubbed, but she wasn’t Lucy—and even if she were, I didn’t deserve her tenderness or care. I flinched away but, just like Lucy, she didn’t take the hint.

  “Shh,” Miri soothed. “You don’t know what you’re saying. Life happens. Fate, destiny—whatever. It was probably just Lucy’s time.” She tucked the hair that had fallen into my face behind my ear. “You’re just grieving.”

  Her words rang like a death knell in my mind. Miri didn’t know. At worst, she probably thought that, with the stunt I pulled at school—with the liquor in my bag—that I’d let Lucy drink and drive, or that I’d helped her OD. What else could she assume? She was too naïve to imagine anything even remotely like what had really happened. How could she know that an out-of-control creature from Hell was sprawled out in front of her in the shape of a human girl?

  I had no words to respond. No words to make sense of . . . anything.

  Everything was just pain.

  And I, the devil’s daughter, never hurt.

  Never cried.

  But I cried then. Endless torrents of sorrow and loss wailed over me, through me, filling every crevice of my psyche. Every part of my soul.

  I thought I knew Hell. Thought I knew what it was to suffer—but now I knew I’d only been an observer. This was Hell.

  Sorrow.

  Pain.

  Loss.

  And then the icing:

  Guilt.

  Grief.

  Anguish.

  And I was lost to it. Just lost.

  When every drop of sorrow had been wrung from my body, I opened my eyes.

  Miri still sat beside me, her chin bent to her chest, a clear bottle cradled in her lap. She sat so still and silent I wondered if she’d fallen asleep. Through Lucy’s open window the afternoon sun cast long golden rays, painting the white leather couch a soft shade of pink.

  “Miri?” My voice cracked and my throat burned.

  “Oh,” Miri thrust the bottle under the blanket pooled beside her, and shoved it away—even though I’m sure she knew I’d seen it. Her phone buzzed, but she ignored it. “Can I get you anything?”

  I struggled to sit up, pulling my knees to my chest as I pressed my back against the couch. I shook my head a little and tucked my hair behind my ears. Rubbing at my eyes, I cleared my throat a couple times trying to regain my composure.

  “Maybe a drink?” Miri asked, hurrying to her feet. Her eyes flicked to the blanket. “Of water, I mean?”

  I could have asked for whatever she had hiding under the blanket. We could have made a regular party of it. I could have, but I didn’t.

  Screw Father and all his demands. Being like him had already cost me the only person in the whole world who gave a crap—maybe this time things could be different. Damn the consequences. Ha! I’d be damned all right.

  But I still didn’t dare meet Miri’s gaze, even though I tried.

  “Be right back.”

  I heard her opening cupboards—Lucy’s cupboards—then running water in the sink.

  I looked around Lucy’s room, waiting for the stab of loss—but it never came. I felt wrung dry, totally emotionless. Empty. Just the way I liked it.

  Lucy’s apartment was a combination of LA modern—with its white couches, sheepskin rugs and glass tables—mixed with her own Cajun flare. Strands of plastic beads and brightly colored Mardi Gras masks hung on the walls, along with a couple artsy portraits of jazz musicians. The effect could have been tacky, but Lucy had impeccable taste—her home felt alive and real . . . like her. Or like she used to be.

  Plus, I knew she hadn’t decorated her home with random stuff—she was too superstitious for that. Everything here had some meaning to her. Just another layer of pain for me to endure, because I didn’t know what these pieces meant. I’d never cared to ask.

  I took Lucy for granted, just like I did everything in my life. I’d never wanted for a thing. Or so I thought.

  Traitorous tears welled in my eyes again, and when Miri sat beside me and held out a glass of water, I angrily brushed them away with the cuff of my sweater.

  “Better?” she asked after I’d taken a small sip—then drained half the cup.

  “I guess,” I said.

  Her phone buzzed again and Miri typed a quick response before sliding it back into her pocket.

  “You don’t have to stay—you can go.”

  “No.” She closed her eyes, then said, “I mean, it’s okay. That was just my boyfriend, and we didn’t have plans or anything.”

  She looked around the dark room. “When did she die?” she asked after a while.

  My chin jerked up and seared Miri’s eyes with my own before she stammered, “I’m so sorry, Desi—you don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want to.” She looked down at her hands, nervously twisting and untwisting a corner of the blanket. “You kinda mentioned something about her when . . . you know.”

  And I thought I wouldn’t want to talk about it. I mean, what would I say? That last night I Became a demon and slaughtered my best friend’s killer, mutilating her body in the process? I shook with the force of an earthquake, my teeth rattling like the bone talisman hanging from Lucy’s balcony.

  But then, sitting in Lucy’s apartment, the sunlight illuminating the tokens of her life, I wanted nothing more than to tell someone what this person meant to me. No one else in my life would understand—but maybe Miri would.

  So I told her about Lucy. About how she’d come here from Louisiana when she was sixteen, hoping to find an escape from her abusive father. She didn’t want to be an actress or a model, she just wanted to be free. She’d been a Playboy Bunny for a while, but said she couldn’t stand the cattiness of the girls in the house. And that’s when Daniel found her. She’d been working at his parties for the last year and a half. I’d met her there eight months ago when I’d come to live with Daniel for a while.

  I told Miri how Lucy was the only person in the whole world—in all the worlds—who loved me. And how she was the only one I’d ever loved.

  After I said that, I held my breath, waiting for Miri to tell me it wasn’t true, that other people must love me. But she didn’t.

  She just nodded her head, a brief bob that told me so much. She understood.

  Sitting there, with warmth everywhere, my heart cracked a little. Lucy had loved me. Despite everything. And I had loved her, in spite of all that I was. And now there was Miri . . .

  The golden spark—the one I thought had abandoned me forever—roared to life and made my hands tingle. Hope—bright shining hope—filled me up and spilled out in more tears.

  Miri put her arm around me and I didn’t pull away. I bent my head to her narrow shoulder instead, and cried.

  I cried for hope and what it meant for Lucy. I cried because I knew that having hope, for me, would only bring more pain. But I was just stubborn enough to grasp onto it—maybe it would bring pain, but it had also brought
me Lucy and I could never be sorry for loving her.

  And I cried for Miri, because being my friend could mean a fate worse than death. Being my friend could mean an eternity in Hell.

  Miri and I talked into the evening, sharing leftover Chinese from Lucy’s fridge. And then Miri walked through the apartment with me, listening to my commentary on all the things Lucy had surrounded herself with and what I thought they might have meant to her. On her dresser, I found a collection of photographs in colorful wooden frames. There was Lucy and her mom, who’d died when Lucy was thirteen. Lucy and her older sister who had died in a car accident six months before Lucy ran away from home. And there was a picture of Lucy . . . and me.

  My breath caught in my throat when I saw it. Miri came to stand at my shoulder and her presence gave me the strength to pick up the frame, even though my fingers trembled. I remembered this picture being taken, remembered it perfectly.

  It was one of the usual parties—my first, I think. Yes, because the picture-me looked at Lucy with such adoration and obvious disbelief—which looked funny in the picture, but to me said so much. She’d taken me under her wing from my first day at Daniel’s. When Daniel had required I join the party and the endless groping hands had grown too much for me, Lucy had steered me away from the men and sat visiting with me for an hour. Even after Daniel sent James to tell her to get her ass back to work.

  Then James and Lucy and I sat around laughing for a long while about all the ways we’d disobeyed our parents. Thinking back on it, staring at the sun-filled photograph of me, pale and shadowed next to Lucy’s ebony beauty, that was the happiest day of my life. The day I caught a glimpse of what life could be like. What it meant to have a friend.

  Miri leaned in to me and pulled my hand toward her so she could get a better look at the photograph. “She was beautiful.” All I could do was smile.

  Miri couldn’t have said anything better. “She was.”

  Beautiful.

  Glorious.

  Mine.

  And that incredible warmth, the part I’d kept secret so long, but that had come to life so often the past twenty four hours, flared once more and filled all the sad and empty places.

  I love you, Lucy, I thought. Suddenly, I felt warm all over—not just on the inside, but the outside. And it kind of felt like Lucy loved me too.

  Miri and I ended up back on the couch, blankets heaped around us.

  “Desi, I—” Miri started, then swallowed so loudly she knew I’d heard it and we both laughed. Still, I could feel the emotion stretching out between us, a need that suddenly drew the darkness around us with a feeling of uncertainty. “I’ve never talked to anyone like this.”

  At first I didn’t answer. I mean, it was me. I’d made an art of barely speaking to people in general—certainly never like this. I hadn’t even confided so much in Lucy as I had to Miri tonight. But When Miri moved as if to get up, I realized she might take my silence as some sort of rejection. “Me neither,” I finally blurted out, loud and awkward-sounding.

  Miri laughed a little, but I was too freaked out to join her. The sound lasted for a heartbeat or two before tapering off into a cough. But she pulled her feet back under herself and tucked the blanket around her shoulders once more.

  “You know, I think I’m messed up. I mean, really messed up. I think there’s something wrong with me.” It wasn’t the demons talking—this was Miri, talking from her heart, and her heart was so full of sorrow I could feel it dripping from her like rain.

  “This is gonna sound crazy weird, but . . . well, I’ve gotta tell someone or I think I really might go insane.” Her words tumbled over each other in their rush to get out. “I used to think it was the booze, you know—making me see things that weren’t really there. Hallucinations or something. But now . . . now I don’t know.”

  I waited. But Miri was silent. “What is it?” I finally asked, not knowing what to say or do.

  “You’re gonna think I’m crazy.”

  “I seriously doubt that. I’ve seen crazy, and I’m pretty sure you’re not it.”

  Miri laughed, sort of, and I could tell she was getting ready to tell me the rest of it. The prospect terrified me. I wasn’t in any condition to be anyone’s confidant. I wasn’t the one people should tell their secrets to.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t tell me,” I offered, trying to keep the hope out of my voice.

  “No, I think I need to. I don’t know why but . . . I just think I’ve got to.”

  She took a deep breath. And another.

  “Okay,” she said. “Here’s the thing. Sometimes I have dreams—I mean, strange dreams, not the kind you have when you’re sleeping.”

  The hairs on my arms stood up. This was Truth. And I was pretty sure Father didn’t have anything to do with visions—at least, not for humans. Whatever this was, it wasn’t Hell’s doing. But I was pretty positive this was the real reason Father wanted Miri on his side.

  “It’s awful and terrible, but I can’t make it stop. Sometimes I spaz out, like I’m having a seizure or something. Once I fell out of my chair in Calculus and woke up in the nurse’s room. I couldn’t go back to class after that—I mean, they must’ve thought I was a freak or something!” Miri grabbed up fistfuls of blanket and twisted them in her hands.

  “I think Mr. Knowles told the class I had epilepsy or something, because everyone’s been extra careful around me since then. But, the thing is, it’s not epilepsy, or anything like that. It’s . . . it’s like I’m not even in the real world anymore. It’s like I’m somewhere else. Where something is happening—usually bad things. And I see . . .” she glanced up, the glow from the street light outside Lucy’s window glinting in her eyes.

  “I see really crazy stuff, like black shadows that aren’t just shadows—they’re like beings or something, and they hurt people. And I see huge earthquakes and the ocean rising three stories high and crashing onto the shore. And sometimes I see this . . . thing . . . with huge black wings and bright red eyes. I . . .” she gulped, the sound clicking in her throat, but neither of us laughed this time. “I think it might be Satan,” she finished in a whisper.

  Oh, she’d seen Satan all right. But what was he doing in her dreams? I knew he couldn’t put them there, I wasn’t sure of much these days, but I was certain of that—Father could not give visions. But there was no doubt Miri was having true dreams and that she’d seen the devil himself. She’d seen my father. The thought made my stomach clench.

  The time had come for me to say something, anything, but all I could manage was to deflect the responsibility. “What about your boyfriend? What does he think?”

  Miri sighed and pressed her palm to her forehead. “I haven’t told him. I don’t know why. It’s just, James is a party boy—he’s great and all but I’m not sure I could talk to him about, you know . . . stuff.”

  Wait. “Did you say James?” It couldn’t be. How could it be?

  Miri chuckled, a dry, humorless sound. “Yeah. Um, I figured you knew. I mean, you are living with the Masons’ right—you’re James’ cousin?”

  My cousin. Right. That’s why my skin flamed red with the memory of his touch. And he was Miri’s boyfriend.

  I coughed. “Right.”

  “So you know James, then. And you know he’s . . . well, he’s not the kind of boy you talk to.”

  Ha! Did I ever know.

  “Why are you with him then? I mean, he doesn’t exactly seem like your type.” Because her type was someone good, like the boy at school, just as I deserved to be with the boy who knew all about Sin.

  Miri shrugged, herself a shadow in the darkening room.

  “I don’t know. We met at a party, and come on, he’s gorgeous. And he says he likes me and likes hanging out with me so . . . And it’s not like anyone else has jumped up to take his place.”

  “But you shouldn’t be with a guy unless you like him. I mean, really like him, right?” Like I took my own advice—this morning’s little interlude with James
was proof enough of that.

  “I know,” Miri said in a small voice. She sighed again and swung her legs off the couch, pulling the blanket onto her lap. She started folding it, making sure each corner met up perfectly.

  “Anyway,” she said, but didn’t follow up with anything more.

  Belatedly I thought to say, “It’s okay, Miri. I won’t tell anyone.” I hoped she knew I was talking about the visions and not about her sort-of relationship with James. Except I figured I wouldn’t be telling anyone about that either. Because really, who did I have to tell?

  I wanted to stay at Lucy’s, but Miri convinced me she should take me home. And anyway, Father wouldn’t ever let me have that kind of comfort—it was one thing to have my fortress in the midst of all the chaos at Daniel’s, or even in Hell, but to have a place like Lucy’s, that represented real freedom? That would never happen.

  Miri pressed the call button at Daniel’s gate—I didn’t want to give her the code. Not because I was embarrassed or anything. Or, well, exactly because of that. Because, who used 666 unless they were totally psychotic?

  No one answered Miri’s buzzing, but the gate swung open anyway.

  “Whoa,” Miri breathed as she pulled around the circular drive and stopped the car in front of the mansion. “I mean, everyone in DP has nice houses but . . . wow.”

  “You’ve been here before, right? I mean, you and James?” Though I imagine the sight was stunning no matter how often you saw it—because no one did opulence better than Father—and, by extension, Daniel.

  “Well, I’ve been here, but we’re usually partying and it’s usually late and, well . . .”

  Yeah, I got it.

  “I’d invite you in, but . . . sometimes my uncle can be kind of . . .” It literally felt like the circuits were fried between my mouth and my brain. I couldn’t think of a single thing to tell Miri to keep her out of Daniel’s house—and as far away from him and James as I could.

  “It’s okay,” Miri said. She swallowed and stared at Enrique who lounged against a Town Car, a cigarette dangling from his mouth, a white bandage stretched across the bridge of his nose. “Hey, Desi? I’m really, really sorry about your friend.” She put her hand on my arm. I turned, like slow motion, and looked at her. I mean, really looked at her.