Unfortunately, at this point, one side of her mouth curved into a pathetic half-smile, half-sneer. She must not have realized that I had the upper hand here and it was aimed at her poster-perfect face.
“She was crazy,” she said. “Just like you.”
Wham. My fist was on its way, a lightning journey of blood and bone heading straight for her cherub nose, but my knuckles never connected. In my mind, I could already see blood pouring down her face, her nose twisting to the side. In reality, somebody had grabbed my arm and was pulling me off this blonde psycho-terrorist.
“Kira! What are you doing?”
It was Sean. He was dragging me through the crowd, not fast enough though. Two teachers had already scrambled out of relatively safe classrooms into the rumbling adolescent chaos.
“What’s going on out here?” a thick deep voice boomed. Great. It was Mr. L. My geometry teacher.
He shoved his way between Sean and me and Lucy. Somehow he managed to grab all three of us and drag us through the crowds, down the hallway to the principal’s office. He kicked the door open with his foot, growled something almost unintelligible like, wait here, then he tossed us into a row of plastic chairs, before hulking off to talk to the principal.
I’d never seen a teacher get that mad before and I sank down in my chair, did my best to look invisible. It wasn’t working though. Everyone in the office kept staring at the three of us, as if they were trying to figure out what had just happened out in the hall.
Lucy crossed her arms, then lifted her chin. Her mouth quivered and tears formed in her eyes—completely different from how she had acted a few minutes ago. I kept remembering the expression on her face when she had said my mom was crazy, that brazen look in her eyes, that half-sneer.
I glanced at the people behind the counter, saw their faces soften when they watched Lucy cry.
Unexpected anger surged through me again—an emotion so raw I didn’t know how to control it. I think part of me was still mad about what had happened to the seals, but another part of me was tired of being pushed around. I was tempted to jump on Lucy again, to finally give her what she had been asking for all these years.
My fist in her face.
“Are you even listening to me?”
Sean, at my side. Talking.
“What?” My voice sounded different, almost as deep and threatening as Mr. L.
“What happened?”
I shrugged. How could I explain ten years exploding in an instant?
Then it all slammed against me like a big crashing wave.
I might get grounded for all this. I might not even get to go to the party.
I glanced at Lucy again, saw her wipe her eyes with a tissue, then she shot me a steely glance that said, guess what, I won again.
“Holy crap.” I looked at Sean, my cheeks burning, and I lowered my voice to a whisper. “What have I done?”
Sean took my hand, his expression softening. Then he put his arm around my shoulders and I started sobbing. Right in front of everyone who had been waiting for this from day one in first grade. Right in front of the queen Paper Doll, herself. I couldn’t bear to look at her.
I knew she was gloating.
No matter what happened, she’d managed to win again.
•
For the first time in my life, I opened up. I ended up in the principal’s office, then met with the school guidance counselor and I told them everything. About the girls who teased me every day, about my mother and my sister who haunted me, about the seals that I found dead on the beach this morning. I even told them about the lies Lucy spread about me back in first grade. I thought my heart was going to break in half and that there wasn’t enough Kleenex in the world for all my tears and I kept thinking that at any minute, one of them was going to start laughing at me.
But nobody laughed.
They just listened and nodded their heads. They wrote things down in a folder with my name on it, a really thick folder that must have been following me around for the past ten or eleven years.
They talked to me with calm voices like they really cared.
Like I wasn’t invisible, not even a little bit.
Sean thought we were going to get suspended or worse. We might not even pass tenth grade, I think that was what he told me later, at lunch.
He was wrong.
In the end, he came out like my Knight in Shining Armor. He was just defending his best friend and trying to stop a fight.
Even though part of me was really wishing that he would say he was more than my best friend when we sat across from each other at lunch. That he would take my hand and tell me how much he really cared about me.
Still, in the end, one good thing came out of all of it.
Lucy got suspended for two days.
Once I heard the news, I couldn’t stop smiling.
•
Brianna caught up with me in between third and fourth period, somewhere between the Civil War and French verb conjugation. I was walking with my head a tiny bit higher than usual, my Doc Marten boots thudding against the floor and my right hand twisting through my hair—one of my many nervous habits.
A hand grabbed me by the shoulder and I swiveled, ready to duck, still expecting Lucy to sneak up behind me and even the score.
It was Brianna. She put both hands up to show she hadn’t meant to scare me.
I sighed. Nothing like flinching when your one and only girl friend touches you. Right in front of all the Paper Dolls. They’d been pretty quiet since this morning, but that didn’t mean I trusted them. I had a feeling they were texting each other right now. It’d probably be on their Facebook pages by the time I got home. With accompanying photos.
“Sorry,” I said. All my muscles relaxed and I retreated into my old body, my posture slumped, my hair falling over my face as I looked down.
“Are you okay?” Brianna asked, her eyes wide, an expression I would have mocked if it had been on a Paper Doll. Today, for the first time, it looked like genuine concern. “Did she hit you?”
I shook my head.
“I didn’t think so.” Brianna grinned. “Did you hear what happened?
In her excitement, she must have forgotten that I was the outcast here. Nobody shared gossip with me.
“Lucy had to hand over her cell phone and car keys to her mom. Before they even left the office.” Then she lowered her voice. “She’s grounded, too.” We leaned toward each other and the world around us disappeared. Nobody jostled us as they passed. Apparently I’d earned a wide berth today. “You’re still coming to my party, aren’t you? You have to, you just have to.”
“I want to,” I said.
“You can’t leave me there with all the jocks and the cheerleaders and the band geeks.”
“I might find a way to pull it off,” I said, a plan in mind. “But I doubt that Sean will be able to make it. You know how his dad is. And Sean was going to give me a ride—”
“You have to come, even if Sean can’t. I can pick you up.”
But this was going to be my first date with Sean, I wanted to say, even though I hadn’t known that for sure. Still, I had everything planned out—even our first kiss. I never did anything without a plan.
Until today.
“Kira?”
I looked at her, wondering what I had missed.
“Call me, okay? When you’re ready to go.”
I nodded.
Then we parted and I slogged into position beside all the other students, shouldering my way upstream. Pretending not to notice that the Paper Dolls around me seemed almost human without their queen.
•
By the time I got to honors English, I had everything figured out. I was going to march into class and confront Mrs. P about this meeting she had scheduled with my dad and me. I was going to get it all straightened out, prove that I had just been goofing around in my journal. Of course, I never meant any of that stuff.
She would see it my way. For sure.
&n
bsp; I was going to channel all these strange emotions and use them to my advantage—because normally I was a bit too timid to speak up to a teacher. About my grades. Or the homework. Or anything.
So I strolled into class, my backpack draped over one shoulder, my head up.
Then the crowd of students cleared—all happy little drones, heading for their seats—and I saw who was standing at the head of the classroom.
A substitute.
Mrs. P wasn’t even here today.
That was when I knew that the Doomsday Clock was still ticking and I wouldn’t be able stop it. Dad and I were still going to have to face Mrs. P on Monday. It didn’t matter that Lucy had gotten suspended or that the Paper Dolls were mysteriously subdued or that I might find a way to get to Brianna’s party. What was waiting for me on Monday felt like a killer whale hiding in murky water.
Chapter 14
Caleb:
I didn’t want to go back to the house, not after seeing Kira at the beach this morning. For a moment, it had been like sunshine and lightning. I had taken her by the hand, then felt the Burning stir unexpectedly within me, pushing my pheromones to the surface. As a result, I commanded her to meet me, all the while longing to pull her into my arms.
I never imagined I would desire her in that way—some other human, maybe, but never her.
Then I saw the dead seals on the beach and I knew I had to warn the others.
The Hinquememem had followed us here.
As soon as I got back to our dwelling, I told everyone what had happened and what I had seen. I described the carnage on the beach, unmistakably the handiwork of our nemesis. I told them how many seals had been killed and maimed, all as a warning to us. Sorcha and Mare gaped at me with wide, unbelieving eyes, then they rushed onto the balcony and stared down at the beach, as if the beast had already found us and was lumbering up the stairs. All of them seemed terrified, even Riley, though she tried hard to hide it.
She stiffened her back, held up a hand when the boys tried to go out on the balcony too. “The beast isn’t out there!” she said. “It’s not even hungry if it ate those seals. We’re safe.”
Lynn rose from the sofa, her lips the color of ash, her blonde braids twisted with seaweed. Weak and broken-hearted, she was the only one brave enough to confront Riley. “None of us are safe, still we knew that when we made this journey,” she said. “But what about Kira, the girl from the legend?”
“What about her?”
“We’ve hastened her destiny by luring that beast here.”
My skin bristled at Lynn’s words. That was exactly what I had been thinking.
“You don’t really believe that, do you?” Riley asked with a laugh. “No matter what the Elders say, destiny can’t be changed.” She scanned the room, her eyes resting on each one of us. “If we lured the beast here, then we are fulfilling Kira’s destiny, not altering it.”
Sorcha and Mare stood in the doorway, a question in their eyes, as if they weren’t sure whether they should believe her. Lynn shook her head in defiance, blonde braids catching the afternoon sun, a blinding gesture that none of us could ignore.
“We’re not supposed to intervene in the lives of humans,” she said. “You’re daring the gods with words like that.”
Riley laughed again. “Which gods? The sea gods or the temple gods?” She lowered her voice and leaned closer to Lynn. “Or maybe the gods of the chasm deep who put the curse on the Hinquememem in the first place.”
A collective gasp sounded in the room.
Mare’s eyes brimmed with tears. “You’re not supposed to say that name. Ever.”
“I’m not afraid of the beast,” Riley answered quickly, but there was a new edge to her voice and a tremor in her hand.
“You should be afraid,” I said, turmoil wrestling inside me. “And now we’ve broken one of the Elders’ high rules. If they find out, we could be branded and exiled, without home or family—”
“They aren’t going to find out!” she said, her gazing burning through me. “Unless one of us tells them.”
I met her gaze but didn’t speak what was on my heart. I didn’t believe her blasphemous words. Whether we meant to or not, we’d already changed Kira’s destiny—we’d brought it a step nearer. Guilt rolled over me in a crashing, life-numbing wave. I was the one who had wanted to come to Crescent Moon Bay. I had convinced both Ethan and Lynn to make the trip—twice in one season. They didn’t have to come, they had already chosen their mates. Because of me, he was now dead.
None of us would be here if it wasn’t for me.
And, quite possibly, because I had longed to see her so much, now Kira would be dead in a few days as well.
Chapter 15
Kira:
There should be some sort of handbook for what to do when you almost get suspended from school in Crescent Moon Bay. Something like, “The minute you get out of your last class, don’t pass GO and don’t collect two hundred dollars. Just run all the way home and see if you can beat the gossip.”
Because that’s what I had to do. Run. All the way home.
I flew up the driveway, glad when I saw Gram working in the garden—something she rarely does—her gloves covered in dirt and a tall stack of weeds at her side. That meant she had been outside for at least an hour or two. I dashed in the back door and checked the phone for messages.
Two were blinking.
I was trying to catch my breath and it felt like my chest was going to explode.
I turned down the volume on the phone and listened to the messages.
I heard the principal’s voice and automatically hit the DELETE button. A quick glance out the window told me that Gram was still pulling weeds. I listened to the second message—from the school guidance counselor—and erased it too.
The pressure continued to build, but I didn’t have time to think about it.
A poem started to blossom inside me, a thick pool of words pressing against my skin, making me want to grab a pen and let it all out. Metaphors and similes tumbled around inside my head, all in a rugged fast meter where nothing rhymed, the words flowing like river water over my tongue. It was all about danger and missed chances and lips that would never be kissed. But I didn’t have time to stop and write. Instead I spread my books on the kitchen table—usually I do my homework in my bedroom, but today I had to be front and center. I had to be as perfect as all the Paper Dolls. The words settled on the kitchen floor; there they continued rising like a gentle tide as I started dinner. They tickled my ankles, then my hips. By the time Gram came up the steps, they had filled the room and were just about to sweep me out one of the windows.
I couldn’t make sense of them anymore, still they kept coming, words of desire and rebellion. They were about to cover my head.
Then Gram opened the door and they all rushed outside, leaving me behind.
•
Dad and Gram were eating dinner—grilled tilapia with mashed potatoes and salad—and throughout the meal, Gram kept telling us a Scottish legend about the Na Fir Ghorm. I’m not sure why, but I lost track of time and got caught up in her story. Maybe because it had tragic poetic elements—blue-skinned mermen who lived in underwater caves and had the power to sink ships. Merciless and capricious, they teased sailors with riddles and rhymes before either drowning them or turning them into slaves. I found myself imagining what it would be like to try and outwit them. Gram wagged her finger in the air as she talked, as if this was a true story, but when she wasn’t looking Dad tossed me a wink.
That was when I realized what time it was.
I grinned back at him as I started cleaning up all the plates they weren’t using. Then I grabbed the phone and headed into my room. I hoped I didn’t look suspicious—I’d forced myself to eat only one plate of fish, even though I wanted four. Maybe when they were done, I could sneak a couple of left-over fillets from the fridge.
I stood in my room, door closed, staring at posters of surfing competitions and Olympic gold-medalist
swimmers, waiting for Sean to answer the phone.
Ringing. It was ringing. Don’t go to voicemail, please.
I was hoping Sean’s dad wouldn’t answer the phone. He could wreck everything tonight if he decided to talk to my dad.
Sean’s dad was the town sheriff. Badge and all. He was a nice guy, I guess, it just took me a long time to see him that way. He’d been in charge of the investigation when my mother committed the Crescent Moon Bay Crime of the Century, and in reality, he had worked really hard to keep family photos out of the press. He was our next-door neighbor even back then, so he knew Dad was innocent. But there had been some scary moments. I was pretty young, but I still remember hearing that Dad could have been put in jail. I thought I might lose him—like my mom and Katie—and for some reason, I blamed Mr. O’Brien, Sean’s dad, because he had been over here all the time, talking to Dad about it.
And after that, there had been Dad’s depression and his drinking.
Mr. O’Brien brought Dad home in the squad car several times for DUIs. After that Dad lost his license for a year. That was when Gram came to live with us.
So, I really didn’t want to talk to Mr. O’Brien right now. I kept hoping that Sean would pick up the phone soon and that he would find some way to go to the party.
Still ringing.
I was just about to hang up and walk over to his house, when somebody picked up.
“Hello.” It was Sean.
I let out a long sigh and leaned against the wall.
“Can you go tonight?” I asked, cupping my hand around the phone, as if anyone was listening. They weren’t. They were still in the other room, finishing dinner.
He laughed. Not in a good way.
“Sean?”
“Absolutely, no way. Can’t even take out the garbage. Not that I offered, but still.”
“Crap. I really wanted—I mean, I was hoping—I don’t want to go to the party without you.” Couldn’t really say what I had wanted. Couldn’t tell him what I had been hoping.
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