After about a half hour of watching my friends defy gravity, I was done. Kyle walked me home. It felt like I was slinking off with my tail between my legs. No one invited me back, and that was a relief until I got angry at myself for being relieved. At least I didn’t have to pretend everything was okay; Kyle was pretty withdrawn too. I knew I should ask him what he was thinking, but I didn’t really want to go there. We made plans to meet later that night for the annual Halloween Bash, and he gave me a gentle noogie before leaving me on my front step, so I knew we were cool. And really, I was too exhausted—in every sense of the word—to confront things if we weren’t.
My parents were both theater profs, and they had Friday office hours, so I was free to go up to my bedroom undisturbed. Post-diagnosis, they’d turned my room into a little palace. I had my own mini fridge, flat screen, gaming console, the works. After a quick bathroom detour for disinfectant and bandages, I flopped bonelessly onto my bed and flipped through the channels. Nothing was on except Jersey Shore reruns, so I turned the TV off. For some reason, it was hard to get all emotionally worked up over orange tans and random hookups after the day I’d had.
My eyelids felt like concrete. I closed them for just a minute and didn’t wake up until my older sister, Rachel, jumped on the bed and started shouting.
“Casey, you lazypants. Wake up!”
“Dude!” I flopped over in my cocoon of blankets and rubbed my face. “There’s no need to yell. I’m right here.”
“Hey, I can’t help it if I’m a force to be reckoned with.” She hugged me so tight, my back cracked. “Please tell me you did that to your head on purpose.”
“Yeah. My hair came back patchy. I looked like I had mange.”
She tilted her head. “It makes you look tough.”
The comment made me feel instantly better. Rachel always knew what to say. My sister was two years older, but we’d always been close. If it hadn’t been for her and Kyle, I would have gone completely insane in the hospital. The rest of the crew had come to see me, but they’d been so uncomfortable that I’d wished they hadn’t. I’d never been able to talk to them the way I could Kyle. Not that I was holding a grudge or anything; that was just the way it was. But now I knew that the clichéd crap about how true friends stick with you when things go to hell wasn’t just clichéd crap.
Normally I didn’t pay much attention to my looks, but I wasn’t a robot. It felt good to know that I wasn’t completely repulsive. My problems were less about the hair and more about the rest of the package. I had sunken, reddish scars dotting my body from my neck all the way down my torso. Biopsies and aspirations, PICC lines, the Broviac catheter—each one had left its mark. I did my best to keep covered, even in hot weather. Not because I was vain but because I was tired of looking like a circus freak. At least I could pass the hair off as a fashion statement. Which it mostly was.
Rachel took one look at me and sat down, tucking a lock of long blond hair behind her ear and putting on her most serious expression.
“You look upset. What’s up?”
I shrugged evasively. “I thought you weren’t supposed to be here for another half hour.”
“I cut out of sociology early, since I couldn’t take you out last time I was home because someone had the gall to get pneumonia. What’s up with that? Cancer isn’t good enough and you have to hog all the other illnesses too?”
“What can I say? I’m an overachiever.”
“I’m in awe of your mad skills.” She snorted. “Now quit changing the subject and tell me what’s wrong.”
“I just …” I didn’t know what to say. My eyes roamed the collage-covered walls, plastered with photos and magazine clippings that only reminded me of how I’d lost my edge. Levi Meeuwenberg, my freerunning idol, leapt into the air over a picture of pre-cancer me, my arms flung up in triumph. I would have given anything to be that girl again. She was fearless, and I had too much to lose. But I couldn’t say that to Rachel. I’d already put her through plenty. “I don’t know,” I finished lamely.
“Well, then stop looking at me like I spit in your cornflakes.” She shook a finger in mock disapproval. “We’re going to that Halloween party, right? Out with the crappy and in with the happy!”
“That’s horrible.” I threw my stuffed ninja at her.
“But still wise beyond my years,” she said, tossing the toy back onto the bed. “So, what do you say? Are we going or not?”
“All right.” I shrugged. “I don’t have anything better to do.”
When we were ready, I felt like a strange alternate-reality version of myself, a kickass Casey 2.0 who hung out in futuristic biker bars and didn’t take guff from anybody. My costume consisted of Rachel’s old roller derby uniform—red jersey, black shorts, fishnets, pads, and black roller skates. She’d drawn intricate curlicues all over my head with a hot-pink marker, which looked totally sweet. Makeup shaded my thin face into razor-sharp edges, and wide black lines traced my eyes, curling up into feline tips. My lips were so purple, they looked bruised.
I skated out to the sidewalk and spun to face my sister, regal and corseted in a Marie Antoinette costume. The skirt was so wide, she had to turn sideways to get out the door, and the bodice turned her already voluptuous figure into something wars were fought over. I would have been jealous that she’d gotten all the curves—I was compact and boyish, while she was tall and hourglassish—but people automatically assumed she was an airhead just because of her looks. I wouldn’t have been able to handle that.
“Is my wig on straight?” she asked, putting a hand to her tower of white hair.
“You look hot.” I waggled my eyebrows at her, and she pretended not to notice.
She double-checked the lock on our front door, which was shrouded by about five packages of fake spiderwebs. We lived in a gated community, but it was still technically downtown. Some moron had broken into our house a few years earlier. Afterward, I’d been afraid to step out the door, until I’d started martial arts. Black belts in ninjutsu are rarely abducted by random crackheads, and I’d learned a lot in the dojo before I’d had to quit that too.
We passed the parking lot and headed out the front gates and down the street. The university campus was only a few blocks away; I could already hear the low murmur of the crowd. I really wished Rachel would transfer colleges so we could see each other more often, but I also understood why she’d had to get out of the house.
Cars flashed past, random college guys hanging out the windows and shouting inappropriate things at us. And then we passed by some apartment buildings, where different random college guys shouted still more inappropriate things from the balconies. I didn’t pay much attention to any of them and concentrated on my feet instead.
Rachel had been a derby girl in high school, and I’d tagged along to her practices all the time. I’d been really good at it too; I would have tried out for one of the junior derby teams, but the leukemia hit just before I got old enough. Skating is like riding a bike; you don’t forget it once you’ve learned, but I was still extra cautious that night. The cuts on my knees and hands hadn’t stopped throbbing yet, a constant reminder that I couldn’t just slip back into my old ways, no matter how much I wanted to. The last thing I needed was to break something and get sent back to the hospital.
We passed a row of orange sawhorses that blocked off the street, and I stopped to survey the crowd. Halloween was always a big deal at the U; the school held a street carnival during the early evening so the local kids could trick-or-treat up and down Fraternity Row. I’d gone every year since I was little. I used to love getting my face painted and making spiders out of pipe cleaners. As the night wore on, however, the kiddie games disappeared and the booze came out, and there was a band. It was a college, after all.
“Wow.” I rolled out a little farther into the street to get a better view. “They’ve really outdone themselves this year.”
Main Street was packed. The pavement overflowed with carnival booths full o
f games, caramel apples, and hot spiced cider. Most of the fraternities and sororities had concession tables in their front yards, and herds of kids in costume ran from porch to porch with plastic pumpkin buckets, demanding candy. A large platform ran along one side of the street, empty except for a couple of girls dressed like Daphne and Velma from Scooby-Doo, setting up the sound system for the band.
“Come on,” Rachel said, grabbing my wrist and lunging eagerly into the crowd.
“Not that way!” I twisted to an awkward stop. “The professors always hang at the Sammie House until the faculty costume contest.”
“God, no.” She turned around. “That’s the last thing we want, to party with our parents.”
“Exactly.”
“Ohmigod.” She skirted an elementary kid dressed as SpongeBob SquarePants and a pair of zombies that may or may not have been his parents. “Can we go to the Pi Kapps’? Dylan might be there.”
I tried not to roll my eyes. As fabulous as Rachel was, she had crappy taste in guys, and Dylan was the worst ex-boyfriend of them all. He was the kind of guy who stuffed tube socks down his pants. Quite literally—I walked in on him once.
“You aren’t going to get back together with Stuff Daddy, are you?” I asked. “Because you told me to throw shuriken at you if you did.”
“No pointy ninja toys necessary.” She adjusted her bodice. “But there’s no harm in showing him what he’s missing, right?”
“All right.” I couldn’t keep the reluctance out of my voice, but I tried. “I just want to sit down. These skates are killing my toes. Once we get settled, I’ll text Kyle and tell him where to meet us.”
“It’s a deal. Follow me.”
The front yard at the Pi Kapp house was packed, but Rachel walked right up to a guy with huge poofy hair and a Star Trek costume that exposed the beginnings of a beer belly.
“Eric,” she said, “my sister needs your seat before her toes fall off.”
He stood up immediately from his lawn chair, his eyes glued to her chest. I half expected his eyeballs to pop out of his head and bounce into her cleavage. But finally he turned to me and said, “Casey! I see you’re rocking the bald look.”
It took every ounce of self-control I had not to sigh. If wigs didn’t make my scalp feel like it was on fire, I might have been tempted to wear one just to avoid having this conversation with every person I saw.
But that wasn’t his fault. I nodded and changed the subject. “Hey there, Captain Kirk. You still rooming with Mr. Sock?”
Eric was Dylan’s roommate and was just as laid back as Dylan was uptight. I liked him. He’d witnessed the tube sock stuffage too; it had been the kind of traumatic experience that makes people lifelong friends.
He snorted so hard that beer slopped out of his red plastic cup and onto his shoes. “Afraid so. Sweet costume.”
“Thanks.”
He helped me into the chair, which I didn’t really need. But I let him because he’d always done things like that. I knew it wasn’t just because he thought I was broken. And even if I didn’t want to admit it, maybe I needed to be taken care of a little. After this afternoon’s fall, I felt like I’d been run over by a truck, and my palms hurt.
When Kyle burst into the yard in a zoot suit and a pair of giant Day-Glo glasses, I didn’t get up. He threw his hands up and yelled, “Hello, party people!” No one even gave him a second look. He flopped onto the patchy grass next to my chair and said, “This party sucks.”
“You’ve only been here for five seconds,” I said, stretching my legs out. My thighs weren’t used to the extra weight of the skates, and I could feel the muscles twitching. They were going to hurt tomorrow.
Eric offered me a can of Coke from the cooler on the porch, and I practically kissed him. I took a long swig and said, “Kyle, this is Eric. He is cool. Eric, this is Kyle. He is also cool.”
They nodded at each other.
“Hey, are you the clock guy?” Eric asked, his face breaking into a wide grin that almost rivaled Kyle’s.
“Yeah.” Kyle puffed out his chest proudly. “That’s me.”
“You’ve got to tell that story,” Eric said to me. “It’s hilarious. You mind?”
“Mind?” I shook off the malaise and smiled for real. It felt like I hadn’t done that in ages. Here was something I could still do without feeling like a total poser. “I’m so happy to be out of social limbo that I might just kiss you.” At his stricken look, I laughed. “Kidding, dude.”
He gave me a gentle shoulder punch before gathering up a bunch of his frat brothers. For once, the glances they shot at my head were admiring instead of full of pity. It was a difference I could get used to. Kyle and I told them about the time we snuck into the gym right before graduation and filled the rafters with fifty windup alarm clocks all set to go off at different times. That had been a great prank, except for the part where someone saw us and called the cops. We’d ended up hiding on the roof and getting locked up there for a couple hours in the rain until we figured out how to get down.
We swapped stupid stories as the shadows grew longer. Dusk fell, and the little kids passing by on the street got progressively more tired and whiny. I could hear the loudspeaker down the block as they announced the winners of the costume contest, but I couldn’t make out the words. Hopefully our parents had won the faculty division, because otherwise they’d mope.
Someone inside the house called for a beer pong tournament. Within minutes, the yard had emptied out. Rachel knelt down beside me, the hoops of her skirt rising bell-like around her torso. Kyle took the other side.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Having a good time?” Rachel added. “You’re not too tired, are you?”
“This is awesome,” I said. “I want to stay here forever. I think I might move into this lawn chair permanently.”
“You say that now, but wait until they start puking.” Rachel grinned. “So I hear Dylan’s working the kissing booth. I’m going to go ambush him. Do you mind? I’ll only be a minute.”
“I meant what I said about the shuriken, Rachel. One smooch and I’m throwing.”
“It’s a two-person booth. I’m not going to kiss him; I’m going to kiss the other guy,” she said. “He’ll have a fit.”
“Yeah, well, he can stuff it,” I said, and we both started giggling. Kyle looked back and forth between us like we were nuts, which wasn’t too far from the truth.
“Very funny.” Rachel struggled to her feet. “Damned costume.”
I watched her stroll away, leaving a trail of gawking guys in her wake. It was ridiculous.
“You look tired.” Kyle looked at me over the top of his glasses. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
I swallowed the frustration that came with constantly being asked that question. I just wanted to have some normal fun. Why couldn’t people let me do that?
“Yeah.” I pushed myself up from the chair. “But I’ve got to go to the bathroom.”
It was meant to be an excuse, something to change the subject. But the moment I said it, I realized it wasn’t just an excuse—I really did have to go. Unfortunately, my only options were to brave the innards of the Pi Kapp house or squat in the Porta Potties at the end of the block. I looked up at the house. Three guys in cheerleading outfits were doing keg stands in front of the door.
Which pretty much made the decision for me.
“Porta johns?” asked Kyle, reading my mind as usual.
“Yeah. If Rachel gets here before I do, tell her I’ll be right back.”
I half expected him to insist on accompanying me, but he didn’t. A minor triumph, but every bit of independence I got felt like something worth celebrating. As I skated off, I felt a little better already.
The driveway, choked with cars, curved behind the house, and I slalomed down it, just for fun. A narrow alley ran parallel to the street; it would be much less crowded back there. When I emerged onto the empty pavement, I couldn’t help letting out a sigh of rel
ief. So much nicer than the mob scene out front.
About halfway down the alleyway, I heard it. “Rollergirl.” A voice like dark chocolate and silk pajamas; I wanted to roll around in it.
I squinted in the dim light, but I couldn’t see anybody. Just cars jam-packed down one side of the alley. Dark, dilapidated student housing. Shadows pooling on the bricks. The only illumination came from the streetlights on the other side of the houses, and the buildings blocked most of it.
“Who’s there?” I asked, frowning.
“Roooollergirl,” the voice repeated in a playful singsong.
A man stepped out from behind a peeling house about fifty feet in front of me. He wore all white, a fabric of such brightness that it practically shone in the dark. His overcoat flapped in a breeze I couldn’t feel. And his face was as beautiful as his voice, with chiseled features so perfect, they didn’t look real.
I rolled closer without even realizing I was moving. And when he reached out his hand, I took it without a thought. His skin felt mannequin smooth and cool to the touch. Its chill seeped through the Band-Aids that crisscrossed my palms.
When I lifted my chin to look at him, it felt like the movement took forever, like time had somehow shuddered to a stop. I could feel each thump of my heart and the eternity between the beats. My eyes met his, and his lips ever so slowly curved up into a smile, exposing perfect white teeth.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” he said softly, the words sending a shiver down my spine.
And then his eyes caught fire.
Liquid flame spilled out of the stranger’s eyes, leaving blackened trails down his cheeks and splattering on the ground. The sudden smell of burning flesh and rotten eggs nauseated me, but I was too transfixed to gag. I knew I should move, kick him in the balls, something, but all I could do was stare as he pulled me closer.
“Your futile training won’t save you, rollergirl.”
He licked my cheek with a sandpaper tongue. Up close, his face seemed unreal, like the perfect skin was stretched too tight over something inhuman, something that seethed from within in an attempt to break free.
Demon Derby Page 2
