A Girl Called Dust

by V. B. Marlowe

  He put Lacey down and held her against the wall with one hand. She was too petrified to move. “You’re wrong. One option ends with you being put in the tunnel with the beasts for the rest of your life. The Givers will hunt you down and kill you if another one of them is killed. Something is out there trying to frame you. Don’t come looking to us for help when they put a price on your head. Don’t expect your buddy Fletcher to help you either. Unlike yourself, he’ll be faithful to his kind before he’s faithful to you.” He nodded to Wes.

  Wes stepped forward and placed his hand on Lacey’s forehead. She giggled, and a blank stare spread across her face. Hollis opened the door and pushed us both out.

  Outside, I took a deep breath of the winter air. Lacey looked at me, frowning. She glanced around. “What the hell? What are you doing here, Dust? What am I doing here?”

  Then she stood and took off running.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Four days passed, and I was still at square one. When Lacey saw me in school, it was the same old same old. Thankfully she had no recollection of what had happened in the lair. If Lacey wasn’t the Hag, it was still out there, probably staging more Wendigo attacks. More importantly, I was still in danger of being blamed for them.

  Friday night, I lay on my bed staring at the ceiling when Fletcher called.

  “Hey, Fletch. What’s up?”

  “I just got invited to a party.”

  I sat up. As long as I’d known Fletcher, that had never happened unless I counted the plus-one Bailey had given me for Trista’s Halloween party. “Oh. Whose party? When?”

  He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I don’t know. The text came from an unknown number. It just says there’s going to be a party at the old farmhouse after midnight. It doesn’t say who’s throwing the party.”

  Everything about the situation seemed wrong. “That sounds weird. Maybe they sent it to you by mistake. Just ignore it.”

  “I’m going. I think this might be something.” I went to my closet and slid my feet into some boots while Fletcher kept talking. “I feel like something bad is going to happen.”

  Fletcher had said the same thing about Trista’s Halloween party, and he had been right. “What makes you say that?” I asked.

  “The farmhouse is outside of Everson Woods, so the police won’t be out there patrolling. Plus, they invited me. I feel like this is some kind of setup.”

  I threw on a coat just for the sake of appearances. “That’s all the more reason you shouldn’t go out there, Fletcher.” I remembered how hurt he had been after being flung into the tree by the Wendigo.

  “I have to. Don’t you want to end this? That’s not going to happen if we run away from it.”

  I was climbing over the balcony by then. As soon as Fletcher had said he was going, I knew there would be no talking him out of it.

  The old farmhouse was about an hour’s drive, definitely not in walking distance. “So how are we getting there?”

  Fletcher sighed. “I’m borrowing my dad’s car, but you’re not coming.”

  “Save it. You wouldn’t have called to tell me about the party if you didn’t want me to go with you. I’ll be waiting by the stop sign on the corner.”

  “Fine,” Fletcher said before hanging up.

  I spent the whole ride listening to Fletcher lecture me on how he didn’t want me to do anything. That if something went down, he would handle it. I didn’t argue with him. I was more worried about the fact that his teeth chattered despite the heat blasting, his puffy coat with several layers underneath, thick gloves, and a wool cap.

  “Are you all right?” I asked as we pulled up to the wooden gate that led to the farmhouse.

  “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.”

  The farmhouse sat alone in the middle of a huge field. The wooden panels of the house were worn and weathered, and a few of the windows were broken. Several cars were parked haphazardly in the field. I noticed Wiley’s truck immediately. Fletcher pulled up beside it, and we climbed out. Wiley’s truck was running, but his windows were rolled up. As usual, classical music was playing from inside. I wondered what was going on in there.

  Fletcher and I made our way to the large swinging door of the farmhouse. Music and shouting came from inside. Someone was having a great time.

  Fletcher pulled one of the doors open, and I took a cautious step inside. About twenty people were spread out across the abandoned farmhouse. A cooler sat in one corner, and an iPod hooked up to a speaker sat in the other. The only other things in the farmhouse were rusted folding chairs and large bales of hay. Lanterns were placed strategically around the room, giving off a small amount of light.

  A knocked-over lantern could set fire to the dry hay

  The old, rusted tools hanging on the walls could be used as weapons

  The entire rickety structure could give way and collapse

  This is a party, Arden. Stop thinking about death.

  I couldn’t help but roll my eyes when I spotted Ranson in a corner talking to a couple of his friends. He noticed Fletcher and I then turned to say something to his friends, who erupted in laughter. Other than that, the party was pretty chill. People stood around talking, holding bottles or red plastic cups. Trista and Marley sat on a bale of hay, looking at something on one of their phones, but there was no sign of Lacey. I noticed one person standing in front of a foggy window dressed in black jeans and a hoodie. The hood was pulled over the person’s head, but I knew Bailey’s Hollister hoodie from anywhere. She stared out into the darkness.

  “I’m going to say hi to Bailey,” I told Fletcher.

  He nodded and went to sit next to Trista, but a bit too close. Personal space, Fletch. Trista and Bailey glared at him as if he was going to give them some deadly disease.

  “Hey, Bailey.”

  She turned slowly. With her hood on and the dim lighting in the farmhouse, it was hard to make out her face. From what I could see, it looked better than the last time I had seen it. “Hey.” She shifted from foot to foot awkwardly as if she didn’t know what to do with herself.

  I was burning up, so I removed my coat and tossed it onto a bale of hay. “I’m surprised to see you here.”

  She looked down at her boots. “I know. I shouldn’t have come. I think I’m going to leave.” She threw a quick glance over to Marley and Trista.

  “Are they giving you a hard time?”

  Bailey shrugged. “Marley’s okay when it’s just the two of us, but when Trista’s around, she acts like I don’t exist.”

  I wanted to ask her how it felt to have a friend turn on her, but I held back. Bailey had been through enough. “Bailey, you know you’re still beautiful, right?”

  She pulled her hoodie down over her face. “What’s beautiful, really?”

  Someone knocked over the iPod. The farmhouse filled with sudden silence. Ranson’s friend scrambled to fix it over people’s loud complaints.

  “Whose party is this anyway?” I asked.

  Bailey frowned. “I don’t know. I got a text from a number I didn’t recognize. I needed to get out of the house. I haven’t been anywhere since . . . you know. I figured I had to show my face sometime.”

  I looked around the room. Why had the people there been invited? The guest list seemed so random. Why Fletcher? Why Bailey? Why any of them?

  A realization slugged me in my gut. I needed to take action. Something was very wrong, and no one else seemed suspicious of what was happening. They drank and danced without a care in the world. Whoever arranged this party knew these kids would be down for a good time and free alcohol—no questions asked. Someone had put this mismatched group together for a reason. I wasn’t supposed to be there. Maybe the party planner knew that I had the ability to foil their plans. My insides told me to separate the innocent from the danger. “Bailey, take a walk with me.”

  “Um . . . okay.”

  We stepped into the darkness. Wiley was still in his truck, and the air was more chilled than it h
ad been before. It felt good. Bailey followed me away from the farmhouse and toward the woods. “How’d you get out of the house?” I asked her. I knew for a fact that sneaking out under the Bensons’ watch was practically impossible. Mrs. Benson could hear spiders creeping along the wall in her sleep.

  Bailey was silent for a moment. “My parents are out of town.”

  We moved closer to the wooded area. “Are they? They actually left you alone?”

  “Yeah. Just for the weekend. My mom can be a little crazy about things, but in a year I’ll officially be an adult, and I think she’s starting to realize that.”

  We stopped at the line of trees. I looked her up and down. “You’re only wearing a thin hoodie. Aren’t you cold? You should be freezing.”

  “No. I’m fine.” Her eyes traveled down my body. “What about you? Aren’t you cold?”

  I had left my coat inside. “No.” But that was because I wasn’t Human. A Human would have been cold.

  Bailey raised her eyebrows and stepped closer to me. “Is something wrong?”

  I studied my friend’s face—the beauty of the top half contrasted with the lower half riddled with scars. Everything made sense then. Why Fletcher didn’t like her. Being the only survivor of the Wendigo attack.

  I backed away from her. “What’s beautiful mean, really? It was you that night in the bathroom pretending to be Lacey.”

  Bailey cocked her head to one side. She laughed to herself. “Dust. That was my idea. I suggested it to Lacey when we were hanging out at her house one day, and she just went with it. Acted like it was her idea. Lacey doesn’t have very many of her own thoughts.”

  I looked back at the farmhouse. The party was still going on, everyone completely oblivious to what was going on outside. “Oh,” Bailey said. “This party was my idea, too.”

  “You’re just full of ideas, huh?” I turned back to her. “What are you?”

  Bailey held her head up proudly. “Doppelganger.”

  I drew in a deep breath. “Evil twin.” That was the difference between a Shifter and a Doppelganger. Like Shifters, Doppelgangers could take any form, but when they did, they performed wicked deeds. Bailey had made herself my Doppelganger. Lacey had seen her the night of the Halloween party coming out of the woods pretending to be me.

  “Are the Bensons—”

  Bailey turned her head toward a snapping sound that came from the trees. “No, they’re Human. Or they were.”

  Just as I feared. I knew they wouldn’t have gone out of town and left her alone, just as I knew she wouldn’t have been able to sneak out underneath their watchful eyes.

  “Bailey, what do you want? Why are you framing me? Why’d you have to kill those people just to get at me?”

  She scoffed. “Don’t flatter yourself. Those people had nothing to do with you. Trent was a dirty cheater. That’s one thing Lacey was right about, so I killed him and slashed my own face. It hurt like hell, but it was worth it. Everyone felt so sorry for poor little Bailey. Mrs. Chin and Mr. Thompson . . .”

  “What about them? What did they do?”

  “They were Givers. Givers killed my parents, so I killed them.”

  “I thought the Bensons adopted you from China.”

  She pulled something thin and silver from the pocket of her hoodie. “You thought a lot of things about me. And before you ask about Ed Hurley, he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. He saw me changing that night in the alley, so he had to go. Mr. Benson always complained he was a rip-off artist anyway. I did the town a favor.”

  “What does any of this have to do with me?” I shouted. “What do you want from me?”

  She wasn’t fazed by my outburst. “I like you, Arden. We’re two of a kind. With my parents gone, I’m the last Doppelganger. I’m unique, like you. I hadn’t planned on it, but over the years, you’ve grown on me. I want you to work with me. I’ll help you become a Banshee, and then we can do whatever we want. We won’t be bound by any stupid oath. We can kill our Geminis. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to die. We can do anything we want, and anyone who gets in our way will be destroyed. I even tried to get you away from them that first night, but you kept going back.”

  I narrowed my eyes at her, remembering the mysterious man in the black cloak who had blinded me. “That was you?”

  “Yes. Me trying to do you a favor.”

  More sounds came from the trees, but that could have been from anything. It might have been an animal going about its business, or it might have been something more sinister.

  Bailey watched me, waiting for my answer. “How am I supposed to trust you?” I asked. “You killed the people who raised you and gave you everything. Ed and Trent. Mrs. Chin and Mr. Thompson, they probably had nothing to do with your parents’ deaths. Bailey, you’re insane.”

  “Worry about yourself. I haven’t killed you, have I? I could have done it a long time ago if I wanted to.”

  Someone yelled something from the farmhouse. It sounded like Ranson. “What about them? Why’d you lure them out here?”

  “That was for you—if you decide not to go with my plan. I’m going to kill them, and once I do, the Walkers are either going to kill you themselves or demand that the Takers lock you away in the sixth tunnel. Now if I’m not mistaken, they’ve decided to not help you anymore. If they had to throw you in the tunnel to save the truce, they would. I can’t believe you pissed them off just to save Lacey. If Fletcher had to kill you at the Givers’ request, he would. So would your father. I’m the only person you have.”

  Bailey was good at manipulation, but I wasn’t playing her game. She may have been right about the Takers, but not about Fletcher and my father. She was the one who was all alone, but she had done that to herself.

  She nodded toward the farmhouse. “If you want them to live, Fletcher included, you’ll come with me. I can help you, Arden. I can teach you how to kill. I’m good at it.”

  Bailey raised the needle and stepped toward me. If I ran toward the farmhouse, I would put everyone else in danger. If I ran into the woods, at least there would be places to hide. The possibility of getting away. I shoved her and ran into the trees, dodging roots and low-hanging branches as I moved.

  “Arden!” she screeched, but I didn’t stop.

  I couldn’t see in the darkness, so I used my hands to feel around me, which slowed me down.

  “You can’t outrun me,” Bailey called. She sounded way too close.

  We moved deeper and deeper into the woods. As my feet pounded against the cold, hard ground, I felt as if I was running faster than I ever had. I glanced over my shoulder to see how much distance was between Bailey and me, but that was a big mistake. I tripped over a fallen log stretched out in front of me. I landed on my hands and knees, and they scraped against rocks and sharp twigs.

  Bailey used my fall to her advantage, leaping over the log and straddling me. She was so much stronger than me as she pinned me down with one hand and held the needle above me with the other.

  “Bailey, no!”

  “It’ll just put you out so I can take care of business at the farmhouse. It won’t hurt.”

  She was going to kill everyone no matter what.

  I went over my limited options. If I let her stick me with that needle, she would kill everyone in the farmhouse. My only other choice was to stop her permanently.

  Around us, branches shook. Howling came from somewhere in the distance. I used both hands to keep Bailey’s hand with the needle away from my throat. Grunting and pushing, I didn’t know how long I could keep her off.

  A light shone from behind Bailey’s head. She paused, looking over her shoulder, but she didn’t lighten the force she used on me.

  “Hey, what are you guys doing out here?” a voice called.

  Bruce Wiley had the worst timing ever.

  His voice sounded closer. “You guys have been out here for a while. I know what that means. If you got some grass, you need to share.”

  Wil
ey shone the flashlight from his phone on us. “Oh, shit,” he said. “Are you guys fighting or . . . what’s happening?” He looked as if he’d done enough smoking for the night.

  “Go away, Wiley,” I told him, straining, but he stood there watching us.

  Ignoring Wiley, Bailey brought her face closer to mine. “It’s nice not to have to keep secrets from each other anymore, isn’t it? You’ve always been my best friend, Arden. Always. I promise, I’ll take very good care of you. We’ll take care of each other.”

  Bailey raised the needle again, but something stirred within me. My stomach pulsed as if something were trying to break out of it. Saliva filled my mouth, and my skin tingled. A fragrance filled my nostrils—meat, enticing and savory. My muscles were so tense that they hurt. It became easier to hold Bailey off me. My grunting turned into a low animalistic growl, surprising Bailey, Wiley, and myself.

  Wiley backed away, holding his phone in front of him. I was ninety-nine percent sure he was recording all of it. “What the hell?” he muttered.

  With everything I had, I shoved Bailey off me. She landed on her back beside me, groaning. I pounced on her, pinning her shoulders to the ground. She stared back at me wide eyed for a second, then the brief fear she had turned to anger. “Get off of me!”

  “Arden, maybe you should . . .” Wiley began, but barking cut him off.

  Fletcher was on the way. I had to do what I had to do before he reached me. He might try to stop me or take matters into his own hands. I wasn’t going to let that happen. I couldn’t let him be hurt again. I had to solve this problem myself. Getting rid of Bailey right then and there would keep others from dying. Getting rid of her would keep me from being destroyed.

  Bailey tried to speak, but she couldn’t. I only realized then that I was choking her. Fletcher was getting too close. I didn’t have time to waste. There was no time for guilt or second guesses.

  I held up one hand and looked at it. My fingers were red and tender, my nails hardened and sharp. I loosened my grip on Bailey’s throat to hear her last words.