“Arden, please don’t,” she begged. “I’m your friend. Please don’t.”
For a split second, I almost felt sorry for her. I thought about our slumber parties, secrets we shared, and the plans we’d made for the future to be besties forever. I remembered how we had promised to be roommates in college, then I brought my nails across her throat. Three wide lines formed and blood poured out of them. I’d expected scratches, not deep gashes. I blocked out Wiley’s screaming, wondering why he was still there watching. If I were him, I would have been long gone. The color drained from Bailey along with her blood. She gasped for breath, reaching toward me as I slashed her again and again, my nails performing like tiny blades.
My stomach rumbled with emptiness, begging me to eat. Bailey smelled of the exact thing I needed to quench my sudden appetite. I threw my head back, preparing to take a chunk out of her, preparing to find out what Bailey tasted like, but Fletcher found me and yanked me up.
“You can’t bite her. Once you taste flesh, there will be no turning back for you.” He pulled me away from bleeding, dying Bailey. “That’s enough. She’s done.”
He led me past Wiley, who stood frozen, staring at Bailey’s remains. We ran toward his dad’s car, where I sank into the front passenger’s seat, breathing heavily. Inside, the party carried on. I’d saved their lives and they didn’t even know it. Fletcher locked me in the car and then stopped Wiley, who was scrambling to get in his truck.
Wiley wouldn’t take his eyes off me as Fletcher spoke. I couldn’t blame him. Fletcher patted him on his shoulder before Wiley hopped in his truck and sped out of the field.
“You okay?” Fletcher asked as he climbed in.
I nodded even though I wasn’t. The reality of it all hadn’t hit me yet. Bailey was gone, and she had never been who I thought she was.
“What did you say to Wiley?” I asked as Fletcher drove across the uneven field to the road.
“I made him promise not to show the recording to anyone. He said he wouldn’t.”
“And you believed him?” Wiley was probably uploading the video to YouTube as we spoke.
“He won’t show it,” Fletcher declared.
“How do you know?”
Fletcher’s jaw twitched. “Because he saw what you did to Bailey.”
I gulped. That was the last thing I wanted. To be feared like some monster. For Wiley or anyone to look at me the way he had that night.
Fletcher dropped me off. I climbed up the rose trellis, over the balcony, and back into the safety of my room. I hid my bloody dress at the back of my closet until I could get rid of it. Bailey’s blood had ruined two dresses, but she had also ruined so many lives. The town would be safe again, but I was officially a murderer. I knew what it felt like to be one of them now. I was a Taker.
With Bailey gone, the killings stopped. The gossip around town was that the Benson family had just up and left, leaving all their possessions behind. Some thought they needed a new start after Bailey’s attack. Some suspected foul play, but there was no evidence to back it up.
School was school, with the exception of a few things. Whenever I passed Wiley’s truck, he would quickly roll up the windows. I couldn’t blame him. I didn’t even want to know what he thought of me.
Lacey kept her distance from me. Even though Wes had cleared her memory of what had happened in the lair, she gave me the side-eye every time we passed. Maybe she sensed that something about me was off.
The day before Valentine’s Day, I sat in Mrs. Martin’s classroom after school, serving detention. I’d had another outburst in her class, and she was sick of it. She left the room, warning me that she’d be back in five minutes. I stared at the desk, trying not to fall asleep.
“Have you heard?”
I jumped at the voice. I turned to see Violet standing there at the back of the classroom in front of Mrs. Martin’s desk. I looked around. How would I explain this if Mrs. Martin came back?
“Violet? How did you get here?”
She pointed to the vent grate lying on the ground that had obviously been removed from the wall. “We’re not supposed to do that—come into the school—but since you can’t come to the lair, I had to. I don’t know if you know, but the Gemini Curse is in effect. It’s official. That means right now someone is out there looking for you to kill you. Watch your back.”
I nodded. “Noted.” Strangely, I wasn’t afraid of Rose. After what I’d done to Bailey, I was sure I could take on an Angel.
“So did you do it?” Violet asked, wide eyed.
I imagined her crawling through the ducts, watching me and following me around the school. “Did I do what?”
“You know, tell the others to stop calling you Dust.”
I’d been thinking about that. “You know what? I haven’t, Violet.”
Her face fell. “But you said you would. You said you would try.”
“Have you told them not to call you Cuddle Bug?”
She shook her head. “I’ve been afraid to. I was hoping you had, and that might help me be braver. Were you scared too?”
“No. I’m not scared. Not anymore.”
Violet sat on a desk and folded her legs underneath herself. “Then why?”
“You know what, Violet? I kind of like Dust.”
End of Book One
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A Girl Called Dust Page 27
