Fallen Angel

by Heather Terrell

  Ruth basked in the attention, and I could tell that Jamie derived a certain vicarious thrill being by her side. As for myself, I experienced a surge of power not unlike the sensation I got when I had a strong flash. And looking at Michael, I saw that he did as well. The feeling helped dispel the nagging voice inside my head about the conversation I’d overheard in the kitchen, which I hadn’t dared to mention to Michael yet. I didn’t want to ruin our perfectly normal teenage night with a reminder of our strangeness.

  We smiled at the other kids as they stared at us, and tried to act casual. The four of us commented on how the dance committee had really transformed the place. Our gym no longer looked like a relic from decades past, but more like an intentionally retro eighties dance club.

  All the while, Ruth’s voice buzzed like a little bee in my ear as she gave a running commentary on the other girls’ dresses. Lexie, she pronounced, looked great in her strapless blue mini, as did Charlotte in her black-and-white lace dress. But, Ruth said, what was Nikki thinking wearing that gold satin full-length gown with a crystal neckline?

  I spotted Piper and Missy in a dark corner, almost behind a set of bleachers. The out-of-the-limelight spot seemed odd for the girls; I expected them to hold court front and center, especially at an event like this. And where were their dates? I knew Piper was going with Lucas, but I wondered who Missy’s date was. I hadn’t seen her with Charlie lately, but I had spotted her walking up the library stairs with that other guy. I guessed that guy was the Zeke mentioned in the flashes, and the figure I’d seen in the shadows.

  Maybe Piper and Missy had sequestered themselves in the corner because one or both was mad that they hadn’t been named Fall Queen, and maybe that had something to do with their plan. Their former friend Vanessa had somehow managed to rally an overwhelming majority in order to win the votes. I stopped dead in my tracks. Why was I spending even a minute of my night thinking about them, especially when Michael and I had made a pact to take a break from our investigation? I pushed all thoughts of Piper and Missy out of my mind so I could enjoy my night.

  One of my favorite songs, Coldplay’s “Lost,” started to play, and Michael pulled me onto the dance floor. He carved out a place for us in the crowd, and then wrapped his arms tightly around my back. I looked up into his green eyes, bright even in the darkened room. For the millionth time, I thought how lucky I was to have found him.

  The music grew louder, and he pressed his body up against mine. I held on to his strong upper arms and rested my head on his shoulder. The tempo of the song picked up, but Michael slowed down. He lifted up my chin and leaned down to kiss me.

  His lips felt so soft, so inviting. I kissed him back and savored the gentle touch of his tongue. As he ran his tongue lightly over my teeth, I began to experience a surge of desire for him, unlike anything I’d felt during the many times I’d been physically close to him before. But this was no normal desire to kiss him, or go further. This was different than anything I’d ever felt before. This was bloodlust.

  We broke off and stared at each other. Michael felt it too. We had to leave the dance floor before something happened. Something we couldn’t control. Something that would freak out everyone around us.

  “I’m going to the bathroom to freshen up,” I said, for the benefit of anyone nearby who might be listening.

  “Do you want me to come with you?” he asked, his voice cracking a bit.

  “No, no.” The last thing I needed was Michael in close proximity to me. He shot me a concerned look, so I smiled and reassured him. “I’ll be fine.”

  Michael walked me to the gym door nearest the bathrooms. He gave me a kiss on the cheek and then leaned against the wall, as if he needed its support. “I’ll wait right here,” he said, still breathing a little heavy.

  I nodded and opened the door. A little unsteady on my feet—and my heels—I wobbled out into the jarring fluorescent glare of the hall. Blinking in the bright light, I turned right toward the girls’ room. A long line of girls—all waiting to jockey for position in front of the mirror, no doubt—snaked out of the door into the hallway. I just couldn’t face all that aggressive female energy in my state.

  Instead, I turned left, passing by the gym doors. Maybe a little walk would help distance me from the urge. I started down an empty hallway, lined with lockers and classroom doors. Funny how the hall looked so unintimidating and small without all the kids streaming through it. After I cooled down, I turned back toward the gym—and Michael.

  Then I heard a whimper from a connecting hallway. Backing up a few steps, I peeked down the hall. On first glance, it appeared empty. But then I saw a small movement in a darkened doorway, and I heard the whimper again. I hesitated. I really didn’t want to deal with someone else’s problems tonight of all nights. But the Good Samaritan in me won out over my apprehensions.

  Not bothering to soften the click of my heels, I approached the dark niche. The whimper grew louder and became an actual bawl by the time I got there.

  “Are you okay?” I said to the girl cowering in the doorway. Her face was buried in her hands, but I could see her upswept auburn hair and her chocolate brown dress. Maybe the poor girl had gotten into a fight with her date.

  The girl lowered her hands. At first, all I could see was the welt on her cheek from a hard slap and a long, bloody scratch on her arm, undoubtedly from a fingernail. Only then did I realize that the girl was Piper.

  I almost left. Another thankless encounter with Piper wasn’t what I needed. And anyway, it was my special night with Michael. But then I smelled a strong metallic odor, and I realized that I couldn’t leave, even if I tried. The smell was Piper’s blood, welling up from the deep scratch on her arm. It mingled with the distinctive smell of someone else’s blood. Maybe the blood of the other person she’d fought with. How I could detect and discern the presence of two distinct blood scents was beyond me.

  More than anything in the world, I wanted to touch and taste the blood, and not just because I sought information about her and Missy’s scheme. My instinct compelled me to do it. No matter the promise that Michael and I made about not tasting anyone else’s blood.

  As I reached into my purse for a tissue, I asked her, “Who did this to you?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said with a sob.

  “Of course it matters, Piper.”

  Tissue in hand, I leaned forward as if to dab her wound clean. As I did so, I touched some of the blood from her wound with my fingertip. Then I turned away slightly—ostensibly to reach for another tissue from my purse—and licked it.

  The blood burned like liquor as it coursed down my throat and made me woozy immediately. Then two separate flashes struck. Their force nearly knocked me off my heels, and I reached for the wall to steady myself. Stronger than any flashes I’d received from anyone but Michael, they told me everything I wanted to know. And much, much more that I didn’t want to know.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Without a word to Piper, I kicked off my shoes and carried them with me as I ran back down the hall. I didn’t have a spare second to make excuses to Piper, and she didn’t deserve them. I needed every moment to get to the gym and stop the figurative bloodshed.

  The hall seemed to have doubled in size since I walked down it a few short minutes before, like some hazy, frustrating dream. I longed to fly down the hall, but had to rely on my gangly legs to propel me. The slower gait gave me all too much time to think about the malevolent images I’d culled from the blood. And it gave me too much time to think of Vanessa, Missy and Piper’s victim.

  Why hadn’t we thought of Vanessa? This summer, she’d been on the outs with the group for trying to unseat Missy from her veritable throne. Since then, Vanessa had been relegated to the “reject” lunch table, below Missy’s notice. Michael and I had believed that Missy had deemed the cafeteria demotion adequate punishment for whatever wrong Vanessa had inflected on Missy. Not so.

  The first flash from Piper told me that, just
before Vanessa would be crowned Fall Queen, every single Tillinghast junior and senior would receive an email on their cells inviting them to be Vanessa’s Facebook friend. The perfectly timed invitation would be irresistible to nearly everyone at the dance, who presumably would accept and be transferred immediately to Vanessa’s page. There, via a dummy account, Missy and Piper had posted not only a montage of horrific drunken photos of Vanessa but—worse—entries purportedly from Vanessa that revealed a litany of awful, humiliating secrets about many of Tillinghast’s juniors and seniors. It wasn’t normal dirt in those entries, but terrible things like cheating and hidden pregnancies and familial meltdowns. The whole plan was designed to disgrace Vanessa and, through her supposed revelation of so many people’s closest-kept secrets, make her the object of everyone’s hatred. The only redeeming second of the flash was the disgust Piper felt for participating in it. Not that her distaste stopped her, mind you.

  But it was the second flash that transmitted a sense of evil so palpable that I felt sick. The flash seemed to come from Missy, the source of the other blood. Through her eyes, I saw her in a tight embrace with some guy. Because she had her head nestled on his shoulder, I couldn’t see the guy’s face, just the fine black fabric of his suit jacket. But I could hear his voice. In the most enticing whisper imaginable, he told her that she was beautiful and deserved the Fall Queen crown more than anyone in the world. Though his words sounded like innocent flattery, somehow they had spurred Missy on to this plan and made her want to bathe Vanessa in metaphorical blood at the moment of her crowning. I saw—in her soul, it seemed—a desire for wickedness and destruction worse than my worst nightmares.

  Finally, finally, I reached the gym door. I pulled it open and ran over to Michael, who was still leaning up against the same spot on the wall. I struggled to speak; it was amazing how running tired me out so quickly, when I could fly for hours with ease. “I know what Missy and Piper are going to do.”

  Gaping at my disheveled state, he grabbed me by the shoulders. “Are you okay?”

  I brushed aside his hands. “I’m fine. Michael, I don’t have much time. Have they announced the Fall Queen yet?”

  “No, Vanessa and Keith are still standing over there. I think the crowning ceremony is supposed to start in a few minutes.”

  Still panting, I said, “Good, I still have time to stop it. Or defuse it, at least.”

  “Defuse? As in a bomb?” From the terrified look on his face, I saw that he thought—by my unfortunate choice of the word “defuse”—I meant something much worse.

  “Don’t worry. It’s not a literal bomb, but it’s still really awful.”

  I wanted—no, needed—to save Vanessa and all the other kids from the virtual bloodbath about to rain down on them. And there was only one way to do it in the time I had available. To sacrifice myself by naming myself as the creator of the Facebook entries and deem them fiction. To point the finger at anyone else as the architect of this scheme left too much room for denial—and possible belief by the viewers in the horrific stories they’d see on the Facebook page. I couldn’t let that happen.

  I didn’t have enough time to explain my intentions to Michael before the room started buzzing with cell phones containing Facebook invitations from Vanessa. Leaning down, I quickly strapped my shoes back on. I reached into my purse and slid out my brush and lipstick. As Michael stared incredulously, I hurriedly fixed my hair and makeup. If I was going down like a phoenix into the ashes, I wanted to look presentable—even good—doing it.

  I gave Michael a kiss, and whispered, “I’m so sorry that I’m about to ruin our night.”

  Turning toward the stage, I heard him call out, “Ellie, what’s going on?”

  I could hear the apprehension in his voice, but I couldn’t look at him. His concern would only make me hesitate, and I couldn’t afford to falter.

  Squaring my shoulders and taking a deep breath, I walked to the front of the gym. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Vanessa and Keith preparing to go on stage. Ignoring them as best I could, I started up the stairs. A couple of kids and at least one teacher tried to discourage me. But I just smiled and plowed ahead.

  Once on stage, I searched around for the mike. The white-knuckled student council president held it tightly in his hand as he reviewed the note cards for his speech. I sidled up to him and said, ever so sweetly, “Can I borrow that for a minute?”

  Surprised at the request, he said, “Um, I’m about to make a speech.”

  Smiling agreeably, I said, “I know. I just have to make a quick announcement first.”

  “Sure,” he said with a smile and handed me the mike.

  “Thanks so much. You can have it back in a second, I promise.”

  Mike in hand, I stared out at the crowd. My self-assurance—real and pretend—left me as I surveyed the nearly two hundred kids on the dance floor. But I couldn’t succumb to my fears; I had to move forward. I was moved by a compulsion that was more powerful than anything I had ever felt. Even my desire for Michael.

  I cleared my throat and said, “Hi. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Ellie Faneuil.”

  Even though the kids had stopped dancing, they continued to mill around and talk. They appeared as uninterested and unimpressed with the Fall Queen and King crowning ceremony as Michael. I half-waved and tapped the mike. A loud screech reverberated from the speakers, and suddenly I had everyone’s attention.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt your night. In a few minutes, you will all receive a Facebook invitation from Vanessa Moore, our Fall Queen. If you accept the invitation, you will be directed to a Facebook page that contains several pictures that seem to be of Vanessa and some posts allegedly by her hand. But the page is complete fiction. The pictures are Photoshopped, and the entries are made up.” I paused; the next words stuck in my throat. “I created the entire thing.”

  In the crowd, I saw Ruth’s face staring up at me in disbelief. The magnitude of my actions hit me, and my voice cracked. “I want to apologize to Vanessa and everyone else named on the Facebook page. Even though I know none of you will ever be able to forgive me.”

  Before I handed the mike back to a stunned student council president, I glanced out at the crowd. There, at the center, I saw Missy, murderously furious that her plan had been thwarted. At her side stood a guy—a blond, good-looking guy who had to be her date. A guy who had to be the shadowy Zeke from the flashes.

  Something about him seemed familiar, and not just from the visions I’d gotten about him. In the split second before I left the stage, I looked at little closer, and realized that he was the guy from the coffee shop. He noticed my stare, and smiled that strange, bemused smile of his. As if he’d expected me to be up there on that stage all along.

  I dropped the mike and ran.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Over the next few days, darkness seeped into my soul.

  Maybe it came from the hatred of me I saw in my classmates’ eyes and minds. When I returned from my three-day suspension for my Facebook prank, as it was dubbed by the administration, I’d become the object of loathing for every student at Tillinghast Upper High School. My locker was vandalized, my homework destroyed before it reached the teachers’ hands, my face spit upon. God forbid that I accidentally touched someone; the abhorrence seared my fingertips. But I could speak not a word in my own defense: I conceded that right on the gym stage.

  Maybe the darkness came from the evil that I’d witnessed in Missy’s heart, or the blood I’d sampled from her via Piper. In the flash from her blood, I saw the desire for such unspeakable acts that I couldn’t allow myself to revisit the images. It was like becoming a character in one of Hieronymus Bosch’s paintings of hell.

  I didn’t know the source of the darkness. I knew only that the Good Samaritan compulsion all but disappeared the night of the dance. Looking back, I had no idea why I did what I did. Once I’d realized that I had the capacity to spare all those kids all that pain, I just had to take the fa
ll. Was this part of who I was? It certainly didn’t sound like the impulse of a vampire. But really, what did it solve, my taking the fall? Although it wouldn’t have fixed anything to point the finger at Missy.

  Regardless, all that had vanished. I filled the void left in its wake with me and Michael.

  Ruth hadn’t spoken to me since the dance, and I wasn’t sure why. Since I was certain that she must know that I didn’t create the Facebook page, I could only guess that she was furious that I’d ruined her dream night. I couldn’t even tell her why. Whatever her reason, her abandonment of me made my own submission to the darkness easier. It was one less tie to my old self.

  The only ones who didn’t detest me outright were Piper and Missy, who were uniform in their disbelief and confusion even though they were no longer in league as friends. Instead of hating me, they seemed to be frightened of me. And with my urge to act charitably gone, I certainly felt no impulse to reach out toward Piper and encourage her better nature.

  Only Michael stood by my side, even though part of him wished that I’d tell the truth about Missy’s act. Only he understood what I had done and why. The knowledge brought us closer. So close that there was no longer any room for anyone else.

  By day, Michael and I strode down the Tillinghast school hallways impervious to everyone but ourselves; I felt powerful in a way I’d never experienced. By night, we flew through the skies like gods. Like the vampires that I guessed we were. We surrendered to each other. And to the blood.

  “Come on,” I urged Michael. Where he used to push me along, I now dared him to follow me. The darkness had filled me with a recklessness I’d never before experienced. I now acted with abandon—without concern for anyone other than Michael.

  He didn’t move.