Crescendo h-2

by Becca Fitzpatrick

“Then how could they not know each other?”

  “My best guess right now is that whoever’s running the society is separating the individual members to keep them in the dark. Without solidarity, the chances of a coup are low. More than that, if they don’t know how strong they are, the Nephilim can’t leak that information to the enemy. Fallen angels can’t get information if the society members themselves know nothing.”

  Digesting this, I wasn’t sure whose side I was on. Part of me abhorred the idea of fallen angels possessing the bodies of Nephilim every Cheshvan. A less noble part of me was grateful they were targeting Nephilim and not humans. Not me. Not anyone I loved.

  “And Marcie?” I said, trying to keep my voice neutral.

  “She likes poker,” Patch said noncommittally. He put the Jeep in reverse. “I should be going. You going to be okay tonight? Is your mom gone?”

  I turned in the seat to face him. “Marcie had her arms around you.”

  “Marcie’s sense of personal space is nonexistent.”

  “So you’re an expert on Marcie now?”

  His eyes darkened, and I knew I wasn’t supposed to go there, but I didn’t care. I was so going there. “What’s going on between the two of you? What I saw didn’t look like business.”

  “I was in the middle of a game when she came up behind me. It’s not the first time a girl has done that, and it probably won’t be the last.”

  “You could have pushed her away.”

  “She had her arms around me one moment, and the next moment the Nephil threw the cue ball. I wasn’t thinking about Marcie. I ran outside to check the perimeter in case he wasn’t alone.”

  “You went back for her.”

  “I wasn’t going to leave her there.”

  I stayed in my seat a moment, the knot in my stomach so tight it hurt. What was I supposed to think? Had he gone back for Marcie out of courtesy? A sense of duty? Or something entirely different, and much more worrisome?

  “I had a dream about Marcie’s dad last night.” I wasn’t even sure why I’d said it. Possibly to communicate to Patch that my pain was so raw it had even entered my dreams. I’d once read that dreams are a way of reconciling what’s happening in our lives, and if that was true, my dream was definitely telling me I hadn’t come to terms with whatever was going on between Patch and Marcie. Not if I was dreaming about fallen angels and Cheshvan. Not if I was dreaming about Marcie’s father.

  “You dreamed about Marcie’s dad?” Patch’s voice was as calm as ever, but something in the way he looked sharply at me made me think he was surprised by this news. Maybe even disconcerted.

  “I think I was in England. A long time ago. Marcie’s dad was being chased through a forest. Only he couldn’t get away, because his cape got tangled in the trees. He kept saying a fallen angel was trying to possess him.”

  Patch pondered this a moment. Once again, his silence told me I’d said something that interested him. But I couldn’t guess what.

  He glanced at his watch. “Need me to walk through the house?”

  I gazed up at the dark, vacant windows of the farmhouse. The combination of nightfall and drizzling rain cast a gloomy, uninviting feeling all around. I couldn’t tell which was less appealing: going inside alone, or sitting out here with Patch, scared he might be moving on. To Marcie Millar.

  “I’m hesitating because I don’t want to get wet. Besides, you obviously have somewhere to be.” I pushed on the door and swung one leg out. “That, and our relationship is over. You don’t owe me any favors.”

  We locked eyes.

  I’d said it to hurt him, but I was the one with the lump in my throat. Before I could say something that would slice deeper, I dashed for the porch, holding my arms over my head to shield my hair from the rain.

  Inside, I leaned against the front door and listened to Patch drive away. My vision smeared with tears, and I closed my eyes. I wished Patch would come back. I wanted him here. I wanted him to pull me against him and kiss away the cold, empty feeling slowly freezing me from the inside out. But the sound of tires skimming over the wet road outside never came.

  Without warning, the unbidden memory of our last night together before everything collapsed drifted up from my memory. I automatically started to block it. The trouble was, I wanted to remember. I needed some way to still have Patch close. Dropping my guard, I let myself feel his mouth on mine. Light at first, then more serious. I felt his body, warm and solid, against mine. His hands were at the nape of my neck, fastening his silver chain. He promised to love me forever….

  I turned the deadbolt, dissolving the memory with a click. Screw. Him. I’d keep saying the words as many times as it took.

  In the kitchen, the lights answered at the flip of a switch, and I was relieved to find the electricity up and running. The phone was blinking red, and I played the messages.

  “Nora,” my mom’s voice said, “we’re getting tons of rain here in Boston, and they’ve decided to reschedule the rest of the auctions. I’m headed home and should be there by eleven. You can send Vee home if you’d like. Love you and see you soon.”

  I checked the clock. It was a few minutes before ten. I had only one more hour alone.

  CHAPTER 7

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING, I DRAGGED MYSELF OUT of bed, and after a quick stint in the bathroom that included dabbing on under-eye concealer and spritzing my hair with curl revitalizer, I moseyed into the kitchen to find my mom already seated at the table. She had a mug of herbal tea between her hands, and her hair had a tousled, slept-on look, which was a nice way of saying she looked like a porcupine. Glancing at me over the top of her mug, she smiled. “Morning.”

  I slid into the seat opposite and shook shredded wheat into a bowl. My mom had set out strawberries and a small pitcher of milk, and I added both to the cereal. I tried to be conscientious about what I ate, but it always seemed much easier when my mom was home, making sure meals amounted to more than whatever I could grab in ten seconds.

  “Sleep well?” she asked.

  I nodded, having just eaten a spoonful of cereal.

  “I forgot to ask last night,” Mom said. “Did you end up taking Scott on a tour of town?”

  “I canceled.” Probably best to leave it at that. I wasn’t sure how she’d react if she found out I’d tailed him to the pier, then spent the evening with him at a dive of a pool hall in Springvale.

  Mom’s nose wrinkled. “Is that … smoke I smell?”

  Oh shoot.

  “I lit some candles in my room this morning,” I said, regretting that I hadn’t taken the time to shower. I was sure the Z lingered in my clothes, my sheets, my hair.

  She frowned. “That’s definitely smoke I smell.” Her chair scraped back, and she started to stand, on her way over to investigate.

  No use stalling now. I scratched my eyebrow nervously. “I sort of went to a pool hall last night.”

  “Patch?” We’d settled on a rule not too long ago that I was absolutely not, under any circumstances, allowed to go out with Patch while my mom was away.

  “He was there, yes.”

  “And?”

  “I didn’t go with Patch. I went with Scott.” By the look on her face, I was pretty sure this was worse. “But before you blow up,” I rushed on, “I just want to say that my curiosity is killing me. I’m having a really hard time ignoring the fact that the Parnells are doing everything possible to keep Scott’s past in the dark. Why is it that every time Mrs. Parnell opens her mouth, Scott is two inches away, watching her like a hawk? What could he have done that was so bad?”

  I expected my mom to jump to her feet and tell me that starting the minute I got home from school this afternoon, I was grounded until the Fourth of July, but she said, “I noticed that too.”

  “Is it just me, or does she seem scared of him?” I continued, relieved that she appeared more interested in discussing Scott than my punishment for spending the evening at a sketchy pool hall.

  “What kind of mother is
scared of her own son?” Mom wondered aloud.

  “I think she knows his secret. She knows what he did. And he knows that she knows.” Maybe Scott’s secret was simply that he was Nephilim, but I didn’t think so. Based on his reaction last night when he’d been attacked by the red-shirted Nephil, I was beginning to suspect he didn’t know the truth about who he was, or what he was capable of. He might have noticed his incredible strength or his ability to speak to people’s thoughts, but he probably didn’t know how to explain it. But if Scott and his mom weren’t trying to hide his Nephilim heritage, what were they trying to hide? What had he done that needed so much covering up?

  Thirty minutes later, I strolled into chemistry to find Marcie already at our desk, talking on her cell phone, completely ignoring the sign on the whiteboard that read NO CELL PHONES, NO EXCEPTIONS. When she saw me, she gave me her back and cupped a hand over her mouth, clearly wanting privacy. Like I cared. By the time I made it to our desk, the only part of the conversation I picked up was a seductive, “Love you, too.”

  She slipped her cell inside a pouch at the front of her backpack and smiled at me. “My boyfriend. He doesn’t go to high school.”

  I immediately had a moment of self-doubt and wondered if Patch was on the other end of the line, but he had sworn that what happened between him and Marcie last night meant nothing. I could either stir myself into a jealous frenzy, or I could believe him. I nodded sympathetically. “Must be hard dating a dropout.”

  “Ha, ha. Just so you know, I’m sending out a text after class to everyone who’s invited to my annual summer party Tuesday night. You’re on the list,” she said casually. “Missing my party is the surest way to sabotage your social life … not that you have to worry about sabotaging something you don’t have.”

  “Annual summer party? Never heard of it.”

  She retrieved a makeup compact, which had worn a circle into the back pocket of her jeans, and dabbed pressed powder on her nose. “That’s because you’ve never been invited before.”

  Okay, hold on. Why was Marcie inviting me? Even though my IQ was double hers, she had to have noticed the frost between us. That, and we didn’t share any common friends. Or interests, for that matter. “Wow, Marcie. That’s really nice of you to invite me. A little unexpected, but still nice. I’ll definitely try to make it.” But not very hard.

  Marcie bent toward me. “I saw you last night.”

  My heart beat slightly faster, but I managed to hold my voice level. Noncommittal, even. “Yeah, I saw you, too.”

  “That was kind of … crazy.” She left her statement open-ended, as if she wanted me to elaborate for her.

  “I guess.”

  “You guess? Did you see the pool stick? I’ve never seen anyone do that before. He shoved it through the pool table. Aren’t those things made of slate?”

  “I was at the back of the crowd. I couldn’t see much. Sorry.” I wasn’t trying to be unhelpful on purpose; this was just one discussion I didn’t want to have. And was this why she was inviting me to her party? To instill a sense of trust and friendship into our relationship, so that I’d tell her what, if anything, I knew about what happened last night?

  “You didn’t see anything?” Marcie repeated, a line of doubt creasing her forehead.

  “No. Did you study for today’s quiz? I have most of the periodic table memorized, but the bottom row keeps tripping me up.”

  “Did Patch ever take you to play pool there? Did you ever see anything like that before?”

  Ignoring her, I flipped open my textbook.

  “I heard you and Patch broke up,” she said, trying a new angle.

  I sucked in some air, but a little too late, since my face already felt hot.

  “Who called things off?” Marcie asked.

  “Does it matter?”

  Marcie scowled. “You know what? If you’re not going to talk, you can forget coming to my party.”

  “I wasn’t going anyway.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Are you mad because I was with Patch at the Z last night? Because he doesn’t mean anything to me. We’re just having fun. It’s nothing serious.”

  “Yeah, it really looked that way,” I said, letting just enough cynicism seep into my tone.

  “Don’t be jealous, Nora. Patch and I are just really, really good friends. But in case you’re interested, my mom knows a really good relationship therapist. Let me know if you need a referral. On second thought, she’s pretty pricey. I mean, I know your mom has this stellar job and all—”

  “Question for you, Marcie.” My voice was a cool warning, but my hands were shaking in my lap. “What would you do if you woke up tomorrow to find your dad had been murdered? Do you think your mom’s part-time job at JC Penney would pay the bills? Next time, before you bring up my family situation, put yourself in my shoes for a minute. One teeny tiny minute.”

  She held my gaze a long moment, but her expression was so impassive I doubted I’d made her think twice. The only person Marcie could ever empathize with was herself.

  After class, I found Vee in the parking lot. She was splayed across the hood of the Neon, sleeves rolled above her shoulders, tanning. “We need to talk,” she said as I approached. She pulled herself up to sitting and lowered her sunglasses down her nose far enough to make eye contact. “You and Patch are Splitsville, aren’t you?”

  I climbed onto the hood beside her. “Who told?”

  “Rixon. For the record, that hurt. I’m your best friend, and I shouldn’t have to find these things out through the friend of a friend. Or through the friend of an ex-boyfriend,” she added, after thinking it all through. She laid a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “How are you holding up?”

  Not especially well. But it was one of those things I was trying to bury at the bottom of my heart, and I couldn’t keep it buried if I talked about it. I eased back against the windshield, raising my notebook to shield the sun. “You know what the worst part is?”

  “That I was right all along and now you have to suffer through hearing me say, ‘I told you so’?”

  “Funny.”

  “It’s no secret Patch is trouble. He’s got the whole bad-boy-in-need-of-redemption thing going on, but the catch is, most bad boys don’t want redemption. They like being bad. They like the power they get from striking fear and panic into the hearts of mothers everywhere.”

  “That was … insightful.”

  “Anytime, babe. And what’s more—”

  “Vee.”

  She flapped her arms. “Hear me out. I’m saving the best for last. I think this is the time to rethink your priorities when it comes to guys. What we need is to find you a nice Boy Scout who’ll make you appreciate the value of having a good man in your life. Take Rixon, for example.”

  I nailed her with a You’ve got to be kidding look.

  “I resent that look,” Vee said. “Rixon happens to be a really decent guy.”

  We stared at each other for three more counts.

  “Okay, so maybe Boy Scout is stretching it,” Vee said. “But the point of all this is that you could benefit from a nice guy, a guy whose closet isn’t solely black. What’s up with that, anyway? Does Patch think he’s a commando?”

  “I saw Marcie and Patch together last night,” I said on a sigh. There. It was out.

  Vee blinked a few times, digesting this. “What?” she said, her jaw going slack.

  I nodded. “I saw them. She had her arms wrapped around him. They were together at a pool hall in Springvale.”

  “You followed them?”

  I wanted to say, Give me some credit, but managed only a flat, “Scott invited me to play pool. I went with him, and we ran into them there.” I wanted to tell Vee everything that had happened after that moment, but as with Marcie, there were some things I couldn’t explain to her. How was I supposed to tell her about the Nephil in the red shirt, or how he’d rammed a pool stick through the table?

  Vee looked like she was scrambling for a resp
onse. “Well. Like I was saying, once you see the light, you’ll never turn back. Maybe Rixon has a friend. Other than Patch, that is …” She trailed off awkwardly.

  “I don’t need a boyfriend. I need a job.”

  Vee did a full-on grimace. “More job talk, ugh. I just don’t get the allure.”

  “I need a car, and in order to get one, I need money. Hence the job.” I had a running list of reasons to buy the Volkswagen Cabriolet lined up in my mind: The car was small, and therefore easy to park, and it was fuel efficient—a bonus, considering I wasn’t going to have much money for gas after forking over a thousand dollars for the car itself. And while I knew it was ridiculous to feel a connection to something as inanimate and practical as a car, I was beginning to view it as a metaphor of change in my life. Freedom to go wherever I wanted, whenever. Freedom to start fresh. Freedom from Patch, and all the memories we shared that I hadn’t yet figured out how to slam the door on.

  “My mom is friends with one of the night managers at Enzo’s, and they’re looking for baristas,” Vee suggested.

  “I don’t know anything about being a barista.”

  Vee shrugged. “You make coffee. You pour it. You carry it to the eager little customers. How hard could it be?”

  Forty-five minutes later, Vee and I were at the shore, walking the boardwalk, putting off our homework and noncommittally glancing in storefront windows. Since neither of us had a job, and consequently no money, we were brushing up on our window-shopping skills. We reached the end of the walk and our eyes fell on a bakery. I could practically hear Vee’s mouth watering as she pressed her face to the glass and gazed in at the doughnut case.

  “I think it’s been a whole hour since I last ate,” she said. “Glazed doughnuts, here we come, my treat.” She was four steps ahead, tugging on the doors.

  “I thought you were trying to lose weight for swimsuit season. I thought you were big-boned and wanted to even things out with Rixon.”

  “You sure know how to ruin the mood. Anyway, how’s one little doughnut going to hurt?”

  I had never seen Vee eat just one doughnut, but I kept my mouth shut.