Suddenly, I was gripped with a feeling of being watched. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up and my mood washed over with a mint-green hue. Slowly, I turned circles, studying each body, each face, as well as I could. But it was hard work, locking in on individual features in the rotating colored lights and the wildly dancing people. Nothing. There was nothing. I was being paranoid. Letting the whole Luna’s-out-of-juvie thing get to me.
But I couldn’t shake the feeling, and soon my colors were confusing me—was I seeing crimson in my mind, or was that just one of the stage lights? I squinted, moved through the crowd, feeling pulled and strangely numb. Gold fireworks popped in my head, and that time I knew the culprit was my own adrenaline. I needed to get control of myself. I couldn’t keep jumping every time my synesthesia dumped a little mistaken green on me. After what had happened at Hollis Mansion seven months ago, it would be normal for my colors to be off. With some dedicated work, I could make it better. At least that was according to the shrink Dad made me see. For exactly three sessions before I knocked his bullshit textbooks off the coffee table and told him to peddle his happy crappy to someone else. I was too angry for therapy. And he was too right.
Just to be sure, though, I plowed through the crowd, getting bumped, taking shots to the ribs, the back, not feeling any of it. I focused in on every blond, and suddenly it seemed like every girl around me was fair-haired.
Luna.
She was in my head. I couldn’t get her out. I just wanted her out.
The song finished and the crowd stopped moving, erupting into cheers that made me wince. I kept walking, focused, taking in faces, as the singer talked, her mouth too close to the microphone. Every so often someone would whoop nearby and I would swing around, my heart in my throat, my hands balled into fists, only to find a surprised face—not Luna’s face, not Luna’s—peering back at me.
I was just coming out on the other side of the throng when I felt a hand clamp down on my shoulder. Without even thinking, I dropped low and spun, my fists out in front of me to protect my face.
“Whoa! Easy there, slugger! Let me live!” Vee, laughing, held up her hands to ward me off. “Jumpy much?”
I let my hands fall to my sides and shook out my fingers, trying to get feeling back in them. The fireworks pop-pop-popped into a fizzle. I tried to let out a laugh, but it only came out in a couple of short, sharp breaths. “Hey.”
“So?” Vee asked, her eyebrows going up.
“So . . . ?” I flicked a quick glance over my shoulder. I couldn’t help it—the feeling was still there.
“So what did you think?”
“Oh. The band. It’s different. But a good different.”
“But you liked it?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Of course. It was good. You done already?”
She gestured back toward the stage, where Gibson was bent over his guitar, fiddling with the tuning pegs—turning them and then strumming, his ear cocked over the strings, then turning them some more. “Taking a break. Seth wants a beer. Whatever. I can’t play if I’m all fucked up, but he says he plays better.” She laughed again. “He probably does, now that I think about it.” I glanced across the yard again and she leaned close. “Everything okay? You seem kinda skeezed out or something.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “I just . . . thought I saw someone.”
“There you are,” I heard behind me, and I had to force myself to turn slowly, not jump like I did at Vee, but my fists were still balled up by my sides. My throat felt dry; Seth wasn’t the only one who needed a drink. “Gib wants to start up again soon.” Shelby Gray was twisting through the crowd toward us, her skin dewy and the ends of her hair damp.
Shelby Gray was the yang to Luna’s yin. Where Luna’s white-blond hair cascaded down her back like a Barbie doll, Shelby’s was short, jet black, and kind of spiky. Luna was pale while Shelby was olive toned. Luna was soft, almost ghostly. Shelby was tough, muscular, loud. Most of all, she didn’t share Luna’s serpent eyes. But hers were almost worse—so dark they looked flat black, like something you’d find under the grim reaper’s hood.
The only quality they shared—other than bitchiness, of course—was affluence. Had you not known that Shelby was a designer’s closet waiting to happen every second of every day, you might have thought the so-called punk girl was wearing her Valentino ironically. Rich little punk girl. Too bad Peyton did it first. Shelby was just a follower. But something told me she would not like to hear that.
“Oh, hey, Nikki, you know Shelby, right?” Vee said.
Shelby smirked at me in a way that told me she knew everything that had gone down between Luna and me, down to the very last detail, and that she didn’t like me any more than her friend did. Her eyes narrowed daringly.
I refused to break eye contact. “Yeah, we’ve crossed paths,” I said. I offered Shelby a similar smirk. “How’s Luna?” My heart skipped a beat at the mention of her name.
Shelby’s smile deepened. “I wouldn’t know.”
“Yeah. Of course not,” I said.
Ka-pow! An orange burst into pieces in my mind, the entrails turning bumpy gray and black like asphalt as they rolled away.
“So Gib doesn’t want to take too long,” Shelby said to Vee. “He’s convinced people will start leaving the minute the music ends because this party is so lame.” She rolled her eyes and gestured toward the drinkers. “I mean, it’s coolers in a field.”
“I don’t know,” Vee said, scanning the crowd. “Seems pretty amped to me. I’m not worried.”
Shelby shrugged and walked back toward the stage. “Just the messenger,” she said.
She started to turn, but for some reason I couldn’t let her go. Something about her. She knew more than she was ever going to let on. “You don’t know anything about how my stuff keeps ending up in weird places, do you?” I asked, though I could barely feel my mouth moving at all.
Instead of turning toward the stage, she turned to me. The smile came back. A drop of sweat rolled down the front of her neck. “I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”
“What’s up?” Vee asked, her voice sounding funny, curious, her signature flintiness gone.
I didn’t answer. I closed the space between us, so close I could almost feel the dampness radiating off Shelby’s skin. “Listen, I could go to prison for the rest of my life if Luna’s successful in framing me. You and Luna are friends. If you know something, I’d suggest you tell me now. Because I won’t let it go. And I won’t leave you alone. I will follow you so hard you’ll start to think I’m part of your wardrobe.”
Another place where Shelby and Luna differed—in indifference. Luna wouldn’t have batted an eye in the face of my threats. Her blood would have cooled and slowed until she was almost cadaver-like. Shelby tried to be that person, but I could see her top lip tense, even though she made a valiant effort to maintain her shitty smile. She swallowed, licked her lips. “All I know is that last time she called me from juvie, she told me you were going to be out of her hair forever soon, and that she had some guy making sure that happened.”
“Guy? What guy?”
She gave an annoyed head shake. “I don’t know. Does it matter?”
“Yes, it fucking matters!”
Vee stepped between us. “Come on, you guys,” she said, her hand on each of our shoulders. “Let’s not do anything stupid, okay? This is a good gig and I don’t want to get invited to leave. You get me?”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” I was too focused on Shelby to heed Vee.
“Okay, let’s go,” Vee said, placing her hand on my chest and walking me backward away from Shelby. “Time to cool off.” She whispered, “You can’t kill my lead singer. We just got her.”
Shelby’s black eyes bored into me as I backed away from her. “You and I are hardly besties, Nikki Kill. I wasn’t there. I don’t know who did what. Besides, I don’t care if you go to jail or not.”
“You have to tell someone!” I shout
ed. People were starting to stare now.
Shelby pursed her lips and furrowed her eyebrows, as if she were thinking it over. “No, I really don’t. How am I supposed to know who’s telling the truth? I just want to stay out of it.”
The only thing I was aware of in that moment was the rusty starbursts that flickered in the back of my mind, flint striking stone. Ragemonster, rust, ragemonster, rust, like a flashing neon sign.
Vee continued pushing me away from Shelby. “Come on,” she said. “I see Jones.”
Vee shoved me toward Jones, who was two-fisting beers already. He slung an arm around my shoulder, finally relaxed—just when I was kaleidoscoping my way into full-on panicky rage.
People began cheering, jabbing the air with their fists, ready to dance some more. Slate and mint green muted the orange, all of it pulsating in my mind, making me want to run away or drink or do . . . something.
“Come on, Jones, I don’t feel well,” I said, ducking his arm. I tugged on his shirt.
“Not yet, baby. Let’s hang out for a while. Have you met my new friend Doug?” He pointed, but “Doug” had taken off as the band warmed up again, leaving Jones pointing to empty space. He cracked up. “I swear he was just there.” He tried for my shoulder again, and I moved away from him.
The band cranked up a few disjointed notes, and Shelby screamed into the microphone, “You guys ready to blow this shit out or what?” The crowd cheered in response. Jones cheered next to me, slopping his beer down my arm. Neon green started to mute the other colors, and I pressed my fingers against the bridge of my nose.
“Jones, I really have a headache now. Can we go?”
He looked irritated but finally nodded. “Let me finish my beer first?”
I sighed. “Okay, whatever.”
I shoved my hands into my back pockets and tried to relax.
Something was missing.
The camera card. Shit. I had put it in my back pocket after my photos were printed at the pharmacy. I felt my back and front pockets. Empty. I turned a circle, scanning the ground for it, hoping that maybe I’d somehow dropped it right at my feet. But it wasn’t there. Shit, shit, shit. I gazed into the crowd. I must have lost it in there. And if that was the case, I was never going to get it back, because the last thing I wanted to do was plunge back into that pulsing crowd.
Well, at least I’d had the photos developed. Not that they’d done me any good anyway.
But still. Losing that card was making this shitty party even shittier. My head felt like it was going to explode into colorful confetti.
I focused on Vee, who was fiddling with her bass the same way Gibson had been during the break. Her hair, stringy without her signature dreads, fell over her face, completely obstructing it. Gibson gazed out into the crowd, pausing for a moment when he saw me, his jaw squaring. He strummed one downstroke on his guitar loudly. “Okay,” Vee said, coming back to the microphone. “Let’s start this half with an oldie but goodie.” She pressed her lips into the microphone. The crowd hooted and cheered. “It’s a little song called ‘Black Daisy.’”
Seth clicked his sticks together and they took off.
I froze, my heart sinking.
“Black Daisy” was an old Viral Fanfare song.
One that Peyton had written.
Luna might be everywhere.
But so was Peyton.
So was my sister.
15
JONES WAS PLANNING to spend the next day dorm shopping with his mom—a totally Jones thing to do, and another piece of evidence that we were the wrong two people to be together. Ever.
But the way he’d held me last night after leaving the party. The way he’d murmured in my ear that he could feel me shaking. The way he’d assured me he would protect me. I hadn’t believed any of it—for all his muscles on top of muscles, Jones was just too nice to fight his way out of a paper bag—but it was sweet.
Sweet pissed me off. Sweet was Tootsie Rolls dropped in a puddle of blood. Sweet was the way my dad pined after my mom, forever empty.
Sweet was vulnerable.
In my world, vulnerable people got dead.
Pink, primary blue.
I sat up in bed. Dead was crimson. Why was I suddenly thinking pink and primary blue?
I’d seen them, that was why. At the cemetery. Gone 2 soon. B. Pink, primary blue.
But I’d also seen those colors before that.
Suddenly I was struck with a memory. Far, far back, so far I wasn’t sure if it was real.
I was eight, wandering through the jungle of plants and flowers at the front of the funeral parlor. Running my fingers along petals and leaves, toeing terra-cotta pots and plastic buckets and pedestals, leaning in to sniff a carnation or rose here and there, reading tags filled with names that were meaningless to me.
God bless you, Milo, and little Nikki, too. The Simons
Praying for your healing. Marge and Tony Elgin
May you be comforted in your time of need. Selma
I didn’t care about those flowers, or the people who’d sent them. But spending time focusing on them meant I wasn’t spending that time focused on Mom, waxy and pale and slack-faced, looking nothing like Mom, five feet away. Or Dad, who looked like he had the flu, unshaven and uncomfortable in his navy suit, standing right next to Mom’s casket, his hands folded in front of him as people came to hug him and tell him how sorry they were.
I’d said good-bye to Mom, in my mind. I’d cried a million tears. I’d had nightmares about what I’d walked in on the day she was murdered. I couldn’t close my eyes without jerking upright with a shriek. She was gone. I’d seen it with my own eyes. I could never unsee it for as long as I lived.
But if I approached that casket, if I said good-bye to her there—it would mean she was really dead, and I wasn’t ready to face that yet.
In some ways, I still wasn’t ready to face that, even though she’d been gone for ten years. In some ways, I was still shrieking my way out of sleep.
Please call if you need anything. Sam and Peter B.
She will be greatly missed.—The Entire Team at Angry Elephant Productions
A pale-green ceramic vase filled with crème de la crème roses and white lilies. Rest in peace—Dorothy Frank.
A tall blue glass vase filled with pink azaleas and African violets. God bless. Becca, John, and Lilly Marks.
Pots full of leafy plants that I knew to be peace lilies from when Mom’s mom died. Gus Bernard. Sara & Liam. The Cork Family. Your friends at Flight Fitness.
And behind them all, tucked almost into a corner, lonely and unadorned, a basket filled with a collection of crayon-colored flowers. Roses, lilies, asters, chrysanthemums. Wrapped around the stems, a note.
GONE 2 SOON.
B
Pink 2. Primary blue B. At the time, I hadn’t even wondered who “B” was. I had simply noted that it was the only arrangement that didn’t include a full name. But it was no more familiar to me than any of those other names. “B” could have stood for Brenda or Betty or Belinda or Barbara or Bettina.
Or Brandi.
Brandi Courteur.
God. Her again. I glanced at my desk, at the bottom drawer where Peyton’s letter waited for me.
“I can’t find her, okay?” I said aloud, as if Peyton could hear me. As if saying I can’t made it truer than I don’t know if I want to.
DAD WAS IN his office, cropping photos on his computer. This time his model was an absolutely gorgeous guy with dark hair and sparkling green eyes.
“Wow, who is this?” I asked, leaning over Dad’s shoulder.
“Jace,” he said. “Trying to break into the soap opera business, of all things. I thought that business was dead.”
I imagined the guy making out with some busty temptress, lit candles and a bubble bath in the background. “I can totally see it,” I said.
Dad saved the photo and pulled up another one, equally as perfect. “So what are you up to today?” he asked, sounding distracted.<
br />
“I thought I’d hang out with you for a while, then go work out.” I sat on the edge of his worktable and picked up an eraser.
He scrolled down, expertly trimming the photo. “I’m afraid I won’t be much company. I promised Jace I’d have these to him tomorrow.”
“Can I deliver them?” I teased. “Just to be helpful, of course. I’ll try my hardest to keep him from falling in love with me and swearing off all other women and ruining his soap career. Pinkie swear.”
Dad barely glanced at me. “Very funny.”
“I can at least help you clean up a little, like I promised,” I said, sliding off the table and going to the other side of the room, where his disastrous desk sat. I began picking up papers and sorting them—bills, invoices, printed emails, shit so old nobody would even know what it was. If he’d had a wife, this mess probably would have been cleaned up long ago.
Truth was, I was looking for anything to do that would take my mind off the Hollis mess. While I worked, I idly talked to Dad about Jace, about photography, about anything other than Luna Fairchild or anything Hollis.
I worked until I saw a desk under the clutter, and then moved on to the drawers, bundling up pencils and pens, winding rubber bands into a ball, dropping paper clips back into their smashed boxes. If it was broken, I threw it away. If it was so old it was yellowed, I threw it away. If it belonged to a camera he didn’t own anymore, I threw it away. Soon I had most of a trash bag full of junk.
“You’re going to be so happy to get all this crap out of here,” I said. “See? It’s a good thing I’m not going to college—who else would do this for you?”
Dare You Page 11
