by Sonia Hartl
She pulled back and blinked at me. “Wow.”
“Yeah. That was …” I had no words for what that was. I’d never felt every single one of my nerve endings all at once before. It overwhelmed my senses. “Should we do it again?”
A smile curved her lips, and I groaned as she took my mouth again. She flipped me around, surprisingly strong for someone so small, or maybe I’d just gone weak and pliable. My back hit the cinder-block wall. Rough brick bit into my skin as she pushed her hips against me, and I moved as if I’d never get close enough. My entire body burned. If I caught fire right then, I seriously doubted I would care. Her fingers teased the hem of my sweater, and I kissed her harder, wordlessly begging her to put her hands on me.
The doorknob turned, and we instantly broke apart. Parker’s hair looked like she’d ridden in the back of a pick-up truck over wild country roads. Her sweater hung off one shoulder, and she breathed heavily through her swollen lips. I imagined I must’ve been in a similar state. From kissing. If we had taken it any further, I had a feeling we would’ve torn each other apart.
She absolutely had the power to be the end of me.
Stacey rushed into the room, slammed the door, and leaned against it. “We have to go. I followed the big dude, but Elton recognized me, and now he has some girl with mean eyes and bad hair trailing me.” Gwen. She’d torture Stacey for days. We couldn’t stay here.
“Don’t tell Elton anything. Act like everything is normal between the two of you.” I gave Parker an apologetic look. “We’ll …”
What could I say? We’ll pick this up later? I’ll call you? None of that would work. We wouldn’t work. This had been wrong, all of it. I was supposed to be protecting her, not hooking up with her. This made everything a thousand times more complicated.
“It’s fine. Go.” She seemed to have the same thought as me. “We’ll talk later.” I turned to go, but she grabbed my hand and pulled a pen out of her back pocket. She scribbled down her address, like I’d done to her with mine. “There. Now you know where I live too. My mom mostly works second and third shifts, if you ever want to stop by.”
“Okay.” I said it as casually as possible, even with my heart hammering in my chest. Going to her house wouldn’t be a good idea. We had to stop this before we really got started.
Even though it wouldn’t stop me from wanting to feel her lips on mine again.
Chapter Sixteen
After we ducked into a storage closet to avoid Gwen, we managed to sneak back out of the school without a confrontation. I had to believe Parker would be safe, as long as she continued to see the truth about Elton. I knew how smooth he could be, though.
“You have a goofy look on your face.” A strong gust of wind blew Stacey’s scarf into her face, and she swatted it away. “What happened?”
“Nothing happened.” Something had definitely happened.
I touched a finger to my tingling lips, where I could still feel the press of Parker’s mouth against mine. It had been different than Elton’s kisses. His had been firm and demanding, like I owed him something. Parker’s had been like a question she let me answer. It had been wild and frenzied, but also sweet and a little insecure. It had been real. Kissing Parker had been what I’d always imagined kissing was supposed to be like.
“You can trust me, you know. Even though I have zero interest in romance, you can still talk to me about that kind of stuff.” Stacey’s mouth formed a downward slash, and her thin eyebrows pinched together. Her signature annoyed face. At least one thing hadn’t changed in thirty years. “I’m putting my neck out here for you.”
“I’m not ready to talk about it yet.” Parker and I couldn’t go anywhere. Our entire plan to kill Elton revolved around keeping her mortal, but I’d always know what it felt like to kiss as if it were my last, and I’d never settle for less again. “And neck puns are beneath you. We’ve got to go that way.” I pointed to the left, in the direction of the library. Rose and Ida needed to know Frankie hadn’t sold us out.
“Okay.” Stacey rubbed a hand against her heart. “When you want to talk, I’m here.”
It almost sounded like she cared, and I didn’t know whether or not to trust it, so we walked in silence.
Everything had changed. Once upon a time I could’ve walked these streets blindfolded, but now every corner held reminders that I no longer belonged here. The ice cream shop where we used to get slushies after school was a bank. The convenience store that had been family owned was now a Walgreens.
Stacey nodded to Bab’s Bakery, which was miraculously still in business. “Remember when we made that bet with Bab?”
I smiled at the memory. Bab had been in her seventies back then, she was probably dead now, but she made the best glazed doughnuts. Made to order, so they were always hot. Stacey once bet her that the two of us could eat four orders—forty-eight doughnuts—in one sitting. If we won, she’d put our picture on the wall and give us free doughnuts for a year.
We both ended up puking in a bucket after our ninth doughnuts. But it inspired Bab to start the Forty-Eight, giving challengers forty-eight minutes to eat forty-eight doughnuts. The winner got free doughnuts for a year, their picture on the wall, and a T-shirt. I peeked in the windows as we passed. New pictures had been added since the last time I’d been there, but it was nice to see that some things stayed the same.
I stuck my tongue out. “Please tell me that’s not our living legacy.”
“Nope. I found our real legacy a few months ago.” Stacey crossed the street and motioned for me to follow.
We cut through an alley next to an auto body shop, through the tall grass growing behind it, until we came to a dirt field covered in scraggy weeds. Tucked next to a short bush with a few clinging red leaves sat a cracked brown bench. Years of initials and signatures had been scratched into the sun-weathered surface.
I walked around the impromptu campsite. A firepit, crushed beer cans, and fast-food wrappers littered the area. “Is that …?”
“It’s the bench from the dollar theater.” Stacey clasped her hands under her chin. “They tore the theater down twenty years ago. I have no idea how this got all the way out here, but I found it when I first started wandering around town.”
I touched the place I’d carved with a safety pin. HOLLY + STACEY BFF4EVER. It had faded with time and damage, barely visible anymore, but my fingers still found the grooves in the plastic. “God, remember how we used to live there?”
We didn’t even like half the movies we saw there, but it was something to do in our sleepy town. We’d get frozen Cokes, split the smallest bag of popcorn, and kick our feet up on the back of threadbare chairs while we added our own commentary to the worst releases of the year. Another series of memories I’d be losing forever.
“That’s how I knew we were meant to be friends,” Stacey said. “Even when the movies were bad, I still had the most fun watching them, because I was with you.”
“Why did you sit with me at lunch? That first day in eighth grade?” Sure, Stacey had been new, and I had an empty table in the lunchroom, but she’d been warned to stay away from me. She sat with me anyway.
“Because you were alone, and you looked like you didn’t want to be.”
It had really been that simple for her, to sit with someone who needed a friend, and screw whatever everyone else thought. I’d never been that kind of brave. My whole life, I’d always cared too much about what other people thought. Starting with my mom, then the kids who bullied me all through school, and eventually Elton. I let their opinions of me color the opinions I had of myself, and when they decided I hadn’t been worth much, I let them convince me it was true.
“I never did thank you for that,” I said. “For outcasting yourself.”
“That’s not something I want thanks for.” Stacey hugged her chest as she stared across the barren field. “It wasn’t a hardship to be your friend, Holly. It didn’t require a sacrifice on my part to care about you. After all this time, is t
hat still how you see yourself?”
“Maybe. Not on purpose.” I thought I’d come a long way since my days of pining over Elton and letting his moods dictate my feelings, but apparently I still had work to do. “I’ve only recently gotten past thinking I didn’t need anyone. It might be a minute yet before I accept that people might need me.”
Stacey nodded, staying quiet for a while, before she said, “I’m sorry I left the night you turned me. I was angry for a long time, but then I missed you, and I didn’t know how to tell you that. I wish I’d been there for you when he left.”
I wished I’d been there for her too. The first few weeks after Elton left me had been terrifying. I didn’t know where I’d end up, what I’d do once I got there, or when I’d be up and forced to leave again without warning. And Stacey had been living through the same fears. Alone. For over thirty years. I’d been so focused on the night everything went wrong and the implosion of our friendship, I didn’t stop to think of all the ways I should be supporting her now. If I kept shutting her out, would I be any better than Elton? I owed her more than that.
“I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you when you tried to warn me, and I’m sorry I didn’t leave Elton the moment he revealed himself to be a monster.” I thought saying the words would only make them weigh more and be more difficult to accept, but I felt lighter as I let that part of my past go. “I’ll never be sorry I saved your life, though.”
“I’m not entirely sorry you saved my life, either.” Stacey took her scarf off. “I’m really sorry about this neck situation, though.”
The corners of my lips quirked. I fought very hard to keep a straight face, but I couldn’t hold it back any more. Tears pricked the corners of my eyes as I let out a horrible cackle. It was so wrong and awful, but I couldn’t stop laughing.
Stacey retied her scarf, navy blue stitched with tiny silver stars. “It’s fucking hilarious.”
“I know it’s not funny.” I held out my palms, still laughing. “But I swear I didn’t know your neck would stay that way.”
“Obviously. I’ll never forget the look on your face when I rose from the dead.” She sniffed as she tried to hang on to some of her dignity. “Anyway, I brought you out here because this bench meant something to us. Those shitty dollar movies meant something to us. And I never forgot. You made me mad as hell when you let Elton become the center of everything, after he told you that your life wasn’t good enough, but I still loved you.”
I grinned at her, and the years between us became a thin mist I could almost—almost—reach my hand through and touch the living girls we used to be. “I love you too. Even when you act like you stepped out of a Vincent Price movie.”
“I knew you wouldn’t let that go.” She rolled her eyes. “I did it the first time as a joke, but after I’d been on my own for so long, it was nice being around people who thought I was something special.”
I thought back to all the time I spent alone in my awful motel room, thinking that was as good as it was going to get for me. “I can understand why that would have appeal. Still a weird way to go about it, though.”
“Shut up.” She gave me a playful shove.
We cut through the same alley, and I glanced back at the bench. My living legacy, left to rot in this barren field that would probably be a gas station in the next thirty years. Seemed fitting. We crossed the street and walked the rest of the way to the library, which was tucked next to the bank where I opened my first account, back when I thought I’d have money one day.
We approached the table where Ida and Rose had a dozen books spread out. Ida tapped away on her tablet, while Rose was so buried in a book, her nose touched the pages. “Did you find anything to make you think Frankie lied?”
Rose looked up. “No. But I didn’t really expect to. It took us twenty years to find out we needed to destroy our heirlooms and the list of death plants to burn with them.”
I slammed my hands on the table. “It doesn’t matter, because Frankie didn’t tell Elton we were looking for our heirloom. Parker did, by accident. So I think we can trust what he told us.”
“Thank God.” Rose slammed her thick book shut. “Does this mean we’ll have to kill Parker after all? Such a shame. She was a nice girl.”
My heart leaped to my throat, even though I was half certain Rose was joking. “She overheard one of us mention the heirlooms when she was drunk, so she asked Elton about them. That’s what tipped him off. It was an honest mistake that could’ve been avoided if we’d been more careful with our conversations.”
“It also could’ve been avoided if she hadn’t told us she blacked out,” Ida said.
Touché.
“Either way, it’s done. Elton knows. But Frankie was loyal.” Which made me feel really bad about tearing out his eyeballs. That couldn’t have been pleasant. “We should decide how we’re going to use him, because I don’t think he’ll stand in our way.”
“Let’s go back to the apartment,” Rose said. “There is too much being said in the open.”
The four of us took the bus. Ida and Stacey sat at opposite ends and took bets on who could make the most people uncomfortable. Ida nearly had her beat, but then Stacey took off her scarf, and when an old man puked in the aisle, it was game over.
Back at the apartment, someone had kicked in the door. They had spattered Ida’s brain-o’-lantern against the inside walls, leaving a grayish sludge sticking to every surface. Rose’s ceramics had been pushed to the floor. Glass shards cut her hands as she scooped them up and held them against her chest. Her photo album had been ripped to shreds. I picked up a torn picture of Rose, the 1954 laugh frozen on her face. All the books I’d brought with me had been ripped apart and tossed around. Including the library ones, which pissed me off even more. Following the path of destruction, I checked both bedrooms. All the bedsheets had been sliced, and the closets completely emptied out, with the contents flung everywhere.
The only place I’d been able to call home since I died. Completely destroyed.
“Bastard.” Ida punched a hole in the wall. “This was so unnecessary. Did he really think we’d leave our heirlooms lying around?”
“No.” Rose shook her head as she picked up pieces of her album, holding her black-and-white memories in one hand while her other bled and healed as she clutched shards of colored glass. Everything she had been, the last fragments of her living self, ruined beyond repair. “He knows we’d keep them on us. This was a warning.”
“He’s throwing a temper tantrum because we got the best of him at the graveyard,” I said. If Frankie and Gwen hadn’t been there, he might’ve let it go. But Elton couldn’t stand to lose face. He’d consider this fair retribution.
“What if he comes back and takes one of us?” Ida clenched her jaw, no doubt thinking of all the ways Gwen would make her suffer for days on end, just for fun.
Stacey put her arm over my shoulders and squeezed. “Grab your stuff. All of you. I know my house isn’t as nice as this place, but it’s secluded. You’re all welcome to stay.”
It was a nice gesture, but I just wanted to curl into a ball and hug every inch of this apartment to my heart. This was ours. We’d made this into someplace we could be without him, where we could put our broken pieces together and make something whole.
“Come on, Holly.” Stacey gave me a little nudge. “It won’t be so bad, staying at my house again, will it?” A trickle of doubt cracked her voice. As if she was afraid I’d say no. How many nights had shadow memories haunted her in that house?
Ida hesitated but gave a short nod and disappeared into her bedroom. Rose soon came out of her room with her suitcase and mine. I went out to the balcony, hoping to find a few flowers for Rose to take with her, but they’d all been smashed and shredded. Elton knew exactly where to hit hardest. Without another option, we headed back to the other side of town.
Chapter Seventeen
Stacey opened the front door. The creaking hinges set off the neighborhood dogs, and
a pane of glass slid out of a window, shattering on the front porch. Home sweet home. In the main room, Stacey’s loyal followers, sad kids in black, were sprawled out everywhere. Like human roaches, they emotionally suckled off the filth and dreary atmosphere.
“Attention.” Stacey gave a single clap. With a change in posture, she had gone from the girl who had seen Pretty in Pink five times in the theater to a discount Dracula. “I have invited a council to join us this evening. Initiation begins in five minutes in the basement.”
The six teens scrambled to their feet, tripping over one another as they shoved their way toward the basement entrance. All over the opportunity to die. They were so hungry for it, for the beauty they thought came with immortality. They had no idea how ugly it could be. The scent of their desperation snapped in the air. They’d probably taste gamy, like deer and bark.
A girl with two lip rings and fishnet gloves hesitated at the door. She pulled her store-bought black hair over her shoulder as she examined the four of us with fear glazing her eyes. The promise of immortality no longer appeared as appealing when staring down actual death. She had a chance to change direction. To live fully. She looked at me, and I mouthed, “Run.” With a final glance at Stacey, she booked it through the sliding glass door and disappeared.
“Smart girl.” Stacey gazed out the open slider like a proud mother bird who had just pushed a baby out of the nest. “I always did like Alyssa. It would’ve been a shame to eat her. Make yourselves comfortable while I deal with the others.”
The metallic scent of rust and standing water wafted up from the basement as she headed down the stairs, which groaned with each step she took. I was surprised they hadn’t rotted out completely. The five teens who had clamored to get down there probably shook with anticipation, thinking they’d soon be joining the ranks of the undead.
Poor things. What a terrible place to die.
Ida dumped her suitcase by the front door. She stepped on the carpet, and it crunched beneath the pressure. Her delicate nostrils flared as she sniffed the air. “Good God, it’s even worse than I remembered.”
