Present Day . . . Pleasant Valley, New York
“ . . . Happy birthday to . . . YOUUU!”
Marcy Delgado, my best friend since kindergarten, hit an unrestrained, opera-style final note that cost half my hearing.
We stood in the middle of my dim bedroom. In one hand, Marcy balanced a plate of eighteen strawberry-frosted cupcakes with eighteen black candles. In the other, she held my phone, where a video chat with my parents illuminated the screen. We’d had a big celebration last weekend as a family before they left for their vacation.
I kept assuring them it didn’t matter when or if we even celebrated.
In fact, I would have preferred that we hadn’t at all.
Because tonight, October 20, on my actual birthday, those eighteen candles kindled with the promise that everything would change. Soon it would be time to grow up and grow out of Pleasant Valley. I was not ready. Not when I didn’t feel confident in my own skin. Not when I didn’t know where I fit in, or even who I was, no matter how hard I tried to figure it out. My mood wilted a little at these melancholy thoughts.
“Make a wish already, you old fart!” Dad shouted through the phone.
My smile sprang up and we all laughed. I shut my eyes, inhaled, and plunged the room into darkness with one wish: I want to know who I am.
The lights came back up and I spent the next few minutes catching up with my parents. They were away on a once-in-a-lifetime trip that I’d had to push them into taking. My mother had been determined to stay home for my birthday, but I’d really wanted them to go. I loved that they were able to get away, just the two of them, for the first time since their honeymoon twenty-two years ago. I’d have many more birthdays.
After the call, Marcy continued to get ready for the Halloween party while I did some finishing touches on a painting. Even though my parents were cool about most things, they had a strict rule of no drinking or going to parties where alcohol would be served.
Normally, I was the goody-two-shoes child that they never had to worry about. Tonight had to be different. Hey, I would only turn eighteen once.
Marcy turned in the mirror to look at her backside in her go-go dancer costume. “Be honest, how does my butt look?”
I set down my paintbrush and reached for a cupcake on the nightstand beside me. “Pancake,” I replied jokingly and licked the strawberry frosting.
“Pancake? Now, that’s just rude.” Marcy came rushing out of the bathroom to rant further about her butt, but I couldn’t rip my attention away from the painting in front of me. “Earth to Faith? My ass is flat, this is an emergency! Fix my pancake!”
A pair of almond-shaped mismatched green eyes glared scathingly from the canvas. Their pupils shimmered with catlike vertical slits. Smoke draped upward like the candles I blew out moments ago.
Marcy scrutinized the painting. “Hot,” she quipped. “I wish I could paint like you, I’ve always been jealous. I’m also jealous of your butt . . . okay, now back to me. Do you think I’d add mass to my glutes if I ate another cupcake?” She padded across the floor and started unwrapping one of my birthday cupcakes with her pink gel nails. “I mean, you eat these all the time, and you’re skinny and have a big booty. It’s totally unfair . . . ”
In my head, a lightbulb came on. I swapped my paintbrush for a pencil and began to trace a cupcake on the canvas I’d been working on. My hand moved in another direction on its own, transforming the cupcake into an eye. I battled my right hand with my left, trying to regain control. I couldn’t. I could never stop my hand from completing these paintings.
Finally, the pencil stopped, and I tossed it backward over my shoulder. Good thing Marcy was bending down to pick up the cupcake wrapper, or the pencil would have speared her in the head.
“Oh my God!” I shouted.
Marcy jumped up with a shriek, covering her ass with both hands. “What? Is my butt really that bad?”
“No, not that.” I rubbed at my temples, glancing shamefully at the stack of canvases in the corner of the room. Identical unfinished portraits of violent mismatched eyes and various paintings of the same willow tree.
Standing up, I tossed my paint-splattered apron over my most recent creation and spun the easel around, nearly knocking it over.
Marcy touched my shoulder. “You good?”
“Slap me,” I demanded, grabbing Marcy’s manicured hand.
“Don’t hold back. Slap me as hard as you can.”
Marcy shrank back. “I’m not going to slap you!”
“Slap me, dang it, I’m losing it!”
“Oh, I agree,” Marcy said, crossing her arms. “Whose eyes are those? This is the third time I’ve watched you paint them.” A sly smirk lined her glossy lips as her concern melted away. “Faith Williams, is there a new man you haven’t told me about?”
There was no possible way I could tell her the truth without sounding like a lunatic. Heck, I couldn’t logically explain it myself.
“No, no, it’s . . . a character I created. I’m sorry, I’m acting like a total weirdo. I’ve been so stressed out lately.” To put it mildly.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Nah, it’s no big deal.” I shook my head. “I should start getting ready.”
What I loved most about Marcy was she knew when not to press. As I started to clean up my paints, she took another peek at the painting from under the apron. I caught sight of those eyes again, and an unnerving sensation inched its way down my spine. I hurried to the bathroom to splash water on my face and clear my head.
“Whoever you keep trying to paint, he’s looking pretty sexy,”
Marcy called from the bedroom. I turned the water on low enough to hear her appraisal. “I love his stare. It repels, yet allures.”
“Repels, yet allures? You okay out there, Jane Austen?”
“Jane who? And those man-lashes are killer. Yep, those eyes could definitely do some damage. He’s going to rip out your soul.”
I shut the water off. Heart racing, I poked my head back into the room. “What did you say?”
Marcy turned over her shoulder with a curling iron in her hair.
“I said those eyes could do some damage. You sure you’re okay?”
I questioned my sanity for the umpteenth time that day. “I’m fine.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t go to this costume party after all, Faith.”
The black lace dress on my bed sat there taunting me. I picked it up, holding it against my body as I stood in front of the full-length mirror. My inner introvert wanted nothing more than to stay home tonight, but this was my senior year, and my birthday. I didn’t want to graduate an antisocial loser.
“I need to go out and get my mind off things,” I decided.
Marcy observed me like a science experiment.
“Pretty sure something’s going on with you,” she said. “I won’t ask, eventually you’ll spill the jelly beans.” She applied a finishing touch to her mascara in front of my vanity. “What’s with Hottie’s different-colored eyes? One eye’s an electric lime color and the other is a forest-y green. It’s some sort of genetic thing, right? Oh, we learned about it in that class!” She started snapping as if it would help her recall. “You know the class where I copied your answers on the quizzes?”
“That’s every class we’ve taken together, Marcy.”
“Have I mentioned how beautiful, talented, and intelligent you are?” She reached out to me with her mascara wand. “Love me?”
I forced a laugh the best I could. Thinking about those eyes took away my sense of humor.
“The condition is called complete heterochromia,” I said, drifting off again. “The mismatched-eyes thing. Sometimes it’s genetic, sometimes it’s caused by injury. It’s very rare.” I distanced myself from the canvases and moved in front of the vanity.
“Ah, right. We learned that in bone class with Mr. Garcia. The sexiest teacher in school.” Her hazel eyes went dreamy.
Smiling, I brushed out my long, straight jet-black hair, and then whipped out my makeup bag to do my eye shadow. On my bed behind me, the black lace dress mocked me. Jeans and a T-shirt with a few costume accessories seemed fine to wear to the party. Who the hell did I need to impress?
“Anatomy,” I said, zipping up my makeup bag. “The class is called anatomy. Maybe if you paid attention in school, you’d at least get the names of the courses right.”
Marcy shot me a look. “Cranky much? It’s hard to focus on anything in class when I’m busy staring at Garcia’s anatomy. You should try it sometime, instead of reading ahead of the homework every week like a chronic dweeb.”
“Remind me not to let you copy my answers ever again.”
“Hey, it’s not my fault insults are our second most fluent language.”
I snapped my fingers and pointed them at her with finger guns.
“Right below sarcasm.”
“Trueee,” Marcy said. “Rumor has it there might be a hot shot celebrity at Thomas’s house, so we should probably get going soon.
Parking could get annoying.”
A celebrity in Pleasant Valley meant the whole town probably knew about it already. Thomas’s dad knew a ton of A-list celebrities, so it didn’t come as too much of a shock. “Who’s the celebrity?” I asked.
“No clue,” Marcy said. “All I heard is he’s around our age and taking a gap year before college.”
Driving into the rich part of town with my beat-up car was bad enough; now there was a mystery celebrity making an appearance, likely in a fancy limo to further humiliate my ride.
Picking up the skimpy black lace dress, I huffed out an annoyed breath. I looked down at my typical everyday outfit of ripped black skinny jeans and a band T-shirt and compared it to Marcy’s costume.
She wore an electric pink dress with long bell-shaped sleeves and high-knee white leather boots. The bright material of the dress clung to her lean, powerful volleyball player frame, and her push-up bra accentuated her cleavage. Marcy lived on the divide between the elite and the aver-age family households of Pleasant Valley, but since her grandfather was filthy rich, she got an invite to parties with lower-listed celebrities all the time. But an A-lister? This was all totally out of my comfort zone.
“What’s wrong with what I have on again?” I asked.
“Nothing’s wrong with what you have on. You’re beautiful. To me. Your best friend. Who’s a girl. Guys are a species driven by visuals. If you don’t show enough skin, you’re practically invisible.”
Marcy crossed the room, faux leather squeaking with each stride as she disappeared into my closet. “Your legs are one of your best assets, and they need to be unleashed!” She threw a pair of heels at me that I had forgotten I’d bought. “Also, I say this constructively.
Tone it down with the gothic makeup tonight. Makes you look mean.”
Marcy had long balayage brown hair and a beautiful caramel skin tone. Compared to her sun goddess perfection, I was a cave-dwelling vampire. I didn’t consider myself “gothic,” but my wardrobe was basically all black, and I did have a pale complexion. My recent obsession with dark lipsticks, smoky eyes, and occult symbols didn’t help diffuse any goth labels at school.
“I’m dressing up as an evil witch,” I said. “I’m supposed to look mean.”
Marcy sighed. “Fine. Live the rest of your life with twenty cats, just like old lady Kravitz next door!”
I reached over and flicked her arm. “Hey! Ms. Kravitz is a sweetheart! Those cats were all strays!”
Marcy cackled. “The truth hurts.”
Seething, I dug through my makeup bag for my eyeliner. “I’m not changing who I am because you’re convinced it’ll get me a hookup. You know I hate this ‘dress up for a guy’ stuff.”
“It’s a Halloween party, Faith,” Marcy deadpanned. “Everyone is someone else tonight.”
“You know what I mean. If a guy is into me strictly because of my legs, boobs, or butt, then he’s not the guy for me. What happened to chivalry anyway?”
“It’s dead. Listen, I get what you’re saying but that mentality won’t get you laid.”
“Marcy!”
“Hey, I’m being honest. You’re great with school, and I’m great with guys. Now, do you want to make out with a hot guy tonight or what?” When I didn’t reply she repeated, “Or what, girl?”
The embarrassment of not having been kissed weighed on me.
I know, melodramatic, sue me. Losing my V card to a stranger or a boy I barely knew was totally out of the question. An innocent kiss, however, that was achievable, even though I’d always wanted to make sure it was right for me. At this point, I wanted to get it over with.
Marcy was right. Men did find me intimidating and deep down, that made me insecure.
This was my senior year, damn it. I could push my pride and morals aside for one night.
“Fine, you win.”
Hissing jokingly at Marcy, I stomped off into the bathroom with the dress—a sexy number with a 1950s edge to it. The bodice was lacy, the waist pinched close to my ribs, and the skirt was short and fanned out without being too puffy like a prom dress. If I bent over, my underwear would show. Not that I was going to be doing any bending over. The heels Marcy selected were modest, leather, and only two inches off the ground, just the way I liked them.
Securing my witch hat, I looked up at myself in the mirror and sighed.
It was official. Halloween had shifted from an innocent contest of who could collect the most candy in their pillowcase by midnight to who could wear the sexiest, skimpiest costume.
And I was winning.
Marcy cupped her hands over her mouth to hype me up. “Okay, legs for days! Aren’t you a snack and a half? You look hot!”
“You think so? How does my butt look?” I shook myself. “Never mind. Tonight, I leave my first kiss to fate. If it happens, it happens.
Don’t try and hook me up, and don’t try getting me drunk because I’m driving home. Last week’s incident proved you can’t be trusted.
I still can’t believe you drove wasted to get a greasy cheeseburger at three in the morning.”
“It was one time!”
“One time is all it takes. It’s not the first time you’ve done something stupid because of Tommy.” As soon as it came tumbling out, I regretted it. Pain pooled in Marcy’s eyes at the mention of her ex-boyfriend, Thomas Gregory. Who, by the way, was the host of the party we were attending. With his deep-blue eyes, blond hair, swimmer’s body, and charismatic personality, the whole school swooned over him. As for me, he had a permanent spot reserved at the top of my shit list.
“I didn’t mean to—” I started.
“Yes, you did,” Marcy snapped and stormed out of my room.
She was silent the entire car ride over. I pulled up quite a few houses behind the Gregory mansion, shocked by the number of cars already here. I gave the parking brake of my old car a ridiculous heave upward to click it into place and turned to face Marcy.
“Listen, I’m sorry. I know you’re upset about how it ended with Thomas. I would be too. But showing up at one of his bangers, again, determined to make him jealous . . . this isn’t going to make things better.” I let out a frustrated sigh, knowing I was not getting through to her. Lately, nothing got through to Marcy about him. “Thomas is a jerk, all he cares about is himself and his rep at school.”
“I am moving on, Faith,” Marcy said. Funny, she never seemed to believe herself. “I know this sounds stupid, but I just need to show him I’m moving on. He has to see how much better I’m doing without him.”
“That’s not healthy, and you know it,” I said. “You’re trying to win him over again through jealousy.” Her reddening face meant she was about to flip on me. It was the reality check she needed. Marcy got her heart broken by Thomas, and I was sick and tired of her finding ways to win him back. “Believe in the amazing catch that you are and forget him. If you keep trying to get his attention by sleeping with his friends, you’re never going to heal.”
She glared out her passenger window.
I wrung my hands on the steering wheel. “Look at all these cars.
It’s going to be insane in there. Why don’t we get some pizza and have a Friday movie night like old times? We haven’t had one of those in a while. Who needs to grind against sweaty guys with beer breath when we can watch Buffy and eat junk food until we fall into a stupor?”
“Sleeping with his friends?” She turned to me, unleashing her anger as it finally boiled over. “Who the hell would have told you that?”
Her choice of words stung, as if I had nobody else but her as a friend. Which was true. Marcy was my only friend. Unless my cat counted.
“You and Tyler. I overheard someone in the school bathroom,”
I admitted. Marcy’s face slowly drained to a pallid color and hurt entered her eyes again. “He’s Thomas’s best friend, Marcy. It’s all right you didn’t tell me, I get it—”
Marcy held up her hand to stop me. “That’s the thing, Faith, you don’t get it. I didn’t tell you because I thought you would judge me. And you did.” Reaching for her purse, Marcy rushed to exit the car. She followed a group of giggling girls on the sidewalk toward the mansion with the pounding music.
I twisted the keys out of the ignition and jumped out of the car.
“Marcy!” I shouted and jogged to her. “Wait! Come on, don’t do this!”
She turned sharply around, stopping me with a terrifying glare.
“You only came to this party to prevent me from seeing him, didn’t you?”
“Marcy . . . ”
She shook her head with a bitter smile. “This has been a wonderful conversation. Truly. It’s nice to know my best friend thinks I’m a desperate slut.” She turned her back to me again, stomping up the stone steps leading up to the mansion.
As I chased Marcy up into Thomas’s house, a wave of nostalgia hit me hard. The three of us grew up together. Throughout our childhood, Thomas had a crush on Marcy, and in middle school, he finally acted on it. Thankfully, I was never a third wheel, so our trio never died. Until, of course, Thomas grew apart from both of us and became captain of the swim team. He joined the popular crowd and, according to the high school food chain, Marcy and I were well below the apex predators.
Thomas continued to play games with Marcy, hooking up with her from time to time, never putting a label on it. Real Prince Charming material. Despite my distaste of their toxic relationship, they became an item junior year, when Marcy started to party more.
Their relationship ended the summer before senior year, when she found out he’d cheated on her. Well, technically, they’d been on a break, and it was a drunken kiss he’d regretted, but Marcy loved him so much, too much for him to not get his shit together and step up.
So, in my mind, he might as well have been a cheater.
Marcy had changed a lot over the past two years, ever since her mom died. She was in a dark place for a while and never wanted to hang out. Since her father was sheriff and worked often, she’d relied on Thomas for comfort. For a distraction. And when that security blanket was gone, a part of her never recovered. She was right—I felt obligated to help her get over Thomas. Marcy wasn’t just a best friend to me. She was my sister.
The silhouettes of jocks ran out of the home and onto the lawn.
They shouted drunken slurs, laughed, and wrestled each other over a blow-up Halloween decoration.
I caught up to Marcy and grabbed her by the arm. “We haven’t fought like this since the first grade, when you threatened to pull my hair out if I didn’t trade my chocolate chip cookies for your carrot sticks.” Marcy almost laughed at the corniness. “You aren’t hopeless, Marcy. Come on, this party is going to be lame anyway. Let’s pick up some Chinese food and ditch this Popsicle stand.”
She hesitated for a second and then ripped her arm out of my grasp. “You’re not my guardian angel, Faith. I don’t want your help with my love life. Besides, how can you help me when you have no experience?”
Marcy hurried up the steps to the front door before I could formulate a response.
I followed her into the house, only to discover this party was claustrophobic anarchy. Inside the Gregory mansion, drunken teens and college students were crammed in together. Trying to move through them felt like running through trenches of thick mud wearing a parka.
I peered into every room on the first floor, calling out Marcy’s name. The music and chaos swallowed up my voice.
The air was thick, hot, heavy. People moved sensually to the music, grinding and grappling bodies. I tore free from a throng of people and came across a girl standing in the middle of the grand staircase. She ranted in strange tongues, laughing maniacally to herself. I looked above her, grossed out by the sight of a couple half-naked on the stairs, and decided it was best to check the rest of the ground floor.
I walked past the indoor pool house to the billiard room.
Nostalgia washed over me again as I took in the tall bookshelves and the crimson-red pool table to the left of the room. I’d hidden in here once during a game of hide-and-seek, when Thomas, Marcy, and I were kids.
Leaning against the pool table was a guy wearing a gray Henley long-sleeve and dark denim jeans. Three cheerleaders, dressed as Charlie’s Angels, hovered by the fancy mini bar behind him, their glossy eyes eager. He had his back to me and bowed over the table with a lazy fluidity. His arm, lean with strong muscle, snapped back in a dexterous movement to strike the cue ball and make an impressive bank shot.
I headed toward the three cheerleaders. Marcy was loosely friends with them, since the varsity volleyball team was invited to all the cool parties. “Hey, have you seen Marcy by any chance?”
The girls laughed like there was a joke I missed, their nasty stares crawling over my skin. The middle one, Nicole Hawkins, captain of the cheerleading squad, stepped up to me. “Why don’t you check under the bleachers, goth girl?”
My face grew hot. My friendly ambiance slipped away, and I wanted to defend Marcy and myself, but I bit my tongue. These girls weren’t worth it. They were boring, copy-and-paste stereotypes with no discernible qualities that made them stand out enough to insult.
I actually felt a little bad for them.
“Need help looking for your friend?” The billiards guy was racking up another shot. He had taken off a pair of mirrored aviators and hung them on the collar of his shirt. I recognized him instantly and froze.
David Star.
The Stars, Devin and his only son, David, had surpassed the Kardashians in fame. Charming and an innovative genius, Devin Star had taken the advertisement industry by storm, quickly expanding his interests into multiple successful companies, including the infamous D&S Tower in New York City. David, the alleged child protégé, would soon follow in his father’s footsteps, but I found that awfully hard to believe. I’d heard all about David Star’s partying escapades through Europe during his gap year before Harvard. I only knew this because my mom was subscribed to every gossip magazine known to man and had a life-size cardboard standup of Devin Star in the basement.
David Star was the primary enemy of proper brain development in all the girls at my high school. The pastiche of God’s finest creations, a proud, lucrative product of an even hand, or so the tabloids said last summer.
Give me a break.
David sauntered around the pool table to me and leaned against his pool stick. Thick chestnut-colored hair with subtle blond highlights styled away from a handsome, angular face, and gorgeous brown eyes that speared mine with an unflinching, assertive confidence. Everything about David Star repelled me, especially his vain beauty, but now that he was here, in person, like a 3D printout of the perfect man, and I was starstruck.
“Well?” That lollipop stick wedged between his teeth shifted to the other side of his mouth, those full lips curving into a slow fox grin. “We gonna hunt for your friend or what?”
Get a grip, girl. My brain chugged back into gear, slow as molasses.
“No offense,” I said, “but guys with reputations like yours are the reason I’m worried about her.”
David raised a supercilious brow and stared down at me like he couldn’t fully process the rejection. He clutched his heart in mock hurt. “Ouch. If she’s with a guy like me, then wouldn’t I be the perfect person to know where to find her?”
He had me there, but why did he even want to help me? I looked over at the three pretty cheerleaders. They giggled and whispered behind their coveted hands as they watched us interact. My gut feeling had been right. He was messing with me.
“I wouldn’t want to keep you from your groupies,” I said.
I turned away before I could see David’s reaction, but I did see my words had impacted those three mean girls. They fumed with disdain as I left the room.
Music blared in the hallway as I ventured to the center of the mansion again. My skin felt slick with adrenaline, my mind still reeling over my conversation with David Star. Talking to him had certainly been the last interaction I’d expected that night. I’d dissed him too. Wait until Marcy got a load of that story. If, of course, I ever found her . . .
In the Gregorys’ crowded living room, I became lost at the center of a bouquet of strobe lights and realized everyone had stopped dancing to stare at me. At first, I thought it was my dress. But the dress was fine. I thought there was a spectacle behind me, so I turned around. There wasn’t. All at once, their distorted faces looked away from me and everything went back to normal.
I frowned. ’Kay . . .
This night was about to go from bad to worse. I could feel it in my gut like a sixth sense, and at the back of my neck, where small hairs stood on end.
Time’s up.
It was an almost imperceptible whisper in my skull, layered over the pounding music.
My mouse in a maze. Come to me.
I turned sharply around, meeting an empty spot across the room.
Someone had been standing there, watching me.
And somehow, I knew they were also the voice in my head.
Panic climbed my throat. Squeezing through a grinding couple, I passed a girl in a crayon costume throwing up and slid into the kitchen. I was elbowed into a counter, where I knocked over a line of colorful rum drinks onto a girl’s white sequined top.
“Watch it!” she seethed, her bloodshot, glossy gaze sliding up and down my lace dress. Another snobbish student from the rich side of Pleasant Valley. “Nice costume, gothic freak—”
All of a sudden, the girl gasped, her eyes rolling back. She foamed at the mouth. I began to yell for help, when her hand shot out and clutched my arm in a crushing grip. When she spoke again, her words were choked out and guttural. “He wants your soul . . . ” Her eyes flipped back down. “The pool,” she wheezed. She gripped me by the wrists, a smile peeling back her lips. “He’s waiting for you there.”
I ripped free of her grasp.
“Go to him!” Voices shouted at me from all directions, cascading one after another. Their faces contorted, bone leaking beneath their skin like painted skeleton faces. “He wants your flesh . . . blood . . . ”
There was a sharp, clenching feeling in my stomach and terror hit me like a truck. “Go to the pool!”
“What the hell is happening?” Shoving away the partiers, I ran.
People followed me close behind, chasing me with sinister grins. I slipped on the liquor-stained floor, crashed into a wall, and took off again.
Shoving through heavy doors, I rushed to lock them behind me and hunkered down inside the dark room. My heart was an orchestra at crescendo. Chlorine filled my nostrils and paranoia set in.
The pool house. I was in the pool house. Great, I was exactly the type of person I despised in horror movies. I blindly patted the wall for a light switch with a shaking hand. Lights flicked on row by row, revealing the crystal blue water of the indoor pool.
A cold sensation spread through me, licking up my spine. I clutched my stomach against the sharp sting of a phantom wound, which spread like a coverlet over my skin.
And that’s when I saw him.
A cloaked man stood at the other end of the pool, leaning against the ladder of the high diving board. In his right gloved hand, he flicked a lighter on and off. And in his left, he held a scythe with a blade at least the size of my body. It almost looked real too.
No, thank you.
It was time to hide elsewhere. Spinning around, I strained to open the pool door, but the lock wouldn’t budge.
The lights dimmed with a hiss. Cursing, I peeked over my shoulder. The guy in the Grim Reaper costume was gone.
“Of course,” I muttered under my breath.
I tried the door again and slammed my open palm against it.
A sweet aroma hovered in the air, mixed with a trace of leather and cologne. Goose bumps pebbled my arms. Every muscle stiffened.
The heat of another body radiated behind me.
“Boo.”
“Jesus Christ!”
I craned my neck up to meet the shadowed face of the cloaked man. My jaw slackened. He was massive, easily two heads taller than me, and his silhouette rippled with menacing muscle.
“Wrong.”
I was at a loss for words. Partially because of his size, but also because of his hypnotic voice. Deep and husky, yet velvety smooth.
“Grim Reaper, right?”
“What gave it away? The cloak or the scythe?”
There was a lilt to his words, an accent I couldn’t pinpoint. It was enchanting, magnetic, and maybe that was why I was fighting the urge to lean into him.
A timorous laugh escaped my mouth.
“The costume is great, I’ll give you that.” I moved around him, my eyes sliding down the blade of the enormous scythe. He didn’t turn around, as if he were allowing me to view him. “Your scythe looks legit.”
He remained silent, unnerving me further. His cloak moved slightly at the hem, as if there was a draft. There wasn’t one.
“It’s not a costume,” he seethed. “I’m here to collect.”
With each word he spoke, he carried a confidence that he was in full control of this conversation, and it was intimidating, to say the least.
“Collect what?” I asked, playing along. This had to be a prank. I was thoroughly impressed with the joke too. “Who are you?”
“You don’t remember. Try harder, Faith.”
He knew my name.
Marcy must have put everyone up to this. Yeah, that had to be it. But my body wasn’t so convinced. My chest felt so tight, I could only muster enough breath to say, “Okay, I’m leaving now. Good luck with your reaping.”
I turned to desperately try the door one more time, but it had disappeared. My eyes widened at the glass wall now in its place.
“Where’d the door go?”
“Does it matter?” he snickered. “You couldn’t open it anyway.”
As I slowly looked back at him, the gravity of the situation struck me. No matter how hard I strained to see his face, a shadow curtained his features. The dark void was endless. As I stared into the hypnotic abyss, his head tilted slightly. For a moment, he seemed familiar. Not a good familiar either.
My heart plummeted to the pit of my stomach.
I took off running, but the cloaked man materialized in front of me. A black mist expelled from his body as he solidified. Trying to stop quickly in heels, I nearly slid right into him. “Oh, shit!”
“I’m not done with you,” he growled.
Only a small sound scratched its way out of my throat. I looked over my shoulder, where the cloaked man once stood. Back at him.
Back at the place where he once stood.
“You—you just . . . ” I clutched at my chest in shock, unable to finish the rest.
“I know. I’m breathtaking.”
“You’re not real!”
“Yeah, and you’re not annoying.” He brought a rolled, unfiltered cigarette to his shadowed face and lit up. “Aren’t you tired of painting me over and over again?” Sweet, scented smoke expelled from his mouth. Cherry. “And those awful nightmares. Every. Single. Night.”
A feigned pity dripped from his cultured voice. “If only you could remember them.”
Reality fell away as I imagined those mismatched green eyes.
“Marcy told you about me.” It was the most reasonable explanation I could think of, even though she was completely in the dark about the nightmares.
“I don’t give a fuck about Marcy.” He took a hard pull from the cigarette. “The sooner you accept I’m real, the sooner your memories will come back to you. We need to be on the same page. I’m here, in the flesh, for you. You know exactly who I am.”
“I can’t be awake.” I fought the urge to slug this psycho in the face and take off again. “This is impossible—”
“Or it’s a nightmare with your eyes wide open. Call me Death.”
Blood drained from my face, and I could feel him grinning beneath his hood. “Breathe. If I wanted you dead, you would be. I’ve gotten pretty good at that.”
He snuffed out his cigarette with the heel of his boot and advanced toward me with long, calculated strides. I backpedaled.
“I won’t repeat myself,” said Death, as he continued forward.
“Through our deal, I saved your life. Now you’re mine. You need to come with me.”
I’m his? My back hit a glass window. There was something about his sureness that smothered my fear. “So not happening.”
He stopped in his tracks. “Oh, really.”
I rolled my fingers into fists to prevent them from shaking.
“There is no way I’m going anywhere with you, psycho.”
Silence.
He threw back his head and barked out a laugh. “Cute,” he purred. “As if you have a choice.”
“I must have a choice, otherwise you wouldn’t be trying to convince me I don’t,” I insisted. “To put it in a way you might understand, the chances of me leaving with you are grim.”
Death’s hidden stare now felt lethal and piercing, like a predator stalking its prey. “I’d be very careful how you speak to me.” He leaned down close. “I have a short temper. You have no idea what I’m capable of.”
The terror of the moment broke as a ringtone version of “Hell’s Bells” blared from underneath his cloak. He straightened and clenched his fist. I detected his embarrassment of the timing of the call.
Death growled, put up a gloved finger, then parted his thick cloak. I caught a glimpse of black leather pants. He slipped a cell phone out from his back pocket, read the screen, and snarled, “I’ll deal with you later.”
His body evaporated into a black mist.
I was alone.
Something shattered within me. I nearly fell to my knees, locking them before I did. My throat tightened. I choked back a sob and moved mindlessly toward another exit in the pool room, which led to the backyard. The more I thought about him, the more the line between reality and insanity blurred. Nothing felt real. How could it? The Grim Reaper is after me. Me!
My witch hat flew off into the dark abyss as I ran around the Gregory mansion following a stone path with shrubbery and walk-way lights on either side. The night air was cool, while my blood boiled with adrenaline. The wind and moonlight twisted the shadows of trees, transforming them into writhing creatures slinking closer.
Several dark figures appeared ahead. To my relief, they were actual people. Without warning, two of them stumbled into my path, one of them giggling.
“Marcy?” I asked incredulously.
I recognized her electric pink dress and the blond curls of the boy she was pressed against. Thomas Gregory.
“Oh no, here comes the witch,” Marcy slurred, staggering away from Thomas. “I thought you’d be home by now.”
“Long time no see, Faith,” Thomas said, noticeably more sober than Marcy. He was wearing his usual varsity jacket and designer jeans. He must be dressed up as a douchebag for Halloween. “Enjoying the par-tay?”
Ignoring him, I grabbed Marcy by the arm. “We have to go. We have to leave. Now!”
She was sober enough to catch the fear in my voice because, by some miracle, she didn’t argue. I rushed her to my car, poured her in, and peeled away as if the monster was still on my tail.
