“We needed you to help us stop an evil spirit from sacrificing Portia to the void separating the living from the dead,” Finn said, deadpan. “I don’t see what’s so hard to explain about that.”
Raven laughed but it sounded feeble. Hendricks could only imagine how weak she must have felt.
“Maybe just focus on the part where you’re awake,” Connor said, pulling up to the curb in front of Raven’s house. “That’s the most important thing.”
Raven exhaled through her lips, nodding. “Yup. Let’s hope that’ll be enough.”
Cheryl stood on her front porch, talking animatedly to a young man in uniform. She glanced up at the sight of Connor’s car, frowning slightly. Then, seeing Raven sitting in the passenger seat, her face crumpled.
“Raven!” she shouted and began to race across the yard.
Connor and Blake climbed out of the car to help Raven get out. She hadn’t used her legs in over three months, so she was a little unsteady on her feet. The boys each slipped one of her arms around their shoulders and helped bring her to her mother. Finn and Hendricks stayed put in the back seat.
Cheryl threw her arms around her daughter’s neck, causing all three teenagers to stumble backward a little. She was sobbing. Hendricks felt a sudden twist of guilt. She couldn’t imagine how terrifying it must’ve been for her to go into Raven’s room and find her hospital bed empty.
“My baby,” Cheryl cried. “Oh my God, my baby! My baby!”
Raven answered, “Mom, it’s okay, I’m fine.”
Finn was suddenly leaning across Hendricks’s lap to peer out the car window. He frowned and then turned to her. “Do you think Raven’s mom totally hates you now?”
“Why would she hate me?” Hendricks asked.
“Well, Raven nearly died at a party at your house. And then her unconscious body disappeared in the middle of the night, and when she turned up again, she was with you.” Finn shrugged. “If it were me, I’d start thinking that you weren’t the best influence.”
Hendricks hunched farther down in her seat, ducking her head and hoping that Cheryl hadn’t spotted her yet.
Several long minutes later, the car door swung open. Hendricks peeked up from her crossed arms to see Connor leaning into the car.
“Hey,” he said. “It’s cool, she’s calling off the cops.”
“What did you tell her?” Hendricks asked.
Connor glanced up—probably checking to see that Cheryl was too far to overhear him—and then he leaned back down and said, in an undertone, “Raven claimed she was sleepwalking. She said Blake and I found her a couple of blocks away, and that’s when she woke up. It was freaking genius.” Connor shook his head, impressed. “Her mom’s not letting her out of her sight for the rest of the night obviously, but we’re all meeting Portia and Vi over at Tony’s. You in?”
Hendricks wrapped her arms around her chest, shivering a little. She was still wearing her prom dress and, even though prom was over, she thought she deserved a little celebration.
And there was something else, too. A warmth in the air, the smell of fresh grass and flowers, something. She felt a lift of a hope in her chest.
New beginnings, she thought. The portal was closed, and Raven was awake.
Maybe, just maybe, things were going to get better.
“Yeah,” she said, nodding. She threw open her car door and stepped outside, a breeze rustling her dress. “Tony’s sounds perfect. I’ll have to meet you there though. There’s something I want to do first.”
* * *
• • •
Hendricks stood outside of Drearford High, rolling her lower lip between her teeth. The school’s windows were dark. She had Eddie’s lighter in one hand. She flicked it open, watching the tiny blue flame shiver between her fingers, and then she flicked it shut again.
“Okay,” she said, under her breath. She headed inside.
Up the school’s front steps and through the balloon arch. Down dark hallways strewn with streamers. Into the empty gym. Hendricks looked around at the detritus around her and then walked to the center of the room, her torn prom dress dragging against the floor. She knelt before the school’s mascot logo, a printed image of a lion leaping through the letter D.
“Eddie,” she said, out loud, flicking the lighter open and closed. “I will always miss you. But I’ve been thinking about that tarot card I pulled for you, the Two of Swords. You have a decision to make. You can choose to go on to whatever comes after death, to be with your little sister and Kyle and . . . I don’t know, hang out with David Bowie and Alan Rickman and stuff. Or you can stay here with me.” Hendricks sniffed, laughing a little. “Seems like a pretty obvious choice, huh? I don’t know . . . if you’d asked me before what happened tonight, I would’ve have said that you should stay. I wouldn’t have cared that you weren’t all here, just that there was some part of you still in my life. But now”—she looked around the room and tears welled in her eyes—“I realize how selfish that is. You should go, be with your brother and sister. Rest.”
Her voice choked a little on that last word. She clamped a hand over her mouth, put the lighter in the middle of the logo, and stood.
It was time to move on.
EPILOGUE
Drearford High was empty, dark. Sticky Solo cups lay strewn across the floor, mingling with crumbled napkins. Streamers had dropped down from the ceiling and come to coil amid the debris like snakes. Dead cockroaches lay on their backs, their legs still twitching.
A few of the younger students had propped the back door open with a brick, so they could sneak joints and warm vodka during the slow songs. They’d forgotten to remove the brick before heading to the after-party, though, and a breeze swept in through the still open door, blowing a paper plate down the hall like a tumbleweed and rattling a locker that hadn’t been closed properly. No one would be back to clean the mess until the next morning. That’s when they would first discover the streaks of blood in the hall just outside the gymnasium, the broken window, the floor littered with glass. Now, though, everything was silent.
And so, no one heard the creak as the back door swung open wider. No one saw the leather boot kick the brick aside, and step into the hall. The door slammed shut in its frame, the sound reverberating through the empty building.
Footsteps echoed off the walls. Their movement down the hall was slow, steady. There was no rush. The gym door swung open and closed with a soft thwump, and the boots walked to the center of the gymnasium, stopping just outside the Drearford High logo.
The scuffed silver lighter lay at the center of the logo, partially covering the lion’s only visible eye. Though there was no light on inside of the gym, some outside glow seemed to catch on the silver so that it almost looked like the lighter itself was illuminated.
Eddie Ruiz leaned over and picked the lighter up. He opened it, allowing the twitching blue flame to illuminate the soft outlines of his face and reflect in his dark eyes. He flicked it closed again, and with a sigh, he slid it into the pocket of his jeans, where it settled easily into the worn grooves of denim.
He’d missed this thing.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As always, thank you to my wonderful Alloy family—specifically Laura Barbiea and Josh Bank—for supporting me from the prologue to the final pages. I’m so incredibly lucky to have access to such brilliant minds!
Also, a huge thank-you to my team at Razorbill. This series has benefited immensely from Jessica Harriton’s brilliant notes, as well as the support of Casey McIntyre and Jennifer Klonsky. Additional thanks go to Bri Lockhart, Felicity Vallence, Elyse Marshall, Kristin Boyle, and the rest of Razorbill’s sales, marketing, and publicity teams. I’m continually blown away by how hard you work to help readers find my books.
In addition to the people named here, there are so many others working behind the scenes to make this book happen. I am gratefu
l to all of you. I couldn’t have done it without your support.
And finally, as always, thanks to my fabulous, encouraging family and friends, and specifically to Ron, who really believes in this one.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Danielle Vega spent her childhood hiding under the covers while her mother retold tales from the pages of Stephen King novels. Now as an adult, she can count on one hand the number of times in her life she's been afraid. Danielle is the author of The Haunted, the Merciless series, and Survive the Night. Follow her @vegarollins.
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