She winces. “Did I really try to kill you yesterday?”
I feel a wave of relief and nod.
She puts her head into her hands.
“You’re feeling better then?” I ask.
“Well . . . I feel different. It’s all a bit of a blur. I don’t really remember all of it. My head is killing me—probably because you headbutted me.” She groans. “It’s like having a really epic hangover.”
“But without the fun from the night before,” Cupid says, grinning.
She gives him a dubious look but then sighs dramatically. “Yeah.”
He laughs. “It sucks, but that can be the case after the transformation.” He inclines his head at the phone on her lap and his eyes narrow, the humor disappearing from his face. “Someone’s contacted you?”
She beckons us over to show us a message from an unknown number.
“Well that’s . . . interesting,” says Cupid.
My stomach lurches as I read it. It’s from the Arrows.
Keep an eye on the Match. We will take her soon. Be ready.
Half an hour later we’re congregated around the breakfast bar; Charlie and I on stools, Cal standing, and Cupid leaning against the counter by his high-tech microwave, eating a bowl of Froot Loops.
We’re all staring at Charlie’s cell phone in the center of the granite island.
“Ask them if Crystal is okay,” Cal orders. He’s dressed uncharacteristically casually in black sweatpants and a white T-shirt that’s slightly too big for him. I wonder if he’s borrowed the outfit from his brother.
Charlie looks at him warily, then taps out a message. She seems mostly herself again, though her body is angled away from me. Moments later, her phone buzzes in response.
She has not talked. This could take a while. Be ready.
Cupid looks relieved, Cal pained. I understand both of their reactions; the Arrows don’t know where the Finis is yet—which is good—but that means that Crystal is still being tortured.
I take a nervous sip of the coffee Cal thrust into my hand as soon as I walked into the kitchen.
“They said you’d help them get to Lila,” says Cupid. “Ask them about their plans for Lila.”
Charlie types in another message and a couple of minutes later the phone buzzes again.
We know you are on the party planning committee. We need you to get us peacefully into the Forever Falls dance on Friday, and make sure she is in attendance.
“Tell them you’ll bring her to them now,” Cupid says. “But only if they tell you how many of them there are, how many weapons they have, and to give you their address first.”
Cal and I both look at him.
“But in a more subtle way,” Cupid says. “Obviously.”
She keys in a message and we wait. It takes a good five minutes before we get the reply.
Too risky. Cupid will be watching her. Just get her to the dance. We’ll be in touch.
“Interesting. They clearly want the distraction of the dance,” says Cupid. “Gives us a bit of time to plan, at least.” He places his cereal bowl in the sink and stares pensively into his yard for a moment. The morning light that streams through the glass paints his hair gold. “With lots of people in the same place, it’ll be easy for them get Lila out undetected.”
“Yeah? We’ll see about that,” I say, taking a sip of coffee. “I don’t get it, though. Why don’t they just ask Charlie to kill me now?”
Charlie suddenly appears very interested in the bottom of her mug.
“They think the Finis is within their reach,” says Cal, heavily. “I imagine they’ll want to hold you hostage so that Cupid will come to them willingly; you would be the easier one to kill, but he’s the one they really want. This whole ordeal has given them a perfect excuse to go after him. Which means unless we can get a hold of the Finis, they’re not going to be easy to negotiate with.”
I frown at Cal.
“Hold me hostage? That’s stupid—”
“It’s not,” says Cupid. “If they catch you, I’ll come for you. I’ll always come for you.”
His eyes beseech mine but I look away. I can’t let him draw me in.
“What about the whole unbreakable-oath-on-the-Styx thing?” I say. “We tell them Cupid will leave town once he has the arrow and he won’t come back.” My heart feels a little heavy saying it.
Cal pinches the bridge of his nose. “I think they’ve proven they’re a little past accepting that now,” he says.
“My brother’s right,” says Cupid. “They’ve hated me a long time. Our . . . politics are somewhat opposing. And they’re not easy to reason with. Not when they have the upper hand. Which they do.” He shrugs heavily. “They have Crystal, they think they have Charlie under their cupid-y thrall, and they have a plan. We need to get the Finis before they do.”
Cal turns sharply to Cupid. “And you’re still leaving town when we find it.”
“’Course, Brother,” says Cupid with a strained smile.
“How are we going to find the Finis when the only person who knows where it is has been captured by the Arrows?” I ask.
“It’s all going to kick off at the dance. And they need me to get in, right?” says Charlie. “I have an idea.”
After she tells us, Cupid leaves the room. He comes back carrying a pink-tipped arrow, which he places on the breakfast bar.
“We need to make sure you’re not lying to us, Charlie,” says Cupid.
She doesn’t say anything for a couple of minutes, then she nods slowly. “Fine.” She picks up the arrow then lightly pricks her fingertip. She breathes in sharply as it turns to ash in her hands.
“Are you going to betray Lila?” asks Cupid.
“No. Are you going to leave town if we get the Finis?” she says.
Cupid looks at her warily then nods.
She turns to me. “They shot me with two arrows, tried to make me a killer, and took my friend. I won’t betray you, Lila. Let’s get these guys. Let’s get Crystal back.”
36
After breakfast, Cal uses one of Cupid’s cars to drop Charlie and me off at the Forever Falls town square. He’s heading back to Elysium, where he hopes to find that song-addicted cupid, Carter, in the hopes he might know something more about the Finis. Since he wants to look like he’s on official business, he’s changed back into his matchmaking-agent suit. The white brings out the dark smudges under his eyes.
He barely waits for us to shut the car doors before skidding out of the square and down the road toward Los Angeles.
“Bye, Cal,” I mutter into the cloud of dust.
Charlie gives me a half smile as we head to the thrift store down one of the side streets. Seeing as Charlie’s plan involves us attending the dance, we’ve decided to pick out something new to wear. It is when we are rooting through the dresses hanging on the clothes rack that I finally ask her the question I’ve wanted to ask since she was turned into a cupid.
“When you tried to kill me,” I say, “it was because you said I was dangerous. You said the match couldn’t be made—why?”
“It’s all a bit blurry, but they told me it was a breach of the company policy and that the founder would come back.” She shrugs. “It seemed really important to me at the time.”
“Who’s the founder?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know. All I know is that yesterday I was convinced that the founder coming back was a very bad thing.” She looks at me squarely. “This Cupid guy, you like him, don’t you?”
“No,” I say a little too fast.
She arches a knowing eyebrow. “Sure you don’t.” A smile tugs at her lips before she turns serious. “Be careful, Lila. I have a bad feeling and I can’t shake it. I dunno—it might just be from the arrow venom in my veins, but I’m sensing danger. Something is coming.”
Charlie is right about Cupid, but something about him is so exciting, so intriguing. He’s a mystery, a puzzle for me to solve, unlike James, where I’ve always known exactly how to put the pieces together—even if it never seemed quite right.
As if reading my mind, Charlie plucks a dress from the rack then looks a little sheepish. “Have you spoken to James?”
I shake my head. “I need to break it off with him but I’m dreading it. To be honest, I think a part of me has wanted to break it off for a while.”
She nods seriously. “I know.”
“What? And that makes it okay to kiss him, does—”
“No. ’Course not,” she says hurriedly. “I just mean . . . well, you never seemed that on board with the relationship. Or that happy. That’s all.”
There’s something a little pained in her voice, and for the first time it occurs to me that if Charlie and James are matched in the same way as Cupid and me, it can’t have been easy for her to have watched our relationship from the sidelines. I barely even know Cupid, and yet the thought of him with someone else bugs me more than I would like to admit.
I sigh. “Maybe you’re right. Have you spoken to James?”
“You mean in between being turned into a cupid and trying to shoot you with an arrow?” She offers me a half smile. “No. And don’t worry, I’m not going to try to get together with him or anything.”
“You’re into him, though, right? Crystal said he was your match, in the same way that Cupid is supposedly mine.”
“It’s weird, but I feel different since I was shot. What happened—it wasn’t right. You’re my best friend. And I swear I wouldn’t have done it without being hit by the arrow. If I could go back in time, I never would have . . . are we okay?” she says, cutting to the chase.
I look into her brown eyes and see the doubt and fear behind them. She kissed my boyfriend, and I in turn got her turned into a cupid. She tried to kill me, but I was the one who dragged her into this whole mess in the first place.
I smile. “I hope so.”
She grins back, relief evident. Then she passes me a black strapless dress over the rack. “Here, try this on,” she says, an amused challenge behind her eyes. “I bet Cupid will like it.”
“Good trial shift, Dad?” I ask as I enter the kitchen.
He turns around, briefly assessing the shopping bag in my hand. “It was. Thanks, sweetheart,” he says. He gestures toward the living room with a mischievous glint in his eye. “There’s someone here to see you.”
My heart bounces.
Cupid? I think as I head to the front of the house.
Surely not.
James is sitting nervously on the sofa. He turns to look at me, and his light-brown eyes are forlorn.
“What are you doing here?” I ask. “Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”
He shakes his head. “The diner’s closed down for the next couple of weeks,” he says. “Some kind of maintenance issue.” He takes a deep breath. “Listen . . . we need to talk.”
I breathe in, pushing down the weird nerves that are rising up from my stomach. “Yes, we do.”
I walk past him to perch on the edge of Mom’s old armchair.
Silence twists through the air. My eyes skim over Dad’s old bowling trophies on the mantelpiece to stop myself from staring at James. I don’t know what to say. Evidently, neither does he. He’s staring at the wooden floor between his sneakers.
“Did . . . did Charlie tell you?” he says finally.
“Yes,” I say. “That, and I saw you.”
He puts his face in his hands. When he removes them and looks up at me his brown hair is messy. There’s something pleading in his eyes.
“God, Lila. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over me . . .”
I do. It was the Capax. But still—
“You have feelings for her,” I say blankly.
“I don’t! I think maybe there was alcohol in the punch or something . . . I never—”
“Just admit it, James,” I snap.
He flinches before sighing heavily. “Okay. Maybe. Maybe there was some feeling there. But I chose you, Lila. I love you.”
“I love you, too, James,” I say. “We grew up together. When you fainted in class in kindergarten, I was so worried about you I cried. In fifth grade, I slapped you in the face for drawing all over my favorite pencil case. And when Mom was ill, you were . . . you were my rock. You made me smile and you helped me get through it more than you will ever know.” I bite my lip. “But I don’t think we’re in love. If I’m honest . . . I don’t think we ever were.”
He leans farther forward. “Lila, listen—”
“Please, James. Let me finish.” I swallow hard. “I think we were friends. And we just kind of fell together because it was easy. Easier than going after what we really wanted. And when I lost Mom and felt like everything was reeling out of control, that’s what I needed. I needed a friend. I needed something that wasn’t complicated, or messy, or hard.”
“So now you want something messy?” he asks, his tone hardening. “Is there someone else?! It’s that Cupid guy, isn’t it? I saw him gawking at you at school—”
“Life is messy. And look at us. This has become messy. You kissed Charlie!” I rub my face, hard. “I don’t want messy for the sake of messy. But I don’t want to live my life trying to avoid anything complicated just because I don’t want to get hurt.”
“So what are you saying? Are we . . . are we really breaking up?”
I swallow the lump in my throat. “Yes.”
We stare at each other. I can feel the heat in my face and his cheeks are flushed too.
Then slowly, James nods.
“Okay,” he says. “Okay.”
He gets to his feet and I mirror him. We stare at each other for what feels like an eternity.
“I’m sorry for what happened at the party,” he says, finally. “I should never have kissed Charlie.”
“I’m sorry too. About . . . all of this.”
We’re standing a few feet apart in the living room we’ve spent so much time in together—and yet suddenly we’re strangers.
“Do you think we can ever go back?” he asks. “To the way things were before we got together?”
He’s kissed my best friend, Charlie has been turned into a cupid, and a paranormal organization wants me dead because I’ve been matched with a banished love god.
“I’m sorry, James,” I say softly. “But I don’t think we can.”
The next few days pass without much incident. Dad seems to enjoy his new job, Charlie doesn’t try to kill me again, and James mostly avoids me after the breakup.
I don’t get a chance to speak much with Cupid, as Cal hovers around him like an irritable shadow and leads him away every time he spots me down one of the locker-lined corridors. I wonder why they even bother to come to school at all, but on one of the rare occasions I manage to speak to Cupid, he points out that if they were expelled, then they wouldn’t be able to attend Friday’s dance, which could pose some problems for our plan to get Crystal back.
On Wednesday, Cal demands that we all meet him in the library at lunch, whereupon he dumps a stack of books and papers in the center of the table. He didn’t manage to find Carter at Elysium, but he did blackmail another cupid there into stealing a bunch of resources from the Cupids Matchmaking Service’s library; amid the haul are company staff records, old photographs, and weapons books. We sift through them for the hour but can’t make any sense of them, and the next day he doesn’t bother asking for our help at all—only skulks off at lunch to pore over the yellowing papers alone.
When Friday finally arrives, the air is heavy with anticipation. During the afternoon, we meet in the school gym to help Charlie and the rest of the party planning committee set up the dance, with the idea that we’ll also su
rreptitiously hide some weapons for tonight.
Cal grumpily helps me paint a banner, irritably flicking pink paint and looking at the paintbrush with open disdain. “Why is your mascot a lobster, anyway?” he grumbles. “Forever Falls isn’t even by the sea.”
“Oh, is that what that’s meant to be?” I say peering over his arm at the pink splatter he’s made.
He looks highly affronted. “Well, it’s not finished yet.”
“What’s wrong with Shelly anyway?” I say, smirking as I continue with the black lettering.
“It’s called Shelly? Shelly?! The Lobster?!” He shakes his head. “You humans really have no imagination . . .”
As he mumbles to himself, Charlie picks up a stack of speakers and effortlessly carries them past a muscular football player who is struggling to carry one. Charlie might not want to kill me anymore but I’ve noticed a few changes since she was hit by the arrow—the superstrength being one of them. I watch as she puts it down and marches across the gym to Cupid, no doubt to tell him off for playing on his phone rather than helping with the decorations.
“Speaking of nonhumans . . . will Charlie be okay?” I ask Cal.
He puts a paint-smudged hand through his hair. “It can take a while for the person affected to understand the weight of the transformation. Usually, an agent would have taken her into the Matchmaking Service by now to debrief and properly train her. But obviously neither Cupid nor I can do that now.”
I frown, watching her worriedly. “Can’t you get someone else to do it? What about the guy who got you the papers?”
“Right now she’s our only chance of getting Crystal back. And our only chance of getting rid of my brother too.” His expression hardens. “You really need to be more careful around him. He’s no good for you, Lila.”
Something shifts in his features as he looks at me. Neither of us speaks for a moment, and I sense the same loneliness behind his stiff exterior as I do behind Cupid’s recklessness.
Then abruptly he stands. “I’m going to plant some weapons. Make sure no one notices what I’m doing.”
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