“I'm not dead, Justin,” Heidi snapped at him, eyes watering. I'd never seen her like this before, never. She looked so weak and frail and broken. Damn you, Justin. Everyone finds out at different times in their life that the world isn't all sugar trails and unicorn puffs, but I didn't think Heidi was ready for it. Who is, at sixteen?
“Yeah, well, the baby is.” And that was his response. Heidi wailed and dropped to her knees, sobbing into her hands as I glared at Justin with gritted teeth. He held out his hand like he was indicating a crazy person. “She got hit by a car, and I'm getting blamed for it. The freaking cops were at my house asking me whether I knew she was pregnant or not. I'm not getting pegged for something I didn't do.”
“Chloe.” I turned to look over my shoulder and saw Casper standing there, eyes focused not on me, but on Shayla and Cage. I'd obviously missed part of the conversation because Shayla was now red-faced and furious. I saw Casper look down at Julie and then back up at me, deciding where he should stand, what he should do. He flicked his tongue against the piercing in the center of his lip and then slammed the car door, moving around to the front. A halfway point between me and his sister, between that argument and this one.
“You kissed her,” Shayla sobbed and flung her finger out, pointing her brightly painted nail straight at my chest. “You kissed her when you were supposed to love me.”
“Shayla,” Cage said, trying to get ahold of the situation. He reached out to touch her, and she flipped.
“Why everyone else, but me? Is it because I'm not the Crush?” Shayla took a step back and started fumbling in her purse while Heidi sobbed on the ground at my feet and Justin stood there looking like he was halfway ready to jump off the cliff himself. “Is that what you saw in them? Well, I couldn't be the Crush!” she shrieked, brown eyes bloodshot. “I was Queen, so I couldn't be! You didn't know her, but you fell for her anyway. It was all a trap.”
“Shayla, stop it,” Cage said, getting angry with her. He moved forward again like he was going to grab her, but she pulled away and turned towards me. Her purse went flying off her shoulder, taking off into the wind like a white bird, feathers and tassels flapping as it hit the ground, bounced twice and plummeted off the cliff.
She had something in her hand, but I couldn't see what it was. From where I was standing, it looked like a cell phone.
“I try to help the people I love, and I get crapped on for it.”
“Shayla?” Justin said. He was obviously pretty slow on the uptake. Maybe he didn't believe his sister was capable of anything that horrific. I wouldn't blame him. Nobody wants to believe that kind of thing, especially about people they love. I wondered what he'd do when he found out that his sister had hit his girlfriend, killed his kid. If he'd even care at all.
Shayla moved around Cage like she was going to climb into her car, but at the last second, she turned. When she looked at me, I felt something, a distant memory attached to this place, a girl with honey brown eyes and skin like coffee and hair that stuck to her lips when the wind blew just right. A girl that was dead because Cage loved her and Shayla loved Cage.
When she started towards me, I didn't think to run because I couldn't imagine that she felt strongly enough to want to hurt me. Cage said he loved Tatiana. He didn't love me. He liked me maybe, but his kiss was just a kiss and when we touched, no birds were singing.
Shayla didn't cry out or scream. People only do that in movies. She didn't have a weird look on her face either. There were tears running down her cheeks and her lips were pursed, but that's about it. Not once did I really consider that she was going to try to stab me.
“Julie!” I heard Casper scream, and I remembered being surprised that he was calling her name and not mine. I lifted up my arms to defend myself, thinking at the last second that maybe Shayla was going to hit me or slap me.
A flash of silver lit up my vision, reflecting the dying light of evening and then time stopped. Everyone and everything around me froze for a second and I saw the scene now as clearly as if it had happened yesterday. I saw Tatiana crying, just like Heidi, saw Justin leaving, like he was about to do. I saw Cage looking frustrated and out of control, sitting on a bench somewhere after Shayla drove on, wondering what he was going to do with these two girls. I saw her parking down the hill and walking up here, finding Tatiana crying and vulnerable. Whether she thought it was Cage's baby or Justin's baby or even if Tatiana was pregnant at all didn't matter. Shayla didn't really think about anyone but herself.
Right before time spend back up, I had to wonder if, in the middle of the night when the moon and stars are our only judges, it was worth it.
And bam. I was thrown right back into the world, saw a flash of black fabric, a blotch of white.
“Julie!” Casper's voice, a screech, like the word was combined into one syllable.
I felt a body – no, two bodies – crash into me, dropping me to my back in the dirt. Hot wetness was everywhere, I could feel it soaking into my clothes and scalding my flesh. Somehow, I thought I heard that song again, the one I imagined when I was with Casper, the humming, thrumming melody of the universe.
“Julie!”
I struggled to sit up, to put together the scene in my head. I saw Shayla roll off of us, onto her side, pushing herself to her feet. Cage was there in less than a second, hauling her backwards and throwing her to the ground several feet back. The knife slipped out of her hand and went clattering across the ground.
“Chloe? Are you okay? Is she okay?” Heidi grabbed onto Julie's arm and shook it. “Are you alright?”
Casper's sister's head was in my lap, her wig gone, leaving her wispy blonde hair free to float in the breeze. She looked like an angel there in that second.
“Casp.” His name was the last word to leave her lips, but it burned a hole straight through my heart and out the other side. Julie's eyes, always so pale, so colorless, faded right in front of me, life draining out of her and into the earth. Blood was everywhere, staining everything. She was dying, was maybe already dead. She sacrificed herself for me, I thought as I looked up and saw Cage wrestling with Shayla.
I held her tiny body like it was made of glass, like I would break if I shifted even a little bit. Somehow, I felt like if I held still enough, she'd still be alive when Casper got over to us, collapsing to his knees next to his sister. His hands touched her face, his lips here forehead, but when he looked up at me, his eyes were wet and the damage was done.
Julie Alice was dead because she'd saved me. The mystery was solved, but it didn't matter because the price we paid was so high. As I sat there and listened to Casper sob, my fingers tangled in his hair, blood on my lap, Heidi by my side, I waited for the sirens and the flashing lights to come with a single thought playing and replaying in my mind.
Is there a happy ending in all of this?
Jealousy killed Tatiana Marcham.
Jealousy killed Julie Alice. Julie Alice with the faraway eyes and the voice that smiled. Julie Alice who I had known only for a handful of days, but who sacrificed her life for mine. For days I slept, thinking her blood was on my hands, that it was my fault. It didn't matter that Shayla was in jail or that she was going to be tried as an adult. None of that mattered. What mattered was that I was here and Julie was gone.
I agonized over that for days, curled up in bed, wishing it had been me and not her. But then Casper came over, and my mother let him in. He climbed down the steps and looked at me with eyes wide and dripping. And then he crawled up next to me, put his arm around me and slept. All I could see then was the name Julie etched across his wrist in ink.
“It's official,” my mother said, walking in on me and Heidi sitting on the floor painting our nails. Well, I was painting both of our nails. She was moaning about the dentist appointment she had in the morning, and how her new teeth better be as white, if not whiter, than the ones that had gotten knocked out. It wasn't that she was shallow or that she didn't care about her baby, it was just the way she coped. The sam
e way Heidi wore white shirts with black bras and didn't care that her butt cheeks were hanging out of her shorts, she liked to complain about the superficial things in life and pretend that the horrible parts weren't so horrible after all.
The one thing she couldn't complain about: Cage Lawrence had stopped by her house with a Get Well card. “And I'm pretty sure he was checking out my boobs,” she'd told me, leaning in to gauge my jealousy. But I didn't have any. Cage was my friend – a really good one, actually – and to be honest, I thought they'd make a perfect couple together. For me, there was really only one person in the world that I was interested in right now.
Casper Alice.
Sometimes, when you lose someone, your heart gets split open and your blood just pours out for everyone to see. I'd been there, felt it, touched it. I saw Casper at his worst and that made me like him best. His sister had died for me. Maybe just because she was a good person, or maybe because she thought her brother and I really had a chance at something, I'm not sure. All I knew was that I couldn't stop thinking about him, couldn't keep my hands off his face, and that his strength was immeasurable, stretching out into the universe infinite.
“What's official?” Heidi asked when I didn't take the bait, too caught up in my own thoughts to process what my mom had said. Three weeks it had been since the incident. Three weeks and no cards, no flowers, no candy. No Crushes.
“The Assignment is history,” she said with a small smile on her face.
I shrugged. I didn't bother to tell my mom that it pretty much already was. With most of the Assigned refusing to participate, there was nothing more for the Students to feed off of, and everyone just sort of drifted off to do their own thing. “Permanently.”
“What?” I asked, my eyes snapping up to her face, to her smile, to the tight bun she pulled her hair up into everyday like clockwork.
“There won't be anymore condoning of the tradition. From now on, The Assignment is listed as being a suspected gang operation. Anyone caught participating will have some serious questions to answer.” I gawped up at my mom while Heidi cheered.
“Bravo, Mrs. Summer,” she said, her accent thick and full and beautiful. She wasn't trying to hide it anymore. I didn't know why, but it was a nice change. “Bloody brilliant work.”
I didn't say a word, just rose from the ground, slipped the brush back into the nail polish bottle and gave my mom a hug that said everything and nothing all at once.
A few days later, I walked over to Casper's house. Literally just walked there. It was a long way on foot, but the sun was shining bright and the air was clear and fresh. I felt like I was looking at everything in a different light than I had before. I guess knowing that you could've died, that someone who wanted to live died so you could instead, makes you want to try things you wouldn't normally do. I wore a black dress with lace on it and didn't care that everyone was staring or that it was too hot to wear an outfit like that. I sipped a sweet tea and tried to savor ever mouthful, holding it against my tongue until my cheeks hurt so much that I had to swallow.
When I reached Casper's yard, I saw that he was already out front, lying under the shade of the tree. We hadn't spoken in days, not since his sister's funeral, and I'll admit, I was afraid. Afraid that when he broke out of his melancholy, that he'd look at me and wonder why I was there and not her, that he'd wish for his sister with every breath I took.
I pulled in a deep breath of summer air and moved forward, slipping off my sandals at the edge of the lawn. My feet whispered over the grass as I closed the distance between us.
“Did you know that we, as humans, have explored less than five percent of the ocean's depth?” Casper asked, turning to look at me over his shoulder. I paused there, frozen in a slice of sunshine, tears burning in my eyes.
“I didn't know that,” I whispered back as Casper sat up and set his iPad – Julie's iPad – on the grass next to him. His eyes were dry and he had a slight smile playing around his lips.
“Makes you seriously want to consider marine biology as a career, doesn't it? How cool would it be to know you're taking on something that nobody else has ever seen before.”
“Sounds beautiful,” I told him, completely serious. Casper glanced away, at the last remnants of chalk that marred the sidewalk in front of his house.
“Did you know that the doctor told her she had less than a month to live? That every day she took a breath, she was lucky?” My tears finally slipped and cut tracks through the blush on my cheeks. Casper stayed right where he was, still smiling. “So my sister knew she had more to give than just that, just a few weeks of pain and suffering. She knew she could make a difference, leave something behind worth saving. She knew she could give me you,” Casper said, and then I was running forward, throwing myself into his arms and tasting the infinite threads of fate and possibility that twisted together when we kissed.
This summer, I had one goal: learn to love life.
I didn't think – no, no, I knew – that The Assignment couldn't teach me that. It wasn't real, none of it was, and that's what I needed to find. Something real. I wanted to escape my boring life and take on new experiences. Well, I did that. I did that and more. I met Julie Alice, the girl who in her sickness would give me health. And I met her brother, met a boy with his little sister's name tattooed across his wrist. I felt his love for her and tasted a spark of what he could have for me. Julie Alice died to protect me, and I'll live to remember her.
We'll all say goodbye to The Assignment, to those little demons that are trapped within all of us just looking for an excuse to get out. And we'll say goodbye to the place where it all went wrong. People don't need a license to act out the darkness inside of them; they need a chance to prove that there's light in every single one of us.
My name is Chloe Summer. I'm the Crush, but that's okay. I survived. I met a boy that likes me for me, found some friendships that will transcend time, and spent the rest of my summer writing it all down, so we don't forget a girl with pale eyes and raven hair.
If you enjoyed this, try The Seven Wicked Series.
Excerpt Included!
Prologue
I spent the night of my seventeenth birthday holding the dying body of the boy I loved. I watched in helpless horror as the light in his gentle eyes faded slowly, brushing my fingers through the golden halo of his hair as I tried not to cry. "You can't go yet," I whispered in the sudden silence. Either the First was already dead or it had crawled off into some dank, dirty hole in the ground to finish dying. I could only hope it was suffering half as much as we were.
Caleb tried to smile at me, blood trickling down the sides of his face in warm, crimson rivulets. He was trying to make me feel better when he was the one who was dying. Tears prickled at the corners of my eyes. "Please," I begged, hugging him close to me. As I shifted his body, he grunted in pain and I was forced to release him back into the confines of my lap. "I'm so sorry." Caleb smiled again and reached a quaking hand up to my lips. This is all my fault. I did this. I killed my guardian angel.
"Don't be sorry, Eevee. I'm not." A rumble shook the dirt beneath us and rattled the corrugated steel walls around us. The broken lamps swung violently overhead, the rusty chains snapping as glass and metal exploded into the ground and burst like bombs, shrapnel nicking my face and neck.
"Caleb," I whispered, hunching over to protect him from the debris. "What's going on? I thought you killed it?" Across the warehouse, a mound of dirt was rising like an anthill, black oozing from the openings on its side, glistening and thick like oil. Caleb didn't respond at first, his eyelids fluttering like frantic butterflies as he struggled to maintain consciousness. I tore my gaze from his pale lashes and bloody lips, checking carefully to make sure we weren't going to be swallowed whole by the ever widening pool of sludge. The shaking had stopped suddenly leaving us in eerie quiet that sent chills down my spine. I had to get him out of there, but I didn't know how. Think of something. Caleb was there for you, be there for him. I couldn'
t let fear and panic cripple me. I had to be as brave, as strong, as the boy that I held motionless in my arms. I clutched for the necklace with my right hand, hoping there was enough magic left to save us both.
A whisper drew my attention back to my guardian's pallid features. His cracked lips were moving, but no sound was coming out. "What is it?" I sobbed, taking his face in one hand and tilting my head so that my ear was pressed as close to him as I could get without touching the bruises on his cheeks.
"The Second," he gasped, pink bubbles sputtering as he tried to enunciate beyond the red liquid in his mouth. And then he fell still. His eyes emptied of anything and everything that had ever made Caleb, Caleb. The necklace fell from my grasp, swinging back and forth like a noose. I screamed then like I had never screamed before, pain and rage and frustration. Hate, no loathing, pumped through my veins instead of blood as I raised my head and watched a pair of arms digging out from beneath the dirt.
The Second of the Seven Wicked looked out at me from beady, black eyes, like bits of coal stuffed into a swollen, blue veined face. I tugged Caleb's sword from stiffening fingers and tried to remember why he had died. He died to protect me.
I set Caleb's body gently aside and stood, facing an enemy that I had unknowingly brought down upon myself.
I would not let him die in vain.
Chapter One
I gazed at it through the thick glass of the display case. There the necklace sat, in a bed of blue velvet, glimmering in the store's soft, yellow overhead lighting. In that moment, that's all it was, a piece of jewelry. Days later, they would try to kill me for it. I wish I had known that then. It would've saved me a whole lot of trouble. But I'd have put it on anyway. Love makes people do crazy things.
Crushing Summer Page 24