Ty put her hand on his arm. Her fingers were cold and smooth, like river rocks. “Just ignore him,” she whispered with a flirty smile. “Though I appreciate the chivalry.”
“Guys like that always get what’s coming to them,” Ali said, sliding into the booth. Melissa slid next to JD, and he put his arm around her.
“They sure do,” Ty said, but she suddenly seemed distracted. JD watched her eyes squint just a little, like she was trying hard to remember something.
And that’s when the hacking started, first loud and punctuated, then lower, gurgling. JD turned around. The frat boy, the one who had whistled, was leaning out of the booth, struggling to breathe. He had his hands around his throat. JD couldn’t even see his face, just the visor of his cap. Everyone in the restaurant was watching.
“He’s choking,” someone shouted.
“Does anyone know CPR?” That was the waitress’s voice, high, hysterical.
JD almost missed Ali’s muttered comment: “See?” He was already getting out of the booth.
He was by the guy within seconds. He hoisted him to his feet, then spun him around to perform the Heimlich maneuver. Channeling his memories of sophomore-year health class, he wrapped his arms around Frat Boy’s stomach, made a fist, and thrust upward. Once, and again. On the third try, something was dislodged, and the guy gasped.
“Oh my . . . Oh my god.” He coughed. “Thank you. Thanks, man.”
A little old lady sitting at a wooden table with her husband started clapping. “You saved him,” she said. A round of applause swept through Pete’s; JD felt his cheeks flush as red as the back of the booths around him.
“No problem,” he said, backing toward the doorway. He couldn’t stay inside any longer. He was dizzy, pumped from a combination of adrenaline and fear. “Look—smaller bites, okay? Come on, Melissa.” With that, he swept out into the parking lot, relishing the way the fresh air cooled his face. He paced the asphalt, waiting for the girls to follow him outside.
“You’re a hero!” Melissa said, bursting out the door after him with Ty and Ali close on her heels. “That was amazing. How did you know how to do that?”
“Even zombies can save lives,” he said lightly. “Ready to go?”
“Let me just say good-bye,” she said, turning to give Ali a hug.
Ty took the opportunity to take a step closer to JD. “It would be awesome to get a phone call from a hero,” she said with a wink.
He felt the heat rising back up his neck. “I, ah—I don’t have your, ah—,” JD stammered.
“My number? Don’t worry, I have yours. I did my recon,” she said, clicking away. A second later, JD felt his phone buzz in his pocket.
The number was blocked.
Another chill washed over him. He couldn’t tell if it was one of excitement or apprehension or both. He unlocked his phone and read the text: Guess who?
ACT TWO
PROPHETIC, OR ALL THE PRETTY FLOWERS
CHAPTER SIX
Surrounded by the chalky-strong smell of gym clothes and disinfectant, Em sat in the girls’ locker room during fourth period on Tuesday. She was cutting class, but this was more important. She was worried about Crow, and his confession about seeing visions had reminded her of the book—the one she’d stolen from Sasha’s locker last month: Conjuring the Furies. She carried it with her everywhere and had practically memorized most of it, although there was one section, the one she was reading now, that she’d previously just skimmed over: “The Role of the Prophet.” She remembered it talked about visions. She had to figure out whether there was something she’d missed, some key clue that she’d ignored.
According to the book, prophets were reborn over and over again through the centuries, living lives tortured by incomprehensible visions, as vulnerable to forces of evil as to sources of good.
No one knows if they descended from above or arose from the underworld. Some prophets are responsible for calling the dark essence of the Furies out from their dark lairs and into the real one. Others, gifted with an ability to identify the Furies’ snowballing thirst for vengeance, are able to combat the influence of those and other dark spirits. Prophets are usually, but not always, male.
As much as one percent of the population may be unrecognized prophets—many of them artistic types who try to channel their visions into their work; others are driven crazy, or persecuted by the mainstream into believing they are crazy.
Some become entangled with the Furies unknowingly, Em read, drawn unconsciously to do the Furies’ bidding. They may, however, recognize that they are part of something heinous; if they trust their visions, they may be able to battle the Furies.
The passage went on. Do not confuse the prophet with the patient. Many victims of head injury or trauma display symptoms of prophecy. They may hear the Furies, but it is temporary.
So, “prophets” were different from “patients.” Patients were people who had brain defects and who shared some of the same symptoms as prophets. They were missing the part of the brain that apparently stores and processes trauma. The part of the brain that keeps most of us sane and normal, that protects us from succumbing completely to exposure to evil and chaos. If that part of the brain is damaged or missing, it’s like the floodgates to evil open up. And that’s how the Furies can get in.
Crow didn’t seem to have anything wrong with his mind.
No, Crow was a prophet, not a patient. She was almost certain of it. The disturbing visions. The desire to escape from them, or turn them into art . . . It all sounded just like him.
But how deep was his connection to the Furies? Could he help her? Or would he hurt her more?
She packed up her books and started walking back up the hill from the gym to the library, where she had plans to meet Gabby for lunch. Halfway up the hill, her cell rang. It was a blocked number.
She picked up anxiously. “Hello?”
“Emily, it’s Crow.” He sounded distant.
“What happened to you last night?” she asked. “Where did you go?”
“To jail,” he said. There were loud voices in the background.
She stopped walking and covered her other ear to hear him better. She stood in the middle of the walkway and students streamed around her. “To where?”
“I was arrested last night,” he answered sharply. “Don’t ask. I need money. For bail.”
“Wait, Crow, hold on,” Em said. She suddenly felt itchy all over, like she’d stood in a hot shower for too long. “What are you talking about? What can I—”
“Go to my house,” he said. “Get my guitar—the acoustic, the Fender, from my room. Then, please, can you go down to the pawn shop on Route One? And get some money? To bail me out? Two hundred should be enough. I’m sorry, Em.”
His guitar? The one thing he loved? His one source of happiness?
“No way,” she said.
He misunderstood. “Em, there’s no one else—”
She couldn’t bear to let him think she would just leave him there. “No, of course I’ll bail you out,” she said hurriedly. “But I’m not going to sell your guitar. Just don’t . . . I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
* * *
“Did you see the article about Landon?” Em heard Portia say later as they waited for their French teacher to arrive. The hair on Em’s arms prickled. The very last place she wanted to be was here when Crow was sitting in a jail cell, and the very last thing she wanted to talk about was a dead teacher.
The school paper had just run a short obituary of their former English teacher, published on the anniversary of the Spring Awakening humanities quiz show he’d started at Ascension a few years back as part of Spring Week. School administrators were promising to bring back the Jeopardy!-style event later this season, before SAT and final-exam pressures started to build. Em had placed well last year but she hadn’t decided if she would participate this time around. Not likely.
“Shitty luck,” said Andy Barton, the football player and form
er friend of Zach and Chase. “That ice is dangerous.” He didn’t really sound too beat up about it.
Henry Landon had been found, drowned, in a small pond near the Haunted Woods, where people ice-fished in the winter. The reports said there was no appearance of foul play; the ice had simply cracked below him.
“I know this is, like, so bad to say, but . . . ” After a suitable dramatic pause, Portia went on. “I always felt like he was a little bit perverted.”
“Like how?” Leaning back in his chair, Andy leaped at the chance to delve into the topic of perversion. Meanwhile, Em tried to ignore the irritation billowing in her chest. It was impossible not to listen.
“I think he . . . paid more attention to me . . . in class on the days I wore . . . low-cut shirts,” Portia said. “I bet I would have gotten an even better grade if I let him give me extra help, if you know what I mean. I think he was into that sort of thing.”
“Well, I hope you’d let me videotape it.” Andy smiled slyly. “That dude didn’t deserve such a hot piece of ass.”
Portia shifted uncomfortably. Oblivious, Andy continued, tilting his chair so it balanced on his two back legs. “Anyway, if he was really a creep then he probably had it coming.”
“ ‘Had it coming’?” Em interjected. “So he deserved to die?” She couldn’t help herself.
“No, obviously not,” Andy said as he rolled his eyes. He looked to Portia for sympathy, but she hung her head low and pretended to be fascinated with her French worksheet. “What’s with you, anyways, Winters? You and Landon close or something?”
God, she hated people like that, who managed to turn everything upside down and make their own shitty comments seem totally natural. As if she were the one who was out of line. Her body tensed—including every muscle in her hand, which clutched at the pen so firmly that it shook.
“Maybe I hit a nerve?” he asked, tipping back and forth on his chair. He then went on to say something about always being misunderstood. Em wasn’t listening anymore. She could sense her temper starting to boil, and all she wanted was for Andy to stop talking. She wished something would happen to just make him shut up.
“Oh, shit!” Andy cried in a stupidly strangled voice as his chair wobbled out from underneath him. As he came down on the tile, there was a clang of metal against the floor and a loud thud as his head flew backward against the desk behind him.
“Oh my God,” Portia said, kneeling down on the floor and reaching for his head. “Andy, are you okay?”
“It’s nothing,” he said quickly. He propped himself up on an elbow and reached behind his head, but flinched immediately after touching it. When he drew his head back, there was a spot of blood.
“But you’re bleeding . . . ” Portia continued.
“What’s going on?” Ms. Oullette said as she came into the classroom. By now a handful of students had gotten out of their seats and formed a semicircle around Andy.
“I’m fine, guys. Really.” And aside from a tiny cut, he was mostly—except for the fact he was red with mortification.
“Well, fine or not, you’ll need to check in with the nurse,” Ms. Oullette said. Andy nodded and accepted Pete Nash’s hand, using it to pull himself off the floor.
“Ms. Oullette,” Pete called over his shoulder, “Andy probably needs someone to accompany him to the nurse’s office—like me, maybe. Who knows if he’s concussed or not?”
“Nice try, Mr. Nash,” she responded drily, “but you wouldn’t want to miss the pop quiz I was just about to administer.”
There were a bunch of exaggerated groans as Andy slunk out of the classroom. He looked at Em as he passed, and she stared back with wide, unblinking eyes. I did that, she thought, terrified. I hurt him. Just because I was angry.
Em could barely focus during the quiz; she wouldn’t be surprised if she’d completely failed it—but she didn’t even care. After turning it in she excused herself to go to the bathroom, slung her bag on her shoulder, and never came back.
* * *
When you combined all the money from last year’s summer gig at the YMCA day camp, plus her savings from occasional babysitting jobs here and there, Em had about three hundred dollars. She’d been hoping to put it toward a new laptop, but getting Crow out of jail was slightly more important. After raiding the Mason jar at the back of her closet (her “savings account”), Em sped to the police station with two hundred dollars in twenties, tens, fives, and singles.
“Thank you,” Crow mouthed as soon as she’d signed the paperwork and they brought him through the heavy sliding doors.
“Thank you, officers,” she said, praying that no one she knew would see her coming out of the Ascension Police Department with Crow at her side. “What is this?” she hissed as soon as they were back in her car. “What were you thinking? What happened?”
He reached over and put his hand on her arm. She’d never seen him so serious.
“I’m sorry, Em,” he said, and she could tell that he meant it. He was sober. Tired. And his eyes were full of gratitude. “I don’t want you to . . . I went back. After you left, after your mom picked you up. I kept messing with that guy—the bouncer. I was so pissed off, Em. They called the cops on me, and I got arrested for disorderly conduct.”
Em shook her head slowly. “But that doesn’t make sense. Wouldn’t they have just let you out this morning?” She remembered the same had happened to Gabby’s brother, Sam, the night he turned twenty-one and started stripping drunk in a gas station parking lot. They’d taken him overnight and let him out the next morning; he reported back that he’d been thrown in a big cell with a bunch of other drunk people and a whole lot of vomit on the floor. Nothing too traumatic, though definitely impressionable enough to never do it again. But either way, there was no bail involved.
“Yeah, I just . . . I might have told an officer to fuck himself. . . . ”
“What?!”
“And then smiled at a judge the wrong way . . . ”
“You had to see a judge this morning?!” This felt way out of her league.
“Listen, Em, it wasn’t that big of a deal. It’s just that I pissed off some cop and so he pulled up my record—and now that I’m eighteen they don’t cut me such a break. . . . ”
“Crow, stop.” She took in a deep breath, trying to form a coherent thought in her head. “It doesn’t matter how it happened, not really. I’m just . . . I’m really worried about you. You’re going off the rails. Drinking too much, getting into fights, getting arrested, telling off cops? All of this could’ve been avoided. Why couldn’t you just talk to me? Why the hell did you run off like that last night?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “It’s the darkness . . . these visions. They’re driving me crazy.” He rubbed his palms on the front of his jeans, his large hands shaking. It was torture—for both of them. As he did his best to deal with these visions, he only spiraled deeper—further and further away from her. She couldn’t withhold any information from Crow. Not anymore, not at this point.
“Can we go somewhere to talk?” she asked, looking around.
“Aren’t we talking now, princess?”
“I’m serious. Somewhere private.”
“My house?” he said quietly. “Let’s go get my car and meet back at my house.”
She looked at him skeptically. He tilted his head but she couldn’t read his expression. “No funny business,” she reminded him. It took a moment to realize what she’d committed to: She was going to Crow’s house. Alone.
At his split-level ranch, not far from Em’s street, Crow brought her up to his bedroom, a large space over the garage. “Sorry,” he said before opening the door. “It’s kind of a mess.”
And it was: an explosion of notebooks and guitars and guitar picks, jeans and empty cigarette cartons and black clothing and Dr Pepper cans. The rich and musty smell of candles and incense hung in the air. Nothing like JD’s room, she found herself thinking, before pushing the comparison from her mind.
>
“A seat?” he said, gesturing to the bed, which was covered in rumpled navy-blue flannel sheets. She scooted so her back was against the wall and he joined her, careful to leave a few inches of space between them.
“So, you first, or me?” Crow asked.
“I’ll go,” she said, reaching down to grab the book from her bag, where it always was. “There’s something I have to show you.” She flipped through the pages like they were on fire. “Look at this. I think . . . I think this is you.” She pointed to the chapter about prophets and passed the book to him, waiting breathlessly as he read.
“A prophet.” The words came out of his mouth like bricks, like he was using them to build a wall. “Tortured by visions.”
Em nodded. He looked back down at the book, frowning as though he couldn’t decipher the words on the page. Then he took in a deep breath. “This . . . this is crazy.”
“Crazy,” she said softly, “but real.”
“So that’s what’s going on? The Furies have a direct line into my brain? No thank you.” He ran a hand through his hair, making it stand up.
“I’m still not sure exactly how it works, but I know you’re involved,” she said. “I just don’t know whose side you’re on.”
“I think you wondered that about me before you even read this book,” Crow said, a weak attempt at lightening the mood.
It was true. She had never completely trusted Crow. But now, she allowed herself to feel a moment’s pity for him. Crow was cursed, just like she was. Except one glaring difference: Crow hadn’t chosen his fate. But by betraying Gabby, she had.
“I’ve been trying to figure out a way to stop them,” Crow said, fingering the pages. “They’ve been getting more intense. More frequent.”
Almost like he was becoming more possessed by the evil.
“I don’t think you can stop them—unless the Furies go away,” she said, hoping to enlist his help for that very purpose.
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