I shook my head. “I’ve never seen him before, but she’s my cousin. And that is not her boyfriend. I swear, she is such a closet slut.” She’d gotten double detention for public display with Nash two days ago.
Luca glanced at me with upraised brows. “Looks like the closet’s open.”
“Great.” The only thing worse than a quiet, crazy cousin was a slutty, skanky cousin with an exhibitionist streak. At least Peyton knew how to keep her secrets secret.
For the millionth time, I wished my parents had let me change my last name so people would stop mistaking me and Kaylee for sisters. That’s all I’d wanted for my thirteenth birthday, and those little-girl diamond heart earrings were a poor substitute.
A second later, Nash and his creepy, goth-freak friend stepped around a corner on the other end of the hall and stopped cold, staring just like we were. I couldn’t decide whether to stick around for the fireworks, or run from the drama before I became collateral damage by association. Again.
“Kaylee?” Nash said, and my cousin and the mystery hottie jumped apart like someone had lit a fire at their feet.
I ducked into a classroom doorway, behind a row of lockers, and Luca glanced at me in surprise. “That’s her boyfriend. At the end of the hall, with the scary brunette.”
Luca stared down the hall again, and when the shouting started, I grabbed his arm and pulled him around the corner with me. “You’re right. Let’s go this way.” I started back the way we’d come and he fell into step beside me, still carrying my box, as the drama behind us grew louder and even more embarrassing.
“I take it you’re not close to your cousin?” Luca said, watching me with those beautiful eyes.
“I’m close to never speaking to her again. Does that count?”
“Why? What’d she do?”
“You mean other than the Jerry Springer-worthy public display back there? She lived with me until this year—her own dad didn’t even want her around for, like, thirteen years—and she’s been trying to wreck my life since junior high.”
“With serial public displays of affection?”
“No, that’s a recent development.” Thank goodness. “Kaylee’s kind of…unbalanced.”
“Meaning, she falls over a lot?”
“Ha-ha. She’s nuts. My eighth grade dance recital? We had to leave before my solo because Kaylee had this stupid panic attack.”
“A panic attack?”
“She was totally faking. She just started screaming at the top of her lungs, for no reason at all, and everyone stared at us, and my dad had to carry her out like a baby. Every time she does it, they fuss over her like she’s all fragile, when it’s my life she’s turning into a public tragedy every time she opens her mouth.”
“And you’re sure she does it on purpose?”
“So sure. She’s a social assassin. She sabotaged my run for Snow Queen. She got my boyfriend arrested and committed to a mental institution, and—”
“Boyfriend?” Luca looked disappointed, and my pulse rushed so fast I got a little dizzy again.
“Ex.”
But the worst part—the part I hadn’t told anyone—was that she was there when my mom died. Kaylee did something—or, at the very least, she knew something—but she wouldn’t tell me what really happened. She couldn’t even come through for me the one time I truly needed her help, yet she went to great lengths to hold me back from the social existence I was born to live.
“The moral of the story is that my cousin is a malicious freak, and you should avoid her like the social equivalent of the black plague.”
Luca’s brows rose. “That sounds a little harsh.”
I shrugged. “Survival strategy. If you’re not careful, this place will eat you alive, and Kaylee’s like bait for the beasts.”
“You make your school sound like a war zone. Should I come dressed for battle?”
“Always.” And it doesn’t hurt to have designer labels on your chain mail. “The key is to know which battles are worth fighting.”
“Would these be dance battles?” Luca said, his eyes sparkling with good humor. “If so, I’m afraid I’m not very well trained. Maybe you could give me some pointers.”
“Yeah,” I said, trying not to look or sound as nervous as I felt. He was so pretty, and he’d just heard all about my psychologically challenged cousin and wasn’t scared away. “I could probably make time in my schedule for some private—”
A boy appeared in the hall, right in front of me, inches from where I’d been smacked by the door minutes earlier. I squealed and jumped back, my heart pounding so hard I could hear it echo in my ears. “What the hell?” I backed away, my gaze glued to the boy who’d appeared out of nowhere, kneeling, head bowed like he was praying, hands flat on his own thighs.
“Sophie, wait…” Luca came toward me, his focus shifting between me and the guy in the middle of the floor, like he was afraid to let either of us out of his sight. Me, and the guy who shouldn’t exist. Who hadn’t moved since he’d materialized, right in front of us.
How hard had that door hit me?
“You see him?” I demanded, eyes wide, pulse racing so fast my vision was starting to blur. “It’s not just me?” Maybe Kaylee wasn’t faking crazy after all. Maybe it was hereditary, and I was losing my mind too.
“I see him. He’s real.” Luca backed toward me, the box still tucked under his left arm, his right hand held out at his side, like he’d grab mine.
“Then why aren’t you freaked-out?” I couldn’t drag my gaze away from the guy-who-shouldn’t-be, still kneeling in black pants and a white button-up shirt like he was on his way to church. Or to wait tables. How did he get there? Why wasn’t he moving?
“I’m good under pressure,” Luca said, his voice soft and steady. “When I say go, we’re both going to run.” He knelt carefully and set the box down. “Okay?”
I nodded, but he couldn’t see that, because he was still watching the boy, who hadn’t moved. Who wasn’t breathing. “What the hell just happened? How are you so calm?” I demanded.
“I’m faking it. Give me your hand.”
“I don’t understand….”
“Sophie,” Luca whispered fiercely, and I slid my hand into his just as the boy in the white shirt looked up. Slowly. Like he wasn’t sure he wanted to see us any more than we wanted to see him. Which was probably why his eyes were closed. A strand of dark hair fell over his ear, and his hand twitched on his leg, his thumb scratching across the black cotton. He was older than I’d thought at first. Too old for high school. The boy-who-couldn’t-be-there was really a man-who-couldn’t-be-there, but that fact barely even registered, because that wasn’t the part of this that made no sense.
I was breathing too fast. My lungs were starting to burn, and the hallway looked hazy. I’d passed out once—the night my mom died—and that’s what the world looked like right before I lost consciousness.
“Ready?” Luca whispered, and I nodded again, as the man in the white shirt stood. Then he opened his eyes.
And I screamed.
I screamed so loud my throat burned and my lungs ached.
Those weren’t eyes. They had no color. No irises and no pupils. They weren’t bluish, like the whites of normal eyes. They were bright white and blank. Empty. Like someone had scooped out his eyes and shoved miniature cue balls into his head in their place.
The man who couldn’t be there had eyes that couldn’t be real, and I couldn’t stop screaming, even when Luca squeezed my hand, wincing from the pitch of my scream, and tried to pull me away from the man without eyes.
Then the world went gray, and I screamed even harder. Fog rolled over the dingy tile floors, covering the impossible man’s feet, lapping at my own calves. Something moved in the fog—a slithery, sliding thing I couldn’t quite focus on. So I closed my eyes and the air changed around me, but I didn’t stop screaming.
I couldn’t, until I realized that my voice sounded different now. Less echoey, like the walls
around me had changed and were bouncing the sound back at me differently now.
The shock of that realization choked the scream from my throat, and Luca’s fingers slipped from my grasp. A warm hand cradled each side of my face, and my eyes flew open as I sucked in a deep, chest-rattling breath.
Luca stared back at me from inches away, his eyes bright but wide with fear, his forehead deeply lined.
“What the hell happened?” I whispered. I tried to look around, because the hall felt…weird. Hell, it smelled weird. But he held my head in place and I could see nothing but him and I could feel nothing but his fingers, steady and strong, while my heart raced in panic. “Where are we?”
“Sophie, listen to me very carefully,” he whispered, and I was glad I’d whispered too. Everything I’d ever known before that moment seemed suddenly, terrifyingly, irrelevant, and the only thing I knew for sure was that I did not want to be heard here. Wherever here was.
I nodded, and his face blurred beneath the tears standing in my eyes.
“We are going to turn around and head straight for the nearest exit. Do not let go of my hand, and do not look around. Don’t make any noise. Don’t run unless I tell you to. And don’t touch anything. Understand?”
“No.” I blinked and the tears rolled down my cheeks in hot trails I couldn’t wipe, because I was afraid to move. “I don’t understand anything.”
“I’ll explain as soon as we get out of here. Okay?” His hands dropped from my face, and I nodded. Then I took my first look around. And immediately understood why he’d told me not to.
“How did we get here?” I whispered.
“I don’t know,” Luca said, and somehow, that made everything worse.
We were in a corridor, but it took me a second to realize that, because the walls were crawling with plant life. Literally. Dark green vines—some as thick as my thumb—squirmed over, under, and through themselves slowly, covering every single inch of walls I could hardly see through the tangles of heart-shaped leaves that bled to red on jagged edges. Thorns grew across from the leaves, an inch long and as sharp and thin as the sewing machine needles from my Life Sciences class. The thorns scraped other parts of the vines as they crept, leaving thin cuts that leaked a gooey, rank fluid.
“What is that?” I whispered, edging away from the nearest wall as the thin end of one vine reached for me like it knew I was there. My voice shook. My hands shook. This was impossible. All of it. This couldn’t be real.
Luca grabbed my arm, and I turned to see that he’d stopped me from stepping on another, thicker vine crawling slowly across the floor toward us.
“Crimson creeper. Don’t touch it.”
I had no intention of touching it. But I had to know. “What happens if I touch it?”
“The thorns secrete a fluid that will digest your organs from the inside out, over a period of about a week. But you’ll die screaming some time during the first twenty-four hours.”
My breath caught in my throat and refused to move. “You’re serious?”
“I never joke about carnivorous plants. Except that one in Little Shop of Horrors.”
“Little what?”
“Little Shop…” He stopped and shook his head when he found no comprehension in my eyes. “Never mind. My dad likes musical horror. You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve sat through Rocky Horror Picture Show and Sweeney Todd. Watch where you step.”
“Ugh. Why are these things growing inside the building?” I said, when one of the thick green vines curled up at its end, like a creepy finger giving me a “come here” gesture. “I don’t even like regular plants. Except for corsages and long-stemmed roses.” And those only hurt you when they don’t show up.
Luca laughed, like it didn’t bother him that we were suddenly someplace where killer plants grew on interior walls, even though we hadn’t actually gone anywhere. But his laugh sounded kind of forced, like maybe it was for my benefit. “Haven’t you ever been camping?” he said, and I had to glance at him again to see if he was serious.
“Only if you count my thirteenth birthday sleepover, when ten of us camped out on air mattresses in the living room, watching a marathon of America’s Next Top Model. You know, in high definition, on a fifty-inch screen, you can see every single pore on a person’s face. Close-ups are way overutilized.”
“Um, no. That doesn’t count. You’re not camping unless you’re communing with nature.”
“I’d rather ‘commune’ with my air conditioner, my electric lights, and my LCD screen.” Bugs, poison oak, and bottom-dwelling pond fish were not on my list of spring must-have accessories. “Where are we, Luca? Have you been here before?”
“Here specifically? No.” He frowned and took another careful step. “But…that’s kind of a complicated question.”
“This is a nightmare, right?” I whispered, tiptoeing through the tangle of vines slithering slowly toward us on the floor, inhaling and exhaling with deliberation. “Please tell me I’m asleep?” Because none of this made any sense.
“This is definitely a nightmare, but you’re not asleep. Crimson creeper only thrives where there’s a steady food supply, which means we’re not alone. We have to get out of here. Where’s the nearest exit?”
“How the hell should I know?” I backed carefully away from another vine, and my gaze snagged on something caught in a tangle of green on the wall to my left. Something small and furry. Something dead, dripping yellowish gunk through an open wound on its leg.
Ew! Disgust overwhelmed my fear for the first time in the three minutes since I’d opened my eyes in hell, and I clutched Luca’s hand tighter.
“Sophie, look at me,” he said softly, and I did. He was the only thing in this whole nightmare worth looking at anyway. He was the only part I wanted to still see when I woke up. “This is your school. You know where we are. How do we get out?”
I shook my head. “This isn’t my school. I’ve never been here before.” Not even in my very worst fears. Not even in my nightmares.
“Yes, you have. Look.” He pointed at the floor. “The same tile.” I looked down to find dingy whitish floor tiles, identical to the ones we’d been standing on before the world of bizarre opened its mouth and swallowed me whole. Only this tile was crawling with creepy green eat-you-alive vines. “We never left the school. We just kind of…fell through the layer we live in and landed in the one beneath that. Like the layers of a cake—if you stick your fork through one and into the next, you’re still touching cake. And we’re still in your school. Down there’s the water fountain. See?”
I had to look extrahard to see the fountain, because the stainless steel box was almost entirely covered by yet more vines. But it was there. He was right. Somehow, this was my school, and that was the fountain outside Mrs. Foley’s biology class, in the science hall. Which meant that the nearest exit was…
“Teacher’s lounge. Around the corner on the right. It opens into the quad.”
“Let’s go.” He took my hand again, and we picked our way carefully through the vines slowly twisting on the floor, grasping toward our feet with every step.
“How is this possible—these layers? This is my school, but…it isn’t. It’s like a Halloween maze with the same blueprint as my school. But that doesn’t make any sense. How can a school have layers?”
I never thought I’d miss the ugly floors and painted-white cinder-block walls. And the lockers! I could hardly tell they were there, beneath the mass of vines tangled in and all around them now. Tiny vines even grew from the locker vents to trail to the floor.
“This is…well, the easiest way to explain it is…this is an alternate dimension.”
“An alternate dimension? Like that fantasy role-playing gamer crap, with swords and magic elves?” Great. I’d been sucked into nerd hell. Shouldn’t there be a different one for people who’d never banished an evil magician or LOL’d in an RPG chatroom?
“Um… Less Lord of the Rings and more Alice in Wonderland. Only
scary,” Luca said. “This world is a reflection of our world, only everything’s…different. Warped. Discolored. Disproportionate.”
“I’d say that sounds crazy, except that it actually looks even crazier than it sounds.” I pulled Luca to a stop to ask the question twisting my stomach into knots. There was only one real explanation for all this, and it had nothing to do with cake layers and fantasy role playing. “Am I insane?”
He must have heard the very real fear in my voice because he turned to look at me, in spite of the vines still snaking toward us like they were drawn to our scent or our sound, or maybe just the air we disturbed with every step.
“This is real, Sophie. And based on the fact that you haven’t freaked out yet, I’d say you’re astonishingly stable.”
“Or maybe I’m in shock.”
He shrugged. “Always a possibility.”
“So, how did we get to this dimension?” I asked, stepping over and around vines again.
“It’s called the Netherworld. Around here, anyway. They may call it something else in other regions of the world. Nether means—”
“Under. Beneath. I know. Like nether regions. If you’re telling me this place is the crotch of the world, I’m not gonna argue,” I said, and Luca laughed softly. “But how did we get here? Does this have something to do with that guy with no eyes? Is he from here? Did we get traded for him, like some kind of exchange program? One freaky eyeless Netherworld guy in exchange for two normal, tragically beautiful people from our world?”
Luca glanced back at me in surprise, and I rolled my eyes. “We’re about to be devoured by man-eating plants. Shouldn’t we at least acknowledge how attractive our respective bodies are before they’re digested from the inside out?”
“Is that your way of fishing for a compliment?”
“No.” I already knew I was pretty. Not that I would have hated hearing him say it. “My point is that this isn’t a fair trade no matter how the U.S. dollar stacks up against whatever the Netherworld currency is.”