Another Romeo and Juliet, I think wryly as I open my eyes. Damn it. And now …
Well, who knows if I’ll be able to bring these two together? Their love is practically illegal, fraught with complications, and Mike’s aura isn’t exactly on fire. But then, the consequences if they’re caught are a lot more serious for him. He’s probably aware of that and—
My cell bleeps in my backpack, pulling me from my thoughts. I reach for my bag, but Melanie stops me with a hand on my arm. “I think they’re almost ready for us.” She points toward the office, where Mrs. Felix and Mr. Stark have risen from their chairs.
“But the superintendent isn’t here,” I whisper. “Neither are Ben and his brother or—”
“Wait!” A breathless Romeo appears at the door, dark circles under his eyes, a tattered brown scarf wrapped around his neck. He looks even worse than he did yesterday, more dead than alive, but no one else seems to notice. Melanie shoots him a menacing look and Mike ignores him altogether as Romeo steps inside, spoiling the energy in the room. My stomach pinches, relief and dread twisting my insides until it feels like I’m being turned inside out. I hate him, but I need him. Like it or not, my future lies partly in his hands.
I brace myself for eye contact, but he doesn’t look my way. Instead, he goes to Gemma. “We can’t do this. We can’t lie. Ariel and Ben didn’t do anything wrong.”
Gemma’s eyebrows shoot up and her eyes flicker to me for half a second. Just long enough for me to see the fear inside her. “What are you talking about? She told me she was going to kill you. I heard—”
“You didn’t hear anything. You know you didn’t.”
Gemma points an accusing finger at Romeo’s chest. “Don’t you dare start changing your story now, Dylan. You’re the one—”
“Dylan, Gemma, let’s save it for the meeting,” Mike says in his teacher’s voice. He doesn’t sound like a man who’s talking to a rival, but I don’t miss the hint of jealousy in his eyes when he looks at Dylan.
Romeo ignores them both and turns to me. “I’m so sorry,” he says, his expression holding the perfect mix of fear and regret. There isn’t a spark of mischief, not a whisper of an evil agenda. He seems truly sorry.
God, what is he up to now? Why the sudden change of plans? What can he have to gain from playing nice other than …
He still hopes I’ll help him with the spell. That has to be it.
Maybe it isn’t too late.
“I’m going to tell Mrs. Felix the truth,” he says. “I’m—”
“Okay, we’re ready for you.” Mr. Stark appears at the principal’s office door and stops to scan the waiting room. “Dylan, where’s your dad?”
“He couldn’t make it.” Romeo’s gaze doesn’t waver from mine. I hold his eyes, even when my blood runs cold. There’s something awful in his expression, lurking beneath his yellow skin. What’s happened to him since we parted yesterday? Has he seen the specters again too? Or is he haunted by something worse?
Mr. Stark sighs. “Dylan, the note you took home expressly said that you would be expelled if your father didn’t—”
“He doesn’t care if you expel me, Mr. Stark.” He faces Mr. Stark, the picture of a penitent come to plead for forgiveness. “But I’m here because I do care, and I want to do the right thing.”
“Yeah, right.” Gemma snorts. “You’re insane, is what you are.”
“Gemma, please.” Mr. Stark sighs again. “Okay. Fine. Let’s just get this over with.” He waves his hand and Mike, Gemma, and Romeo move forward. Melanie stands beside me.
“But Mr. Stark, what about Ben and his brother?” I ask, casting a glance back at the door. “Shouldn’t we wait?”
“They’re not coming,” Mr. Stark says. “Mrs. Felix filed the paperwork to expel Ben from school yesterday.”
My jaw drops. “What?”
Mr. Stark shrugs. “He’s been in trouble before, Ariel, and we have a strict no-tolerance policy for repeat offenders.”
“But he wasn’t in trouble at school,” I say, ignoring Melanie’s hand on my arm silently urging me to keep quiet. Defending Ben is instinctive, imperative. “And not at this school. Please, Mr. Stark, I—”
“Ariel, it’s not my decision. I had nothing to do with it.” Mr. Stark backs toward the principal’s office, where Romeo, Gemma, and Mike have already found seats. “Anyway, it’s decided. Ben’s brother came and cleaned out his locker this morning. I think he also picked up a study guide for the GED. Ben can still get a diploma if he passes the exam.”
I shake my head. Anger flashes through me, followed closely by a spark of hope.
This will make it easier for me to convince Ben to leave. He isn’t going to be able to finish senior year at SHS. There’s nothing to keep him in Solvang but his family, and life with his brother hasn’t exactly been smooth. He might jump at the chance for a fresh start.
But a fresh start with a girl he doesn’t know? Or doesn’t think he knows? With no money and not even a high school diploma between us? It’s me and Romeo all over again. Ben and I probably won’t starve to death or be killed by highwaymen, but our future won’t be a bright one. Not at first. Maybe not ever.
In the cold light of day, without Ben’s arms around me, the challenge of convincing him that the soul of the girl he loves has shifted into another body seems far more daunting. Not to mention the fact that I’ve yet to accomplish the shift. What if the spell doesn’t work? What if Romeo is right and loving him is the only way? What if the high Mercenary watching him finds a way to stop us before we reclaim our old forms? What if—
My cell trills again. Ben. It has to be him, trying to let me know he won’t be coming back to school. I reach for the zipper on my bag.
“Come on, Ariel. Let’s go.” Melanie tugs at my sleeve. “We’ll deal with Ben later. It’s time to think about your future right now.”
I am thinking of my future. Ben is my future. At least, I hope he will be. I long for a tomorrow with him with a need that’s terrifying in its intensity. I want to run from this place. I want to go to him and hold him and promise him that everything will be okay, the way he promised me last night.
Instead, I follow Melanie into the office.
Everything isn’t okay. Everything is awful and time is running out.
Gemma and I received a week of after-school detention, while Dylan—as a detention regular—was ordered to report every afternoon for the rest of the year. I lied and said Dylan and I had had a misunderstanding, Gemma refused to say anything at all, and Romeo apologized so many times Mrs. Felix finally asked him to be quiet. No one was expelled or suspended. Not even Dylan, who’d allegedly earned a mandatory suspension for hitting another student. But he’s playing Tony in the play, which opens tonight. Mr. Stark told Mrs. Felix the production would have to be canceled if Dylan was banned from campus for a week, and she didn’t want to punish everyone who’d been working on the play.
Or deal with phone calls from the parents of angry drama students.
After one last dress rehearsal this afternoon, the show will go on, with Romeo in the lead. Even though he looks like hell, and is acting like a lunatic.
We’re only ten minutes into third period and he’s already squirming in his seat, picking at the skin around his fingers, tugging at the scarf he’s still wearing knotted around his neck, though the air in the classroom is stifling. Mrs. Thurman always keeps it too warm. It’s unpleasant on a good day, but today, with the infant pig carcasses we’re about to dissect warming in their trays in the back of the room, the heat—and the accompanying stench—is almost unbearable.
The metallic odor of blood mixes with the chemicals used to preserve the animals, turning the air thick and noxious, making everyone a little greener than usual. But nothing like Romeo. He’s rotting before my eyes. Dark veins creep away from his hairline in delicate swirls, and his lips are so bloodless they’re almost purple. I can’t keep from staring at him, from looking around the room to see if anyone e
lse notices that Dylan Stroud is a dead man.
We’re dead, Juliet. Dead. I see you as one dead, in the bottom of the tomb. Romeo whispered the words to me as we crossed paths in the hall before first period, and my stomach has been in knots ever since, even after I finally read the text messages from Ben.
The first was from seven-forty-eight this morning: I’ve been expelled. My brother’s going to send me to live with our great-aunt in L.A. tomorrow after I give my statement at the station. I can’t change his mind, but he won’t change mine, either. I love you. We’ll make everything work. Ben.
And then, only a few minutes later: Meet me at the back door to the theater at intermission tonight. I’ll find a way to sneak out. I have to see you alone. I don’t want to say good-bye (even for just a few months) in front of the dictator.
The dictator. He’s angry with his brother, in the perfect state of mind to run away. If only I could pick up and run with him without worrying about slipping on a different skin. If only we could buy a one-way ticket to anywhere and leave tonight.
“Mrs. Thurman?” Romeo shouts the teacher’s name, cutting off her lecture. His arm shoots into the air and stays there, trembling. “May I be excused?”
Mrs. Thurman clasps the cross at her neck for a moment, thrown by the interruption, then waves him toward the door. “All right, Dylan, but hurry back. We’ve only got forty minutes. We need to get started, and you will be graded on team participation.”
Romeo races to the door, stumbling over an empty desk in his hurry to leave the class. A few people laugh, but I know there’s nothing funny about his sudden flight. He isn’t having a bathroom emergency; he’s running away from a monster. From the putrid remains of his true self.
The pen in my hand falls to my desk with a distant clack. There it is, in the corner of the room, crouched behind the model of the human skeleton Mrs. Thurman calls Mr. Bones. Romeo’s body scuttles from its hiding place, a savage grin on its face, as if it realizes it’s playing a joke by hiding one skeleton behind another.
I suck in a breath and grip the edges of my desk, eyes sweeping from one end of the room to the next, desperate for someone to notice the thing, to assure me I’m not alone. But no one seems to see the hissing corpse prowling down the last row of desks, gurgling, choking … laughing.
It’s laughing. Relishing each slow step that brings it closer to its prey, giddy with the knowledge that I don’t have anywhere to run. Down one row and up another, its grin still in place, its yellowed nails clicking on the tile. It passes by again—this time with only two desks between us—and pauses to stick out its black tongue, wagging it back and forth, jabbing it through the hole in what remains of its cheek.
Bile rises in my throat and my hand shoots into the air, but Mrs. Thurman ignores me, continuing with her instructions. Only one person can be excused at a time. I know the rules. I’ll have to wait until Romeo gets back. Or run from the room without permission, earning more after-school detention and furthering the general opinion that Ariel is a freak and probably out of her mind.
Not her mind. My mind. I’m the one who’s losing her mind. This thing can’t hurt me, not right here in a room full of people. Can it?
No one else can even see Romeo’s corpse. He’s been sent for Romeo, and if he follows the pattern that’s held so far, he’ll be gone soon enough. And I’m tired of running. I’ll wait right here, show it that I’m not afraid. I’ll face it here in this room full of people or anywhere else it chooses to—
“Yes. Now. Love.” The whisper makes me spin in my seat. Even hushed and husky, I know that voice, my voice.
Only a few feet behind me—still dressed in my blue wedding dress—stands my old body, reaching for me with her pale hands. Hands that are covered in blood. I suck in a breath and hold it, refusing to cry out, though the hole in her chest is more horrifying than ever, a raw place where skin and flesh have been torn away. I can see the whites of her broken bones and the frantic racing of her heart behind them.
Her heart. I can actually see it. Slick muscle tissue that pounds faster and faster in time with my own speeding pulse.
“Close. Better now,” she says, one hand pressing against her chest, fingers slipping between her shattered ribs, probing the trapped animal behind. I feel the echo of those fingers inside Ariel’s body—curious invaders tracing things inside me that were never meant to be touched—and scream.
A couple other girls scream as well—responding instinctively to the terror in my voice—a few boys laugh, and Mrs. Thurman shouts my name, but I can’t think about the reaction I’ve caused. I only know I have to get out of here, have to run, have to—
“Ariel had a spider on her neck. It was huge. I think it bit her.” Gemma suddenly appears beside me and slips her arm around my shoulders, helping me stand and pulling me toward the door. I stumble after her, heart clenching in my chest, throat so tight I can barely breathe.
“Oh no,” Mrs. Thurman murmurs as we pass by her desk and keep moving. “Well, did you squash it? Is it still—”
“It crawled away, it’s probably still down there on the floor somewhere, looking for fresh meat,” Gemma says, making half the heads in the room turn to survey the ground around them. But my eyes are all for the girl with her heart in her hand and the horror crouching beside her. Romeo’s corpse is squatted by my old body’s feet like a pet, head cocked, curious to see me leave when she has told me—
“Better now. Close!” She smiles and I fight the urge to scream again as I meet my own brown eyes. Who is in there? It isn’t me. She’s empty, a husk with a shadow inside. I’m not there; I’m here. I’m Ariel.
No, not Ariel, but not—
“I’ll take her straight to the nurse.” Gemma pulls me out into the hall, tossing her final words over her shoulder. “Back in fifteen!”
Her expression hardens as she hustles me down the hall, glancing right and left, rushing past the entrances to the other classrooms toward the exit at the south end of building four. I have to hurry to keep up with her, work not to stumble when I turn to check the door to Mrs. Thurman’s class, making sure the specters aren’t following me.
“Thank you,” I finally manage, knowing I have to say something to explain my behavior, to thank Gemma for coming to the rescue. She lied for me and—for whatever reason— I’m grateful. “I don’t know what happened, I was just—”
“Shhh, don’t talk,” she whispers. “Not yet.”
My racing heart drops into my stomach, and the place where Gemma’s hand still rests on my shoulder begins to burn. I turn to look at her and catch the flash of something familiar behind her eyes, something … ancient. “Where are we going?”
“I told you,” she says, her voice deeper, different. “I’m taking you to see the Nurse.”
TWENTY-ONE
Twenty minutes until places.” Mr. Stark rushes through the backstage area, lifting every prop box, as if he’ll find Gemma hiding under one of them, dressed and ready to go on.
But Gemma isn’t under the boxes. She isn’t at home, she wasn’t here for the last dress rehearsal, and she’s not here now. Gemma is missing. Her parents are terrified, there’s a rumor circulating among the cast that she’s been taken by Nancy’s murderer, and I’m petrified that the gossip may actually be true.
What to do now? What? What? It’s impossible to think past the fear swelling inside me, tap-tapping a crazy-making rhythm on my bones.
“Okay, Ariel. Looks like you’re going on tonight and tomorrow night,” Mr. Stark warns as he passes by where I huddle by the backstage door. “You were great at the last dress this afternoon. You’ll be fine. You ready?”
I glance down at my black T-shirt and jeans. I’m in my Sharks costume. “Ready.”
No, I’m not ready. And I won’t be fine. No one will. Gemma isn’t here. For all I know she’s dead, and Nurse’s soul has been banished to the mist, never to return.
The original Mercenaries are killing the high Ambassadors. They’ve
grown so powerful they no longer require the balance of light and dark to sustain their eternity. It’s become so dangerous for the high Ambassadors that they’re forced to hide when they venture from the safety of their realm—their lives and the lives of the bodies they borrow demand it.
And so they hide. Often in the last place the Mercenaries think to look.
The rosy glow of a soul mate’s heart hides the golden light of an Ambassador aura, offering protection while allowing the Ambassador to look after a soul in need at the same time. Nurse has been inside Gemma from the beginning, sharing the body of the soul mate I was sent to protect, swimming below her conscious mind, spying on me as I work through my final shift.
I bury my face in my hands, going back to this morning, searching every word Nurse spoke for some clue to where she—and Gemma—might be now.…
“They killed Nancy last night.” Gemma—Nurse—says as soon as we’re hidden in the bathroom at the end of the hall, wrinkling our noses against the ammonia mixing with the rainwater dripping into the stalls. We are in the last stall, the one with the steel bar and more room to try not to breathe. “They knew I’d come to observe your final mission. I can only assume they thought I was borrowing Nancy’s body. To Mercenary eyes, the aura of a high Ambassador is golden. There are humans whose auras are the same, as a result of their good hearts. Nancy was one.”
I shake my head, sickened by the knowledge that I had anything to do with that poor woman’s death—even indirectly—and sickened to learn that Romeo was telling the truth about the high Ambassadors’ auras. What other truths has he told? I want to know, but a part of me fears knowledge as much as I crave it.
What if the things Nurse tells me destroy the last of my hope? For humanity? For myself? For a future with Ben?
She crosses her arms and pins me with a long look. “And now they will know they haven’t found me. They will look harder, Romeo and his maker.”
His maker. So there is someone watching him. Someone kidnapping for him, killing for him, trying to make sure he succeeds at any cost. Meanwhile, I’ve been left to flounder in ignorance. As usual.