My phone blinks on again. Mack says, I will.
And a second later he says, WE will.
Under the fake nails from Saturday morning, my claws grow a little. They’ll be back soon, longer than before.
I feel fucking high—
better than the second before the wave closed over my head and crushed the air out of my lungs—
better than when I looked into Connor’s eyes and saw a dead boy looking back at me—
better—or close to better, at least—than when Lilia screamed and Mack’s kiss went from careful to triumphant.
I tell Summer, “Almost.”
Eulogy
By Tuesday morning everyone knows.
I’m early again, but when I get to the Virgin Mary statue the whole flock is already there. Lilia and Piper stand a little apart. The rest of them are a nervous gleeful knot.
“Jade, did you hear—” one of the starlings says, all in a rush.
I walk past her, to Lilia and Piper.
“So apparently you’re inner circle material now—” Piper starts.
Lilia cuts her off with one blink. Her glass-blue eyes are shot through with red and circled twice as dark as yesterday. She tips her coffee cup back, but it’s empty. She lets it fall. Piper snaps her fingers and a flock-girl shimmers over and snatches the cup from next to our feet.
Lilia looks at Piper and me. “He killed him. He killed him.”
“God, say it a little louder,” says Piper.
Lilia’s hands scrabble at her purse. She pulls out a pack of Parliaments and flicks her lighter.
“Lili,” says Piper. “Get it together.”
She breathes out a thin line of smoke. “He didn’t die right away,” she says. “He was lying there—he was bent all wrong—Dunc wouldn’t let me call 911 until we knew he was dead—and he was breathing like there was a knife in his neck—and there was so much blood—”
The cigarette falls out of her hand. She lights another one and leaves the first on the floor, trailing haze.
“Jade,” says Piper, staring. “What the fuck.” She glances at Lilia. “Your new girl’s getting off on this, by the way.”
I’m breathing too fast. I slow it down, count it off—
Duncan, Duffy, Connor, Banks—
—hear Connor’s broken lungs rasp and see his eyes wide and scared and searching, and then finally empty.
I smile at Piper. “He deserved it.”
“Fuck you,” she says. “And fuck whatever Mack told you. You didn’t even know Connor.”
Lilia’s fingers tremble on her cigarette. “But it’s true.”
Piper’s mouth drops open and she turns it into a laugh so harsh the flock-girls peek over their shoulders to see. “God,” she says. “Everybody’s losing their shit this week. Ever since that stupid party—”
The boys come in.
It’s exactly like yesterday, and nothing like it at all. Today the lights don’t flicker: they blaze brighter and stronger, so everyone squints. Today they’re not laughing, but their silence is ten times louder than anything they said yesterday—
Duncan—
—sharper edges overnight, still the good-king, more the good-king than he’s ever been, eyes fading from gunmetal-gray to pure silver, something fast and fatal in the way he walks, something that makes the not-it girls bow their heads—
Duffy—
—trying so hard I can smell it like burning oil, three razor-nicks on his jaw, squaring his shoulders on every step but still with his face blanched white and circles under his eyes, because yesterday was a test and he failed and he knows it—
Banks—
—all heat where Duffy is cold, liquor on his breath and a dangerous spring in the way he walks, not SS-tight like Duncan but loose and loping and ready to kill again if he has to, or maybe even if Duncan tries to collar him too hard—
Mack—
Mack.
Not Connor, because Connor is frozen in the morgue with his chest cracked open. Ugly Connor. First-in-the-door Connor. Connor is dead because of me, and Mack is in his place because of me.
—and he wears it better than any of them. Not sick and shaking like Duffy or drunk from it like Banks. Not polished past perfect like Duncan. Still with that golden-boy glow all over his face, and glowing even brighter with the ambition no one else could see until I saw it.
“Shit,” says Piper. She takes a step back.
They stop in front of us. I can feel the rest of the commons watching. Everything stands still: Lilia trailing her forgotten cigarette, Piper with her hand on her sabre, the boys in their same wolf-pack formation like Connor never existed and it was always Mack.
Duffy breaks first. He flinches toward Piper. She dives for him, puts her hands on his shoulders, presses her lips to his. He kisses her back but his eyes stay haunted.
Banks laughs. “You’re losing your touch, Piper.”
She jerks back and scowls. “Maybe Duff just has some fucking decorum.”
Shutting bitches up is my specialty, said Duffy on Friday night when Duncan told him shut the bitch up. And he locked his hand across my mouth and even when I bit he didn’t let go. Not like dead Connor.
I smile wide at Banks. “Duffy’s a gentleman. Show some respect for the dead.”
Then I take Mack’s hands in mine and stare hard into his eyes and everything twists, but not the way it does when I look at the other boys. He doesn’t look away. He’s afraid, because of Connor, but not as afraid as he wants to be.
This time he kisses me first. The boy who let Connor die. For a second—
—blinding summer light and Malibu sunsets, and leaning my head out the window with my hair streaming out behind me and screaming wild into too-fast turns—
“Damn,” says Banks. “That’s more like it. I’ll take her when you’re done with her, golden boy.”
The summer light splinters into scraping white marble and poison.
I pull back, but I don’t let go of Mack’s hands. And I smile at Banks again, but different this time. My innocent-little-flower smile. “You’ll never have me,” I say.
Duncan lets it land, and then he takes another step in. Closing off our inner circle from the rest of them. “We’re clear,” he tells us, instead of asking. “No texts about what happened. No talking to the rest of them.” He nods toward the flock-girls and Malcolm’s second-rank, hanging back.
“They know,” says Piper. “Everybody knows.”
Duncan’s eyes are so silver-bright he makes Piper blink. “They know Connor can’t keep it together when he’s cross-faded. It’s a real blow to the team. We’ll miss him. We’ll remember.” He leans on the last word.
His pack takes it in and stays quiet, even Banks. Piper’s lips twitch.
Lilia brings her cigarette up, ash crumbling off the end, and takes a drag.
“Jesus, Lilia,” says Duncan. “Get rid of it.”
She doesn’t say no, but she doesn’t move, either.
Duncan takes the cigarette out of her hand and drops it. His heel grinds it into the floor. “We’re going in,” he says to Duffy and Banks and Mack.
“Where?” Piper shifts for her blade.