Finally Mads gives me my phone and says, “Don’t forget us. We’ll be yours until it’s over and we’ll be yours after it’s done.”
I say, “I know.”
I don’t tell her there will never be an after.
The Haunting
There are no birds on the roof today. The whole school—
the whole kingdom—
—is stifled under the ash from Duncan’s crumbled reign, but the silence is loud and startling. The current under it rushes stronger than the riptides that pull swimmers out to drown past the rocks at El Matador.
Everyone is watching. The boys and the girls and the cops at the door.
Piper and I are the first to our table at lunch. The whole week behind us wears at her eyes. She’s brushed her makeup on heavier to cover it, but I can still see the creeping dread underneath.
She says, worn through, “Fuck this.”
“God, Piper, go to confession,” I say, safe and mocking and the same words she said to Duffy a day ago. “Maybe it will help you sleep at night.”
“Fuck this and fuck you,” she says, “whoever you are—”
But then her fire burns out and she gives up. “Whatever. I don’t know if you’re a narc, or best friends with those bitches in the masks, or if you and Mack are all ganged up with Malcolm now—”
“Malcolm?” I don’t hide my scorn. “You think he’s the one fucking with you?”
She laughs through her teeth. “He’s gone, isn’t he? And he’s guiltier than all of them except his brother.”
That word, guilt, sits strange on her lips. “They’re all guilty. They had a choice,” I tell her like she told Duffy.
“Malcolm’s the one with the dealer.” She says it low, all defense and gutted sleeplessness. “Malcolm made the damn drink. Malcolm—”
She stops and waits.
“What?” I press, and I need to know exactly what she doesn’t want to say about him.
“Why do you even fucking care?”
That night Malcolm stood at the bar, mixing the just-for-me drink. Floated just outside the door and said you know I trust my dealer. But in between, in the static and the white—
“God, your priorities are fucked,” says Piper. “His brother’s dead and we all know Porter was too weak to do it on his own. So maybe Malcolm’s playing into all the bullshit from before until somebody admits they were in with Porter.”
All around us the murmuring-silent St Andrew’s Preppers bow low at their tables. Keeping their heads down so they don’t get swept up in the vengeance that’s picking off their A-team one by one. I say, smile-slicked, “Mack thinks it’s the girls in the masks.”
“God,” she says. “He might not even be wrong. Shit like that doesn’t happen without a reason.”
I let my smile go wicked. “You know what the reason is.”
“Yeah, fine,” she says in a huff. “Shit like this never happened before no matter what went down at Duncan’s parties.”
Her words knot tight together. I count them off—
Duncan
Duffy
Connor
Banks
—and I’m prouder of it than I’ve ever been of anything.
I say, “Maybe those girls will be back.”
“Maybe you’re one of them,” she says. Almost on fire again, but a weak fire that won’t last. “Maybe you know them. Maybe—”
Duffy sits down in, hunching and glassy-eyed. “Banks still isn’t here?”
We don’t answer.
Duffy says, like he can’t stop himself, “God. No.”
Piper sends a quick glare scything across the room. Against the far wall, the gray-suited detective stands watch. Sister María de los Dolores hovers close behind him.
I laugh at Piper and Duffy and their fear. “I’m sure he’s just skipping,” I say.
“Or he ran,” says Piper. “Like Malcolm.”
“Or he’s dead,” Duffy says, and the last bell tolls deep. “Like Duncan. Like Porter. Like Connor—”
“Shut up, Duff.” Piper’s voice grates harsh.
Duffy shakes his head and says, “Where’s Mack?”
“Don’t you fucking start,” I say, tugging at his fraying splintering nerves.
“I didn’t mean—I didn’t mean—”
“So don’t say it,” Piper snips.
Then Mack comes through the doors and crosses the crowd to our table. Edges around the dead boys’ empty seats and starts to say, “Jade—”
He stops. He stumbles back into the stone-and-wood arches that hold the low windows in place. His hand comes up, shaking, and his eyes lock on the seat next to me. His seat.
“What?” I ask, and something deep in my veins shivers colder.
“It’s you,” he gasps. Not to me or Duffy or Piper. To the empty chair.
Piper’s eyes cut quick to mine.
I say, “Mack—”
“He’s dead,” he says. “He’s dead.”
“Mack—” I say again, and then I think to laugh. Too late, but better than nothing. “Mack! Sit down. Stop fucking with us.”
He doesn’t look away from the chair. He reaches out closer and then draws away horror-fast. “Don’t you see him?”
I get to my feet and slip one arm around him. Whisper, “Stop talking. Right now.”
He gapes fear into my eyes. “He’s there. He’s right there.”
Duffy clutches at Piper. “Who is it? Mack—”
“No one.” I say it slow and clear and only to Mack. “You’re seeing things.”
Doubt flickers across his face and vanishes again under the terror.
I turn toward all the perking-up eyes. “He’s been like this,” I say. “Since Duncan. He’s not sleeping.”
Piper and Duffy shift, nervous. The murmurs are rolling louder now, and across the room the gray-suited detective pins his stare on us.
I say, laughing too much but not enough, “We’ll be right back.”
I pull Mack away, to the very edge of the room. Hold his face in my hands. He won’t look at anything except the ghost over my shoulder.
“Stop it,” I hiss. “There’s nothing there. Like this morning, with the blood—”
“He’s here,” Mack whispers. Behind him the detective starts across the room, slow but certain, with the sister shadowing him. “He can’t be here. He’s dead. He’s dead—”
“Mack!” My claws dig into his skin. His eyes come to mine, sudden and at last, and the terror in them shocks through the space between us. The man in gray is halfway to us now, close enough to hear if Mack cries out too loud—
—and we can’t end like this. We won’t. Not before we’re done.
I keep my hands on his jaw and in his hair. “Mack,” I say again, but soft enough to sift through the ghosts. “We did what we had to do. Don’t doubt us.”
He shakes his head. “We’re ruined. I’m ruined because he’s dead—because we—”