Envy (Fury) (16 page)

“I remember. That was fun.” She found herself, strangely, missing Chase—his party antics and his shameless flirting and his brusque chivalry. How many times had he refilled her drink?

“Okay, brb!”

As Gabby leaped off toward the drinks, Em stood back and observed the scene. She tried to imagine this as the setting for a fire that killed three presumed witches. Turning them into ghosts . . . or into Furies? These woods, with their darkly majestic pines and cacophony of foreboding creaks and hisses, made the supernatural seem closer than ever.

But so far tonight there were no signs of ghosts, just lots of drunk Ascension students. A bunch of seniors had commandeered some logs by the fire; they were sitting, roasting marshmallows and passing around a flask of whiskey. One of them, a band guy Em thought Crow might have been friends with before he dropped out, had a guitar with him. Several sophomore girls stood in a cluster nearby, singing a song they wanted him to play.

No sign yet of JD. Was he with Drea? She tried to dismiss the idea quickly. She was getting paranoid.

She watched Skylar handing out cups of the just-tapped hard cider. Skylar’s dress was cute, and a silvery scarf was wrapped around her neck. She was taller than usual, thanks to a pair of heeled knee boots. Her hair was curled.
It’s a mini-Gabby,
Em thought as Skylar approached Pierce and tried to get his attention, practically sticking her boobs in his face. If Skylar was going to be Gabby’s project, Gabs needed to teach her the art of subtlety.

She was about to turn her head and do another sweep of the crowd for JD, when something caught her eye. A flash of red, there on Skylar’s blue sweaterdress. She squinted and looked closer. Her breath caught in her throat, and she had a sudden, swinging sense of vertigo. There was a red orchid pinned to Skylar’s dress. The party seemed to disappear; all she could see was the flower.

“Move. Excuse me. Sorry.” Em shouldered her way over to where Skylar and Pierce were standing. She burst in between them.

“Where did you get that?” she demanded, looking down at Skylar’s chest. She heard Pierce, behind her, mumble something about getting more beer.

Skylar seemed nervous. “At the mall. . . . It was pretty expensive, but I got a great deal. . . . Coupon—my aunt gave me a—”

Em cut her off and jabbed at the flower. “Where did you get
this
?” she said. “Where did you get this flower?” Her voice was high with panic; she could hear it.

“You don’t like it?” Skylar whimpered, wobbling ever so slightly; Em wondered how much she’d had to drink while getting ready for the party. “I wasn’t sure if it matched, but I decided to wear it anyway. But if you think it’s too much . . .” Skylar unpinned the orchid.

Instinctively, acting on the hatred that the orchid sparked in her chest, Em grabbed it from Skylar’s hand and threw it into the fire.

Skylar watched it fall, exclaiming, “Hey! That was a gift!”

“I’m going to ask you again: Where. Did. You. Get. It?” Em spoke with quiet determination.

“A friend gave it to me, actually,” Skylar said, lifting her chin a bit. Em saw vulnerability in her face—desperation. This girl really just wanted to be liked. To be noticed. But still, that flower. It meant only one thing.

“Is your . . . friend—is she here?” Em’s heart thumped. Images of Chase returned to her: His intense longing to be accepted. His feelings of being an outsider. How the Furies had preyed on that weakness. . . .

Skylar shook her head, distracted by a whooping cheer that came from the direction of the kegs. “She had some family thing,” she said vaguely. “She might stop by later.”

Em’s mind clouded with visions of New Year’s Eve: of meeting Ali on the train to Boston, of getting caught in the subway doors, of watching her orchid get chewed up on the subway tracks and then having Ali hand it to her, intact, just minutes later. What had Skylar done to deserve an orchid? Were the Furies now arbitrarily targeting Ascensionites?

Clearly, Skylar was in trouble. But she had no idea, and Em might be the only person who could help her.

Em coughed, feeling the scorching smoke scrape through her throat and nose.

“We should move,” Skylar said, gulping down more of her drink. “The smoke’s blowing right at us.”

But Em barely registered her comment. She grabbed Skylar’s wrist and squeezed it. “Listen to me,” she said with the same quiet fervor. “You have to be careful. What do you know about this friend of yours? Does she . . . does she have two cousins? Two girls?”

This made Skylar light up. “You know them,” she hiccupped. She moved in closer to Em, sloshing some cider out of the side of her cup. “Aren’t they
so
pretty? Like you!” Skylar was talking nonsense, but it made Em’s stomach flip.

“No, listen, Skylar,” Em said, grabbing the girl’s shoulders to steady her and stare into her eyes. Maybe it was worthless to have this conversation right now—Skylar was obviously already tipsy, and even without the booze, she was distracted by her hostess
duties. But Em had to try. “I
do
know them. They . . . they hurt people, Skylar. You have to be careful. They think it’s justice, but it’s not. It’s evil. It’s revenge. Have you ever heard the expression ‘An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind’?” She didn’t wait for Skylar to respond. “Well, that’s what they do. They make the world blind.”

She heard herself speaking fast and furiously, and gripped Skylar’s arms as though she was going to fall over. “They
know
things about us,” Em pressed on. “Things that we’re ashamed about. Things we did that maybe—that weren’t right. And that flower,” she said, pointing toward the fire, “it means you’re in danger. It means they know something about you.”

Terror replaced confusion in Skylar’s eyes. Good. That meant she was listening. The flames lit Skylar’s cheek, coloring it a rusty, glowing orange. The other side of her face was completely in shadow. She was shaking her head, starting to mumble.

“It’s not my fault. . . . I didn’t mean . . .” Then she jerked backward, out of Em’s grip. “How did you find out? How do you know?” She stared at Em accusingly, as though
she
was the one to be afraid of.

“Look, I don’t know anything,” Em thought Skylar looked relieved. “I’m just trying to help. Start from the beginning. When did you meet the girls?” If she calmed down and got Skylar to open up, she could actually learn something. Maybe there was a pattern here, of who the Furies targeted.

But Skylar had shut down. She started backing away. “Look, Em, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you’re really freaking me out. I’m going to get a new drink.”

Just as Em started to protest her phone buzzed in her pocket. As she fished it out Skylar used the distraction to escape.

“I—I’ll see you later,” she said over her shoulder while she walked quickly away.

It was Drea. Thank god. Em needed Drea more than ever right now. Their fight, her terrible words, rang in her head. She would find Skylar in a few minutes. First she would talk to Drea.

“Amazing timing,” she said as she picked up, not letting Drea respond. “There’s a new orchid. The Furies have marked someone else. We need to meet.”

“Sweetheart, just tell me when and where.” A male voice, full of confidence and swagger, came over the line.

Em took the phone away from her ear, made sure it really was Drea’s name she’d seen on the caller ID, and then spoke again. “Who is this?”

Laughter, low and sleepy. “It’s Crow,” the voice said. “Drea left her phone in my car, and I wanted to get it to her. Is she with you?”

“Oh. Hi. Um. No, she’s not with me. I don’t know where she is. But I need to talk to her. As soon as possible.”

“You sure do have a lot of demands, princess,” Crow responded. Em rolled her eyes, glad that he couldn’t see her blush. “If I see Drea, I’ll tell her.”

“Thanks,” Em said, getting ready to hang up.

“Hey—what are you up to tonight?” Crow asked with renewed energy. “My band practice got canceled. Maybe we could all hang out? If we find Drea, of course.”

Em hesitated. She liked Crow, and she wouldn’t mind hanging out with him—there was something supremely relaxing about how little he expected from her, how easily she could defy his expectations—but there was no way that she could invite the Grim Creeper to an Ascension party. He’d ostracized
himself
from this group.

“I’m—I can’t,” she finally said. “Just tell her I called, okay? If you see her. Tell her I need to see her.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Crow said breezily. Em remembered Drea’s words from the other day:
I think he has a crush on you
. There was no way. Absurd. She brushed the thought from her mind. “Oh, and by the way, I found that information you wanted.”

Em’s eyes widened. “You did? Oh my god, Crow, you’re amazing!” she gushed.

“I know. I’m not sure if the information will help you much, though,” he said. “The only person in the antiquities room that day was Sasha Bowlder.”

The words nearly knocked her over; she had to put her hand against a nearby tree to steady herself. Sasha Bowlder. The rumors about witchcraft, about Sasha’s weird activities in the woods . . . It was all too coincidental. Something was coming together, but Em wasn’t sure what.

“You still there?” Crow asked, actually sounding earnest for once.

“Yeah, I—I just wasn’t expecting that,” she said.

“Neither was I,” Crow said. “Hey, do me a favor. . . . Don’t tell Drea that, at least not yet. She’s too fucked up right now.”

Em nodded vigorously, even though Crow couldn’t see her. Of course. Drea and Sasha had been very close, and Drea was still grappling with her friend’s death, going as far as to visit with the Bowlders occasionally to help them all get closure. “No, I won’t,” she said. “Thanks, Crow. Thank you so much.”

She wished more than anything that she hadn’t blown up at Drea the other night. What the hell had come over her? Sure, it had stung to see JD spending time with someone else—another girl, to be precise. But Drea was right. She had no right to be so upset, especially not with Drea, especially not to that degree. They were studying! Like normal people did when they were in high school! And even if she was justified in being pissed off, her reaction had been totally out of proportion.

She would reconcile with Drea before she did anything else. And then she’d tell her about Skylar, who was obviously in trouble too. Should they warn her? Was there anything they could do? She looked around, trying to locate Skylar among the half-shadowed partiers.

It was then that Em heard the screaming.

The scream sliced the thin winter air. Another shriek followed the first, this one higher-pitched and more piercing. There was a commotion over by the kegs.

Skylar headed in that direction, catching her foot on a branch as she walked and kicking it aside with a jerking motion. She called out when she was still several feet away.

“What’s going on, you guys?” She hoped nothing was wrong. More than that, she hoped nothing would happen to ruin her party. She’d actually been having a good conversation with Pierce. They’d been talking about geometry, and then the Dusters, and then they’d somehow switched gears to talking about reality shows. Cuteness!

Near the kegs a small group was clustered around two girls,
both of whom were now giggling nervously. Skylar recognized both of them—she thought they might be juniors—but she didn’t know their names. The air was saturated with a high-strung energy.

“I swear I thought I saw something over there,” one of the girls was saying.

“Me too,” echoed the other. “Right behind those trees. Kind of . . . shimmering or something.”

Surprised at the fear that fluttered in her stomach, Skylar scanned the woods in the direction they were pointing. She saw nothing but a curtain of pine-needled branches swallowed by swaths of black. Patches of moonlight penetrated the shadows. Nothing moving. Nothing shimmering. She turned back to the group. She didn’t want to sound annoyed.

“All clear, I guess?” She poured herself another cup of cider as she spoke, hoping it made her seem cool and collected. She wanted to smooth things over as quickly as possible. What had she been thinking, agreeing to host a party in woods that were notoriously haunted?

Everyone was laughing now, making ghost sounds:
Woooooo, Woooooo
.

“Who you gonna call?” one of the boys shouted.

“I’m a Ghostbuster,” another said. “Want me to go investigate?”

“Guys, shut
up
,” the first girl whined. “I really thought I saw something!”

Relieved that this interlude would be a short one, Skylar tried to laugh along with the group, but it felt forced. Inside, she was still reeling from the exchange with Em. She rubbed her arms, trying to brush away the feeling of Em’s nails digging into her shoulders, the feeling of Em’s eyes boring into hers. And most forcefully, Em’s words ringing in her ears.
It means they know something about you.

It was as though
Em
knew Skylar’s secrets. It was creepy. And it was official: Em and Skylar were never going to be friends, not really. Skylar barely understood why anyone was friends with Em in the first place. Sure, she was beautiful. And smart. But she was crazy! She wasn’t at all suited for queen-bee status, or even to be co–queen bee. Em was nothing like Gabby. And, Skylar realized with a smile, nothing like herself.

Skylar pulled at the neck of her sweaterdress and hitched its skirt a little higher. She felt like she was running out of time—she had to get in at least one more good conversation with Pierce before the night was over. She cleared her throat, took one more sip of her beer, and prepared to find him just as a bunch of junior boys passed by. They were the cool, smart guys, the ones who weren’t jocks but still fit in with Gabby and her group.

They seemed to be talking about underwear.
Her
underwear, she gathered from the direction of their gazes.

“Maybe it’s polka-dot,” she heard a guy named Matt say.

She whirled around, heart pounding.