Envy (Fury) (25 page)

“We’ve gotta go, Drea,” she said, as if they were thinking of hanging around in the 7-Eleven parking lot instead.

“She’s a real taskmaster,” Crow told Drea, cocking his thumb in Em’s direction. “I’d watch out for her if I were you.” Then, with a grin, he hopped back into his truck. “Seriously, though, ladies. I don’t believe for a second that you’re going to a concert in Portland. Whatever you’re doing, be careful. I don’t want liability, as the ID provider and all. . . .”

“How do you put up with him?” Em muttered as she got back into Drea’s dad’s car, which they had borrowed for the night.

“Sometimes I wonder how
he
puts up with
us
,” Drea mused.

•  •  •

She’d been overheating for weeks, but as they pulled into the Benson’s parking lot, Em felt freezing cold. Her nerves made her teeth chatter; her bones felt like they were going to quiver right out of her skin.

“You good?” Drea shot her a look of concern.

“I’m good,” Em said, nodding emphatically. “I’m good. Let’s
go.” They walked around the building on the gravel lot, small rocks crunching beneath their feet.

Just as Chase had described in his notebook, there was a Dumpster flush against the wall back behind of the bar.

“This it, you think?” Drea asked.

“It has to be,” Em responded. “Let’s move it.”

“Sure, let’s move it,” Drea said dryly. “Good thing I had gym today. I’m all warmed up.” At the last second Drea pulled Em back. “Where’s your snake pin?” she demanded. “You aren’t wearing it.” She had hers on, pinned just above her right boob.

“It’s in my bag,” Em lied. “Now come on.”

They heaved and pushed against the metal container, and it glided aside as though it was on casters. Beyond it was a glowing door. Instantly it flew open; a burly bouncer stood framed in the doorway. Em wanted to back away from him. His eyes . . . There was something wrong with his eyes.

Then she realized: His pupils weren’t black. They were red. Her whole body was shaking now.

The bouncer seemed almost to have been expecting them. He gave them both a once-over and didn’t even ask for ID; instead, he waved them in toward a set of red-carpeted stairs. The space was so dimly lit that was impossible to tell what was at the bottom. Em could hear a faint rhythmic thumping. Drea did not let go of Em’s hand as they started descending. Em looked at their linked hands gratefully. It appeared that unshakable Drea was scared too.

Just as the narrow stairwell began to widen—Em couldn’t help but think of a mouth, stretching apart to swallow them whole—a prickling heat wafted over them. Em sensed fire, a tingling feeling of flames licking at her body. It was much like the sensation she’d felt in the old house in the woods. . . .

But this time it made her feel strangely alive, and alert. She was
sure
that the Furies were here.

“Whatever you do, don’t lose me,” Drea said right before they rounded the corner and entered the club. Em nodded.

Then they were inside, and Em had never seen anything like it. The cavernous room was low-ceilinged and shadowy, and full of people. Enormous golden birdcages hung from the ceiling, but inside there were no birds. Instead, lazy, watchful snakes hung from golden rods in the cages, their forked tongues darting from their mouths, twisting and writhing as though in time to the music.

All across the dance floor men and women were gyrating to pulsing music. Others were drinking from a fountain shaped like some crazy hybrid creature—a nude woman with enormous talons. Her mouth was open, and green liquid was dripping from her tongue; people were filling their cups with it.

Chase had been right. The people in this club were some of the most beautiful people Em had ever seen in her life. Her eyes were drawn to bare-chested men with tattoos, and women in skimpy dresses with heavy, smoky eyes. She suddenly felt very young, very angular, and very afraid.

She crossed her arms. She could feel Drea shaking a bit next to her. She, too, looked suddenly young. The music was too loud to try to communicate out loud. Em pointed toward a long bar, which was—like everywhere else in the club—packed with people. They started to make their way over to it.

The beat seemed to come up through the floor, causing Em’s legs to vibrate, creating a slight sensation of vertigo. A hazy fog seemed to infiltrate every corner of the room—and every pore of Em’s skin. As she squeezed through the crowd she felt increasingly out of control, like she was being possessed by something outside of herself. Men stroked her body with their eyes, smiling at her knowingly. Women, too. She tried to keep her eyes fixed ahead of her, but she was growing increasingly flustered. Should they leave? She turned around to gauge Drea’s comfort level. Drea always knew what to do.

But Drea was no longer behind her.

Panicked, Em whirled around, searching for Drea’s purple hair. They’d gotten separated. It was the one thing that wasn’t supposed to happen.

She started pushing back toward the door. They were in over their heads. They had to get out of there.

And yet, despite her fear, the seductive mood in the room was seeping into Em’s blood, beating its rhythm deeper and deeper into her body. Her mind began to feel cloudy with the sweet-smelling smoke, and as her thoughts softened, her limbs
loosened up. A man, heavily tattooed, grabbed her hand to lure her into a dance. She resisted at first. Drea. She had to find Drea.

But she was unable to stop herself; the hypnotic music was like the pull of an insistent tide. She let the man put his hand on her waist. She let him keep it there.

The music . . . whispering . . . calling out to her . . .

She put her hand on his muscled arm, touching his smooth skin, feeling like she was in a dream. She inhaled his musky smell. It felt so good just to let herself go. . . . She closed her eyes for just a minute, moving her hips to the beat, allowing him to press against her. . . .

When she opened her eyes, they woozily focused. And the first thing they saw with clarity was none other than Crow. There. Across the room, by the fountain. She caught a quick glimpse of his dark hair, his searching eyes, and then the crowd closed in again and he was gone.

But she’d seen him, she knew it. Her mind snapped back to alertness.

What the hell was
he
doing here? Had he followed her and Drea?

Drea
.

She wrenched away from her dance partner and began to elbow her way over to the fountain. But by the time she reached the spot where she’d seen Crow, he was gone.

Tap, tap, tap. She felt a finger on her shoulder. She jumped
and let out a little cry. But when she turned around, she saw it was only Drea.

“Where did you go?” Em shouted over the music. Instead of feeling relieved, she felt a surge of unreasonable anger. She knew it had something to do with guilt; she wondered whether Drea had seen her dancing.

“I lost you!” Drea yelled back.

Em pulled her into one of the nooks carved into the stone walls; their voices echoed there, but at least they could hear each other.

“Crow is here,” Em said, still speaking loudly. “I saw him, right over here.”

Drea looked skeptical. “Crow? Here? Are you sure?” She cocked her head to one side and raised her eyebrows. “Are you sure that’s not just wishful thinking?” Even in this atmosphere, Drea obviously had not lost her grip on her special brand of humor, which largely seemed to consist of giving Em a hard time. Clearly, the smoke hadn’t gone to her head in the same way it had affected Em.

“Come on, Drea. Be serious,” Em said, shutting her down quickly. The last thing she wanted was for Drea to get the wrong idea about her and Crow. What if JD found out somehow?

“Calm down. I was just joking,” Drea said. She peered at Em. “Do you want a drink? Or some air? You look like you’re freaking out.”

Em shook her head. This was all wrong. The Furies weren’t here—just a bunch of pleasure-fiending weirdos who were probably on drugs. The fake IDs, the money spent—all for nothing.“I think we should just get out of here,” she said.

“Already?” Drea looked thoughtful. “We basically just got here. I haven’t even had a chance to ask around—”

“Fine, then I’m going out for some air,” Em said, realizing that she needed out. “I’ll either find you down here or wait for you up there.”

She fought her way back up the stairs, fidgeting as the bouncer moved the Dumpster to let her out, and gasping for clean air once she stumbled out into the parking lot. She paced, holding her arms and watching the way her breath fogged each time she exhaled. The feeling of dizziness started to dissipate.

And then, out of the shadows, a female voice: “Looking for someone?”

Em squinted. A girl was emerging from the darkness between two Harleys. Even before she stepped into the light, Em knew who it was. She recognized the lilting, taunting tone. Em was familiar, too, with the crawling sensation in her skin, as though a thousand snakes were writhing underneath it.

Ty.

Bitterness surged through Em. “I know everything about you,” she spat out. “I know who you really are. You died in Ascension, and now you’re back. For revenge.”

Ty raised an eyebrow. “That’s quite a theory,” she said, her voice like a placid lake—no ripples, no waves.

“You’re the reason that bad things are happening in Ascension. You’re evil, and you’re bringing evil to this town. You killed Chase,” Em said. Then she added, “And I’m going to stop you.”

“Em, evil feeds on itself, you know,” Ty said, letting the words roll out of her mouth like she’d said them a hundred times before.

“What are you talking about?” Em felt the flames of anger blistering through her, and she decided to bluff. “I know your secret,” she said. “I’m going to undo this—undo
you
.”

Ty made a show of clamping her lips together and shaking her head coyly, as though vowing to keep a secret about a high school crush. Then she spoke in the merry-go-round singsong that made Em’s blood curdle. “You can’t just undo it, Em. And you shouldn’t have tried. I almost felt sorry for you, back there at the cemetery with that poor snake. We made a deal. Don’t you remember?”

Something in Em broke apart then, and she felt her muscles fill with adrenaline. She leaped at Ty blindly, more enraged than ever, attacking her with a fury that came from somewhere deep and hidden.

“Why don’t you just leave? Leave me, and leave Ascension, alone!” she yelled as she struck Ty, knocking her backward.
When their bodies collided, Em felt a momentary surge, like a shock. Ty stumbled, but regained her footing. She came back at Em with her teeth bared, grabbing a handful of Em’s dark, straightened hair, yanking it hard.

Em whipped her body back and forth to free herself from Ty’s grasp. She kicked at Ty’s shins, making contact, and in the process tumbling them both to the ground. Em felt the gravel stab through her jeans into her knees. Ty’s hands felt like ice on her face, her neck, her wrists. All Em could think about was how badly she wanted the Furies out of her life. Now. The strength of that thought gave her conviction, and the conviction gave her power; she began to overcome Ty, who struggled and squirmed beneath her.

Then Em had her pinned to the ground. She dug one knee into Ty’s bony chest and clamped both of Ty’s wrists in one of her hands, pressing them into the frozen dirt.

She wrapped the other hand around Ty’s long, slender neck—so like her own—and squeezed.

As she had at the Behemoth a few months ago, Ty started to waver in and out, like a picture on an old television. But she did not appear to be hurt, or gasping for breath, no matter how hard Em pushed on her windpipe. And then Em felt it—her grip on Ty’s wrists getting weaker, their power reversing, then Ty’s fingernails digging into her arm, breaking the skin, slicing into her.

“Shit,” Em said, pulling away, gasping. Her arm was stinging,
and tiny drops of blood began to bubble at the place where Ty had stabbed her.

“Don’t look down, Em,” Ty said tauntingly.

Of course Em did. The swinging sense of vertigo returned, along with a stomach-dropping sensation of airlessness. It took her a second to understand what was happening. She and Ty were both hovering about three feet off the ground.

Em jerked backward, breaking the spell and hurtling to the dirt below. Ty landed more gracefully, laughing as she taunted Em. “That was fun, wasn’t it?”

Em couldn’t respond. The air had been knocked out of her by the short fall to the ground.

Ty went on, “You see? We aren’t so different, you and I. I see it, even if Ali and Meg don’t. Even if you don’t. We two, we’ll do anything to get the things that we want.
We aren’t so different
 . . .” Ty repeated once more. And then, just like that, she vanished.

Em hauled herself to her feet and hunched over, cradling her left arm—the one that was bleeding. As Em heaved for breath, Drea emerged from downstairs.

“There you are,” Drea said. And then, as she came closer and caught sight of Em, “Oh my god! What happened?”

“They . . . they were here,” she croaked out. “Ty was here. I saw her.”

Drea nodded grimly. “I saw one of them too. The one who wears that red ribbon around her neck.” Drea scanned Em with
concern. “Which one of them did this to you? I hope you at least got to throw a good punch.”

“I don’t think I did much damage,” Em said wearily. “It was Ty. What about you? Did you talk to her? Did she say anything?” Em followed behind Drea as they walked to the car. Every few steps she checked compulsively over her shoulder, as though Ty might materialize at any second.

They got into the car, both of them careful to close and lock their doors behind them. “She asked me if I was going to the Spring Fling,” Drea said with a nervous laugh. “If I had a date. Then . . .” She broke off, picking at her fingernails and looking sidelong at Em.

“What? What did she say, Drea?” Em prodded.

“She said that they had special plans for you, Em. That I should watch out for you.” Drea looked at Em now, searching her face as though trying to measure her reaction. They stared at each other.