Poison Princess (8 page)

He dismounted and strode to the edge of the field, but he wouldn't enter the cane.
Why?

His jet-black armor was clearly from olden times, yet sported no chinks. Because no one had landed a blow against him? He had two wicked-looking swords, one sheathed at each hip.

Finally, I found my voice. “Who are y-you?”

“
Who am I
, she asks.” My question amused him? “Life in your blood, in your very touch”—his voice was as raspy as the dry leaves, his accent foreign, though I couldn't pinpoint it—“and yet no one told you to expect
me
?” There was a light shining behind the grille of his helmet, as if his eyes
glowed
.

“What are you talking about?” I demanded with as much bravado as I could. “What do you want?”

Another hiss came from his lair, from among those ruins behind him.

Death removed his spiked metal gloves, revealing a man's hands, pale and perfect. “You know me. You always know, well before my blade strikes you down.”

“You're insane,” I whispered, though he felt so familiar to me.

He dropped to one knee at the edge of the cane and reached for me. “Come to me, Empress.”

Empress Evie, Empress Evie . . .

His hand was mere inches from my arm, but I was paralyzed, transfixed by the light coming from behind his helmet—until something drew my attention.

Behind Death, I spied a hideous horned boy—more like a hunchbacked beast—skulking among the ruins. Ropy lines of spittle dangled from his bottom lip.

Death followed the direction of my gaze. “Don't mind Ogen,” he said. “El Diablo is an old ally of mine.”

“I'll make a feast of your bones,”
Ogen hissed at me as he sharpened one of his horns against stone. The grating sound was unbearable, shaking the rubble like an earthquake, making me want to scream.
“Suck the marrow dry as you watch.”

“Ignore him. Think of me alone.” Death reached closer. “I've waited so long to face you again. Aren't you ready to have done with this?”

The cane bent unnaturally around me, as if to cage me in. Hadn't Gran always called the stalks “soldiers at attention”?

Was the cane trying to protect me?

“It begins directly at the End, Empress.” Another seeking reach.

I scrambled back from him, wincing as pain ripped down my legs. Bloody stripes dripped down the sides of my thighs.

How had I cut myself? I raised my hands, and gasped with horror.

My nails were razor-sharp, a purplish-red color. I'd seen that sinister shade a thousand times before—that triangular
shape
before.

They looked like rose thorns.

“Oh God, oh God . . .” My heart thundered, my breaths shallowing until I was panting. Thorn claws like the red witch's? Blackness wavered in my vision, blurring Death, his lair, his hideous ally.

I started to laugh, hysterical sounds bubbling up from my chest, drowning out Death's promises to return for me, to finish our battle once and for all. I was still laughing when I collapsed backward, head smacking the ground—

At once, I shot upright in my own bed, covered in perspiration. My eyes darted around my room, flitting over the hand-painted walls. Death was gone, Ogen too.

“J-just a dream?”

Right when I was about to yank off the sheet to examine my legs and feet, I heard footsteps clipping down the hall.

I dropped back, closing my eyes an instant before my mother entered. Without even a courtesy knock. “Evie, are you up?” Light flooded in from the hallway.

“Mom?” I said, trying to sound sleepy as I took a frantic mental inventory of my body. Were my feet bleeding, my legs? Was I covered in dirt? Had my fingernails returned to normal?

But all I felt was numbness, as if my entire body were immersed in Novocain.

“I thought I heard you cry out.” Her tone had that alarmed edge to it.
Sherlock senses crazy. . . .

“Huh? I must have been dreaming.”

Still dressed for the day, she sat at the end of my bed, her diamond studs flashing. “Your face is so pale. Are you coming down with something?”

“Nope. Not me.” Oh, God, if there was blood on my legs, would it soak through my sheet? If my mom saw those parallel slices, she would probably think I was a closet cutter, like my former roommate at the center.

“I'm worried about you,” she said. “We need to talk about how you're doing now that you're back at home.”

“Mom, I told you, everything's fine.” My legs
were
bleeding.

Another furtive adjustment of the sheet. Three stripes of crimson were soaking through.
She'll see, she'll see. . . .

Adjust the sheet, overlap it. There. Better.

“You've been back for nearly two weeks, but I haven't heard you laugh a single time. You always used to joke around, just like your dad.” Her brows drew together. “Evie, what's . . .” She laid the back of her hand against my damp forehead. “Are you trembling?” She wrapped her arms around me, rocking me. “Baby, I'm here. What's wrong?”

What's right?
I'd doubled up on my meds tonight—and I was now
worse
off. “I-I think I just had a bad dream.”

She drew back. “A hallucination?”

“No! I was sound asleep.”

“Honey, just
tell
me, and I will make this better.”

You didn't last time. The cure didn't take!
Yet I was so freaked out, I was tempted to reveal all once more.

Instead, I dug deep, resolved to make a stand. I met her gaze, steadying my tone. “I will tell you when I need your help.”

She was taken aback by my demeanor. “Oh.” Because, for a brief moment, I'd sounded just as steely as she usually did. “Um, okay.”

“I've got a big day tomorrow. And I've really got to get some sleep.”
I'm already going to be up for hours, convincing myself that I dreamed those claws.

Mom rose, her gaze wary, almost startled. “Of course. Uh, sweet dreams, honey.”

Once the door closed behind her, I yanked the sheet away, grimacing in advance at what I'd see.

The skin on my thighs was crusting with blood, but my feet were clean and free from gashes.

Maybe I'd just cut myself with my fingernails in sleep. I wanted to latch on to this reasoning, to ignore how realistic Death's visit had been.

When I recalled his armor, my fingers itched to render his likeness. I reached under my mattress, dragging out my drawing journal.

Pencil flying over the paper, I whispered repeatedly,
“Two years and out, two years and out.”
A tear dropped onto the page, then another and another—three blurred spots over Death's otherworldly image.

By the time I'd finished the drawing, the storm pressure was ebbing. No rain for our crops tonight.

And because I was insane, I ached
with
them.

I gazed down at one of my legs, convinced that I'd merely cut myself during my nightmare. With a curse, I flicked the crusted blood away.

The skin beneath it was . . . unmarked.

DAY 2 B.F.

I spent my free period on Friday in Eden Courtyard, sitting at the tiled cement table, licking my wounds in private.

On the verge of tears, I tried to ignore the fact that a bed of daisies had turned their faces toward me—instead of the direction of the sun.

At least the roses and ivy were still.

Last night, before I'd gone to sleep—the first time—I'd wondered,
What are the odds that I'll have a pop quiz?

I hadn't had one today.

I'd had
two
. And just to add insult to injury? When we'd handed our English quizzes up the row, Jackson's paper had all the answers, scribbled in bold handwriting.

Though I'd never before gotten below a B+ on
anything
, I'd accumulated two Fs this week. At the thought, my eyes welled with tears. I laid my flushed face against the cool stone, struggling not to cry.

Today when I'd asked my teachers for makeups . . .

Bitches said
no
.

My stomach churned.
A drop in grades.
I couldn't go back to CLC, would never go back.

I had to wonder where the bottom was for this. What was that SAT word for the absolute rock bottom? The
nadir
. Where was my nadir?

How much more could I fail/lose/hallucinate/unravel? After last night's date with Death, I might've thought that I'd get a time-out from creepy. Not so!

Once we'd finished that quiz in English, I'd fallen asleep, dreaming again of the red witch. I began sketching her now. Naturally, she'd been fresh from a kill. Her vines had been smearing the blood of her victims over her skin; she enjoyed wearing it.

I'd been able to see more of her than ever before. Her pale face was round, her skin marred only by those two shimmering tattoos running the length of her cheeks. No, not
tattoos
, but
glyphs
—like glowing green brands. Though she had girlish freckles across her nose, she looked older, maybe midtwenties? Her eyes were gleaming green, pure evil.

I'd watched as she'd advanced on a magnificent rosebush, stabbing her thorn claws into one of its stalks. Somehow she'd leeched energy from it, siphoning its life into herself as she'd thrown back her head and shrieked with pleasure.

The plant writhed, as if in death throes, but she was merciless, sucking it dry, leaving it a withered husk. She was like a parasite, enslaving the very things I loved.

When I'd jerked awake, everyone had been packing up their books—except for Jackson.

Then I'd realized he hadn't been looking at my face, but at my hands, at my knuckles gone white as I clenched the edges of my desk. I'd released my hold at once.

“Nightmare?” he'd asked with a nod.

Had he seemed sympathetic? Unable to help myself, I asked, “Do you . . . do you have them?”

“Yeah.” He'd sounded like he was about to say more, only to remember we weren't friends. He'd just repeated, “Yeah.”

“What do you do?”

“I sleep with one eye open.” He'd taken a pull from his flask and strode away.

I'd be happy just to sleep at all.

My phone chimed with a text from Brandon. If this was more pressure, I was going to primal-scream.

Kick-back on Sat. 4 couples. Ur friends & mine. Spence & Mel


He'd come through with Spencer? Finally something positive! I seized on this, excitedly texting:
Where?


Sugar mill


I frowned. On the back, back,
back
forty of Haven there was a crumbling mill on the banks of the bayou. It was so old, only the brick walls and a smokestack remained. There was no glass in the porthole windows, so it kind of looked like an old Roman coliseum.

If folks thought Haven might be haunted, they were convinced the mill was. Rumors of gory deaths inside the cane crushers abounded.

But thinking of Mel, I knew I would agree to go—

“And you Sterling girls make fun of Clotile for wearing short skirts?” Jackson said, striding across the courtyard, raking his gaze over me in my cheer uniform.

I hastily closed my journal, putting it with my other books.

“Um, um,
UM
, Evie. Just seeing you in that getup makes me feel more . . . cheerful.”

When I'd walked into homeroom this morning, he'd taken one look at me and smirked over the rim of his flask. He'd accused me of being like a doll. As I'd gotten ready for school, putting on my bright-red skirt and V-neck vest, with an oversize hair ribbon to match, I'd kind of felt like one.

Over my shoulder, he said in a goading voice,
“Je t'aime en rose.”
I like you in pink. Then he sat uninvited beside me.

Huh? I wasn't wearing anything pink. Nothing but my bra—

He'd been looking over my shoulder, straight down my top! Did he have
no
boundaries?

And I couldn't say anything about it, or else I'd lose our battle of wills. I didn't need this! But I refused to leave my table, to give in to this bully.

“Tell me how you learned our tongue,” he said, sounding . . . not irate.

“Once again, I don't understand that ridiculous gibberish you keep murmuring. And more, I'm done talking about it.” I began to text my answer to Brand.

“You typing to that beau of yours?” Again Jackson got that frustrated look on his face. His moods were so changeable.

“
Texting
. Yes.”

“He doan want to fight me after I called you a bitch?”

Sounds goo—
My thumbs paused on my keyboard.

“Of course, I said that in French,” Jackson continued. “But now I've had to go back and think of anything else you might've understood.”