Unforgiven (9 page)

Thirteen Days

L
ilith wasn't expecting her world to change after her performance at the open mic. And it didn't. Not really.

Life still sucked.

“Lilith?” Her mother screamed before Lilith's alarm clock had even gone off. “Where is my marigold cardigan with the cheetah-print elbow patches?”

Lilith groaned and buried her head beneath her pillow. “The fashion police swung by to pick it up yesterday,” she muttered to herself. “It was a menace to society.”

Three soft raps on her open door made Lilith's head pop up. That was her brother's knock.

“Hey, Bruce,” she said to the bed-headed boy chewing on a frozen waffle.

“Mom thinks you stole her fancy knockoff yellow sweater. She's getting kinda Incredible Hulk–y about it.”

“Does she honestly think I would be caught dead in ‘marigold'?” Lilith asked, and Bruce chuckled. “How you feeling, kid?”

Bruce shrugged. “Okay.”

People often called Lilith's younger brother fragile because he was so thin and pale. But Bruce was the strongest force in Lilith's life. He was hopeful against all odds. He was fun just sitting around on the couch. He knew how to make her laugh. She wished he had a better life.

“Just okay?” Lilith asked, sitting up in bed.

Bruce shrugged. “Not great. My oxygen read was low today, so I have to stay home again.” He sighed. “You're lucky.”

A brutal laugh escaped Lilith's lips. “I'm lucky?”

“You get to go to school every day and hang out with your friends.”

Bruce was so sincere Lilith couldn't even think of describing at length all the ways her entire school hated her.

“My only friend is Alastor,” Bruce added, and at the sound of his name, the little dog trotted into Lilith's room. “And all he does is poop on the rug.”

“Oh no you don't.” Lilith scooped the mutt up before he ruined the pile of laundry she hadn't folded yet. Her one clean pair of jeans was in there. On her way into the bathroom, she touched her brother's shoulder. “Maybe your oxygen read will be better tomorrow. There's always hope.”

As she got into the shower—the water was back on, but ever since the pipes had been shut off, the water smelled like rust—she thought about what she'd said to Bruce. Since when did Lilith believe there was
always hope
that tomorrow might be better?

She must have said it because she was trying to cheer him up. Her brother brought out the soft side no one else knew Lilith had. Bruce had such a good heart, and he so rarely got out of this house that only Lilith and her mom ever felt its warmth. He made it virtually impossible for Lilith to feel sorry for herself.

As Lilith got dressed, she closed her door and hummed the song she'd sung last night. It made her think, accidentally, about the longing in Cam's eyes when he'd handed her that guitar. As if she mattered to him. As if he needed her—or needed something from her.

Lilith scowled. Whatever Cam wanted from her, she wasn't going to give it up.

“Out of my way, poser.” Some football jock with a square head knocked Lilith sideways into a row of beaten-up metal lockers. No one even blinked.

“Ow.” Lilith rubbed her arm.

The fluorescent light above her flickered and buzzed. She kneeled on the snot-green tile to enter her combination and get her books for the day. A few lockers over, Chloe King was showing off the new angel-wing tattoo on her right shoulder to her latest boyfriend and as many of her friends as could crowd around.

When Chloe spotted Lilith, she smiled a big, suspicious smile. “Great performance last night, Lil!” she sang.

No way was Chloe actually being nice. Lilith knew she should exit the scene before this got nasty. “Um, thanks,” she said, hurrying to unlock her locker.

“Oh my God, you thought I was being serious? That was a joke. Like your performance.” Chloe burst out laughing and was joined by her entire clique.

“And…another awful day,” Lilith muttered, turning back to her locker.

“Doesn't have to be.”

Lilith looked up.

Luc, the intern she'd met the day before, was standing right over her. He leaned against the lockers, flipping a strange golden coin into the air.

“I heard you were always late to school,” he said.

Lilith's chronic tardiness didn't strike her as fascinating gossip. Aside from Tarkenton, a few teachers, Jean, and now Cam, no one at Trumbull had ever cared to notice Lilith. “If you were expecting me to be late, why are you waiting for me before the bell?”

“Isn't that what one does in high school?” Luc glanced around the hallway. “Wait at a classmate's locker in hopes of being asked to prom?”

“You're not a classmate. And I hope you're not trying to get me to ask you to prom. Because you would be waiting a long time.” Lilith opened her locker and tossed in some books. Luc rested his elbows on the locker door and stared down at her. She glared up at him, waiting for him to move so she could close it.

“Have you ever heard of the Four Horsemen?” he asked.

“Everyone's heard of them.” Chloe King turned away from her admirers to face Luc. Silver eyeliner glittered against her flawless dark skin, and she wore her hair in a hundred tiny braids. She glanced down at Lilith. “Even trash like her.”

“Since when do you listen to the Four Horsemen?” Lilith asked.

The Four Horsemen were haunting and profound. Their rock ballads were smart and sad, and every album was different from the last, so true fans could see a real evolution in their style. Their lead singer, Ike Ligon, wrote songs that were the reason Lilith wanted to be a musician. There was no way a girl like Chloe could relate to the pain they expressed in their music.

“It's cruel to get her hopes up,” Chloe said to Luc, and started humming the chorus of the Four Horsemen's latest single, “Sequins of Events.”

Lilith shut her locker and stood. “Get my hopes up about what?”

“If you didn't skip school so often,” Luc said to Lilith, “you might have heard the news.”

“What news?” Lilith asked.

“The Four Horsemen are the closing band at prom,” Chloe said. Behind her, her three girlfriends squealed. One of them had a soft guitar case slung over her shoulder, and Lilith realized these girls were probably in Chloe's band.

Lilith's blood drummed in her ears. “No way.”

“I'm getting Ike's name tattooed right here.” Chloe turned back to her boyfriend and his friends, undoing a button over her cleavage to show off her future ink site. “Right above my heart. See?”

The boys definitely saw.

“The Four Horsemen are coming to Crossroads?” Lilith said.
“Why?”

Chloe shrugged, as if she couldn't imagine an amazing band not wanting to visit their dismal town. “They're helping Tarkenton judge the Battle of the Bands.”

“Wait. You mean the Four Horsemen are going to watch bands from this school perform?” Lilith asked quietly. “At prom?”

Luc nodded as if he understood how world-altering this news was. “I pitched the idea to Ike myself.”

“You know Ike Ligon?” Lilith blinked at Luc.

“We were texting last night,” Luc said. “I hope this doesn't embarrass you, but your performance at the open mic got me thinking about how amazing it would be for the Four Horsemen to perform a song written by a Trumbull student.”

Luc had been there last night? Lilith was about to ask why, but all that came out of her mouth was, “Whoa.” It had finally hit her: The Four Horsemen were going to be
here,
in Crossroads. At Trumbull. This was the closest she'd ever come to fangirling in public.

“Ike loved the idea,” Luc said. “Starting today, we're accepting lyrics, even MP3s of student-written material, and Ike will sing the winning song to close out the prom.”

“Daddy thinks it's a way to make prom more inclusive,” Chloe added. “Except for freaks like you.”

But Lilith was barely listening to Chloe. In her mind, she imagined Ike Ligon's scruffy face lighting up at her lyrics. For a split second she even imagined meeting him, and soon her fantasy had flown her to a real recording studio, with Ike producing her first album.

Chloe squinted at Lilith. “I'm sorry. Are you, like, imagining one of
your
songs getting picked?” Chloe turned back to her friends and laughed.

Lilith felt herself flush. “I don't—”

“You don't even have a
band,
” Chloe said. “Whereas mine already has three singles Ike is going to love.” She slammed her locker. “It will be so amazing to be prom queen
and
win the battle
and
have the Four Horsemen cover one of my songs.”

“Don't you mean one of
our
songs?” the girl with the guitar asked Chloe.

“Sure,” Chloe said with a snort. “Whatever. Let's go.” She snapped her fingers and started down the hallway, her friends nipping at her heels.

“She's not going to win,” Luc whispered in Lilith's ear as Chloe walked away.

“She wins everything,” Lilith murmured as she slung her backpack over her shoulder.

“Not this.” Something in Luc's tone made Lilith stop and turn around. “You have a real shot at winning, Lilith, only…Never mind.”

“What?”

Luc frowned. “Cam.” He glanced at the other students flowing past them toward their classes. “I know he pressured you to start a band with him yesterday. Don't do it.”

“I wasn't planning to,” Lilith said. “But why do you care?”

“You don't know Cam like I do.”

“No,” Lilith agreed. “But I don't need to know him to know I hate him.” Saying it out loud made her realize how strange it sounded. She
did
hate Cam, and she didn't even know why. He hadn't done anything to her, and yet the thought of him made her tense up and want to break something.