ONE YEAR AGO
EDGEFIELD
IT was too hot for Halloween.
They were in a college town somewhere down south, the air still sticky, the streets crowded with groups of teenagers heading to parties, and Sydney had decided to go out.
She stood at the bedroom mirror, adjusted the dark brown bob, put on the darkest lipstick she could find, traced black lines around both eyes. But the older she tried to look, the more ridiculous she felt. Syd tore the wig off and slumped back onto the bed.
She took up her phone, read the last few texts from June.
June: So go out.
Syd: I can’t.
June: Says who?
June: You’re 17.
June: You can make your own decisions.
June: They can’t stop you.
Syd rolled to her feet, and began again.
She’d gone into a costume shop the day before with Mitch, found a generic anime schoolgirl getup. If looking older wouldn’t work, maybe she could pass for someone trying to look young.
Syd combed her blond hair, pulled on the pleated skirt, and adjusted the bow at her throat. She slipped the gun—these days, she never went anywhere without it—into a tiny backpack, then marched out into the apartment.
Victor sat at the kitchen table, poring over profiles, Dol asleep at his feet. Mitch was on the couch, watching a college football game. He sat up when he saw her. “You dressed up.”
“Yeah,” she said, starting toward the door. “I’m going out.”
Mitch crossed his arms. “Not alone, you’re not.” He was already pulling the deck of cards from his back pocket. Anger whipped through Sydney at the sight of them.
“This isn’t a stupid game,” she said. “It’s my life.”
“Sydney,” said Mitch, a new firmness in his voice.
“Stop treating me like a child.”
“Then stop acting like one,” said Victor without looking up.
Mitch shook his head. “What’s gotten into you?”
“Nothing,” she snapped. “I’m just sick of being cooped up.”
“Let her go,” said Victor. “She’s giving me a headache.”
Mitch rounded on him. “You’re not helping.”
“She can take care of herself.” His eyes met hers. “Isn’t that right, Syd?” She bristled at the challenge in his voice. “Well,” he sneered. “What are you waiting for?”
Sydney stormed out, slamming the door behind her. She made it down to the street before she stopped, folding onto the steps.
She didn’t know—but she knew that she couldn’t stand another minute in that apartment. That cell. That imitation of a life. It wasn’t just the heat, or the constant moving, or even having to watch Victor’s life force wane like a candle. Sydney just wanted one night of feeling normal. Human.
A car flew past, a teen hanging out the window, smiling a rictus skeleton grin. Girls laughed as they stumbled by in too-short skirts and too-tall heels. Across the street, a group of guys in wolf masks threw their heads back and howled.
Sydney got to her feet and made her way to the corner, where a dozen flyers had been tacked to a telephone pole, advertising parties at clubs and frat houses. Monsters Ball! said one. Scream Fest, promised another, the letters dripping blood. Heroes and Villains, announced a third. Underneath, in parentheses, the disclaimer: No Sidekicks.
Sydney pulled the last flyer from the post and started walking.
* * *
SHE could hear the music from the street.
The heavy bass poured through the open front door, where a guy in a cape was making out with a girl in a horned mask. The house beyond was filled with strobe lights, the staccato flashes paired to the music so the whole place looked like it was moving.
It was the kind of party her sister would have been at. The kind of crowd she would have had wrapped around her finger. That was the thing about Serena. By the time she got her powers, she was already used to being in control. Serena didn’t bend to the world. She made the world bend to her.
But as Sydney climbed the steps, her resolve wavered. She hadn’t been around this many people at once, not since she went to visit Serena at college. Right before everything went wrong.
Syd closed her eyes, could see her sister leaning in the doorway.
You’re growing up.
Could feel the weight of Serena’s arms around her.
I want you to meet Eli.
The cold of the soda in her hand.
You can trust him.
The crack of the gun sounding in the woods.
“Kawai’i.”
Syd looked around and saw a dark-skinned girl in gladiator sandals perched on the front porch rail, long legs swinging as she smoked.
“Or is it chibi?” she went on, nodding at Syd’s costume. “I can never remember . . .”
The girl offered up the cigarette, and Sydney reached to take it. She’d never smoked, but she’d seen Serena do it.
The trick is to hold the smoke in your mouth, like this.
The tip of the cigarette had glowed red, Serena had counted on her fingers one, two, three, and then exhaled a perfect plume of white. Now, Sydney did the same thing.
The smoke filled her mouth, hot and acrid. It tickled her nose, crept into her throat, and she quickly blew it out before she could start coughing.
Her head felt cloudy, but her nerves were settling.
She handed the cigarette back and stepped into the party.
The house was teeming with students. Dancing, shouting, moving, sprawling. Too many. Too much. She felt jostled by elbows, shoulders, capes, wings, caught up in the sea of bodies, motion.
Sydney stepped back, trying to get out of the waves, and collided with a man in a black domino mask. Her heart lurched. Eli. Her fingers flew toward her backpack—but it wasn’t him. Of course it wasn’t him. This boy was too short, too wide, his voice too high as he shuffled past her, calling out to a friend across the crowded room.
Sydney was just starting to relax when someone caught her wrist.
She spun around to see a tall guy in a metal helmet and skin-tight spandex. “How did you get in here?” He raised her arm, and his voice, at the same time. “Who brought their kid sister?”
Sydney felt her face flush hot as heads turned.
“I’m not a kid,” she snarled, pulling free.
“Yeah, sure, come on,” he said, pushing her toward the front door.
What Sydney would have given, in that moment, for Victor’s power instead of hers.
The college boy shoved her across the threshold. “Go trick-or-treat somewhere else.”
Sydney stood on the front porch, face burning, as the party raged behind her and more guys and girls started up the path to the house.
Tears threatened to spill down her face. She fought them back.
“Hey, are you okay?” asked a guy in a cape, kneeling beside her. “You want to call someone—”
“Fuck off,” said Sydney, marching down the steps, her face on fire.
She couldn’t go home—not yet. And she couldn’t bring herself to text June, either, so Sydney wandered the town alone for another hour, as the sticky heat finally cooled and the crowds in costumes thinned. She kept the backpack in her hand, the zipper parted and the gun in reach in case anyone tried anything.
No one did.
When she finally returned to the apartment, the lights were all off.
She slipped off her shoes, heard the soft sound of a body shifting on the couch, and turned, expecting to see Mitch.
But it was Victor, stretched out on the sofa, one arm across his eyes, his chest rising and falling in the slow, steady rhythm of sleep.
Dol lay on the floor beside him, awake, eyes shining in the dark, tail swishing softly at her arrival.
As Sydney padded across the apartment, the dog rose and followed in her wake, padding down the hall to her room and climbing up onto her bed without invitation. Syd eased the door shut and slumped back against it.
A few moments later she heard the soft scrape of furniture, the sound of Victor rising, the soft tread of his own steps as he passed her door, and closed his own.
He hadn’t been asleep, she realized.
Victor had simply been waiting for Syd to come home.