The party’s in full swing when I arrive with Robin, one Bee Gees song after another blasting out from the windows, strobe lights going back and forth in the living room, and I’m pretty sure I spot a disco ball over the dining room table.
This is going to be fun. And loud. And maybe exactly what I need.
“Hey, gorgeous!” says the frat boy who opens the door. “Where have you been all my life?”
He makes us put our keys into a huge pickle jar by the front door and introduces us to a guy in a Vegas-style white Elvis Presley costume who, should we wish to leave, will be the judge of whether or not we’re fit to drive.
“Nice outfit,” I tell him, although I’m not sure how it relates to the theme of the party, except that I think Elvis died in the seventies.
“Why, thank you. Thank you very much,” he drawls.
Somehow I knew he was going to say that.
Of course almost the first person I spot in there is Thomas, swaying under the disco ball, wearing a flowered satin button-down shirt that shows his spotty chest hair. He brightens when he sees me, waves me over. So I go.
“You changed your mind,” he says.
“Yep. So here I am,” I say. “Thanks for helping me out before.”
“You don’t look like you needed it,” he says, his eyes searching my face for the scratches and scrapes that were there last time he saw me, like two hours ago.
Whoops. I forgot about that.
“I told you it wasn’t bad,” I try to explain. “I have a few bumps and bruises on my legs is all, nothing serious. Nothing that a little makeup can’t hide.”
“You look great,” he says, his eyes now roaming down my body, stopping on my legs.
“Thanks,” I say, uncomfortable. It was hard to go full-blown seventies on such short notice, but fortunately Robin had a bright orange polyester halter dress as a backup to the blue zebra-print. It’s mildly itchy.
“Do you want to dance?” Thomas asks.
That’s when I discover that I don’t really know how to dance to disco. We get some laughs out of it, anyway, trying to do the John Travolta thing.
“So what’s your major?” he asks me, the college equivalent of “what’s your sign?”
“Biology,” I answer. I already know that his is physics.
“You want to be a biologist?”
“No,” I laugh. “I want to be a doctor.”
“Aha,” he says, like he’s figured out something important about me. “Did you know that over half of the incoming freshmen at this school consider themselves premed? But only like seven percent of them end up taking the MCAT.”
“I did not know that.” I must look tense, because Thomas laughs.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to depress you,” he says. “Let me get you a drink.”
I open my mouth to tell him that I’m not twenty-one, but of course he must know that. The only time I’ve ever had alcohol at a party was that summer with Tucker. Ava Peters’s house. He made me a rum and Coke.
“What’s your order?” Thomas asks me. “They have pretty much everything. I bet you’re a martini type of girl, am I right?”
“Uh, rum and Coke,” I say, because I know I was able to handle that okay that night without getting even a little tipsy. I want to be able to drive home.
“Rum and Coke it is,” he says, and away he goes to the kitchen.
I look around. Off in a back room I can hear people chanting somebody’s name. There’s another group around the dining room table, dipping stuff into fondue pots, and dancers going wild under the disco ball, people holding shouted conversations in corners, the occasional couple making out on the stairs and against the wall. I spot Amy on the couch in front of the TV, with a bunch of people playing some sort of drinking game that involves watching That Seventies Show. I wave, and she waves back enthusiastically.
Thomas returns with my drink.
“Cheers.” He knocks his plastic cup dully against mine. “To new adventures with new people.”
“To new adventures.” I take a big drink, which burns all the way down my throat and settles like a pool of lava in my stomach. I cough.
Thomas pats me on the back. “Uh-oh, are you a lightweight?”
“This is rum and Coke? Nothing else?” I ask.
“One part rum, two parts Coke,” he says. “I promise.”
It doesn’t taste anything like the drink I had at the party with Tucker. And now, almost two years later, I realize why. Tucker never put any rum in my rum and Coke.
That little stink.
That overly protective, impossible, infuriating, and utterly sweet little stink.
In that moment I miss him so much my stomach hurts. Or that could be the rum. There’s a loud cheer from the people in the back room.
“Christian! Christian! Christian!” they’re chanting.
I push forward through the crowd until I’m standing in the doorway of the back room, arriving in time to see Christian chug a large glass of dark brown liquid. They cheer again when he’s done, and he grins and wipes his mouth on the sleeve of his white polyester suit.
The girl sitting next to him leans over to whisper something in his ear, and he laughs, nods at her.
My stomach clenches.
Christian looks up and sees me. He stands up.
“Hey, where are you going?” says the girl who’s sitting on the other side of him, pouting prettily. “Christian! Come back here! We still have to get through another round.”
“I’ve had enough,” he says, not quite slurring, but not sounding like himself, either.
I don’t have to touch his mind to know he’s drunk. But underneath the haze of alcohol I can feel that he’s upset about something. Something that’s happened since I saw him this afternoon.
Something he wants to forget.
He brushes his hair out of his eyes and crosses the room to me, walking in a mostly straight line. I back up to let him get through the door, but he puts his hand on my bare arm and pulls me into the corner. His eyes close momentarily as the current of energy passes through us; then he leans toward me until his nose is almost touching mine, his breath surprisingly sweet considering the nasty stuff I watched him drink. I want to be casual about this—it’s a party, after all, drinking happens, and yeah, there were girls in that room fawning all over him, but he’s fire hot, and he’s smart and funny and well-spoken. And he’s not my boyfriend, I remind myself. We’ve never actually been out on a date. We’re not together.
Still, his touch sends a flock of rabid butterflies careening around my stomach.
“I was just thinking about you,” he says, his voice rough, his pupils so big they make his eyes look black. “Dream girl.”
My face is getting hot, both from what he’s saying and what he’s feeling right now. He wants to kiss me. He wants to feel my lips again, so soft, so perfect to him—he wants to carry me out of this stupid noisy house to somewhere where he can kiss me.
Whoa. I can’t breathe properly. He leans in. “Christian, stop,” I whisper the moment before his mouth touches mine.
He pulls away, breathing heavily. I try to retreat a little, put some space between us, but I run into the wall. He takes a step forward, closing the distance, and I put my hand on the center of his chest to keep him back, for which I get another electric zap, like fireworks going off against a dark sky.
“Let’s go outside,” I suggest breathlessly.
“Lead the way,” he says, and walks behind me, his hand on the small of my back as I head toward the door, burning through the fabric of my dress. We’re about halfway there when we literally bump into Thomas, who I realize I simply walked away from with no explanation the minute I heard Christian’s name.
“I was looking for you,” Thomas says. He looks at Christian and, more importantly, at Christian’s hand, which has moved down to my hip. “Who is—”
“Hey, you’re Doubting Thomas!” Christian says, suddenly jovial.
Thomas looks over at me, startled. “Is that what you call me? Doubting Thomas?”
“It’s affectionate, really,” Christian says, and as Thomas looks, well, doubtful, and hurt, Christian claps him on the shoulder and moves us past him. “You have a nice night.”
Something tells me that Thomas isn’t going to ask me out again.
I’m relieved for the cool air that greets us when we make it outside. There’s a bench on the porch, and I steer Christian over to it. He sits, then abruptly puts his face in his hands. Groans.
“I’m drunk,” he says, his voice muffled. “I’m sorry.”
“What happened to you?” I sit down next to him, reach to put my hand on his shoulder, but he sits up.
“Don’t touch me, okay? I don’t think I can handle it like this.”
I fold my hands in my lap. “What’s wrong?” I ask.
He sighs, runs his palms over his hair. “You know how you said Angela could make herself have the vision by walking in that thing at the church? Well, I did it. I went there.”
“I went there, too,” I gasp. “We must have just missed each other.”
“Did you have the vision?”
“Yes. I mean no, not at the church. But later, I had it.” I swallow. “I saw you with the sword.”
“Fighting?” he asks.
“Fighting two people.”
He nods grimly. “I think we’re having the same vision. Did you see who I was fighting?”
“It was too dark. I couldn’t tell.”
We take a minute to process this, which is hard with the Bee Gees blaring out at us, “Somebody help me, somebody help me, yeah.”
“That’s not all,” Christian says. “I saw you.”
Hopefully he didn’t see the part where I was cowering against the wall, trying and failing to summon the courage to get up.
He shakes his head. “No, you were …” His voice is raspy, like his throat is dry, and, absurdly, he wishes that he could get another drink.
Dread boils over me. “I was what?”
“You were hurt.”
He puts his hand on my wrist and shows me what he saw. My own face, tearstains on my cheeks, my hair loose and tangled around my shoulders. My lips pale. My eyes glazing over. The front of my shirt covered in blood.
“Oh” is all I can think to say.
He thinks I was dying.
He licks his lips. “I don’t know what to do. I only know that when I’m there, in that room, wherever it is, I have one overwhelming thought. I have to keep you safe.” Something works in his throat. “I would lay down my life to protect you, Clara,” he says. “That’s what I feel. I’d die to protect you.”
We don’t talk as I drive him home. I walk him up the stairs and into his room, past Charlie, who’s sprawled on the futon playing his Xbox. I guide Christian over to his bed.
“You don’t need to take care of me,” he protests as I pull back the covers and sit him down on the mattress. “I was stupid. I just wanted to escape for a minute. I thought—”
“Shut up,” I say gently. I pull his shirt over his head and toss it in the corner, then go to the minifridge and find him a bottle of water. “Drink.” He shakes his head. “Drink.”
He downs almost the entire bottle, then hands it back to me.
“Lie down,” I tell him. He stretches out on the mattress, and I go to work removing his shoes and socks. He stares up at the ceiling for a minute, then groans.
“I think this is the first time I’ve ever had a real headache. I feel like—”
“Shh.” I cast a glance at Charlie over my shoulder. He’s faced away from us, his fingers punching the buttons on the Xbox controller passionately. I turn back to Christian.
“You should sleep,” I tell him. I stroke his hair away from his face, my fingers lingering near his temple. He closes his eyes. I move my hand to his forehead, and peek again at Charlie, who’s as oblivious as ever.
Then I call the glory to my fingers and send the tiniest bit of it into Christian.
His eyes open. “What did you just do?”
“Does your head feel better?”
He blinks a few times. “The pain’s gone,” he whispers. “Completely gone.”
“Good. Now go to sleep,” I tell him.
“You know, Clara,” he sighs sleepily as I get up to leave. “You should be a doctor.”
I close the door behind me, then take a minute to lean against the wall and catch my breath.
It’s funny. Here I’ve been seeing this dark room for months, and I know something bad has happened right before Christian and I end up there, hiding, and I know it’s not going to do any good for us to hide, and I know that this whole vision could be life or death. Those people, whoever they are, want to kill us. I’ve sensed that from the beginning.
But I don’t think I ever truly considered that I might die.
Okay, God, I cast upward at breakfast Sunday morning, nibbling at a dry piece of toast while the bells of Memorial Church chime in the background. Give me a break. I’m eighteen years old. Why put me through all of this, the forest fire and the visions and the training, if I’m going to kick the bucket, anyway?
Or maybe this is a punishment. For not fulfilling my purpose the first time.
Or maybe it’s some kind of ultimate test.
Dear God, I write in my notebook as I’m sitting in chemistry class on Monday morning listening to a lecture on the laws of thermodynamics. I don’t want to die. Not now. Sincerely, Clara Gardner.
Please, God, I plead when I’m up at three a.m. on Tuesday morning trying to dash off my Waste Land paper. Please. I don’t want to die. I’m not ready. I’m scared.
“Oh yeah?” says T. S. Eliot. “I will show you fear in a handful of dust.”
Angela doesn’t show up for the Poet Re-making the World. Doesn’t turn in the paper. Which means, according to the rules in the syllabus, that she can’t pass the class.
The idea sends a chill through me. Angela Zerbino: straight-A student, high school valedictorian, school-geek extraordinaire, lover of all things poetical, is going to fail her first college poetry course.
I’ve got to find her. Talk to her. Right freaking now. I’ll do whatever it takes.
The minute class is over, I call Amy. “Do you know where Angela is?” I ask.
“She was in the room, last time I saw her,” she tells me. “Why? Is something going on?”
Oh, something’s going on.
I sprint all the way back to Roble, but stop short when I reach the building. Because a crow is perched on the bike rack again.
“Don’t you have somewhere better to be?” I ask it.
No reply, except it hops from the rack to one of the bikes. My bike, as a matter of fact.
I don’t want bird poo on my bike, broken or not. I take a few steps forward, waving my arms at it. “Go away. Get out of here.”
It cocks its head at me, but doesn’t otherwise move.
“Go on.”
I’m directly in front of it now. I could touch it if I wanted to, and it doesn’t budge. It stares at me calmly and holds its ground. Which is when I know—or maybe I’ve always known, and haven’t wanted to admit to myself—that this is not a regular old crow.
It’s not a bird at all.
I open my mind then, like cracking open a door, ready to push it closed again at any moment. I can feel him, that particular flavor of sorrow I know so well. I can hear that sad music, the way I used to hear it calling me last year from the field behind the school grounds, a melody of this is all that I am, when I was so much more; I’m alone, alone now for good, and I can never go back, never go back, never go back.
I wasn’t being paranoid. It’s Samjeeza.
I take a step back, slam the door in my mind so hard it gives me an instant headache, but a headache’s better than the sorrow by a long shot.
“What are you doing here?” I whisper. “What do you want?”
I know I felt sorry for him last year, I did; I knew how much he’d cared about my mom, even in his twisted-up way, and I’d taken pity on him that day in the cemetery. Even now I don’t fully understand what came over me. I just walked over there and gave him my mother’s bracelet, and he took it, and he didn’t try to hurt us and we all got home safe and sound. But that doesn’t make him any less dangerous. He’s a fallen angel, aligned with the powers of dark. He’s almost done me in on two separate occasions.
I force myself to stand up straight, look him in his wide yellow eyes.
“If you’re here to kill me, then do it already,” I say. “Otherwise I’ve got stuff I’ve got to do.”
The bird shifts and then, without warning, takes off, straight at me. I yelp and duck and prepare to, I don’t know, have my head separated from my shoulders or something, but he breezes past me over my shoulder, so close he brushes my cheek with his feathers, up and away, into the cloud-darkened sky.
Standing outside her dorm room in A wing, I try to call Angela again, and I can hear her phone ringing from inside. She’s home. It’s a miracle.
I pound on the door.
“Come on, Ange. I know you’re there.”
She opens the door. I push my way inside before she can protest. A quick glance around reveals that the roommates aren’t here. Which is good, because it’s about to get ugly.
“Okay, what is going on with you?” I demand to know.
“What do you mean?”
“What do you mean, what do I mean?” I cry. “You’ve been dodgy. The whole dorm is talking about how you’re involved, in a horizontal-type way, with Pierce. He’s the PHE, you know, the dorm doctor. He lives on the first floor. Blondish, shortish, scruffyish—”
She gives me an amused look and closes the door behind me, locks it. “I know who he is,” she says with her back to me. “And yes, we’re together. Involved, if that works better for you, in a horizontal-type way.”
My mouth drops open.
I owe Christian ten bucks.
Angela puts a hand on her hip. I notice that she’s got a wet washcloth slung over one shoulder. She’s wearing sweats, an oversize Yellowstone National Park T-shirt with a trout on the front, her hair braided in a long, single plait down her back, no shoes or socks, and no polish on her fingers or toes. Under the fluorescent lights of our room, her skin has a blue cast to it, lavender shadows under her eyes.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“I’m fine. Tired, is all. I was up all night working on my Eliot paper.”
“But you weren’t in class—”
“I got an extension,” she explains. “Things have been crazy lately, and I’ve been so swamped that I’ve fallen way behind. I spent all weekend trying to catch up with everything.”
I squint at her. She’s lying, I sense vaguely. But why?
“Are you okay?” she asks. “You look a little wild-eyed.”
“Oh, well, let’s see: My dad showed up saying that he wants to train me to use a glory sword. Because I’m apparently going to have to fight for my life at some point. And oh yes, I’m having a vision where someone is trying to kill me, which works well with Dad’s theory that I should sharpen up my glory sword. And if that’s not enough, Christian’s having the same vision, except in his vision he doesn’t see me holding a glory sword. He sees me all weak and covered with blood. So maybe I’m going to die.”
She stares at me in horror.
“This is what happens when you don’t return my phone calls,” I say, flopping down on her bed. “All the proverbial crap hits the proverbial fan. Oh, and I just saw the bird again, and I felt his sorrow this time, and it’s definitely Samjeeza. So yay, right?”
She leans against the door frame like all that bad news has knocked the air out of her. “Samjeeza? Are you sure?”
“Yep. Pretty sure.”
There’s a sheen of sweat on her forehead, a greenish tinge to her skin.
“Hey, I didn’t mean to scare you,” I say, sitting up. “I mean, it’s not good, but—”
“Clara—” She stops and presses the washcloth to her mouth, inhales deeply, closes her eyes for a minute. And she goes even greener.
All thoughts of Samjeeza fly out of my head.
“Are you … sick?”
I’ve never been sick, truly sick, a day in my life. Never had a cold, the flu, never got food poisoning, never had a fever or an ear infection or a sore throat. And neither has Angela.
Angel-bloods don’t get sick.
She shakes her head, closes her eyes.
“Ange, what is going on? Stop saying everything’s fine and spill.”
She opens her mouth to say something, but suddenly she groans and rushes out into the hall and two doors down to the bathroom, where I hear the unmistakable sounds of her throwing up.
I creep to the bathroom door. She’s in a stall crouched in front of the toilet, clutching the sides with white-knuckled hands, shivering.
“Are you okay?” I ask softly.
She laughs, then spits into the bowl, gets a wad of toilet paper, and blows her nose. “No. I am definitely not okay. Oh, Clara, isn’t it obvious?” She pushes her hair out of her face and glares at me with fierce, shining eyes. “I’m pregnant.”
“You’re—”
“Pregnant,” she says again, the word echoing off the tile. She stands up and brushes herself off, pushes past me and back to her room.
“You’re—” I try again, following her.
“Knocked up. Yes. A bun in the oven. Preggers. With child. Expecting. In the family way.” She sits down on the bed, stretches her back, and lifts her shirt.
I stare at her belly. It’s not huge, not so much that I would have noticed it if she weren’t pointing it out, but it’s gently rounded. There’s a faint black line that stretches from her belly button down. She stares up at me with tired eyes, and I feel in that moment that she’s about an eyelash away from crying. Angela Zerbino, on the edge of tears.
“So,” she says softly. “Now you know.”
“Oh, Ange …” I keep shaking my head, because there’s no way that this could be true.
“I’ve already talked to Dr. Day, and three or four people in administration. I’m going to see if I can make it through winter quarter, since I’m not due for a while, and then take a leave of absence. They tell me that it won’t be any problem. Stanford will be here when I decide to come back; that’s the policy when it comes to these types of situations.” She gives me a look that’s trying hard to be brave. “I’m going to go back to Jackson and live with my mom. It’s all worked out.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I breathe.
She lowers her head, rests her hand lightly on her belly. “I guess I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want you to look at me the way you’re looking at me right now. Telling people makes it real.”
“Who’s the father?” I ask.
Her expression smoothes itself in perfect composure again. “Pierce. We had this night a couple months ago, just something that happened, and we’ve been kind of on again/off again since then.”
She’s lying. I can feel it like she has a neon sign that says LYING flashing over her head.
“You think people are going to believe that?” I ask.
“Why wouldn’t they?” she asks sharply. “It’s the truth.”
I sigh.
“For one thing, Ange, you can’t really get away with lying to me. I’m an empath. And secondly, even if I wasn’t an empath, Pierce is the PHE.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” She’s not looking at me now.
“He’s the guy who gave out the safe-sex pamphlets during orientation. He’s got a dorm’s worth supply of condoms stashed in his room. And—”
She pulls her shirt back down. “Get out,” she says, almost a whisper.
“Ange, wait.”
She stands up and crosses to the door, holds it open for me. “I don’t need this from you right now.”
“Ange, I only want to hel—”
“Sounds like you’ve got your own stuff going on,” she says, still not looking at me. “You should worry about that.”
“But what about your purpose?” I say. “What about ‘the seventh is ours’ and the guy in the gray suit?”
“Don’t talk about my purpose,” she says fiercely between clenched teeth.
Then she shuts the door in my face.
I wander to the Old Union in a daze, sink to a bench next to the Claw fountain in White Plaza. I sit there, staring at the falling water, until the sun is much lower in the sky. People are all around me, coming and going from the CoHo on their search for coffee. I don’t hear them. I only hear the fear in Angela’s voice.
I’m pregnant.
This is how Christian finds me, dazed and silent on the bench. He takes one look at me and drops to his knees in front of me, peers up into my face.
“Clara?” Clara? What’s wrong?
I blink, look into his worried green eyes. Should I tell him?
I don’t have a choice. He can read the shocked thought like I’m shouting it. His mouth drops open.
“She’s …” He can’t even finish the sentence.
My eyes burn. What is she going to do? I keep thinking. What is she going to do?
Christian puts his hand over mine.
“Clara,” he says quietly. “I think it’s time you told me about what happened in Italy.”
So I tell him. I tell him about how, this one night in Rome, on the metro, of all places, we ran into this guy, and Angela totally freaked just looking at him. How she sneaked away that night to see him, and didn’t come home until morning. How he turned out to be Phen, the mentor angel she’d told me about before, but he was clearly more than her mentor. I tell Christian about how Angela desperately wanted me to like Phen, but I just couldn’t. I saw Phen for what he was—a gray soul, weary with the world. How I didn’t think he could truly love her, but Angela loved him, and acted like she didn’t love him, so she could keep seeing him and call it casual.
“So what do you think?” I ask Christian when I’m done with the story.
He shakes his head. “I think this changes everything.”