Zoey headed for the bonfire, her body pumping bright red electricity.
Then she slammed into Grayson, and clung to him to keep from falling over.
“Zoey, what—? Shit, what’s wrong? What happened?”
“I’ve gotta get out of here.” Zoey glanced back over her shoulder. Jane and Harry weren’t emerging from the Droop. She’d prefer them to come charging out with accusations, howling for Val. But the Droop stood still, black, silent.
Grayson wasn’t budging. “Did someone hurt you?” He pulled out his phone. “I’ll call your father.”
“Stop it.” Zoey shoved him away, stumbling. He looked wounded, dark brows crinkling over those gentle blue eyes, and Zoey did not give a single fuck. “Just . . . something weird’s going on, okay?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know, we just need to leave.”
The music blasting from Harry Windemeier’s silver Mercedes changed from one song to the next. A crowd of girls by the bonfire cheered, undulating. Zoey caught a flash of golden hair—Val.
Val’s voice was a bell: “Charlotte, come dance with me!”
Suddenly, it was eight months ago. Junior year had just started, and Zoey was waiting by Thora’s car in the Sawkill Day School parking lot, when behind her Val called out, “Oh, hey, Thora! Your story for Mr. Everett’s class was awesome. Holy shit, girl. You can write.”
Zoey had squinted through the sun to find them, just in time to see Val, with that beaming Hollywood-starlet smile, pull a dazed, blushing Thora in for a hug. (To be hugged by Valerie Mortimer! And, lo, the clouds did part on that day!)
Then Val had looked over Thora’s shoulder, right at Zoey, and her smile had widened, just a little, and she’d wiggled four fingers at Zoey. A wave hello? Or some kind of taunt?
Thinking back, Zoey figured she knew exactly what that wave had meant: Farewell, mortal. She’s my Thora now.
And Zoey had been too jealous of their new, inexplicable friendship, too shell-shocked, too proud to step in and stop it.
And now Thora was dead.
But Zoey wouldn’t stand idly by this time.
She pushed past Grayson and into the knot of Val’s dancing wolves, turned around and around in the pumping bass and the snapping fire until she found Charlotte. Charlotte, dancing beside Collin Hawthorne, arms thrown up over her head, radiant smile on her face. Charlotte’s light-brown hair was piled on top of her head. She wore dark skinny jeans and a sheer plunging top that tied behind her neck—a top Zoey recognized instantly as Val’s.
Jesus. Less than two weeks after Charlotte had arrived, and they were already sharing clothes. Thora and Val had done that, too. They’d shared clothes; lip gloss; a quiet, genteel indifference toward all things Zoey.
A tiny silver shape on a chain glinted between Charlotte’s collarbones.
“Charlotte, we’ve gotta go,” said Zoey, shoving her way in. She realized the silver thing was a starfish charm and remembered where she’d seen that same charm before. “Marion needs you.”
“What?” Charlotte brushed a sweaty strand of hair off her cheek. “Is she okay?”
“She’s fine, she just . . . she had a nightmare. Something about . . . you know, about her accident.” Zoey swallowed hard, shifting from one leg to another. Since Thora vanished, a tiny pocket-Thora had lived inside Zoey’s brain. Sometimes she showed up at the most annoying times, flashing smiles at Zoey, whispering old inside jokes to Zoey. She was a hard ghost to shake.
Maybe if Zoey could get Charlotte home, the ghost would leave her alone for at least an hour or two.
“My dad and I went to check on her,” Zoey lied. “She was asking for you.”
Collin Hawthorne, cheeks flushed a splotchy red, said, “Harlow, what’s up with your arms?”
Zoey realized she’d been standing there scratching her wrists so hard she’d nearly broken the skin. But she had to scratch, or the spiders could find their way inside her.
“Come on, Charlotte,” Zoey managed, her stomach rolling. “Grayson and I will walk you home.”
Collin looked over Zoey’s shoulder, saw Grayson standing there, and gave him a bro nod. “Tighe, what’s up with your girl?”
“Her name is Zoey, Collin,” Grayson answered with a tight smile. “I’m not sure why that’s so hard for you to remember.”
“What’s going on?”
Zoey’s stomach dropped.
Val.
Charlotte and Collin made way for her like an ocean for its goddess. She wore a slinky sequined dress that clung to her lean curves and shimmered silver and would have looked ridiculous on anyone else.
What sane person wears a sequined cocktail dress to a forest party?
But Val’s hair hung long and windblown to the small of her back, and she was barefoot, one of her feet marked with a thin red cut, her crimson toenails like beads of blood. It was a look. It worked.
Val’s smile was brittle, wounded. Trying to make Zoey feel bad for the last party? For the ill-conceived murder accusation?
Fat chance of that.
“You came after all,” said Val, “even after what happened last time. I didn’t think you would.” Her gaze flicked up and down Zoey’s body, then to Grayson. “Hasn’t poor Grayson suffered enough? Let him go, Zoey.” Val’s voice slid low like a deep-sleep dream. “Have you come here looking for another heart to break? One wasn’t enough for you?”
Zoey nearly choked.
“That’s uncalled for, Val,” Grayson said.
Collin smirked and reached for the small of Val’s back. She batted him away like she would an irritating child.
Zoey couldn’t look at Val anymore, otherwise she’d erupt or cry. Either would be a fatal last move.
She waved at Charlotte. “Come on, Charlotte, let’s go.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Charlotte moved away, teetering slightly. “Mom’s there if Marion needs anything. I just want to have some fun for once.” She grabbed a cup from an overturned crate and gulped down its contents. A leaf dropped down from the trees, coming to rest on Charlotte’s shoulder.
Zoey flinched, expecting spindly legs to sprout from the leaf and go crawling up Charlotte’s throat. She glanced back at the Droop. Nothing. No Jane, no Harry.
Zoey’s fingers tingled, like at the science museum in the static electricity room. Put your hand on the thrumming metal ball and watch your hair stand on end!
Charlotte wiped her lips with the back of her hand and laughed. “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve had fun?”
“Yeah, yeah, your life is a tragedy, I get it, but come on.” Zoey didn’t look back at the Droop, but she could feel its unseen eyes watching her. “It’s time to go.”
Val hooked her arm through Charlotte’s. “Charlotte, babe, listen to me. Marion’s fine. She wouldn’t want you to leave a party for her. I mean, that wouldn’t be fair. You deserve to have a good time.”
Charlotte dropped her cheek against Val’s shoulder. “God, I really do. But if Marion needs me—”
“She doesn’t,” Val said, not so gently anymore. “She’s fine. Stay here, come on. The night is young.”
Red flags flapped in Zoey’s deepest gut like taut sheaths of skin. Val sounded a little too desperate, a little too prickly. And although Zoey hadn’t swallowed a sip of alcohol, as she stood there, sweating in the firelight, her head spinning, the soles of her feet buzzing in her sneakers, Charlotte became Thora, and Thora became Charlotte again, and Val stayed Val, sharp-eyed and clinging.
Suddenly, Zoey couldn’t help herself. She curled her hands into fists. “Evelyn Sinclair,” she began quietly, ignoring Grayson’s quiet plea to stop. “Fiona Rochester. Avani Mishra. Grace Kang. Natalie Breckenridge.” The blood in Zoey’s veins crackled. “Thora. Keller.” She glanced at Charlotte, eyes full and hot. “Those names ring a bell, Charlotte?”
Uncertain, Charlotte looked back and forth between Zoey and Val. “Aren’t those the girls who—”
“They used to be friends of Val and her mom and her grandma and her great-grandma. They used to be Sawkill girls. And now they’re gone, vanished without a trace. You want to be next?”
Collin Hawthorne flung his drink into the fire. He clenched his meaty fists. “You’ve crossed a line, Harlow. Do you really want to do this again?”
“Hey, listen,” Grayson began, holding up his hands between them, “she’s just a little bit tipsy, okay? She doesn’t mean it.”
“Oh yes, I do,” Zoey spat.
Val ignored everyone but Zoey, her eyes bright with unshed tears. “You piece of shit,” she said evenly. The wind off the water whipped her hair around her face. “I loved Thora.”
Zoey felt capable of breathing fire.
Instead, she snapped, “Yeah? Well, I loved her, too—”
And then, before Zoey could finish her sentence, before Val could respond, Charlotte strode forward, her eyes bright and hard, the air all of a sudden crackling like someone had infused it with venom, and struck Zoey across her chin. It was a sloppy hit, and Charlotte yelped with pain right after, but it was enough to light Zoey’s face on fire.
Grayson caught her before she could fall. “Jesus, Zo,” he whispered, pressing his handkerchief to her cheek. Sawkill boys and their handkerchiefs. What a world Zoey lived in.
Grayson snapped over his shoulder, “What the hell, Charlotte?”
Encircled by Val’s wolves, all of whom hooted and raised their cups in her honor, Charlotte stepped back, wide-eyed. She shook her head, cradled her punching hand against her chest.
“Zoey,” she whispered, her eyes filling with tears, her words slightly slurred, “I’m so sorry, I don’t know what came over me, I didn’t mean to—”
Val pulled Charlotte gently away, back into the pack. “Leave her,” Val suggested. “Let her walk it off.”
Jaw throbbing, Zoey turned away from them, stumbled toward the dirt road that led back out of the woods.
Harry and Jane emerged from the trees hand in hand. Spider-free and beaming, though Zoey saw them glance at each other once, shifty. Then it was like they came to an unspoken arrangement—who would believe them? Go easy on the booze, you two!—and moved on with their lives.
“What did we miss?” asked Jane brightly, only a tiny bit shaky. Harry ran his fingers nervously through his hair. Looking for stray arachnids?
“Zoey, stop, please,” Grayson said, hurrying after her.
“She changes them.” Zoey stormed through the trees. “I don’t know how, but she changes them. Thora, and now Charlotte.”
“What do you mean, she changes them?”
“Did Charlotte Althouse even for a second strike you as the type of girl to go off and punch someone she barely knows?”
“Well, no, but she had been drinking—”
“Grayson? Honestly?” Zoey whirled around to face him and had to glare way, way up to meet his eyes. For a second she remembered how sweetly her five-foot-nothing frame had fit against his five-foot-ten, how she’d felt protected in his arms but never diminished.
“If you’re not gonna believe me,” she said, tears shimmering at her lashes, “even after what you just saw, even after everything we’ve been through, then leave me the fuck alone for a while, okay?”
Then she turned and left him standing alone in the dark.