THREE

AS QUICK AS THE POWER had crashed, it came on again. I jerked my head in every direction.

“Who’s there?”

I sprang off the sofa and flipped on all the lights, inspecting my one-bedroom apartment like a wannabe cop, clutching my baseball bat.

God, please don’t let anything lurch out at me. Not exactly manly, but I prayed it anyway.

There was a sudden sound of pounding, and I nearly swung my Louisville Slugger into a wall. Then it registered: someone was at my door. But who? It was one o’clock in the morning.

I stared out the peephole, but all I could see was lots of long, sun-streaked blonde hair and a blurry face I didn’t recognize.

I guess the woman figured I was peeking at her. “I’m your new neighbor,” she called. “Just need to borrow some scissors, if that’s okay.”

In the middle of the night? Who does that?

I went ahead and opened the door and just barely kept myself from gasping. She was muscular but curvaceous —I’d say midtwenties —with a gorgeous face and a V-neck T-shirt with a plunging neckline. She smiled, revealing adorable dimples on both sides of her rosy lips.

“I’m Veronica.” Her voice was kind of low pitched for a woman, but in an attractive way. She had a bit of an accent, but I couldn’t place it. Definitely not Texas, though. She leaned forward to shake my hand, and I fought to keep my eyes from dipping below her chin. “I saw your lights are on. I hope you don’t mind me bothering you.”

“Not at all.” I didn’t mean to give such a flirtatious grin.

You’re in love with Ray Anne, loser. I wanted to sock my own jaw.

Veronica crossed her arms and leaned against the side of my door frame like she was posing for a photo shoot. “I’m trying to unpack, but my scissors are in one of the boxes, and I can’t open the boxes without my scissors.” She giggled.

“Here, I’ll get you a pair.” I went to my junk drawer in the kitchen, and she followed me inside, shooting curious glances around my living room. She had like ten chains hanging from the back of her shackle and at least eight cords coming from the back of her head —a seriously messed-up life, for sure. You would think that would have squelched my attraction, but still, I could hardly focus enough to dig through the drawer.

She stared at me from across the room. “I like how you’ve decorated the place.”

“Thanks.” It was pretty posh.

Veronica wandered into the kitchen and stood inches from me. “So, do you have a roommate, or . . . ?”

We were alone —no way around it. “It’s just me.”

She smiled bigger, but I cut my eyes away, determined to snuff out the spark before it had a chance to ignite.

Finally, my scissors. “Here you go.”

She didn’t take them. Instead she reached over and started flipping through the Bible on my countertop, stopping to read a verse I’d underlined. “‘Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molek, for you must not profane the name of your God.’” She crinkled her nose. “Why’d you underline that?”

“I just . . . did a study on false gods.” I knew I sounded like a cult leader or something, but what was I supposed to say? That I’d researched Molek because it was the name used by the wicked overlord that had laid claim to our town?

Veronica closed the book and ran her hand up and down the leather cover. “I have this exact Bible.”

“My girlfriend got it for me.” It was the perfect way to let her know I was taken.

“Aww . . .” She pouted playfully. “Who’s the lucky girl?”

I felt my cheeks heat up. “Her name’s Ray Anne.”

I was still extending the green-handled scissors to her, but she stood there, nibbling the corner of her bottom lip, eyeing my face like she was impressed with what she saw. “You want to marry this girl, Ray Anne —am I right?”

I wasn’t sure what made her think that, but I had no reason to deny it. “Uh, I mean, if that happened someday, it would be awesome.”

She leaned so close, I could smell her minty gum. And a seductive lavender perfume. “I bet you can’t wait to be a dad someday.”

I hadn’t thought much about fatherhood. I shrugged.

Veronica looked past the scissors and reached for my other hand, clutching my fingers —not a huge deal, but for some reason it freaked me out, her touching me. I tried not to let it show, though.

“May I?” She turned my hand over and gazed at my palm.

“What are you doing?”

She ran a manicured fingernail over the surface of my skin, giving me goose bumps all over.

“The lines . . . they tell me a story.”

Uh, no thanks. I pulled my hand away. “I’m not into that sort of thing.” And it was probably best if we kept our hands to ourselves.

“It’s nothing bad, I promise. It’s a gift, and I use it to help people.”

She reached for my hand again, and this time, I let her take it. She studied every detail, sometimes closing her eyes, like feeling my skin was more important than seeing.

“Life hasn’t been easy for you.”

I shook my head, aware I should have told her to leave already.

“See this spot right here?” She pressed an area near the center of my hand, prompting another adrenaline rush. Or maybe it was all testosterone. “I’m getting something when I touch you there.” She closed her eyes again. “You’re about to have to make some big decisions that won’t be easy. You’ll have to choose sides.”

I knew I’d better snap out of it and end this. It’s not like I believed her.

I twisted my hand away. “Sorry —I need to get some sleep.” I put the scissors in her hand, then walked over and opened the door. “Use them as long as you need. You can just put them on my doorstep when you’re done.”

She thanked me, then walked past me onto the balcony, the cuffs at the ends of her chains clanking over the metal threshold. I was about to shut the door when she turned around. “There’s something else you should know —something I sensed.”

“Okay?”

“Someone who loves you very much desires to spend time with you.”

I instantly thought of my mother. I’d stopped by to see her a few times after I’d first moved out, but hardly at all lately. Mainly because I hated seeing the way she lived, and most of the time, she was sleeping.

Still, I wasn’t buying into this woman’s supposed psychic powers, and also, I didn’t trust myself. For what seemed like an eternity, I’d been resisting the urge to make a move on Ray Anne. I didn’t want to ruin everything with some stranger. Even if she did look like Miss Universe.

I told her good night, locked the door, and collapsed onto my sofa.

And that, guys, is how not to cheat on your girlfriend.

I flipped the TV channel to a mindless show and mulled over how, twice that night, I’d heard a man say my name.

I finally dozed off and woke Tuesday morning to a blaring TV commercial and a lingering, invigorating scent. Custos had been there.

I grabbed my cell and read a text from Ray Anne: Did you hear about the missing girl? I think we saw her sweater!!!

I texted back: Already told the police. Crazy!

She replied saying she was joining the volunteer search team in an hour, and I agreed to meet her there. In the meantime, I forced myself to finish an assignment and upload it. I was an online student at a college that’s not worth mentioning, earning my basics for a degree I had yet to settle on. None of the majors caught my interest. It’s not like the school offered a bachelor of science in Creeper annihilation.

Ray Anne was on track to eventually earn her nursing degree, but we’d both chosen to stay in Masonville. We had a mission to accomplish. And a mystery that had to be solved.

I’d spent a lot of time online and at the library in recent months, asking the skinny librarian lady all kinds of questions while researching Masonville’s history, but there wasn’t much information out there. Then again, who would want to write volumes about this random little Texas town? Before the suicide outbreak, the world had never heard of Masonville.

I was especially focused on searching for information about the land I’d inherited. I figured if I could possibly piece together when —and better yet, why —Molek and his Creeper army had flocked here to begin with, maybe Ray and I could come up with an idea about how to make them leave.

“The responsibility to drive out wickedness, that belongs to mankind,” the old man had told me.

He’d also revealed that, over a century ago, my land had been a plantation, run by a harsh landowner. But I hadn’t been able to find any information about it. Then the other day, the librarian had said she’d found something, an old document she believed was related to my property. She’d said she’d e-mail me about it. After I finished my assignment, I checked my e-mail and found her message.

I opened the attachment, a photo of a tattered piece of paper, stained brown by the passing of more than a century. In flawless handwritten cursive, the document was dated August 7, 1886, and titled “T. J. Caldwell Plantation.”

Caldwell. Same last name as my grandparents. My mom’s, too, until she turned eighteen and changed it to Edmonds —her way of completely disowning her family.

It was a weird feeling, knowing I was bound to be related to T. J. Caldwell, a plantation owner.

I zoomed in on the next line, written top and center on the paper: “Negro Inventory.”

Really? I instantly felt sick to my stomach. I took a deep breath.

Down the left side of the paper was a list of names —just first names, like Harriet, Eliza, Arthur, and Polly. Next came ages, ranging from seven to fifty-nine.

Then —dollar amounts under a heading labeled “Value.” Apparently five hundred dollars was the going rate for a seventeen-year-old girl. Two hundred for an eight-year-old boy.

Down the right side of the page was a list of remarks, a comment about each man, woman, and child. I covered my mouth with a clenched fist.

“Good hand.”

“Sickly.”

“Fair hand.”

“Excellent cook.”

“Always telling lies.”

“Very good hand.”

I spun my chair away from my screen and stared out my apartment window.

People were bought, sold, and abused on my land. By my ancestors.

Slavery had been abolished some two decades before that list was written, but that hadn’t stopped T. J. Caldwell from making slaves out of people —oppressed souls who probably didn’t know their rights and couldn’t have enforced them if they had.

This felt different from reading about slavery in a textbook.

Maybe the anguished cries of those human beings were all it had taken to summon Molek to Masonville.

I shut my laptop and left to meet Ray Anne.

It was Tuesday, a workday, but it looked like most of Masonville had gathered under the blazing sun on the east side of my property, all waiting for the police to give instructions and commence the search for fourteen-year-old Tasha Watt. As I wove through the somber crowd looking for my girlfriend, I came face-to-face with a bulky guy in a sleeveless shirt —all muscle. It took me a moment to recognize my former best friend, Lance. It was hard to believe he was that huge now.

We both stood there, fidgeting with our phones, unsure how to react. The last time we’d seen each other, Lance had been bleeding out in the school hallway. I’d gone to see him in the hospital a few days later, but he’d been zoned out on pain meds and hadn’t known I was there.

“Hey,” Lance said, only willing to look me in the face for brief seconds at a time. We’d never cleared the air after he’d tricked me into an ambush where I was nearly beaten to death on my own wooded property. “It’s, ah . . . been a while.” Two girls walked past, unable to take their eyes off Lance.

“Yeah.” I nodded, careful not to gaze at his shackle. Back when we were friends, I’d told him he had one, so staring at his neck would only make things more awkward.

All this time, I’d thought maybe Lance had become a Light. I was there when he’d cried out to God to save him, but in that moment, he was dying. He obviously had never come to understand he needed a different kind of saving.

He asked how I was doing, then brought up Ray Anne. “I heard she’s made a full comeback.”

“Yeah, she’s good. Looks like you have too.” His shoulder was scarred pretty bad.

He nodded, eyeing his impressive biceps. “I’m going to the police academy in the fall.”

“You want to be a cop?” That surprised me. He’d always been dead set on engineering.

“My plan is to become a criminal investigator.”

I swallowed hard, recalling how he’d chosen to enforce justice on me. My rib cage still ached sometimes.

“So you hear from Jess anymore?” Lance ran a hand through his shaggy brownish-blond hair. He definitely looked like a man now compared to the kid I’d known in high school.

I shook my head. “She used to text me now and then, but she hasn’t reached out for months.”

“I hear she’s a mess. Strung out, dragging her kid with her to parties.”

I sighed. I would have thought Ray Anne’s willingness to risk her life to save Jess and her child the day of the mass shooting would have inspired Jess to more.

Lance looked back, like he wanted to make sure no one else was listening. “Owen, about what happened . . .” He diverted his eyes to the grass, rolling a small rock in circles with the tip of his tennis shoe. “I’m sorry. For what I did. That day in the woods.”

Whoa. I never dreamed I’d get an apology from him. Or that forgiveness would roll off my tongue so easily. “It’s in the past, Lance. We’re good.”

For a second there, it felt like my stomach leaped. Perhaps our friendship had a chance. But the excitement was short lived.

He looked me in the face and lowered his voice. “So you’re like . . . better now? No more delusions?”

I crossed my arms and pressed my lips together. Even after my warnings about Lance’s girlfriend, Meagan, had come to pass, he still refused to give me the slightest benefit of the doubt. I wasn’t willing to lie to him now just to save myself some embarrassment. There was no need, and plus, I’d turned over a new leaf, vowing to be totally honest, no matter what.

“I still see things, Lance.”

Oops. My eyes dipped to his metal-clad throat, and I don’t think he liked it. He glared at me, then shook his head and walked off, mumbling something under his breath.

I think we both knew it: our friendship would never recover. Too many blows to the face and ego. Two conflicting life perspectives that couldn’t suck it up and get along.

The obnoxious reporter was there, shoving her microphone in everyone’s faces, prodding them to talk about Tasha. Seemed to me if she really cared about the girl, she’d have come dressed to help with the search. Her pantsuit and high heels didn’t fit the occasion any better than the glow around her feet matched her grating personality. Yeah, she was a Light, which had shocked me when I first noticed. What kind of person likes badgering stunned, grieving people for interviews seconds after tragedy has ransacked their lives?

I found Ray, and for three sweaty hours, we combed the woods on foot alongside the army of volunteers, looking for any sign of Tasha. Creepers darted through the trees above our heads like giant bats, swooping down at times on vulnerable souls whose chains and cords were there for the taking.

I hated them.

When it was time to call it a day, Detective Benny shook Ray Anne’s hand and mine and thanked us for helping. He was bound to still think I was strange —maybe completely deranged —but it was a relief to be on his good side now.

As students sped out of the Masonville High parking lot, I pulled up and parked my bike in my usual spot. I’d taken a job as an after-school chemistry tutor, not because I loved the subject, but as an excuse to get on campus and keep an eye on the spirit world.

It wasn’t easy going back after Dan’s massacre. Nine students and one teacher were killed that day, and many more injured. But I’d sucked it up and made myself go inside for the sake of my mission.

Unsurprisingly, Creepers swarmed the building like flies on roadkill. There was an obvious countermove: if a significant number of students became Lights, the Creepers would be hard pressed to operate in the school. But that was no solution at all, because it wasn’t even remotely doable.

Don’t get me wrong —I knew what I’d done to become a Light and knew others could have the same freedom. At first, I set out to save every shackled person I came in contact with. People I knew and people I didn’t —everyone. But I learned real quick that telling people how badly they need God to save them and begging them to surrender doesn’t work. I could only get so frustrated with them, though. I used to despise pushy faith people too.

When I arrived at Ms. Barnett’s classroom, my two tutorial students were seated at a lab table, both academically anemic, unfortunately. And shackled.

One of them was Riley, the girl I’d approached in the cafeteria the year before when a Creeper, Hopeless, had attached itself to her. She was a sophomore now, with double the number of chains. She was sweet, but the desperate type.

The other student was Riley’s latest boyfriend, Hector. He was loaded down with chains and cords, always walking around with his chest puffed up, showing off his high-dollar Nikes. He liked to blare his music so loud I could hear every word through his earbuds —the same music I used to listen to before Ray Anne talked me into giving up explicit songs. From day one, Hector had an attitude toward me.

He sat facing away from me today, his eyes bloodshot like he was high and disinterested —nothing new. But Riley was unusually quiet, and her head hung low.

I lowered into the chair across the table from her. “What’s the matter?”

She glared at Hector. I got the idea she would have shot daggers from her eyeballs at him if she could.

Hector gave me a sideways, cocky grin. “She just don’t know how to let go and move on.” He dug his hands into the deep pockets of his jeans.

Riley turned away from him and angled toward me. “He dumped me for some older girl. As if she’ll ever go out with him.”

“She just can’t handle that I’ve moved on to a woman who looks better than her.”

Riley shot up from her chair and stormed out of the classroom. Ms. Barnett went chasing after her. Then so did a Creeper —Rejection, if I had to guess. They like teenage girls, especially ones like Riley.

Hector sat there with a smirk on his face, about to laugh.

“You think that was funny?”

He crossed his arms and tilted his head back —his way of looking down on me, apparently. “You’re what, three years older than me? I don’t need advice from you. And I don’t owe anyone an apology just ’cause I found a new girl and friends that are . . .” He cut his eyes to the floor.

“That are what?”

He hesitated, then glared at me. “Powerful.” He stared me down like a tiger about to pounce. Give me a break. He was a twig compared to me.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. Ain’t none a’ your business.”

Ms. Barnett poked her head inside the classroom and instructed us to carry on without Riley. I did my best to review some test questions, but Hector kept giving the wrong answers on purpose.

I passed through the gate into my apartment complex, hoping to take Ray Anne to dinner, then saw that she was already parked outside my place. I slid my helmet off as I strode toward her car, picking up the pace when I saw that she was sitting with her shoulders slumped, her head nearly touching the steering wheel.

I smelled it, then spied it. Demise stared down at us from a nearby stairwell, eyes as gray as its rotting skin. Like Ray had said, it was missing a hand. Ugh. Nothing but a broken bone protruded from its right forearm.

I threw Ray’s car door open. “Look, no Creeper is going to touch us. I don’t know what that pathetic thing is planning, but you and I . . .”

Ray Anne furrowed her brow, perplexed. I shut up.

“Yeah, I saw it too, but I can’t worry about that right now.” She wiped her nose with a tissue.

I grabbed her hand and guided her out of the car, staring into her flushed face. “Ray, what’s wrong?”

She shook her head. I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and led her up the steps toward my apartment. She had a self-imposed rule about not coming inside —at least not for long. “Being alone makes it easy to compromise,” she’d say. But it had been a long time since I’d seen her this upset —I figured she’d make an exception.

She lowered onto my sofa and pulled more tissues from her purse. I glanced out my living room window. Demise hovered in the parking lot below, peering up at my apartment. I closed the blinds, knowing it could still hear us. I had more than enough proof that Creepers could eavesdrop from zip codes away, but what could I do about it?

I faced Ray Anne. “Please tell me what’s going on. I’m here for you.”

“You might not be after this.”

I swallowed hard. “What is it?”

She exhaled, slow and shaky. “I’m afraid to tell you.”

I lowered myself beside her on the sofa and gripped her hand, small compared to mine. She pressed her eyes shut, then out came the tears, streaking her cheeks.

My heart sank.

Cancer?

She has feelings for someone else?

All I could do was gnaw on my bottom lip and wait for her to tell me.