“Losing your popularity, you mean?” Mel asked with a shrewd look, and I grudgingly shrugged. “Is it that important to you—” She stopped herself. “If popularity is your My-Little-Pony gumdrop-forest of a dream, then so be it. Who am I to piss on your dreams? But know this: The school would freaking shut down without you, and that isn’t going to change just because you’re slow on the uptake and doing drugs without your bestie.”
“I walked past people all week without saying hi! I blew through the hall like a zombie.”
“Everyone will just figure this week was Evie’s red-light at the Y. When I’m OTR, I scourge the halls like Godzilla. Your little la-la-land thing is cute compared to the breathing of actual fire.”
Next week, maybe I could turn everything around. Hell, I’d almost gotten used to the plants. Take that fear out of the equation, and maybe . . .
“The most important thing to remember is that you’re my best friend,” Mel said, her voice the sweetest it’d ever sounded. “Do you know how rare and wondrous that makes you?”
I sighed, turning to hug her. “Aw, Mel . . .”
But she pulled me into a headlock, rubbing her knuckle into my hair. “You’ve always kept me on the straight and narrow, Greene. Don’t go breaking up with me or anything, okay?”
“This is hella creepy,” Mel said as we waded through dried-out brush near the mill.
We’d driven as close as we dared in her Beamer, then started walking into the withered woods. The fog was so thick I could barely see where I was stepping. Another of Gran’s sayings surfaced: Be wary of droughts—snakes slither about. “This was not my idea, Mel.”
“I should seriously hope not. Two cheerleaders going out into the woods, at night, to a supposedly haunted mill?”
“I can’t decide if it sounds like the beginning of a joke or a horror flick.”
“Hey, you’ve still got your endangered hymen. Which means you’ll make it to closing credits—I’m s.o.l.”
“Do you think the others are already here? Maybe they parked on the opposite side? I should try to call.” Then I remembered I’d left my overnight stuff and phone locked in her car, along with my precious sketchbook. I turned, but couldn’t see the Beamer through the fog.
“Call?” Mel hastily said. “Don’t be silly. We’re almost there, right?”
As we neared what was left of the mill, I murmured, “Did you hear something?” I rubbed my nape, again feeling like I was being watched—
Lights blinded me. Bodies lunged at me, faces rushing closer.
I shrieked at the top of my lungs.
Shouts of “Surprise!” faded, dozens of students startled into silence by my reaction. Grace Anne, Catherine. Brandon. All of them looked stunned.
Oh. My. God. This is a surprise birthday party. Someone had strung up lights all over the walls. Speakers perched atop rusted cane crushers. Kegs sat in aged iron kettles.
I’d just humiliated myself in front of all of these people.
Mel’s jaw had dropped at my scream. Just when I was about to burst into tears, she recovered, saying loudly, “Evie! You totes knew about this, didn’t you, bitches? Freak out the surprisers?” Then she imitated my shriek, punctuating it with a yodeled “Lay-hee-hoo.”
When people started laughing, I forced a smile. “Yep. I totally knew. Been waiting all day to do that!” Keep smiling, Evie!
Now everyone relaxed, some giving me play punches on my shoulder like I’d just done something cool, a funny prank. Good save, Mel.
Out of the corner of her mouth, she muttered, “You had no idea, did you?”
“None-point-none.”
“Carefrontation?”
“Probably unavoidable.”
“Then have fun tonight, little soldier. ’Cause tomorrow, shit gets real.”
Brand swooped me up then and swung me around until I was truly laughing. “I hope you don’t mind.”
I bit my bottom lip. Maybe if the party didn’t get any bigger or the music too loud.
A horn honked then. And another. Mel, Brand, and I gazed out the front entrance. Down an old tractor trail, headlight after headlight shone through the fog. It looked like a mass evacuation was pointed directly at the mill.
The last thing I needed was for my mom to call the cops, not realizing it was her daughter throwing the rager. “Look, guys, maybe this isn’t such a good idea.”
Mel and Brandon blinked at me in confusion. Evie Greene didn’t often utter those words.
“It’s not like we’re going to trash your house,” Brand said. “It’s outside.”
“My mom—”
“Will never know. We’ve got, like, miles between us and your house. Plus the walls keep the sound down.”
Mel said, “He’s got a point. And think of the pics! You could get some serious uploadables from a party like this.” Then she added, “Popular girls celebrate their birthdays by having a rager in a haunted sugar mill.”
Hadn’t I just been worrying about losing my popularity? Wouldn’t it be abnormal for me to not have a sixteenth-birthday kegger? Hell, Mom might take it as a good sign. She’d been rebellious with Gran and usually wasn’t too strict with me.
On the other hand, she might reconsider Brandon being “such a good boy” or hit her limit with Mel’s hijinks.
Earlier tonight, Mel had called her “Woman Who Spawned Evie” to her face. Mom had been unamused.
I didn’t know what I’d do if she outlawed either of them.
“I promise you, it’ll be okay,” Brand said. “Scout’s honor.” Instead of the three-finger Scout salute, he held up a peace sign.
I chose to think he was making a joke.
I was wavering when Brand dug into his pocket. “Oh, I almost forgot! Your birthday present. Was saving this for Monday, but I thought you might want to wear it tonight.” He handed me a wrapped box with a crushed ribbon.
I ripped it open to find a huge solitaire on a white-gold chain. Stunning. It would match my diamond earrings perfectly.
Mel clasped her hands over her chest, saying in a cajoling tone, “And all he wants is to throw a rager in your sugar mill?” Then she frowned. “Wow. That sounded raunchy.”
“Do you like it?” he asked, seeming nervous. Which was so adorable.
Game. Set. Match. “I love it. And I love my surprise party.” I stood on my toes to give him a quick kiss. “Thank you.”
He grinned, handing me a sweating Solo cup of beer. “Cheers, Eves!”
I raised my cup, hesitating. Would alcohol act wonky with my pills? But hey, how much worse could my head get? Perhaps I might even start . . . hallucinating? Ha-ha.
My time here was short anyway. “Cheers, guys!”
For the next hour everybody partook heartily of keg juice, until we were—in Brand’s estimation—“fitshaced!”
More and more people showed up, turning my party into a wild and woolly kegger. I saw faces I didn’t recognize, spied letterman jackets from other schools.
Over the course of the night, I’d watched several of Mel’s ill-fated attempts to flirt with Spencer. Yet now, as she danced with me up on a ledge, he was actually checking her out.
She and I sang so loudly I was losing my voice, danced so madly to the thumping music that the world was spiraling. For once, I didn’t fight it. We were laughing at something when I saw Jackson Deveaux leaning his shoulder against the crumbling brick wall in the back.
Then I noticed the other transfers beginning to mingle with the crowd. Clotile’s outfit tonight still made mine look Amish.
But I couldn’t muster any outrage that they were all here. With a shrug, I thought, This ought to end well.
As I danced, Brand’s eyes were glued to me, not on Clotile. I cast a smug look in Jackson’s direction; his darkened gaze was locked on me as well.
Flustered, I reached out two arms for Brand, prompting him to come help me down. But he swung me up instead, twirling me around in his arms. I laughed, throwing my head back. Spinning . . . spinning . . .
Tingling nose?
I suddenly saw the cryptic boy. He gave me a defiant kind of shrug—like he’d done something I might get mad at?
On my next rotation, he’d disappeared, but I saw that blurry-faced girl once more.
I gasped, then caught a glimpse of movement in the tree limbs above. There was another boy! He was dressed in old-timey clothing, with long black hair and jet-black wings.
A last kid joined the rotation, a boy with electricity sparking all around his body.
The girl and those two boys looked like they lay in wait for me, ready to pounce.
I twisted in Brandon’s grip until he let me down. With a hearty laugh, he said, “Evie, you about to yuke, or what?”
Or what! Or what!
I put my hand to my forehead—because now as my gaze darted around, I saw nothing out of the ordinary. Those characters had disappeared like mist.
Chapter 8
Someone was climbing the stairs to my hidden spot.
After I’d disentangled myself from Brandon, assuring him I’d be fine with a short breather—again he took my word for it—I’d climbed to a ledge near the old smokestack, needing to be alone, needing to keep watch.
I’d taken a seat, hanging my legs over the edge, careful not to crush the clover growing between the bricks. From here, I’d been able to look down on the party, like gazing at a living dollhouse.
Time passed, the crowd still swelling.
Disconnection. Why couldn’t I be down there having fun like a normal teenage girl? Why did I always have to feel threatened? Under fire?
And why was my raucous birthday party still going strong—without me?
As if to illustrate, a football player mooned the crowd, with full-on junk shot. I sighed. I couldn’t unsee that. Ever.
Then I’d sensed someone on the stairs. Who would even know how to get up here?
Jackson. With two plastic cups in hand.
I exhaled a disappointed breath. “How did you find me?”
“Not many black miniskirts escape my notice, cher.” The Cajunland player. He sat beside me, offering me a cup. “Here.”
I reluctantly accepted it, peering at the contents. “Is this roofied?”
“It can be.” Was he slurring? He definitely seemed buzzed tonight, his accent more pronounced, his dark hair tousled.
“Lovely.” Was I slurring?
Apparently. Because Jackson said, “Goody Two-shoes Evie Greene got herself pickled, for true. If I’d known you were such a juvenile delinquent, I might’ve asked for a new history podna.”
“Juvenile delinquent? Hmm. Aren’t your initials J.D.? If the shoe fits . . .”
He took a drink from his beer, but I could tell his lips were thinned with irritation. “So here we are, the Cajun JD and a Sterling High cheerleader who draws weird Goth shit. I figured out all these other fools easy enough, but you . . .” He shook his head. “Something ain’t right with you, no. I doan like unsolved puzzles. Evangeline,” he added significantly. “You got a Cajun name—you part Cajun? That’s why you can speak my tongue?”
“How’d you find out my full name?”
He gave a shrug with one palm up, the most maddening of Cajun retorts, then took another drink.
“What are you doing here, Jackson?”
“Are Sterling parties off-limits to Cajuns?”
“I just didn’t expect you and your friends at my birthday party.”
“This is yours? We heard about a blowout in a different parish, followed the free drinks.”
“A regular rager.” I pulled my hair over my shoulder, fanning myself.
When he fell silent, I turned to him, found him staring at my neck with hooded eyes. “Damn, Evie, you smell good.”
Why did everybody keep talking about my scent? Even Mel had asked to borrow my perfume earlier. One problem: I don’t wear any.
Jackson was still staring at me. Flashing him a wary look, I scooted farther away.
He blinked, then coughed into his fist. “Why aren’t you down at your own party?”
“I needed a quick tee-oh.”
“Uh-huh.” He drained his cup, chasing it with a shot from his flask.
I smelled the bite of whiskey on his breath, but didn’t find it unpleasant. “You’re at that thing constantly. And yet I never see you really drunk.”
“You want to get me drunk, you? Take advantage of ole Jack?”
“I’ll start referring to myself in third person before I take advantage of you, Jackson.”
“Heh. So, cher, now that you’ve set up this rendezvous with me, what are your intentions?”
I sipped from my cup. “You are firmly on the pipe.”
“I see the way you look at me, undressing me with your eyes.”
“Riiight. I have a boyfriend.”
“Then how come he’s not with you right now? How come he doan carry your books at school?”
Why had Jackson noticed that? “Should Brand? Just because I’m a girl? I’m his equal, would just as soon carry his as he’d carry mine.”
“Where I come from, a man carries a woman’s things ’cause it’s polite—and to let other beaux know she’s taken. How’s anyone to know you belong to him?”
“I don’t belong to anyone. Did you crawl out of a swamp—or a time capsule?”
He leaned forward until our faces were mere inches apart, then purred, “Now, dat’s not nice, Evangeline. Doan you want to be doux à moi ?” Sweet to me. He dipped his finger down my halter top between my breasts—
“Jackson!” Then I realized he’d lifted up my new necklace.
“Pretty penny for this, no?” His gaze was shuttered.
“It’s an early birthday present from Brandon.”
“And I know just what you’re goan to give him.” He dropped the chain.