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A hundred and sixty-seven years’ worth of scratches.
“Where did you get that?” I asked.
Kasey glanced at it. “Lydia had it lying around. She said it belonged to a friend of the family who died.”
I closed my eyes tightly.
“For God’s sake, don’t cry,” Kasey said. “You’ll wreck your makeup.”
“Get out,” I whispered.
She drew back. “What?”
“Leave me alone.”
“Rude, Lexi!” She sniffed. “Do you know how much easier this is going to make our lives? Do you think it would have been easy for me to get into college with attempted murder on my record?”
“Go,” I said.
“Fine. But if you think I’m untying you now, you’re crazy!” she said, storming out and slamming the door behind her. From the other room, I heard her voice rise. “She’s being totally unreasonable!”
A second later, the door opened and Megan stuck her head in.
“I just want you to know,” she said, “that the meeting’s going to start in a half hour.”
“So?” I asked.
“Come on, Lex,” she said, coming inside. To my surprise, she came up behind me and began cutting the tape from my hands. “Think about it. You should be thanking Lydia and me. We took care of the Kasey problem for you. Now you can go through with it and ensure this unbelievable life for you and your sister.”
I flexed my hands in front of me, trying to get the feeling back in my fingers.
“I know how much you care about her,” she said quietly. “If you want to know the truth, Lex, I’ve been kind of jealous. I’ll never have that bond.”
I focused on rubbing my wrists.
“Maybe that’s why you weren’t as devoted to Aralt as I was,” she said.
My head jerked up. “I was plenty devoted to Aralt,” I said. “I just decided that free will is more important to me than getting everything I want.”
Hostility didn’t faze Megan. She just gave me a puzzled smile. “Aralt is all about free will,” she said. “You make your own choices. That thing with Carter was all you. You wanted the perfect boyfriend. So Aralt delivered him to you.”
My definition of the perfect boyfriend didn’t include stalking, but I didn’t say so. There was too much truth in what she’d said. Carter had been fine until I started manipulating him.
“One way or another, you’re going to read the spell,” Megan said. “One way or another, you’ll realize how important Aralt is. The mature thing would be to stop whining and start being thankful for all of the things he’s doing for you, even if you don’t deserve it.”
“I’m not doing it,” I said.
She sighed. “So ungrateful.”
“Tashi’s dead,” I said. “And Lydia killed her. I can’t let anyone else die.”
Megan shook her head. “Well, then, the solution should be perfectly clear to you.”
I looked up at her.
“You read the spell twice,” she said. “Sacrifice yourself.”
“That’s suicide.”
“Suicide, murder,” she said, shrugging. “Until you learn to look at this from a more enlightened point of view, nothing’s going to sound good. I can’t help you there.”
She walked to the door, and I leaned down and began untying the ropes from my ankles.
“Besides,” she said over her shoulder, “we have a volunteer. Good news, Lex—it’s just Zoe.”
The door clicked shut behind her.
I tried not to think of what she’d said, but the thing is, she and Kasey were right. We had to resolve this, one way or another, and as far as I knew, obeying Farrin—reading Tuga
But it could be me. It was such a simple solution. It would save Zoe, my sister, my friends…and I wouldn’t have to live with someone else’s death on my conscience.
The only thing was…
I was scared.
I could no more imagine volunteering to take Zoe’s place as the sacrifice than I could imagine climbing to the edge of a smoking volcano and jumping in.
Coward, I scolded myself. Selfish coward.
Did I really care if someone else died? Or did I just care about making sure it wasn’t my fault? I wanted it all: I wanted the easy way out, and I wanted to be guilt-free. At least my sister and Megan were willing to acknowledge that someone would be dying for them.
Selfish, scared, useless coward.
My breath turned shaky and I felt my shoulders quiver. I held my hands over my eyes, expecting tears, welcoming them, not caring about my dress or my face.
But they didn’t come. I couldn’t cry.
Because you’re afraid to ruin your makeup, snapped the angry voice inside me.
And I was. I was so afraid.
And so exhausted from the effort of holding Aralt at arm’s length, being an outsider, feeling like I’d failed everyone.
It will feel so good, said the voice in my head. It will make you so much stronger.
Just for a second, and then I can keep fighting, I told myself, and then, like a trickle of water under a door at the start of a flood, I let go of just a tiny bit of control.
Immediately, my pounding headache was smoothed into the soft, golden feeling that you get when pain ends suddenly. A sudden shock of well-being.
Tentatively, I let go of one more thread—the guilt I felt over Kasey taking the oath.
She’s so happy, I thought. She finally gets to know Aralt. To feel his presence.
Then, like the thin fibers of a rope snapping one at a time, my resistance began to fall away.
Nothing seemed as bad as it had just a few seconds earlier.
Of course you’re afraid, the voice purred. Of course you don’t want to die. Who could blame you?
A bright future began to take shape in my mind. I would get Carter back, but things would be different. This time I wouldn’t manipulate him. I would go to work at the internship and do important things. I’d get a car of my own. My parents would be so proud.
It was like falling backward onto a feather bed after spending a day doing hard labor.
And like some vile parasite, the traitorous thought writhed in my head: It’s just Zoe.
By the time I got my feet untied and stood up, I was like a new girl.
I was Aralt’s girl.
LYDIA WAS DRESSED like a movie star from the 1940s, in a slim-fitting red dress with a deep V-neck and a floppy red bow on her hip. Her hair was pulled back tightly, and she had a small red feathered barrette pi
She looked beautiful. The dress caught the light and held it; it hadn’t been cheap. I thought I recalled seeing it in one of the magazines we’d passed around at lunch.
I didn’t think about her giving Tashi’s ring to my sister. That didn’t automatically mean Lydia had killed Tashi, anyway—maybe Tashi gave it to her.
Yes, of course, said the voice inside me. What a smart girl you are to figure that out. What a sweet, good girl.
“We protect your dwelling with our blood and our lives,” Lydia said. And every voice in the room repeated: “We protect your dwelling with our blood and our lives.”
“As you all know,” Lydia said, “for the past several weeks, we’ve had the privilege of being part of the Sunshine Club. With Aralt’s blessing, we were all able to improve ourselves and become more beautiful, popular, successful, and smart. We’ve taken what he offered and made the most of it, and now it’s time to make a real change. To dedicate our lives to a cause bigger than our little group.”
Like curing diseases. Negotiating peace treaties. Creating art.
“Tonight…we graduate.”
Applause.
I sat back in my chair and looked around while Lydia continued her speech.
We all looked overdressed in the Smalls’ dank, dingy basement. The room was about twenty by thirty feet. The poured concrete floor had crumbled with age, and the ceiling was so low that it seemed to push down on us, stifling the air in the room. The stairs that led down from the creaking hallway were hardly more than a glorified ladder.