Surrender (17 page)

“Almost?” I'd said.

“Well, nobody ever bothered me,” he'd explained. “So I just drank until I stopped noticing the stench of sulfur.”

He'd been kidding about the sulfur, but not the creepiness. And when I stepped inside the closet, I found out why. It was haunted.

By a cat. Yeah, a dead cat. I'd never seen a ghost animal before.

Here, kitty, kitty
, I said, making clicking noises with my tongue.

It jumped me. I screamed as it clawed its way up my chest. Like any ghost, it had the ability to burn me, and its claws dug through my uniform like hot needles jabbing my skin.

Without thinking, I grabbed hold of it. Big mistake. My hands started burning, and the ghost cat dug in even deeper until I unraveled it with a bolt of dispelling energy. I practically fell out of the closet, unbuttoning my shirt to check my wounds and finding little fiery marks along my ribs.

And that's how Harry found me. “Good lord, Vaile,” he said. “Keep your shirt on.”

“Ow, ow, it hurts,” I said, not caring that he could see my bra.

Once he realized I wasn't kidding, he turned serious. “Do you need to go to the hospital again?” he asked, acting very gentlemanly about my exposed underwear.

“No, I'm fine. It was just a cat.”

“Was it on fire?” he asked, perplexed.

“It was a ghost.”

“A ghost cat,” he said blankly.

“Ow. Yes, in the closet. It probably attacked you the whole time you were in there. You just couldn't feel it.”

“Emma,” he said, “I'd like to go on record as saying that your life is seriously messed up.”

“I know.” Then I started giggling. “Wait'll I tell Ben—” I stopped laughing. You don't call the guy you dumped to tell him you found a ghost cat in a closet.

“How is he?” Harry asked. “What happened after I left?”

“We broke up.”

“Good.”

“Not good.” I exhaled. “Bennett needs me and I told him to go away. That I didn't want him like this. What kind of person does that?”

Harry stepped closer, concern etched in that odd, aristocratic face. “A good person. He's hurting and he's hooked, true. But the first step in recovery is—”

“If this conversation ends with ‘namaste,' I'm going to hit you.”

Harry smiled. “Then I'll say no more.”

That was so unlike Harry, letting a subject drop because I was uncomfortable with it—usually he
lived
for those subjects—that I gave him a quick hug.

“What was that for?” he asked as the bell rang, ending lunch.

“After Coby died, I didn't think I'd have another friend who cared like that, who I could trust. You're like him, only—”

“I know.” He nodded solemnly. “Better-looking.”

“Right,” I said as we walked off together. The smile on my face felt good.

The bell rang a minute after I took my seat in World Lit. I'd called my mom on the walk over, but hadn't bothered leaving a message. I wasn't sure she even knew how to retrieve them. She and my dad considered themselves Luddites and used current technology as little as possible. They were the only ones who found this charming.

I faked my way through
Zorba the Greek
, and when class ended, I redialed her.

She picked up on the third ring. “Hello? Hello?” She'd never understood that cells took a second longer to engage than landlines.

“It's me, mom.”

“Hello? Who is this?” Or that if you looked at your phone before answering, you could tell who was calling.

“Emma!” I practically yelled, over the commotion.

I was standing in the hallway, and a bunch of rowdy ski team boys were psyching themselves up for this afternoon's meet. You wouldn't think cross-country skiers
would get so wild, but they were jumping up and batting at a banner for Parents' Night. Which was one more thing I needed to talk to my mom about.

I plugged the ear not attached to my phone and listened to my mother crabbing about not being able to hear me. “… and that boyfriend of yours is a mess. Simon's completely fed up with him, and I don't blame him.”

“That's not why I called,” I lied. Actually, I'd hoped she'd tell me that he was there, and okay. At least, as okay as he got these days. “But, um … is he there right now?”

“What? No, he's not here. I thought he was with you. Wait, your father's talking. He says Bennett was here. But he's gone again. I'm not sure how he's supposed to be protecting you
or
Simon when he's—”

“Parents' Night is in a few weeks,” I interrupted, as the ski boys started shouting some cross-country fight song. They took this way too seriously.

“What? I can barely hear you. Parents' Night?”

“Yeah, are you coming?”

“Do you need a permission slip?” she asked.

“It's
Parents'
Night!”

“Honestly, Emma,” she said, a little exasperated, “I can't hear a word you're saying. Call us later. We love you.”

“Love you, too.”

I considered calling Simon, but needed to get to class, so I texted him on the way.
Pls help B. I beg u
.

…

I cut through the main hall on my way to Western Civ. The two-story room was always crowded between classes, and while enormous medieval tapestries hung on the wall, they did nothing to muffle the voices echoing off the marble floors and the sweeping stairway.

Halfway across, I saw Lukas chatting with a cute girl I didn't know, probably a senior. They were sitting on a couch across from the big stone hearth, half hidden by the huge centerpiece of silk flowers on the coffee table.

I said “hey” as I passed, hurrying to class, then saw Natalie stalking closer. I knew that look all too well—she was about to make a scene.

I called her name, but she ignored me and stomped toward Lukas. She gave the girl an evil look, then crawled into Lukas's lap and began kissing him. It was a bold move, even for Natalie, and Lukas wasn't into it. He stood, Natalie still in his arms, and set her down on her feet.

Her eyes narrowed, and I lost sight of them in the crowd. But then Sara stepped out from under the staircase, where she'd been talking to one of her parasophomours. “Bastard,” she said.

“Whats-his-name?” I nodded at the parasophomour's retreating back.

“No, Lukas. How could he treat Natalie like that?”

I watched Sara's face. She was so pretty and rich and popular that I still never quite believed how
nice
she was. “I'll never understand you,” I said.

“What? Why?”

“Because I know you like him. A normal person would be happy things weren't perfect between them.” I remembered how she'd made me pretty for my first date with Coby. She could've sabotaged me, but she hadn't. “You never operate out of jealousy.”

“Emma, look around. Thatcher is a hotbed of hot boys. What's there to be jealous about? It's high school—nobody hooks up forever.”

That thought stayed with me the rest of the day. Was I a freak for thinking I'd love Bennett forever? Yeah, we'd broken up, but I still loved him. We weren't over, not even close. But was it our shared determination to kill Neos that kept us together? Would we still want each other if we survived the fight?

I couldn't help thinking Sara was right; we were so young. It was naive to think that Bennett was the only guy I'd ever love. And yet I did.

“Whoa, Kylee, where'd you learn
that
?”

Kylee was ninety pounds soaking wet, yet she regularly kicked my butt in fencing. I could
fight
, but I couldn't
fence
. It just didn't come naturally to me.

Today, for some reason, Kylee was fighting like me. She'd loosened her form and attacked aggressively, with the same brutal edge that the Rake had beaten into me. It wasn't like Kylee at all. She normally executed her thrusts with composed grace. This was sloppier, yet more powerful.

Even after she disarmed me, I suppressed the urge to respond in kind; I didn't want to hurt her. She was good, but I was better.

Kylee grunted as I retrieved my foil, not bothering to answer my question.

I got back into position. “En guard.”

She came at me with a cross-cut. I blocked her, but didn't return the attack, waiting for Coach to realize that someone else was fighting dirty for once.

Coach didn't seem to notice, but the ghost jocks really enjoyed themselves. They shimmered into existence the moment Kylee disarmed me the first time, and my spine tingled even more than usual from their ghostly presence.

Cat fight
, Moorehead said, from his perch in the bleachers.
Bet you Emma gets knocked on her butt
.

How much?
Craven asked. He was lying backward on the bench, his head lower than his feet, examining me upside down.

Ten minutes alone in the girls' locker
, Moorehead answered.

Done!

Yeesh. Somehow it hadn't occurred to me that they were haunting the girls' locker room. I scowled at them as I deflected a fleché.
Why don't you bet about whether I'm going to compel you to flip off the bleachers and land on
your
butts?

They were unimpressed, even though they knew I could do it. I fended off Kylee's renewed attack, retreating across the mat, and waited for a return insult.

Instead, Craven said,
Something's wrong
.

The two of them drifted through the bleachers and landed on the floor of the gym.
There's another ghost here
, Moorehead said, serious for once.
Maybe a wraith. One of his
.

Neos. I dropped my guard slightly as I summoned my power, and Kylee shed all pretence of fencing and came at me in a vicious assault. I deflected one attack after another as Kylee chuckled. Only … the chuckle sounded like a man. And it hadn't come from Kylee's mouth. Her face was covered with a mask, but the laugh had definitely been male. She was possessed.

I switched my grip on my foil and summoned my power.
There's only one way this can end
, I told the ghost inside her.

Yes
, he said.
But you don't know what it is
.

Leave her!

I only obey Neos
. Kylee slashed at me and I let the blow land—a stinging pain like a whip—and caught her wrist.

You'll obey
me, I snarled, and compelled the ghost from her body like shucking a slug off a stem.

Kylee fainted to the mat and a ghost stood in her place, tall and muscular and hard-faced.
I came for the ring around your neck
.

Tell Neos to buy his own jewelry
, I said, shooting him with dispelling energy flashing from my fingertips.

The ghost didn't flinch.
Neos will reward me in—
he started, then faded into an oil slick on the gym floor.

For a moment, it felt like the whole world was silent.

“Emma!” Coach shouted, running toward us. “What did you do to Kylee?”

“I—I—”

“She fainted,” Natalie called from across the room. “I was watching. Kylee just fainted.”

Coach eyed me suspiciously as Kylee started rousing, then sent one of the girls for the nurse and told me she considered this my fault. I was irresponsible and inconsiderate. I didn't have the style for fencing, and I didn't have the sense not to bully poor little Kylee. She told me to expect an “incomplete” as my grade, because she wouldn't let me fence again this year. Then she sent me to the locker room to change.

I shuffled out of the gym, worrying about Kylee, and who Neos would send next to retrieve my ring. I felt a ghostly tinge nearby and wanted to lash out at Craven and Moorehead, but didn't have the energy.

I sat on a bench staring at my locker, and a couple of girls I didn't recognize came in for the next class. I ignored them, lost in my own sulky thoughts, and suddenly the world tilted and I wasn't looking at the locker anymore.