“I definitely remember that she didn’t say anything about a receipt.”
I rolled my eyes. “Great.”
“And I’m doing you a favor bringing this here.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You’re doing me a favor?”
Vlad nodded.
“Out of the goodness of your black heart?”
Vlad’s eyes narrowed.
“And you got nothing out of it. Nothing except the satisfaction of knowing that I will now be safe against not-receipts.”
Vlad blinked. “I may have gotten something out of it, too.”
I waited and Vlad sighed.
“Fine,” he groaned. “Lorraine is going to talk to Kale. Maybe try to smooth things out so I could talk to her without her, you know, cutting off my head and spitting fire down my throat. Oh, and Lorraine said there’s something in there that you have to wear.” He took the bag from me, reached in, and yanked something that looked like a cat horked up, tied to a piece of twine. “This thing. You’re supposed to wear it all the time. Under stuff. It’s supposed to touch your skin.”
I took the charm from Vlad. As I brought it closer to my face, my mouth started to water with that familiar pre-vomit saliva. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Lorraine said you would get used to the smell.”
“Not likely.”
I held my breath and put the thing over my head anyway, immediately pushing the cat-hork end under my shirt, hoping that would stamp out the smell.
Vlad smiled. “Gotta go.”
He wound his way through the crowd and out the front doors. I briefly expected a rush of girls pressing their noses against the windows, pound-puppy style. Instead, I came eye to eye with Fallon.
“You know him?”
“Of course I do, Fallon. And you know what? I’m glad you’re here. I want to talk to you about something.”
Fallon looked over her shoulder and then back at me. She paused for a beat, then wrinkled her nose. “What smells?”
I took a deep breath and then instantly regretted it, visualizing my insides turning into withering blackness as the stench whipped through my lungs. “I don’t know. Come with me.”
I was surprised when Fallon did, falling into step with me. She pressed her palm against her nose. “It’s like the smell is getting worse.”
I pulled open the door to my old classroom and ushered Fallon in. She looked around as though she hadn’t been in that room every weekday of her junior year. “You’re not working here anymore. Are you allowed to pull students into an empty room like this?”
“Look, Fallon, I know what’s going on between you and Miranda.”
For the first time since I’d known the girl, Fallon’s eyes widened, her perfect facade cracking just slightly. She recovered almost immediately.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I put my hands on my hips and did my best to stare down and intimidate her. “The hall the other day? And then today? You said she wanted to ‘sit down for a spell.’ What did you mean by that?”
There was a miniscule twitch at the edges of Fallon’s mouth, the infinitesimal start of a smile. “She wanted to sit down.”
I inched closer. “You said, ‘for a spell.’”
“It means for a while.”
“I know what it means. What I want to know is why you chose that particular phrase.”
Fallon took a step back and waved her hand in front of her nose. “Is the smell coming from you?”
“Fallon, at least two girls have gone missing from Mercy High in the last two years. And according to things uncovered by the police—and by me—possibly a lot more. You know this is all tied to witchcraft.”
Again that tiny, twitching smile. “I do?”
I cocked my head, pinning her with a glare. “Why would you say ‘sit for a spell’?”
Now it was Fallon who stepped forward, suddenly uncomfortably close to me. “Are you accusing me of something, Ms. Lawson?”
“Tell me about Cathy.”
“She was murdered. Before that, she was alive.”
I blinked, and Fallon blinked back at me, as if daring me to ask her to elaborate.
“Alyssa?”
Fallon held her ground for a beat before turning stiffly, her hair fanning out behind her. “I don’t have to —”
She stopped when I grabbed her arm. Her eyes sliced over her shoulder and narrowed, first staring at my hand on her arm, then looking directly up at me. “Get your hand off of me,” she said sharply.
I let her go as if her skin had burned my palm.
Once Fallon disappeared into the hall, I slid up on my former desk, resting my face in my hands.
Did I really believe that Fallon was some kind of witchy serial killer?
I didn’t look up when the door opened. “Nice, Will,” I said, grabbing a sheaf of papers. “You knock on my classroom door but barge in on me in the bath—” I stopped, my eyes wide. “Tub. Kayleigh, hi. I was just—can I help you with something?”
I was fairly certain that the abject horror in Kayleigh’s eyes—
I cleared my throat and blinked at her, flashing a pleading “let’s pretend this never happened” look.
“Can I help you with something?” I said again.
Kayleigh’s hands went from fingering the strap on her crossover bag to fumbling in front of her. She licked her already glossy lips and took a tentative step forward without saying anything.
I laid my shoulder bag back down on my desk and practiced one of those “open stances” that supposedly welcomed communication—or so Dr. Phil said.
“Do you want to talk to me about something?”
Kayleigh glanced over her shoulder—quickly, nervously—before stepping all the way into the room and pulling the door closed behind her. She waited until it clicked shut to let out a shaky breath.
“It’s about Fallon,” she said, her voice a low whisper. “And Miranda, in the hall the other day.”
I felt my ears prick as my hackles went up. I was instantly protective of Kayleigh, of whatever it was she needed to tell me.
“You can tell me anything, Kayleigh. We can keep it just between us.”
“Fallon would murder me if she knew I was talking to you, but this—this is getting really serious. You—you don’t know the whole story—everything that’s happening with Fallon and Miranda.”
“No, I guess I don’t. Why don’t you tell me about it?”
Kayleigh licked her lips and hugged the strap of her bag tighter against her chest. She opened her mouth, but her words were drowned out by three hard, heavy raps on the glass. She whirled and my head snapped up, just in time to see Fallon’s narrowed eyes, that slate-blue stare boring into me. She was in the hallway, her lips set in a hard, thin line. She disappeared from view, the snap of her gum echoing in the hallway before she pulled open my door. Her eyes regarded me coolly before zeroing in on Kayleigh. I was shaking for her, the sweat breaking out at the back of my neck, but Kayleigh dropped into the iceberg-cool mode I was sure I’d never master.
Fallon snapped another bubble.
