Turn the page for a sneak peek at the sequel to
death, doom, and detention
Coming March 2013
DORMANT
“This class is never going to end.”
My best friend, Brooklyn, draped her upper body across her desk in a dramatic reenactment of Desdemona’s death in
“
Brooklyn jerked upright in surprise. She glanced around, her eyes wide as our classmates snickered, either politely into their hands or, more rudely, outright.
She blinked toward Mr. Gonzales and asked, “Did I say that out loud?”
The class erupted with laughter as Mr. G’s mouth formed a long narrow line across his face. Miraculously, the bell rang, and Brooklyn couldn’t scramble out of her seat fast enough. She practically sprinted from the room. I followed at a slower pace, smiling meekly as I walked past Mr. G’s desk.
Brooklyn stood waiting for me in the hall, her face still frozen in surprise.
“That was funny,” I said, tugging her alongside me. She fell in line as we wound through the crush of students, fighting our way to P.E. I wasn’t sure why. I didn’t particularly enjoy having my many faults and numerous shortcomings put on display for all to see, so why I would fight to get there was beyond me.
“No, really.” She tucked an arm through mine. “I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”
I couldn’t help but laugh despite the weight on my chest. “Which is why that was funny.” I hadn’t felt good all day and was praying for some bizarre yet harmless disaster to close the school down early. Like a butterfly infestation.
“You don’t get it,” she said. “This is exactly what I’ve been talking about. Everything is weird all of a sudden. People are acting strange and the world has dark, fuzzy edges.”
Before I could suggest a visit to the school nurse, an arm snaked around my neck from behind and I felt something poke my temple. A quick sideways glance told me it was a hand shaped to resemble a gun. “Give me all your money,” Glitch said through gritted teeth.
I shook him off and grinned at him from over my shoulder. “Brooke feels fuzzy.”
He bounced around until he was facing us, walking backward with his backpack slung over his shoulder, his brows drawn in concern. “Fuzzy? Really?”
“I didn’t say I
He looked around to test her theory then back to us before shrugging. How he managed to walk backward in this crowd was kind of awe-inspiring. If I’d tried that, I would soon resemble a pancake covered with lots of footprints.
Glitch, a connoisseur of computers, skipping and coasting through school with less than stellar grades, was best friend number two. We’d grown up together. He was half Native American and half Irish American and had the dark skin and green eyes to prove it.
He shook his head. “I don’t think it’s so much fuzzy as nauseatingly yellow, a color that is supposed to calm us, I’m sure. But did you hear?” he asked, suddenly excited. “Joss Duffy and Cruz de los Santos got in a fight during third.”
Brooklyn pulled me to a stop, her expression animated. “What did I tell you? Joss and Cruz are best friends. Everything is turned upside down.”
As much as I hated to admit it, she was right. I’d felt it too. A quake. A disturbance in the atmosphere. Everyone seemed to have a short fuse lately. The slightest infraction seemed to set people off. We’d been warned about an impending war. Was this how it would begin?
With a sigh, I started for P.E. again. Maybe we were reading too much into it. Or maybe the moon was full. People did crazy things when the moon was full. I didn’t want everything to be turned upside down. I’d had enough of upside down when my parents disappeared ten years ago. When I was hit by a truck a couple of months back and almost died. And worse, when I was possessed by Satan’s second in command.
Some days I was almost okay with the fact that, when I was six years old, a demon slipped inside my body, nestled between my ribs, curled around my spine. Other days that fact caused me no small amount of distress. On those days I walked with head down and eyes hooded as my vertebrae fused in the heat of uncertainty and my bones writhed in sour revulsion.
Today was one of those days.
I’d awoken in a panic to the sensation of being crushed, unable to escape an invisible force, unable to breathe. The remnants of the nightmare still ricocheted against the walls of my mind, squeezing my lungs until air became a precious but fleeting commodity. Which could explain the panic attack.
And the dream was always the same. In it, I would float back to that day so long ago and inhale the beast all over again, his taste acidic, his flesh choking and abrasive. Since I was only six at the time, one would think it was a small demon, possibly a minion, a lower-level employee. Like a janitor. But I’d seen him that day. How his shoulders, as black as a starless sky, spanned the horizon. How his head reached the tops of the trees. Small was not an accurate description.
And now, thanks to my need to regenerate, I could relive that memory over and over. Yay, me. On the bright side, I’d ditched that other recurring dream I’d been having since I was five. The one where bugs scurried under my sheets and up my legs. That thing was messed up.
Still, if not for upside down, Jared would never have come to Riley’s Switch. We may only be a tiny speck on the map of New Mexico, hidden among juniper trees and sage bushes in the middle of nowhere, but we were important enough to warrant a guardianship in the form of the Angel of Death. That was something.
“And Cameron has been acting strange, too,” Brooke continued, mentioning the fifth member of our posse, as Glitch called our group of misfits. But I hadn’t seen him in a couple of days, which was odd.
“That’s because Cameron has a crush on you,” I said without thinking. I cringed when Glitch turned away.
“No, seriously,” she said, oblivious. “He keeps asking if I’m okay. If you’re okay. If Glitch is okay.”
Glitch whirled back around and glared, but Brooke missed it once again.
“We need to practice,” she said, pulling a compact mirror out of her backpack. “Try again, only harder.”
She handed it to me as Glitch glowered at her, suddenly in a sour mood. “Really? Here?”
“Yes, really, here. She has to be ready.”
Along with all the other magnificent oddities in my life, I’d apparently been born some kind of prophet. I had visions. Or, well, normally I had visions. I hadn’t had one in weeks, and Brooklyn was convinced I just needed to practice. She’d read that a shiny surface helped psychics see into the future or the past, hence crystal balls. But according to her research, mirrors worked just as well. Hence her compact.
“I have to get to History,” Glitch said, his shoulders tense. “Mr. Burke threatened to skin me alive if I’m tardy again, though I don’t think he actually has the authority to do that.”
“Later,” I said, opening the compact. That boy had issues of late.
As we exited the main building and headed for the gym, I looked down into the mirror. Brooke dragged me along so I wouldn’t stumble. I concentrated as best I could, trying not to focus on the fact that my gray eyes seemed darker than usual and my auburn hair seemed curlier. Curlier! I leaned in for a closer look. Oh, the gods were a cruel and humorless lot. Because that’s what I needed. More curls.
