Tears suddenly spilled down her face. “I’m so sorry, Sunny,” she said. “I didn’t know about you and Ré. He was only trying to help me with the baby. And then I kissed him, and now everything is a mess.”
She could feel the other girl stiffen against her, but Sunny only sighed. “It’s okay, Ev. It was a mess before you got here.”
“We aren’t even anything,” Evie went on.
“Yeah, okay,” Sunny said.
“I don’t even know if it’s real. It’s just how I feel.” Evie sniffled, wiping her nose with her sopping-wet sleeve. A picture of Ré asleep outside her door, not asking for anything at all. “An anchor in the water.”
“Okay, Ev, whatever.” You could practically hear Sunny rolling her eyes.
They stepped out of the woods, at the bottom of the lawn. Above them, the bonfire still blazed, and music still thumped into the night, but there was no crowd around the fire pit. The whole place was empty.
“Where did everybody go?” Evie asked, blinking up at the hill.
Sunny’s voice was wary. “I don’t know,” she said.
The girls picked up their pace, Sunny still guiding Evie, stumbling, her wet shirt balled up in Sunny’s fist. They crested the hill and saw the fire pit deserted, red cups everywhere, spilled booze, cigarette butts, half destroyed bowls of chips. It was eerie. Like the party had just vaporized. Cars still peeked out from the other side of the barn, so no one had actually left. They were just gone.
Evie started shivering in Sunny’s arms. “What’s going on?” she asked, though it was obvious Sunny had no more clue than she did.
“How big is this property, Sunny?”
“Huge,” Sunny said, her big black eyes sliding around, taking in the details, piecing things together.
And then the song on the boom box ended, and in the lull, the girls heard a sound that drove a chill up both their spines. In the not-too-far distance, voices were chanting. Some low, others high and shrill, saying one word, over and over. The girls looked at each other wide-eyed to confirm they’d heard it right:
Psycho, psycho, psycho…
And then the next song started, and the voices disappeared, washed up into a swirl of synthesized beats and bright loops and a voice cawing about Puerto Rican girls, all legs in tight skirts, all rising into the night sky like sparks from a dying fire.
31
R
Ré stood in a ring of faceless faces. White eyes peered through the dark. Black shapes of bodies all sharp-edged with excitement. Mouths twisted and jeering, like he was some kind of animal. Psy-cho, psy-cho, psy-cho.
But he didn’t care about them. He worried about the ones circling just beyond the chanting crowd. The guys Ré didn’t know. Alex’s people. He could see them slipping like shadows, like wolves, just past the ring of rabid kids, weaving through the darkness, keeping it close.
Psycho Ré. It was a setup.
Inside the ring, Alex paced, seething, reckless. He was not a fighter. That worried Ré too. Guys who fought knew where and how hard to hit. Intended to win with the least amount of effort. And they knew when to quit. When they were beat.
Guys who didn’t fight were just dangerous. Scared. Thought the point of fighting was to win at all costs, however violent.
And Alex was wiry, thin and lanky. He wasn’t built, like Ré, out of muscle and steel, a machinist’s son, fighting from day one. If this were real—if Ré was mad or had any right to be—he’d break Alex in seconds. The problem was, he wasn’t, and he didn’t. He stood in the circle, wary, ready, hands at his sides, lightly rubbing his fingertips against his thumbs, eyes jumping from dark wolves to bright Alex and back again.
Alex was talking to him as he paced, but it was meant for the crowd, the show. Ré wasn’t really listening. At each pause, the kids all bayed for blood like cue cards had flashed the words Applause and Make Some Noise. But they didn’t really hate Réal. They were just afraid of him and, like all fearful things, wanted to see him cut down, made weak. They’d get their wish. He wasn’t planning on fighting back.
There was some movement to his left. Voices rose, and then the crowd parted and Evie and Sunny shoved through. Ré blinked like they were a mirage. Why are they both soaking wet? Mascara ran in sinister streaks down Sunny’s pale face, transforming her into a sexy ghoul. Doesn’t take much, he thought, with a twinge of that old desire.
Beside her, beautiful Evie shivered, eyes as big as saucers, as big as Jupiter, or maybe Venus, ’cause they were blue. Goddess of love, bellyful of baby. God, I’m greedy, he thought. WTF is wrong with me? About to get my ass kicked for these girls I can’t resist…
Evie didn’t look like she was really there, but then, she almost never did. And then he remembered something. A word. The one he’d wanted the very first time he’d seen her, sitting in Shaun’s car, dark hair veiled around her, shy Mona Lisa smile. Ethereal. She’d looked ethereal, then and ever since. Too delicate for this world—not to mention this particular moment. The word popped into his head now, and then it was gone.
“What the actual fuck are you doing, Alex?” Sunny shouted, a protective hand on Evie’s shoulder.
Alex only laughed, turning on her slowly. “Oh, that’s good,” he said. “You’re a good actress, Sunny. You should go to Hollywood.” His hackles rose when he looked at her. He ground his boot heel into the gravel, skinny arms held tight. “How stupid do you think I am, Sun?”
If he expected her to shut up, to look shocked or humiliated, then he sure didn’t know Sunny. “I think you’re a brain-dead idiot, you zombie pothead,” she replied. “You’re so bombed-out all the time I don’t even know you anymore. You’re a joke, Alex. This party is
