Suddenly Rickey laid his arm out on the back of the front seat, extending his hand out to Priscilla and saying, “Rickey Daggett. My friends just call me Daggett.” He was waiting for her to shake his hand, but she stared instead. It was rude. She reminded me a lot of Molly in that way. Mean for the sake of being mean. Her being friends with Cora made no sense to me. Then again, she was here with us trying to find her, instead of staying home, so there must have been more to their relationship than just what met the surface.
“You must be Priscilla,” Rickey said. “Cora’s friend.”
“That’s not usually how I introduce myself, but sure.”
“Cora’s a cool girl. We hung out this past summer, played a couple of games together.”
She tightly pressed her lips together and stretched them into a fake smile. “Riveting.”
“You know, it’s pretty badass that you’re coming with us like this. You’re human, so you’re a lot more vulnerable than the rest of us. You could legitimately die, but you showed up anyway.”
“If it’ll make you feel better, I’ll throw you in front of me if a monster attacks.”
Rickey laughed. “I feel like you mean that.”
“I really do.”
“You’re a straight up savage, I love it.”
She was obviously poking fun at him, yet Rickey was into it. I didn’t get it. I hated it when people were mean to me.
Her large, blue eyes suddenly shifted toward me, and I looked toward the window hoping she would leave me alone if we didn’t make eye contact. But she didn’t. “You look familiar,” she said.
“Huh?” The words barely croaked out of me, and I had to clear my throat. My voice always got raspy when I went too long without talking, which happened a lot.
“I feel like I’ve seen you before. Have we met?”
“Probably.”
“I never forget people.”
I could have said that we were from the same neighborhood back in the day, but there was something awkward about knowing who someone was while they barely remember you.
Priscilla snapped her fingers almost excitedly and exclaimed, “You were friends with the bitch trio! I didn’t recognize you with the brown hair.”
Her noticing my hair had changed made my cheeks go red. I stroked the tips of the strands with my fingers and nervously said, “Oh. Yeah.”
“Good God, how could you stand hanging out with those girls?”
“Priscilla, cool it,” Max snapped. “Her friends died for crying out loud.”
“I mean, yeah, shit, rest in peace and no offense and all that, but Jesus, they were an obnoxious group. You would know better than anyone, Max. You did dump Molly’s crazy ass.”
“Would you can it?”
“Who’s Molly?” Rickey asked.
Priscilla leaned against the car door and crossed her legs so she could comfortably face all three of us. “Her brother was a werewolf who slaughtered a bunch of people at this dating auction we had in our old neighborhood.”
“Gruesome.”
“Tell me about it. There were literal heads rolling.” She paused for a moment. “One landed in my lap even.”
“Great way to make light of a bunch of people getting murdered. Really,” Max groaned. I was glad he said something.
“I’m not making light of it, I’m recalling the events. Anyway, Molly was his sister, and she and Max used to have this thing—”
“Here we go…”
“Until he dumped her ass. Oh, boy, you should have seen the drama that came out of this. Molly’s brother, the werewolf, he tried to beat the shit out of Max at a bar. I thought he was gonna, like, knife him in his sleep one day, but that never happened. Well, shit, I guess he got close. He is the one that bit Max.”
“No way,” Rickey commented. “Is that true, Max? You were turned by the brother of your ex-girlfriend? Man, that blows.”
“She wasn’t my girlfriend, she was…” Max groaned very loudly. “What year is this? This drama was dead and buried before they were, so can we keep it that way?”
Priscilla lowered her voice and said, “If I dated one of those girls, I wouldn’t want to fess up to it either.”
“Whispering doesn’t work, you know.”
“What, because you have super werewolf hearing or some shit?”
“No, because you’re sitting three inches from me. Now get your feet out of the side of my thigh,” he growled, punching the bottom of her black boots that were piercing into his jeans.
She tucked her feet under her legs and continued talking. “Anyway, Molly had a circle of real intellects. A bimbo, a southern dumbass, and then this one—Dana.”
My cheeks felt hot again.
“How were you not on the verge of slitting your throat every time they opened their mouths?”
I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “We weren’t all that close,” I replied.
“Molly would make me ring up all her items and then stop and go grab a can of cheese from the other end of the store, just to hold up the line.”
“You sound real torn up about her passing,” Rickey commented, his nose scrunched.
“I didn’t want the chick to die. I’m not that much of a garbage human being. I just don’t think death should make people forget what you were actually like. I’m paying tribute to her by celebrating who she really was.”
Max scoffed. “You’re a true treasure. We need more like you in the world.”
Priscilla side-eyed him, but changed the subject anyway. “So, what exactly is the plan here?”
“We find that church the call came from, and when Cora’s not there, Dana will follow her scent to where she really is.”
“What makes you so sure Cora won’t be there?”
“It’s a meeting point. If it’s a prank, a kidnapper,
