“Of course it’s not true.” I backed up, an odd feeling settling in my stomach.
“But you had some sort of special initiation, right?” He exhaled a sigh, his breath hot on my face.
I planted my hands firmly on my hips and steeled my gaze. “Listen, Will. Just because they wanted to initiate me, doesn’t mean I’ve officially joined. You should know that better than anyone.”
“Good. Then I still have a chance.” Clad in dark jeans and a black leather jacket, only his gunmetal-gray eyes glinted as he studied me.
I squirmed, my face surely giving me away. “I didn’t say that.”
“Honestly, I have no idea what’s going on with you.” He threw his hands up in the air, that gorgeous chin cleft dropping practically to his chest in frustration. “I thought you wanted to know more about your brother. I can give you that. I don’t know what the holdup is.”
I clenched my fists at my sides, fingernails digging into my hands. “You seriously have no idea how creepy Nexis is, do you? Why don’t you tell me what they plan to do with the Seer? How exactly do they want to use me to create Nephilim and take over the world?”
He turned toward the stained glass version of St. Lucia, then back to me. “Okay, I get it. But it’s not as bad as it sounds.”
“Oh really? Enlighten me.” My stomach clenched into a thousand knots I could never untie.
“If you just join, I can tell you everything. Don’t you see that?” His soft tone jarred the knots.
“Yeah, that answers that questions for me.” The words burned and choked my throat. So many things I could say to him. I leaned in close enough our noses almost touched. “If you think that I’m going to join any one of the three societies without knowing everything they have planned for me, then you don’t know me at all. I’m not some stupid girl who is so easily manipulated. So, if you want to tell me the truth about Nexis, I’m all ears. But until you decide to man up and bend your dumb rules a bit, you can count me out.”
Without another word, I marched out of the chapel and never looked back.
~
Butterflies danced up and down my arms as I dabbed on some lip gloss, the final touch to Shanda’s masterpiece ensemble. After a horrible week of lying low and wearing long sleeves to cover my new scar, I was ready for a night of fun. What better time than Halloween night to let loose and have a little fun?
Clicking the giant bracelet over my wrist, I opened my dorm room door and stepped right onto the streets of Hollywood—if Hollywood suddenly went low-budget and decked itself out in cardboard and paper-mache. Pink and gold celebrity stars lined the floor from the stairwell, past our room, all the way down to room 220.
To walk down our hall, the Halloween Open Dorm judges had to enter through velvet curtains that outlined a bright red carpet path, flanked on both sides by giant gold-painted cardboard cutouts of the Oscar statue. Behind the giant Oscars hung more cutouts of cameras with blinking flashbulbs. Speech bubble captions by the cameras read, “Over here,” “Who are you wearing?”, and “You look fabulous.”
After the Oscar mob, the scene turned into Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, where Laura had laid down movie star hand prints as tiles on the floor. Then the judges had to veer single file around the huge Hollywood Hill, a paper-mache monstrosity that engulfed half the floorspace.
Somehow Laura had roped me into spray painting that giant hill made of paper-mache and chicken wire until I’d sneezed green and brown paint. Shanda finagled the easier job of hanging up movie posters with flashing Christmas lights. Even the fluorescent lights overhead were covered in colored tissue paper, a different hue for each section.
“Nice.” I nodded at Shanda.
“Way better than spray paint duty, right girl?” She elbowed my ribs.
I rubbed my nose, careful not to mess up Shanda’s perfect make-up job. After tonight, I planned to make a few more trips to the chapel library, to see if I could find anything on St. Lucia and the sacred stones. But for now, it was definitely girl time.
Laura and Monica insisted all the girls on our floor wear “red carpet attire” and do our best Hollywood waves when the judges came by. Of course, Shanda dressed me up like a Barbie doll in her silver sequined one-shoulder cocktail dress. In our doorway, I waved like a pageant princess and smiled until my cheeks hurt while the judges passed.
At the end of the hall, Laura had hung cardboard that accordioned down gradually like amphitheater seats leading to the Hollywood bowl. On the stage, she tacked up a giant picture of all the Nelson second floor girls with pasted musical instruments and microphones in our hands. If those judges didn’t award her the title over Lenny, they needed to have their heads examined. I guess the open dorm contest was a long-standing feud between the twins.
As soon as the judges disappeared up the stairs to the next floor, Shanda grabbed my arm and shut our door. “Let’s go see if the boys are any competition.”
“Shouldn’t we change first?” I ran my hands over my sequins, my excitement fizzling away at the thought of seeing the guys dressed like I was ready for the prom.
“No way.” Shanda twirled in her ivory satin halter dress. “Let’s go show those losers how fabulous we are. Then they’ll know we’re gonna win.”
“If you’re sure.” A frenzy of double-espresso butterflies fluttered up my arms. I cracked open the door and pulled my fuzzy gray scarf from the coat rack, draping it over my shoulders like a shawl. After all, maybe a certain someone needed to see me in Shanda’s gorgeous dress just to remember I still went to Montrose. “Let’s pick up
