Deadgirl

My eyes flooded with tears and my gut sank. I couldn’t help myself. I didn’t feel strong anymore, I didn’t feel anything. My hands trembled.

“Just stay cool, and don’t scream, okay?”

The little bald guy sounded really reasonable now. Like a doctor saying that the stitches won’t hurt. I wanted to tear his little face off. He took another step forward, then another. Some of the guys behind him looked eager— some looked queasy.

“Nobody’s gonna die, okay?”

He took another step forward and grabbed at my jacket. I pulled away, slapping at his hand.

“Hey!” He held the gun up and wiggled it in the yellow light. “Hey, now.”

When he stepped close enough for me to taste his breath, I snapped. My body moved without my brain—I grabbed the wrist with the gun and swung it away from me.

My other hand hit him in the throat while my knee came up between his legs with a dull thud. I moved like a machine—my eyes shot wide open as Baldy fell to the ground.

The arm with the gun swung around—I grabbed it again with both hands as Baldy sank to his knees.

We struggled.

An explosion blossomed out from the gun, deafening me, making my eyes water. I tasted smoke.

Baldy’s creep friends ran forward, horror in their eyes as they dragged him away. Their bravado evaporated, and they were screaming. Baldy shrieked in confusion and what I hoped was pain as they carried him away.

Good…little punks.

But I felt so weird all of a sudden. My thoughts couldn’t focus. My eyes began to blur. I sat down on the asphalt. Baldy had dropped the gun, I realized. Dropped it after it had gone off. It glittered, a cold yellow crescent of metal against the black ground.

I touched my stomach. My hands felt warm then, too warm, even as a chill ran through me.

What was…?

I stared up at the sky then, without warning, looking at the lack of stars, staring into the hazy gray expanse of a light-polluted night in the city. The yellow sun of the parking lot light was the only point in the smoke-colored sky.

My eyes didn’t close, not like I thought they would. Everything just turned grey, as if a slow fog had swept over the parking lot of Brookes National Bank and Trust. As if the nothing-grey of the corrupted sky had swollen and blotted out the whole of existence.

And as it did, I knew what was happening. Right then, I finally understood.

But I was so happy…

It wasn’t fair…

…what did I do wrong?

...nothing. I did nothing wrong…

No…

NO!

…this isn’t happening.

Chapter One

Two Days ’til

The sound of the bell ringing was audible candy. It was an ear massage. No—noise-joy. It made every muscle in my body go slack. My brain went first—it actually seemed to sigh as it let go of the math problem it had been grappling with. Goodbye, my friend. Adieu, fair Geometry. Peace out, punk.

I hopped out of my chair, one-shouldered my backpack, and jetted for the door. There wasn’t anyone I particularly liked in sixth period anyway. It was math—somewhere I slacked too far behind for my smart friends and excelled just too much for my…less smart friends.

In regards to math, I am the missing link of geometry. Euclid’s Sasquatch, they should call me. They don’t, though, because that’s a terrible nickname, and I wouldn’t answer to it.

As soon as I shot out of the door, the sun slapped me in the face. It was like emerging from a cave, in more ways than one. My skin yearned for the sunlight, sucked it up as it banished the clinging boredom. I felt everything one should feel when escaping math.

Then I felt someone crashing into me and hurling me to the ground.

I hit the concrete hard on my side, and pain shot through my hip and elbow. It took me a second to get my bearings. I was rarely tackled, and even less so outside of Geometry.

I looked up from the ground to see what I wish I hadn’t expected. Wanda, lying beside me, in a pile of goldenrod fliers. They fluttered around her in the gentle breeze, like tiny yellow birds trying to take flight. I clambered to my knees and helped her gather them up.

“I’m so—” Wanda said, but stopped when she turned to look at me, “Lu! Oh, I’m so sorry. I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to. I wasn’t even looking.”

She shook her head, sending her short spray of strawberry blonde hair dancing around her face. Wanda wasn’t pretty. She could be cute, with a makeover, maybe. Her face was too long, her hair too short, her body too skinny. Maybe it was her way of being that ruined everything—always cringing, always apologizing.

Still, she’d been at least a third-tier friend since both of us could read, and we’d been through a lot together. She wasn’t my coolest friend, but glass houses, you know?

“Wanda, calm down,” I said. “I’m fine.”

“You sure?”

I raised an eyebrow. “I’ll make it.”

We went to work scooping up the explosion of fliers. When we’d shuffled them into two neat stacks, I handed my stack to her and re-shouldered my backpack. Wanda looked even more nervous than usual, I noticed. Better try to trick her into telling me. She wasn’t famous for divulging.

I pointed at the stack of fliers in her hands.

“Winter Formal?”

The flier advertised Winter Formal in a fruity, almost gothic font. Two tiny clip-art dancers wheeled underneath the text. After the dancers, standing out in quotes, were the words, “Under the Stars.”

“Yeah,” Wanda said. She tucked a crescent of hair behind her ear, which immediately fell back out of place, “It’s coming up, you know.”

“I wouldn’t know,” I said. “There isn’t a date on the flier, honey.”

Wanda deflated. I felt like a rat for pointing it out, but it was better than being embarrassed later. Wanda needed group humiliation like I needed five pages of grammar homework.

“Oh crap,” Wanda said. “Oh crap!”

“I’m sorry.”

“Crap, Lu, I’m such a freak. I forgot the date.”

“Can’t you just go back and redo it?”

“Not today,” she said, “The ASB room is closed already. I was supposed to get these up yesterday, but I just spaced. I’m such a freak.”

Wanda looked at the stack of fliers like they’d betrayed her.

“What about Kinkos or something?”

“I don’t have the file. And I’m outta cash.”