Poison Princess

I’d woken at dawn in the middle of the cane field, having slept soundly for hours. Surprisingly, I hadn’t been hungover—a miracle considering how tanked I’d been, so drunk I’d hallucinated worse than ever before.

I’d been desperate to shower and brush my teeth, but I hadn’t wanted Mom to see me in the clothes I’d gone out in. After a while, I hadn’t cared.

She’d been so distracted by the drought, on the phone with another farmer, that she hadn’t even noticed I was wearing a Versace halter and a moth-eaten pair of last year’s jodhpurs.

Mom would’ve heard about the bust by then, yet she’d said nothing, just absently kissed my cheek before running off to another emergency farmers’ meeting.

After I’d showered and dressed, I’d begun to feel confident that my boyfriend had truly hushed the situation.

Just as he’d said he would. My drunken knight in shining armor had won his battle.

Now I patted the enormous diamond solitaire around my neck, realizing that Brandon Radcliffe was not just the type of boy I needed in my life; he was the one I wanted —dependable, happy-go-lucky, easy to read.

Not brooding, mysterious, and impossible to decipher.

I decided to get something locked down with my boyfriend, so I’d stop thinking stupid thoughts about Angola-bound Cajuns.

With that in mind, I called Brandon’s cell from my home line yet again, intending to leave a message this time.

“Hey, Brand, I hope everything’s okay. Starting to worry.” I nibbled my bottom lip, debating how to begin this. “Last night, about our conversation . . . we got interrupted—when you went off to save the day for me. And I just wanted to tell you my decision.”

I paused, knowing there was no turning back from this. “My decision is . . . yes. I’ll spend the night with you next weekend.” Done. Locked down. “I . . . I’m . . .” Relieved? Nervous? “Um, call me. At home.”

He still hadn’t called by three in the afternoon, when Mel sauntered into my room.

“Where in the hell have you been?” My mood was foul. My plans to talk to Gran had been thwarted. I hadn’t dared to call her from the house phone. “What happened to you last night?”

“Spencer and I went to his car, totally hooked up. I threw one over on him, released some steam, and he’s puppy-dog whipped now.” She made a whip-cracking sound. “Melly’s got mojo—he wants an ER.”

Exclusive relationship? Already? I felt excitement for her, before remembering I was pissed.

“Just when we were finishing up, the cops came,” Mel said. “We drove out the back way.”

“Why didn’t you come here to find me?” I demanded.

She blinked. “I just did. So what happened to you, Eves?”

“Hmm. After Brandon left to go smooth things over with the sheriff and find you, I sat alone in the woods.” I was attacked and terrified. “Eventually, I walked miles to get home—with that annoying Jackson Deveaux—and spent the night in the barn.” Or rather, in the cane field. “You just left me out there, Mel. You chose bros over hoes,” I said, drawing blood.

She gasped. “I thought you were with Brandon! I’ll break up with Spencer as penance!”

The thing about Mel—she truly would. How could I stay mad at her when I’d been lying to her so much? In the end, I muttered, “You’re forgiven.”

“Thank you, Greene! I didn’t want to bwake Spencey’s wittle heart.” She lay back on my bed, adding mischievously, “Not yet.”

My laptop chimed. “An e-mail from Brandon?” Strange. We texted 99 percent of the time. He basically used his cell phone as his computer.

everything’s cool w/ the cops. bout to get lecture from Dad tho. talk later.

“That’s weird. Why didn’t he just text? He doesn’t know that I got stranded without my phone.” And why hadn’t he even mentioned my voice mail?

“He couldn’t text you,” Mel said, raising her hands in the air to study her nails. “Everybody’s phones got stolen.”

“What?” I shot to my feet.

“Why do you think I didn’t call all morning?” She rose with a frown. “Somebody snatched wallets and cells right off of people. And they broke into all our cars. But don’t worry, your bag didn’t get taken.”

I bolted out of my room, scrambling down the stairs to reach Mel’s Beamer. My journal!

“What’s wrong with you, Evie?” she demanded, trotting behind me, easily keeping up.

When I reached her car, I frantically slapped the door until she clicked it open. “Jesus, Evie, chill.”

My hand trembled as I reached for my bag. Surely a thief wouldn’t leave it but then steal the journal. Please let my drawings be inside—

I reeled on my feet.

My sketchbook was . . . gone. The one filled with rats and serpents under an apocalyptic sky, bodies mangled in thorn barbed wire, and horrific sack-faced bogeymen. I’d drawn one lapping blood from a victim’s throat. Like an animal at a trough.

My tear-blotted drawing of Death on a pale horse was dated from just a couple of nights ago.

It was the journal that Jackson had repeatedly angled to see. My eyes shot wide. The figure skulking among the cars last night—it was Lionel.

He’d stolen the phones and my sketchbook. My very own one-way ticket back to CLC.

And Jackson had kept me occupied, had acted interested in me . . . so that Lionel . . .

Oh my God.

Struggling not to throw up, I told Mel, “I know who’s got our phones. And if you help me, I’m going to get them back.”

11

“You’ve had better ideas,” Mel muttered, squinting to see out of her bug-splattered windshield. At dusk the insects swarmed, and their squashed bodies had meshed till they were like tar on the glass.

“Maybe so, but I have to do this.” I’d never been so incensed in all my life, and I’d be damned if I let Jackson get away with this. “Can’t you go any faster?”

The sun would set soon, and we hadn’t even made the parish levee yet. It’d taken us hours to find the Cajun’s address on Mrs. Warren’s computer, and then I’d wasted even more time persuading Mel to drive me into the Basin.

“You’re lucky I’m in for this one at all, Greene. I’m not losing my license because of a fifth ticket this year. . . .”

She still hadn’t stopped grumbling by the time the towering levee loomed. “Let’s just call the cops.”

And then they’d confiscate my journal. “Jackson only did this because he’s a bully and because he can. No one ever calls him out. But it’s time somebody did.”

“How do you know he’ll have the phones? You said he just served as a lookout.”

I hadn’t told Mel exactly how good Jackson had been at his job, only that he’d kept me talking to him while Lionel snatched our things. “I just know, okay?” Which wasn’t precisely true. He might not have the phones, but he’d have that sketchbook, which was my main priority.

Not that the phones weren’t a big deal. Though I code-locked mine—good luck accessing any of my info— Brandon never locked his phone. And he had all our private texts over the last seven months, not to mention a folder filled with countless pics and vids of me.

Were those Cajuns even now ogling images of me in my bathing suit, or snickering over the goofy faces I’d made for Brand’s camera? The corny jokes I’d told.