DEDICATION

To Melissa Peters Allgood, who is both beautiful and good.

And to make sure that 2013 will be so much better than 2012.

CONTENTS

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Credits

Copyright

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

Once again, I’m staring at my own death.

My heart is pounding. My breath is coming in short spurts. And I can’t stop digging my fingernails into the heels of my palms, just so I can feel the little crescents of pain they create. Of course, those tiny bursts of pain can hardly match the throbbing in my dislocated shoulder. Not that any of that will matter in a few minutes, when I’m truly dead.

Dead. I can hardly comprehend the word, since it’s held so many definitions for me. After all, I’ve done this before: readied myself for the final moment. Sometimes it’s happened, and sometimes I’ve defied it. But tonight, I won’t defy it. Tonight, I’ll die.

Tonight, I want to.

For the first time in my strange existence, I want death. I need it, in order to do what has to be done.

Not to say that I’m not afraid; I am. Terrified, actually. But that doesn’t stop me from staring down the barrel of the gun pointed directly at me. I can’t figure out why it hasn’t fired yet. Then I notice how badly the gun is shaking. If it fires right now, I doubt the bullet will even graze my shoulder. Which obviously won’t be good enough.

Slowly, my eyes move from the gun to the person holding it.

“You okay?” I ask her.

She doesn’t respond for a moment. Then, with a bitter laugh, she asks, “Are you kidding me, Amelia?”

I just smile.

Behind her, I can hear him shouting. Screaming, actually. I know that his friends are holding him back, gripping tightly to his arms as he struggles to break free and stop us. But my eyelids are so heavy, my tears so thick, I can’t actually see him.

It’s probably a good thing I won’t be able to look into his eyes when it happens.

I turn my attention back to the gun. Not to the person holding it, this time—just to the gun itself.

“Do it,” I say, my voice quiet but urgent. “Please.”

She doesn’t reply, but I know she’s heard me. With a weird instinct, she lowers the gun until it points directly at my heart. For a split second, I think she’s chickened out.

Then I see a tiny spark of light, and my entire world rips into pain.

Chapter ONE

TWO WEEKS EARLIER

Death, demons, deranged Seers—nothing I’d previously experienced terrified me as much as what I was about to do.

If I can even gather up enough courage to actually do this.

Steeling myself, I balled my right hand into a fist and lifted it. For a few seconds, I kept my fist suspended, letting it hover less than an inch away from my target. Then, with a frustrated groan, I dropped my hand back to my side.

My task was easy enough: all I had to do was make a fist, rap my knuckles against wood, and repeat if necessary. So why couldn’t I do it?

Why couldn’t I bring myself to do something as simple as knock on an ordinary front door?

I started pacing again, my boot heels thunking across the floorboards of the porch. The sound of them spooked me a little. Even after spending a few months as one of the Risen—actually, the only Risen ghost left in this world, as far as I could tell—I still hadn’t quite made peace with the echo of my own footsteps.

I cast a glance over my shoulder, toward the road. About fifty feet back along the curb, Joshua Mayhew leaned against the hood of his truck. He caught me staring and gave me an encouraging smile. I tried to return it, without much success.

This little project wasn’t originally his idea—it was mine. But once Joshua and I had discussed the possibility, he’d latched on to it until I finally ended up here, pacing like a crazy person.

As usual, Joshua thought this would end well. But I didn’t. I just couldn’t imagine a scenario in which the woman on whose door I was about to knock would react positively when she saw me.

And her reaction did matter, more than almost anything in the world. Still, the reason I stood on this porch today—the real reason—wasn’t because she needed to see me; it was because I needed to see her.

I flashed Joshua another tight smile and turned back to the door. I could do this. I could do this. I lifted my hand again, ready to knock for real this time.

But I never got the chance.

Before my knuckles could make contact with the door, it swung inward. Open.

The first time Joshua and I visited this place, the door had swung open on its own. But this time, someone had pulled it open. Probably because she’d finally decided to do something about the person thunking around uninvited on her front porch.

Her hand held the edge of the door, fingers gripped against the splintery, paint-peeling wood. On her ring finger, I could just make out the glint of a simple wedding band.

She still wears it.

Before I had time to process that thought, before I even had time to see her face, I felt a familiar current pass over my skin. It happened quickly—started and stopped in less than two seconds—but I immediately knew what it meant. I’d made myself invisible, intentionally vanished from the view of anyone living, including Joshua. Including the woman standing in front of me.

It was a cowardly move on my part: I’d finally worked up the nerve to knock, and now she couldn’t even see me.

She frowned, squinting into the shadows of the porch and out at the daylight beyond it. Seeing the lines on her face, the streak of gray at her temples, I sucked in a tight breath and released it in one foolish word.

“Mom?”

The woman at the door immediately jerked back like she’d been slapped. Her eyes widened, but she continued to stare out at the porch without actually seeing me.

She’d heard me, though.

For a while, we both stood motionless: my mother with her fingers clawed into the door; me with my fake heartbeat hammering in my chest. Although I knew it wasn’t possible, it seemed as though her brown eyes were boring into mine. Begging me to tell her why she’d just heard the voice of her long-dead daughter.

I gulped once, as quietly as possible, and leaned forward a fraction of an inch. As if in response, my mother leaned backward.

I thought she was trying to escape something that she couldn’t—didn’t want to—understand. But instead, another face appeared next to hers in the doorway, probably summoned by my mother’s strange silence.

This new face belonged to a woman, much younger than my mother but somewhat older than me. When she peered out the doorway, the corners of her blue eyes wrinkled faintly. I froze in place, but her gaze moved smoothly across the porch, not even hesitating on the spot where I stood. As though I weren’t even there.

The woman took a step forward—maybe for a closer look at the empty porch—and I got a better view of her. She was striking, with her high cheekbones and impeccable platinum-blond ponytail. Pretty and polished, like a piece of fine glass.

I knew I’d never seen her—not as a visitor to the Mayhews’ house or as a teacher at Wilburton High; not even as someone I’d passed on the streets of New Orleans this past winter. But something about this woman was strangely familiar.

Before I had a chance to place her, she straightened the hem of her tailored blazer and turned to my mother with a worried frown.

“Liz? Everything okay?”

My mother’s frown deepened, just for a moment, before she met her guest’s gaze. “Everything’s fine,” she said, giving the blond woman a faint smile. “I thought I heard something out here. I guess not.”

The blonde returned the smile, but it wavered on the edges, as though she thought her host might be a little unstable. It wasn’t a mean look, necessarily—just a cautious one.

“The coffee, Liz,” she prompted gently. “It’s getting cold.”

My mother nodded, looking embarrassed. “Of course. Sorry.”

She hadn’t removed her hand from the edge of the door, and now she began to push it shut as she and the blond woman stepped back into the house. In the seconds before the door closed completely, I caught a final glimpse of the younger woman’s face. For just a second her blue eyes seemed to lock on to mine, and I felt that strange, dizzying sense of familiarity again.

The feeling only intensified when I heard the last bit of my mother’s voice before the door shut.

“Sorry again, Serena. Must have been the wind.”

Chapter TWO

Serena Taylor, the girl who murdered you, was having coffee with your mom?”

Joshua sounded like he still didn’t quite be-lieve me.

I lifted one shoulder and let it drop carelessly. That was the biggest shrug I could make, given the circumstances.

“That’s not exactly accurate,” I mumbled. “At least, not completely accurate.”

In my peripheral vision, I saw Joshua raise one skeptical eyebrow. Instead of elaborating, I flopped backward into the pile of lush pillows behind us.

At the moment, Joshua and I were in his parents’ gazebo. His mother, Rebecca, had recently redesigned its interior, transforming the space into something hidden and exotic. The thick curtains that enclosed its outer walls were now masked on the inside by yards of white gauzy drapes. Glittering, star-shaped lanterns hung from the ceiling, and flowering plants filled every inch not occupied by the enormous, pillow-covered daybed.

But despite the gorgeous setting, Joshua and I were tensed up on the daybed, not touching.

Not that that’s anything new, I reminded myself. Not since New Orleans, where I lost my ability to touch the living.

After what felt like an appropriately weighted pause, I propped myself up on my elbows and turned to Joshua.

“To be fair to Serena,” I said, “she didn’t mean to murder me. She was under the influence of Eli and his wraiths.”

When Joshua started to roll his eyes, I added, “Just like your friends when they tried to kill your little sister.”

A dark look passed over his face, and I could read it perfectly. Joshua was remembering the night his sister, Jillian, nearly died, at the hands of his own friends and a malevolent ghost named Eli Rowland. Joshua shook his head, and the dark look shook away too, replaced by the thoughtful frown he’d been wearing since we left my mother’s house.

“I don’t know, Amelia. After what happened to you—after the part Serena played in your death—why would she still hang around your mom? I mean, shouldn’t she be . . . ?”

As he searched for the right phrase, I snorted softly. “What you mean, Joshua, is shouldn’t she be curled up in a corner somewhere, racked with guilt for what happened over a decade ago? Keeping in mind that she probably doesn’t even remember what happened?”

He gave me that half grin, the one that made me ache to touch his lips, just once. “Exactly.” He shifted into the pillows next to me, keeping between us the few inches that had become a permanent fixture since New Orleans—inches that represented what we could no longer do: touch.

“Besides,” Joshua went on, “how do you even know this woman is your Serena Taylor? Just because she’s blond and named Serena—”

“And about the right age for someone born in the eighties,” I interrupted. “And she was having coffee with my mom, in one of the smallest towns on earth.”

Joshua considered this, frowning again. But when his eyebrows unknitted and his mouth softened, I could see I’d won the argument.

“Fair enough,” he conceded. “Maybe she’s the Serena Taylor. But . . . what does that even mean for us?”

“Nothing, actually.”

I sighed, stretching my legs across the daybed until my feet swung over the edge. “At least, it means nothing right now. It’s not like I’m going to call Serena and invite her to have coffee with me next. And anyway . . . I think we should scrap the whole Mom idea. For the time being.”

When Joshua began to protest, I held up my hand, almost but not quite touching his lips.

“Don’t even start,” I warned. “If I try to meet my mom again—and that’s a big if—then it will be on my terms. Surprising her by showing up unexpectedly on her front porch just isn’t going to work for me.”

After a long pause, most of which Joshua spent glancing between my fingertips and my mouth, he nodded.

“If that’s what you want, Amelia. I promise I won’t push the issue again.”

I widened my eyes in mock surprise. “Joshua Mayhew not insisting that I do something risky yet supposedly rewarding? What is this world coming to?”

“Hey, I’m a guy who proudly learns his lesson. You know, after about a million screw-ups.” He laughed, and then leaned forward with a suddenly wicked grin. “Besides, that’s my sister’s job now.”

I shrieked, jerking fully upright on the bed. “Oh, holy crap, I completely forgot. That thing is tonight, isn’t it?”

Joshua laughed again, but this time he sounded sinister, like the villain from a black-and-white movie.

“You’re not afraid, are you?” he asked in his best Bela Lugosi voice.

“Wouldn’t you be?”

“Of a roomful of girls watching chick flicks while they paint each other’s nails and gossip?”

I chuckled and rolled my eyes. “You have a seriously skewed view of girly sleepovers. You know that, right?”

His smile softened as he sat up beside me. “Probably. But it doesn’t matter—I prefer our version of the sleepover anyway.”

He leaned in, erasing the inches between us until we were nearly touching. Sitting this close, I could feel the warmth rising from his skin. And, of course, I felt the blush rising on my own cheeks.

“Me, too,” I whispered, trying to keep my cool although I suddenly felt like I might ignite. Funny how he never stopped having this effect on me.

But even with the heat flooding me, I had a fleeting moment when I missed our old sleepovers. The kind where I spent every night in his bed, placing my hand on him whenever I wanted, kissing him whenever I felt the urge. But things were so different for me as a Risen ghost. So different for us.

In this new version of our relationship, I pretended to be Jillian’s “old” friend and Joshua’s “new” girlfriend—an ironic inversion of reality. For the benefit of his parents, I also pretended to leave his house every night. Later, I returned in my invisible state to curl up beside Joshua in bed, as close as I could without actually touching him. Because now, I could feel the wrinkles in the sheets beneath us but not the texture of Joshua’s skin.

Risen ghosts regained the senses that death had taken from them. Taste, smell, even touch. But there was one tiny problem: the Risen could touch anything they wanted, except the living. It was the most ironic, double-edged gift I’d ever received.

Not that Joshua and I hadn’t tried—frequently—to touch. During our first week back in Oklahoma, we took so many different approaches: slow and careful; quick and furious; even the unexpected surprise touch. But none of it worked. When I placed my hand against his, it always felt like I simply clutched the air; it was the same for Joshua. Worse, whenever we came too close, it looked as though we passed through each other—like I was made of air myself.

Nothing made me feel more like a ghost.

Still, so many things about my new existence were amazing. The smell of Rebecca’s garden after a hard rain; the taste of Jeremiah Mayhew’s chocolate chess pie; the slick plastic coating on the benches outside Wilburton High. Each sensation felt fresh and new. So exhilarating, they almost made up for everything else.

Almost.

I shook my head, willing my cheeks to shift from whatever color they were now to something less neon pink. When I felt a little more in control, I met Joshua’s eyes again and—a little reluctantly—returned to the subject of my upcoming torture.

“You know, I still can’t figure out why Jillian insists I go to this thing tonight.”

“Because you and Jill are now BFF?” he offered. When I glared at him, he grinned and went on. “Honestly, I think Jill just wants to make up for how she acted before New Orleans. And in New Orleans. And pretty much how she acts in general. Plus, I think she’s trying to make you some more . . . friends.”

He dragged the last word out awkwardly, grimacing. I couldn’t help but copy his expression. The word “friend” made both of us uncomfortable. Not because of the ones I hadn’t made yet, but because of the one I’d made and then lost.

Gabrielle Callioux.

The girl who changed me into what I was now; the girl who, in only a few days, had become my closest friend; the girl I’d watched disappear into hell.

Thinking about Gaby would probably make tonight even harder. So I forced a bright tone as I responded to Joshua.

“Making new friends. At Kaylen Patton’s house. Yay.” Just for effect, I shook my fists in a fake little cheer.

“Your enthusiasm is overwhelming,” he said drily. “But you promised to show up to this sleepover. And ‘show up’ means you actually have to show up. No going invisible.”

I sighed heavily. Then, since my feet were already dangling over the edge, I slid myself fully off of the daybed and turned around to face him. I tucked my hands into the pockets of my jean skirt—borrowed from Jillian—and gave him a small smile.

Joshua, however, didn’t return my smile. He studied me, suddenly serious, and even a little . . . sad, maybe. Then he reached out to let his palm hover by my cheek, almost as though he could cup it.

“You know,” he said softly, “that I’d give just about anything to touch you again?”

I didn’t trust myself to answer him aloud. Not without my voice cracking. So I just nodded. We stayed silent for another beat, until he cleared his throat.

“Have fun tonight.”

All I could manage was a rough “I’ll try.”

Before I did something I’d regret, like lean into his hand and pretend, just for a second, that this wasn’t our new normal, I spun around and raced out of the gazebo.

Chapter THREE

Cramped into Jillian’s tiny car and listening to yet another generic hip-hop song, I couldn’t quite believe I’d left my gorgeous boyfriend sitting on an equally gorgeous bed . . . for this.

Before leaving the Mayhews’ house, Jillian had forced me to try on about a hundred different outfits until I looked presentable. It was ridiculous, considering the fact that most items in my wardrobe once (and sort of still) belonged to the most famous actress in America. Next came an inch-thick layer of makeup, something I’d stopped wearing the day Gaby disappeared. Worst of all, Jillian spent most of our drive lecturing me on how to behave once we reached Kaylen’s house. Which made me wonder—yet again—why I’d been invited in the first place.

“And another thing,” Jillian continued, “you need to treat Kaylen’s mom with a lot of respect. Like, a lot.”

I turned away from my open window, back toward the interior of the car so that Jillian could see my exasperation.

“What do you think I’m going to do, Jill, run naked through her living room?”

Jillian laughed, but she began to drum her fingers nervously against the steering wheel. “It’s not that I think you’re going to do something stupid. It’s just that I’m trying to, you know, prepare you.”

“For what, the Miss Wilburton pageant?”

“Something like that,” Jillian muttered.

Before I could ask her what she meant, Kaylen’s house came into view, and I was momentarily struck speechless.

The home was absolutely enormous—at least three stories tall, maybe four. But the building’s most striking quality wasn’t its size. Its façade boasted every imaginable architectural element: columns, balconies, copper awnings, weather vanes. Best of all, two life-sized statues of lions flanked the double front doors. It was a triumph of wealth and excess.

“Whoa,” I eventually managed. “It kind of looks like Better Homes and Gardens threw up all over this place.”

“Yeah,” Jillian said, pulling her car onto the circular driveway. “This is what we call a McMansion.”

I let out a low whistle and stared up at the house while Jillian parked alongside several other cars. We kept quiet, almost reverential as we removed our overnight bags from the trunk and made the long walk to the front porch.

Finally, standing between the stone lions and waiting for someone to answer the doorbell, Jillian broke our silence with a torrent of words.

“Okay, so Mr. Patton is an oil guy and a state senator,” Jillian hissed in a rushed whisper. “So he’s gone, like, all the time. That leaves Mrs. Patton alone a lot with Kaylen and all this money. And, well, Mrs. Patton is a former Miss Oklahoma, which should mean that she’s super nice. But in Mrs. Patton’s case—”

At that moment, the front door swung open to reveal Kaylen, unbelievably glammed up and looking regal in the marble-tiled foyer. Except the person standing in the doorway wasn’t Kaylen. She was at least six inches taller, not counting her five-inch stilettos. That also left out the four inches of gravity-defying hair, which had been sprayed into some complicated blond sculpture. All that height made her look superhuman, like some sort of suburban goddess.

“Jillian, sweetie, don’t you look pretty,” she cooed, pointing to Jillian’s block-print dress and wedge heels. Then Mrs. Patton raised a perfectly groomed eyebrow and assessed me coolly, before breaking into a high-wattage smile.

“You must be Jillian’s little friend,” she said, offering me a handshake full of bedazzled fingernails. I took an instinctive step back to avoid the nontouch, and her smile dropped.

“Sorry,” I offered lamely. “I, um, have a cold.”

I offered a weak cough as evidence, using my shaking hand to cover it. Then I waved that hand as if to say, See? Germ-ridden.

Mrs. Patton’s upper lip curled in disgust and she, too, took a step backward. Then she composed that lip curl into something that was only slightly less repulsed.

“You poor thing. Why don’t y’all just come on inside?”

She waved us into the entryway, gestured vaguely to a grand, curving staircase, and told us that the other girls were in the theater room on the third floor. Then she hurried away on her ridiculous heels, fleeing what she clearly assumed was the black death.

Now I realized why Jillian had demanded a fashion show before we left. And why we were wearing designer labels to a party that should have been filled with sweatpants and junk food.

I snorted as Jillian and I started up the stairs. “You have to admit, this explains so much about Kaylen.”

“Doesn’t it though?” Jillian murmured. “I told you, Kaylen is an okay person—she’s just a little . . . skewed.”

“I can see why. She’s living with a grade-A pageant mom.”

“Aw, who’s afraid of tiaras and mascara? We’ve fought demons.”

“I’ve fought demons,” I corrected. “You fought a crazed psycho killer with some serious girl issues.”

“To-may-to, to-mah-to.” Jillian waved her hand dismissively.

After what felt like a thousand miles of stairs and hallway, Jillian paused outside a set of red double doors. She’d just reached for one of the handles when both doors swung open and Kaylen came bounding out into the hall.

“Jill!” she squealed, enveloping her friend in a bear hug to which Jillian responded with an awkward back pat.

I’d always thought of Kaylen as something of a princess. But tonight, in stark contrast to her mother, she appeared in a set of comfortable-looking pajamas.

“So, Jill, I got those hot Cheetos you like even though they make everyone else want to puke.” She abruptly shifted her attention to me. “And you’re Amelia, right? Josh’s secret new girlfriend?”

Now that took me aback. All I could do was stutter, “Uh . . . y-yeah. I guess I am.”

I thought I’d have to dance around this issue for hours—maybe suffer a few sly, catty comments in the process. But Kaylen just came right out and addressed the elephant in the room.

“Not so secret anymore,” she noted, before I could say anything else. “Anyway, come on in—the other girls are already here.”

She started to wave us inside, grinning.

“You got all done up for Mom, right?” Kaylen asked. “Don’t worry: you can go ahead and change into your comfies in the powder bath.”

“Thanks,” Jillian breathed, immediately slipping her feet out of her tall wedges. Then she and I hefted up our bags and followed Kaylen inside.

The theater room matched the house perfectly: overdone, with heavy red drapes and gold tassels everywhere. The only difference was that this room looked a little friendlier with the addition of a rom-com on the big screen and a few pajama-clad girls gathered beneath it.

I’d seen them before, following Kaylen and Jillian around Wilburton High. One of them—a strawberry blonde with a sharp nose and pale green eyes—hung back in the semicircle of theater chairs and arranged bowls of junk food on a low table. The other two girls approached us, both sporting messy sets of pigtails. Slumber-party couture, I guess.

“Nice dress, Jill,” one teased, flipping an ashy brown pigtail. “Are you going to a fancy horse race?”

“Are you running in one?” Jillian shot back, but she grinned warmly and gave her friend a playful shove. Then she moved toward the bathroom, apparently to change. Without looking back, Jillian wiggled her fingers over her shoulder. “I’m going to go un-Derby myself. See you in a sec.”

As soon as the door clicked shut, the third girl moved closer to me. Too close, actually, almost like a shark. Her smirk wasn’t necessarily hostile—in fact, it looked sort of pretty against her deeply tanned skin—but it made me uncomfortable. Deeply uncomfortable.

“So,” she said archly. “You’re Amelia?”

It was as if those three words were some kind of signal. All at once, the entire room seemed to focus on me. Each girl moved in concert, angling herself toward me like a missile seeking its target.

After a long, uncertain pause, I nodded and cleared my throat. “And all of you are . . . ?”

“Chelsea Qualls,” the ashy brunette offered, and then pointed behind her to the redhead. “That’s Elyse Richards.”

“And I’m Mya Homma.”

The girl with the deeply tanned skin and black hair waved at me, a gesture that I wasn’t sure whether to read as snarky or friendly. For lack of anything better to do, I waved back.

“Hi. I’m Amelia Ashley. I’m dating Joshua Mayhew. I enjoy competitive figure skating and long walks on the beach.”

The other girls laughed, relaxing by separate degrees. One by one, they each shifted away from me. Sensing that the attack was over, I smiled at them as genuinely as I could and reminded myself that I’d faced far scarier things than a roomful of teenage girls in judgment mode.

Still, when Jillian exited the powder bath, I took the opportunity to excuse myself to change—and breathe easier for the first time since we’d entered the room. Maybe even the house.

Chapter FOUR

An hour later, the awkward, interrogation-themed tension had almost dissipated. I guess a few peanut butter M&M’s and more than a few sips of stolen wine just had that effect on people. It also didn’t hurt when Jillian told them that my pajamas were previously worn by the actress now prancing around in the chick flick that we were only half watching.

“I can totally see the resemblance,” Mya said, using a bottle of Mrs. Patton’s finest merlot to draw an invisible line between the woman on the screen and me.

“Yeah,” I muttered awkwardly. “My famous aunt just loves to share her outdated clothes.”

“Outdated?” Chelsea breathed. “They’re freaking gorgeous. Is that silk?”

Chelsea sat in the chair next to mine, and she moved forward to touch my sleeve. Without thinking, I yanked my arm back before she had the chance. Jillian must have seen the small, insulted O that Chelsea’s mouth made, because she darted forward.

“Amelia has touch issues,” Jillian said defensively, leaning around me. “You know, like a phobia.”

“Oh.” Chelsea gave me a smile that was equal parts polite and weirded-out. Kaylen, however, looked intrigued.

“Really?” she asked. She sat up straighter in her chair. “How does that work, exactly? With Joshua, I mean.”

My mouth started flapping open and closed like a fish’s. How did I even begin to answer that? Luckily, before I had to craft some believable lie, Jillian faked a loud yawn.

“Bor-ring,” she grumbled. “New subject, guys. Please.”

I could have kissed her. Instead, I gave her a sly wink of gratitude.

“Okay,” Kaylen said. “No more phobia talk. How about a game of truth-or-dare?”

Jillian and I shouted no at the same time, almost as loudly as Chelsea, Mya, and Elyse cheered yes. With the rest of the party on her side, Kaylen grinned triumphantly.

“Four against two. It’s totally happening.”

I groaned loudly and glanced at Jillian. She shrugged, as if to say, No use fighting this. I sank into my plush seat, waiting until the very last minute to join the other girls in the cross-legged circle they’d formed around the coffee table. Once there, I folded my arms and prepared myself for the inevitable questions from Kaylen. But to my surprise, Mya jumped in with the first challenge.

“Truth or dare, Jilly?”

Obviously Jillian hadn’t expected that, either. She blinked a few times and then said, “Uh . . . truth, I guess.”

Mya exchanged meaningful looks with Chelsea and Elyse before turning back to Jillian. “Are you in love with Scott Conner?” Mya asked bluntly.

Jillian blinked even faster, as did I.

I knew that Joshua’s quiet friend Scott liked Jillian; his feelings were written all over his face, every time he looked at her. But I had no idea that Jillian might feel something for Scott in return, especially not after her misguided crush on Kade LaLaurie this winter.

Now, watching the red stain of a blush creep up her neck, I knew it must be true: Jillian liked Scott back.

“No,” Jillian muttered, after far too long a pause. “Of course I don’t like Scott. He’s like . . . a brother to me, or something. And he’s not even that cute. I’m mean—floppy hair is over, right?”

Instead of answering her, the other girls whooped and laughed in triumph.

“Liar!” Elyse crowed. “You do! You totally like him.”

Chelsea pointed an accusatory finger at Jillian. “You’ve got a crush on your big brother’s bestie. Admit it.”

“No,” Jillian spat. She chucked an M&M at Chelsea, who caught it deftly and popped it into her mouth. Somehow, this offended Jillian even more. She folded her arms over her chest and scowled at her friends.

“Fine. So I sort of like Scott, okay? I didn’t used to. But after we got back from Christmas break, he just . . . he started to look better to me. Cuter. Funnier.”

I heard what Jillian didn’t say: that Scott Conner, compared to a creep like Kade LaLaurie, looked like Prince Charming. Not that Scott needed the comparison—he’d always been a nice guy. But now, Jillian actually valued that quality. I couldn’t wait to tell Joshua.

Jillian’s girlfriends, however, continued to tease her mercilessly. And for once, she couldn’t seem to muster up any sharp comebacks. So she scowled harder and flopped angrily against the footrest of a theater chair.

“Traitors,” she hissed halfheartedly, after the last bit of laughter quieted. Then she turned to Kaylen. “Don’t think you’re going to get out of this, just because I’m embarrassed now. Truth or dare, Kaylen?”

Kaylen flashed everyone a smug half grin. “I always take the dare. You know that.”

“Oh, I know.” Jillian grinned back, but her smile wasn’t a happy one. “That’s why I already have your dare picked out.”

“Bring it, Jilly.” Kaylen curled her fists and flexed her arms into a strongman position. “I’m not afraid.”

When I saw Jillian’s smirk, I wondered whether Kaylen should have been.

“Okay, if you’re so brave, then why don’t you go get us another bottle of your mom’s wine?”

Kaylen had already started to beam confidently, when Jillian added, “And one of her old pageant tiaras. A big one. Which you will wear for the rest of the night.”

The other girls started cackling, but Kaylen paled faintly. I would bet anything that those tiaras, with all their sharp edges and cold sparkle, represented the worst of Kaylen’s fears. Just the thought of stealing one had her broken out in a visible sweat.

Despite the jealousy I’d felt toward Kaylen, despite the fact that she’d thrown herself at my boyfriend last fall, I suddenly wanted to protect her. To keep her from risking her mother’s wrath, and from having to see another tiara again, if she didn’t want to.

“Jillian, I think that’s one too many dares.”

I spoke as quietly as possible, but the other girls heard me. As Kaylen watched me, something in her eyes shifted from desperate to hopeful.

“Actually,” I went on, keeping my eyes trained on Kaylen’s, “I know that’s one too many dares. Kaylen will probably get caught stealing the tiara. And if she has to steal something, I’d rather have the wine.”

Faced with a choice between the humiliation of their queen bee and more booze, the crowd quickly chose the latter. As if to demonstrate, Elyse grabbed the bottle from Chelsea’s hand and tilted it back, draining the last few ounces.

“More wine, more wine,” she began to chant softly, once she’d finished off the bottle.

As Kaylen pushed herself up from the floor, her feigned look of boredom barely hid her obvious relief.

“Okay, okay,” she said, moving toward the doors. “I’ll get us another bottle.”

“Two,” Jillian called out, just before the doors clicked shut. Then she whipped around toward me.

“Thanks a lot, Amelia,” she said, dragging out my name sarcastically.

I shrugged, unbothered by the fact that I’d spoiled Jillian’s plans. It was just too bad if she momentarily hated me for it. I’d lost too many friendships to let Jillian ruin one of her own. Besides, Kaylen might be needy and a little self-absorbed, but that didn’t mean she deserved cruelty.

There was enough of it in the afterlife, I’d learned.

Oblivious to my motives, Jillian turned back to her friends, effectively cutting me out of the conversation. I shook my head and smiled.

Oh, Jillian. You are nothing if not yourself.

I settled against the foot of my chair, satisfied to listen in silence for a while. Whether or not I would make friends with these girls tonight, perhaps I’d found an ally in Kaylen.

Or at least I thought I had. Less than sixty seconds after Kaylen returned, passed the stolen wine to her friends, and flopped back into her place in the circle, she turned on me with a wide smile.

“Truth or dare, Amelia.”

My eyes narrowed as I stared back at her. If I was being really honest, I’d thought that Kaylen herself would give me the biggest break, considering what I’d just done for her. But no such luck.

Though I didn’t know her exact question, I knew its inevitable subject: the boy I loved; the boy I’d been through hell for, almost literally.

It should have been an easy choice. I should have picked truth, and then lied like crazy. Fibbed my way through the dark secrets about Joshua’s Seer heritage and my undead status. Provided some vague answers, like “yeah, he’s a good kisser,” or “no, we haven’t talked about what will happen to us after graduation.”

Instead, I lowered my head and flashed my darkest smile.

“Dare, Kaylen. I choose dare.”

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