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Veronica
I couldn’t runfor city council if I wasdead.
Which was why I’d saved the house in the woods for last. That way if the person who lived there turned out to be an ax murderer, I’d at least get my canvassing infirst.
No one could say I wasn’tdedicated.
I hiked up the long, wooded drive on the very edge of town, feeling exactly like a horror movie heroine before things got really bad. If I were in the audience right now, I’d be screaming at me to turnback.
Who would live outhere?
I rounded the last bend andstopped.
The house’s windows were dark, with no cars in the driveway, but it was the only house I hadn’t gone to that didn’t sport aRylie for City Councilsign in its yard. I had to at least give it atry.
I could barely see the violet glint of my sneakers as I picked my way through soggy, overgrown grass and up sagging steps to a porch that had seen better days. It wasn’t until I got to the door that a wave of something hit me—a prescience orforeboding.
This house will change mylife.
Ignoring the shiver that worked its way up my spine—it felt kind of good under the sweat I’d worked up these past few hours—I tried checking the time on my phone only to find the battery dead. Right. Now, I couldn’t even check the app again to see if this house had been canvassed since an hour ago, or even what party they were registered under. Or call for help if this was, in fact, a murderhouse.
Whatever. It was still light out. I squinted over my shoulder. Well, lightish. Everything was muted this deep in thewoods.
I lifted my hand to rap on the door, defeat already settling heavily on my shoulders, and stilled. What was that? Eyes narrowed, I leaned closer to the chippedwood.
Music! Ha!The housewasinhabited. Something itched between my shoulder blades and Iknocked.
I counted the seconds in my head to the tune of “Wheels on the Bus,” like I’d done at every other house I’d visited today, and for the past few months. Earworm fromhell.
Nothing.
But someone was in there,dammit.
It was almost full-on dark now. For about twenty seconds, as my yard signs started to slip from my sweaty hands, I considered turning back and calling it a day. Everything would be so easy if I just let those signs drop and walked away, not just from this house, but from the election, fromeverything.
Clint S. Rylie—orWily Rylieas we’d known him in high school—chose that moment to park at the far end of the driveway in his pristine black Audi. He emerged with his pretty blond wife, who let two well-behaved children out of the backseat. All that perfection and I still didn’t trust him. I remembered, even if nobody else seemed to, how he’d cheated to get his straight As. Everybody’d known it was happening, but he’d never once beencaught.
It looked like he and his wife were unloading a slew of items—probably their magnets, stickers,goody bags, for God’s sake—and rather than curl up and hide like the low-budget fraud I was, I gripped my garishVeronica Cruz for City Councilyard signs tighter and kicked the shit out of the creepy house’s frontdoor.
I must have pounded pretty hard because I didn’t hear footsteps or anything, but suddenly the door was yanked open and I was frozen in raised-limbed limbo. I had no idea how long I stayed in that position—suspended with a foot and a hand up, about ready to claw my way through thatdoor.
“Yes?” The man in front of me was nothing like the monster, or the sad, wizened old woman I’d expected to live in this house. Not this…this…gosh, Amazon was a description just for women, right? Okay, so Superman, maybe. With dark hair, smooth, pale skin and wide cheekbones, and eyes that made me blink a few times and look away from their strangeness. Oh…and the man was clearly not happy with myintrusion.
Following a path created from repetition rather than instinct, my hand opened and shifted to waist level, ready to clasp. Shaking hands with parents was one thing, but as apolitician…
I steeled myself against the usual imposter syndrome and widened mysmile.
“Hello,I’m—”
“Can I—” He cleared his throat and ignored my hand entirely, his words overlapping mine. “Helpyou?”
“Hi there. My name’s Veronica and I’m running for city council.” He looked like he might open his mouth to interrupt and, rather than stop and listen, as I’d generally do, I rushed through my pitch. “Are you aware that there’s an election coming up? If so, do you know who you’ll vote for? It’s a decisive moment for policy in our town.” I glanced over my shoulder and gave up entirely when I saw the Rylies trundling up the walkway. So close, I could smell the sanctimony. “Can I come inplease?”
“Uh.No.”
“Please.” Why was I sofrantic?
