The words are a whisper only I can hear, a knife slicing through my heart.
Eli yanks himself away from me. I can’t see the blue in his eyes anymore. He turns and bolts, leaving me standing in the middle of the dance floor.
Alone.
22
Chapter: Claudia
We clear out of the ballroom pretty quick after Eli’s rejection. Tearing up the dance floor loses its appeal, and the eyes of other students following me feel like knives scraping my skin. Not to mention the fact that Gabriel got a text and disappeared somewhere for like twenty minutes, and when he appeared again, he tried to cover up his distress by being extra ridiculous. When I pressed him on it, he said it was his manager harassing him about the new album, but he wouldn’t look at me as we walked out of the country club.
George had sent me a text saying she’d ducked out with Isaac to go to the horror movie marathon (adorable) so we didn’t need to wait for them. Gabriel hadn’t booked our car until much later in the evening, so Antony gives us a ride to the after-party. He can’t come inside because everyone thinks he’s a teacher, so he sends in another of his fighters instead. A guy named Horace who’s seven feet of raw muscle and is immediately pounced on by a horde of sex-crazed Valley girls as soon as he steps inside.
The after-party is at Cleo’s house, right at the top of Beaumont Hills, teetering on the edge of a steep cliff overlooking the ocean. It’s in full swing when we arrive, despite the fact I’m pretty sure Cleo is still at the dance. I don’t know many of the kids here, and I assume most of them are from nearby Beaumont Academy, who had their homecoming dance tonight as well, until Gabriel informs me most of them don’t even go to school.
“These are industry people – mostly wannabe models, YouTube stars, and musicians, but agents and PR and producers, too. They know how important it is to be seen at these parties,” Gabriel explains. “We’re in a clout house.”
“A what?”
He points to a guy in wannabe gangster clothing and a plastic crown holding court at the end of the terrace. “See that dude? He’s a YouTube star with six million followers. That girl dancing over there makes TikTok videos, and there’s a guy in the garden handing out pills of happiness who’s one of the biggest gamers on Twitch. Cleo’s daddy pays thousands of dollars a month for her to live here so she can work with these big influencers and grow her following.”
“That’s legitimately insane.”
“No argument.” Gabriel pulls me to him. “I’ve been to parties here before, and they’re always wild in a manufactured way – everyone competing to be the most extreme, the most fun and quirky and get in with the stars, while the few real people who actually contribute anything of substance get blazed in the treehouse and solve the world’s problems. I can’t imagine living here – sharing space with people who need you to be ‘on’ all the time. That’s why I have my own place.”
I look around the room at all these kids laughing and talking and handing around drinks. There’s a DJ set up in the corner and a bunch of sponsored walls set up where photographers snapped groups together. The furniture looks staged – someone’s best guess of a funky, homely atmosphere. It comes across forced, fake, a cardboard facade that will crumble at the first sign of trouble – like the people in this room.
I couldn’t imagine living in this towering YouTube-shrine, either.
I think of our home back in Tartarus Oaks. Unlike the Lucians and Dios who lived in extravagant mansions to rival Howard Malloy, Daddy didn’t like to flash his wealth around in Emerald Beach. (He saved that for the Romanesque villa he was building on Capri, which he never got to finish). We lived in a nice house – modest on the outside, but inside was another story. If Daddy trusted you enough to invite you inside, you’d step into an Aladdin’s cave of precious antiquities – every rug and statue and chair had a story behind it, and Daddy knew them all by heart. At mealtimes, he sat in a gilded chair taken from a pharaoh's tomb in Egypt. He’d entertain guests with china and crystal pilfered from the Austrian Hapsburg dynasty. We even had a Picasso hanging above the toilet.
Even though it had been my prison, even though I’d seen firsthand the blood price of those beautiful statues and ancient coins, I felt something in that house, something sweet and tender and brutally possessive, something I hadn’t felt again until I met Gabriel and Noah and Eli.
Gabriel is led aside by some music industry people, and Noah suggests we move further along the terrace, where the noise is less oppressive. The breeze whips off the ocean below and carries away the loud voices and pulsing music. I rest my head on Noah’s shoulder and look out to the peninsula where Emerald Beach overlooks the bay. Most of it is shrouded in trees, but I can make out a few rows of grey stones, like jagged teeth jutting out from the gaping maw of the underworld. A shiver runs down my spine that has nothing to do with the crisp ocean breeze.
“Hey.” Noah touches my hand. With a start, I realize I’ve been digging my nails into his arm. “What’s wrong?”
I shake my head.
“You’re freaked out, and you’re holding something back.” Noah peels my fingers from around his arm, holding his hand tight in mine. “Tell me.”
I point a shaking finger toward the peninsula. “See that cemetery down there? That’s where I was buried alive.”
“What?”
Noah looks completely shell-shocked. I feel a little stab of pride at being able to surprise him. Of all the things he expected me to say, I bet this doesn’t come close.
But now I have to finish what I started. My secret hangs in the crisp air, and I need to speak it or it will become a cancer between us. I ball my hands into fists and stare down at the railing. If I keep looking at those rows of teeth being torn up by the relentless ocean, I’ll start screaming and I won’t be able to stop.
“The night my parents died, I… I didn’t tell you everything.”
“I figured,” Noah says dryly. He really does know me.
“I woke up in the night to the sound of someone in my room. I tried to fight them off, but they already had a hold of me. They dragged me out of bed and pressed a cloth soaked in chloroform into my mouth. As they carried me downstairs, I saw my mother slumped in a chair, still dressed in her clubbing clothes – a beautiful silk dress and stiletto heels. She’d been stabbed multiple times. Her blood arced across the wall behind her and splattered across the window. I could see my reflection in the glass, behind the blood, and I remember thinking in this weird detached way that it almost looked as if I had her blood on my skin, as if I’d been the one to stab her. I must’ve passed out then because the next thing I knew, I woke up inside a coffin, buried beneath the earth. I—” I clung to Noah as the memories assailed me. “I couldfeelthe weight of the dirt on top of me. With every breath, I felt my life slipping away. I tried to claw through the wood, but it was useless. I… I…”
I died that night, on the inside.
“How did you escape?” Noah’s arms tighten around me. His voice tightens too, as though there are things he wants to say but he’s afraid if he lets the words free they’ll become weapons in my hands.
