“I’m sorry if someone ghosted you, Crystal. But hounding random people isn’t going to bring her back.”
“She only went to that party because you—”
In a flash, I closed the space between us. Her skin was dry, the shadows deep under bloodshot eyes. I stared, giving her all my doubts, my nightmares, my pain.Dangerous parts, put together from scrap.
Crystal shivered. Water leaked from her eyes.
She could find nothing more to say.
“You should really wear a mask,” I said. “The smoke is toxic.”
“I know you’re her,” she whispered. But her confidence was depleted.
“Sorry I can’t help you.” I turned from her. “But leavingskullsfor people? That’s kind of weird.”
Crystal didn’t say anything as I walked away. I’d never seen her look so small.
She had become a different person too.
60
An hour later, the storm crashed into us.
The first drops were huge, smacking loud against my windows. Already the smoke had lifted, cleared by the leading edge of the pressure center. People streamed outside, embracing the fresh air, the sudden cool, the driving rain. A few stripped off their clothes.
I watched the muddy bacchanal from my window, replaying my encounter with Crystal in my head: my altered face, my short hair.
Me, transformed into not-me. But not different enough.
Would she call the police now? Would they even care? The case was closed. Obsession, a cult, murder, suicide.
Crystal wasn’t looking for justice—the man she blamed was already dead. She just wanted to talk to someone who’d been there. After our encounter, she’d never want to talk to me again.
She might give up at last.
But I knew what my family would demand—leave nothing to chance. Loose ends always unravel. Snip them.
When the first thunder rumbled, the girls on my hall flung open their doors and windows. Frankie went down in bare feet and came back drenched, muddy, ecstatic. Aaliyah declared that she was skipping her afternoon classes, and we all followed suit.
The poker table was unfolded, and I made everyone proper Old Fashioneds: Kentucky bourbon and Veronica’s homemade cardamom bitters. Even Frankie admitted it was better than hard seltzer.
Somehow as the tumult grew—shouting outside, booming thunder,spray through the open windows—I began to still. Whatever happened next, I was someone new, not the person who’d done those things in that small room.
I took a sip of Frankie’s Old Fashioned.
We got bored of poker, and they taught me Lavernick Ratscrew, a cutthroat game of chance, brute reflex, and absurd rules. The folding table trembled as we swatted at piles of cards.
My borrowed sips of alcohol did nothing, so at the next break I went back to my room to make myself a Black Manhattan. A small one. Tiny, really.
Music spilled from open doors, from windows, from the rest of the Quad—a chaos mix of pop, techno, hip-hop, EDM, country, death metal.
The first sip of my drink seethed on my tongue, botanicals and spirit vapors, hard to swallow. Sebastian had been right all along. My tastebuds were mutant, stretched out of their natural shape to embrace preposterous bitterness.
I downed it quickly. Made myself another.
There was a letter on my desk. I’d thought she’d like the stationery from the campus store, with the college coat of arms at the top, a missive from the Queen of Helshire.
Dear Bellamy,
