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which was actual y POM Wonderful—marked with labels like DANCING ELIXIR and KISSING CURE-ALL. And at the end of the room was a craggy haunted mansion. Greenish lights flashed through the windows, and a group of girls let out shril squeals from inside.
Suddenly Madeline clamped down on Emma’s arm. “Oh my God.”
She tried to steer Emma in the other direction, but it was too late. Emma had already seen what was bothering her. Garrett sat in a banquette just a few feet away. He wore a velveteen tunic, a fril y shirt underneath, and a horned Viking helmet. A blunt-tipped sword rested on the table. And he wasn’t alone.
“Hi, girls!” Nisha tril ed, leaping up from the seat next to Garrett and waving happily. Her black hair had been arranged in two braids, she wore a snugly fitted corset dress, and there was a similar horned helmet sitting atop her head. She and Garrett matched.
“What the—” Charlotte said in a low voice. “Tel me he didn’t bring her.”
I wanted to puke. Nisha? That was a pretty big step down after dating me. Or Charlotte, for that matter. Garrett looked up and saw Emma, too. His face clouded. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. Nisha babbled for the both of them, inviting them to sit and complimenting their costumes when they didn’t move. Then she eyed Emma. “Sutton, did you come here al alone?”
she asked in a simpering voice, sounding absolutely delighted.
“Come on,” Madeline urged, tugging on Emma’s arm. They snaked across the dance floor, which was already sticky with spil ed soda, past the DJ booth, where a few groupies leaned against the table, and into the girls’ locker room. Harsh fluorescent lights shone overhead. The faint odor of sweaty socks and spil ed shampoo lingered in the air.
Madeline sat down on one of the benches and took Emma’s hands. “Are you okay? Do you want to leave?”
Music thumped outside. Emma searched Madeline’s face, realizing Madeline thought she was upset. She wasn’t, not exactly—more like confused. Did Nisha like Garrett? Was that why she hated Sutton?
Emma brushed her hair off her face. “I’m fine,” she said.
“It’s just . . . weird.”
Madeline linked her fingers through Emma’s. “You’re better off without him. Honestly? I didn’t want to tel you this when you guys were going out, but I think Garrett dragged you down. He’s sort of understated, like white bread. And you’re Sutton Mercer—the opposite of ordinary.”
Emma looked into Madeline’s bright blue eyes, touched. Sutton’s friends might not be perfect, but they were loyal.
“And Charlotte told me that when she dated Garrett, he was weirdly obsessed with the Summer Olympics,”
Madeline went on, snickering. “Especial y women’s gymnastics. Can you imagine? They’re linebacker-ish gnomes!”
Thanks for tel ing me this when I was alive, guys. But Emma giggled. “Yeah, maybe he wasn’t worth it.”
“Definitely.” Madeline reached up to adjust the crown on her head. Her sleeve slipped down her arm, revealing bare skin. Emma saw four purplish bruises on the inside of her forearm in the shape of fingers.
Emma gasped. “Mads, what happened?”
Madeline fol owed Emma’s gaze and paled. “Oh. Nothing.” She tugged the sleeve back down, her hands trembling. It got caught on her bracelet, and she struggled with it until it fel past her wrist. Then, Emma saw the pinkish burn on her hand. And the bruise on her calf. And another one on the side of her neck.
Alarms clanged in Emma’s head. She’d met plenty of kids in foster care who didn’t want to talk about their black eyes, the missing clumps of hair on their heads, the burns on their arms.
“Mads,” Emma whispered. “You can tel me. It’s okay.”
Madeline’s mouth formed a straight line. She pushed her pointer finger into a carved groove in the bench. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does.”
Girls’ voices floated past the locker room. Another scream rang out from the haunted house. The second hand on the clock over the gym teacher’s office made a half rotation before Madeline spoke again. “It was because of the cigarette.”
“The cigarette?”
“The cigarette I was smoking out the window last Saturday. I broke a rule. I deserved it.”
“Deserved it?” Emma repeated. Mr. Vega’s angry face flashed in her mind. “Oh, Mads.”
Al at once, I saw a vision, too: Mr. Vega bursting into Madeline’s bedroom, his face red and shiny, his voice booming. I swear to God, Madeline, if you break your curfew one more time, I’ll break your neck! Madeline ran down the stairs after him, and moments later I heard heated but muffled shouts. Then there was a clang, as though a shelf ful of pots and pans clattered to the floor. I had sat there, doing nothing. Too afraid to act.
Madeline had returned a few minutes later, her cheeks streaked with tears and her eyes red. But she smiled and shrugged and pretended nothing had happened, and I didn’t ask.
Emma held tight to Madeline’s hands. “Was this what you wanted to talk to me about a while ago? The night you tried cal ing and I didn’t pick up my phone?”
Madeline nodded, her lips pursed so tightly they were translucent.
“I’m so sorry,” Emma said, swal owing a hard lump in her throat. “I should have been there for you.” She wondered how much Sutton real y knew about al this, or if Madeline had kept it a wel -hidden secret.
“I’m sorry, too,” I added, even though she couldn’t hear me. I had a feeling Mads and I had never discussed it before, not even that night. The phone cal , the one she’d made to me the night I died, was the very first time she’d reached out. I would have answered it if I could, but I was already gone.
