Page 63

“What?” I scramble after her, weaving through students staring at the Perk’s TV. “Where are we going?”

“Anywhere but here. This just got a lot more dangerous.”

“What are you talking about?” Saliva thickens my words, my tongue tingling from adrenaline. I’m cold down to my bones, and she’s the only thing holding me together. “Wait, Marcella. Please.”

She stops hard outside the Perk. Sleet slicks her hair, her face, dampens her lipstick and smudges it like blood down her chin. She grimaces, swallows hard, then forces herself to meet my eyes.

“I don’t think there’s just one bad actor here, Lacie.” She places a hand on my wrist, leans close, her cold breath tickling my ear. “I think there are many.”

FIFTEENMarcella

Humans ubiquitously suck.

I know I was one at some point, but I like to think I’ve grown since then. But how much money and encouragement does it take to keep people quiet about a body in their junkyard? I suppose a hundred-dollar bill doesn’t do much after all. The good news is that Arjun’s death can’t be linked to me—not definitively anyway.

Hopefully.

The only good news about his body’s discovery is that it comes on the tail end of two other deaths. It’ll get lost in the news cycle.

Poor little lamb Lacie. I know she’s drowning under work … not to mention the weight of so many deaths.

I haven’t heard from her since I dropped her at her apartment and brought her a mug of chamomile tea. She was so pale.

To add insult to injury, I’m starting to get hungry again, even after having a sip of Caroline, and when that happens, I don’t sleep. I hear the thing inside of me. It’s getting louder. Worse. It’s just me and Bellatrix—and this vacuous hunger curling and writhing inside of me—watching Severance until it’s time to get dressed, catching up on the lives of the Outies while I empty another box of Snickers. As good as they taste, they’re not cutting it, though. I need energy. Vitality. I need to drain someone, even just a little bit. The thing inside of me is getting hungrier, more insistent. It’s a good thing the Winter Ball is this evening; I just need to figure out a way to busy Lacie. She can’t know what I am. I would horrify her.

My phone buzzes.

Little Lamb: Getting ready yet?

I check the time. I have at least half an hour until it’s necessary.

Not yet. Why?

Little Lamb: Do you think you could help me with this zipper?

Pausing the show, I roll out of my sheets and smooth them up to the pillows. Bellatrix hunkers down beneath the duvet cover, mewing at me plaintively. “Listen, this is a marriage of convenience. You know that. We’re just stuck in this mess together.” I hear the falsehood in my words, but the cat can’t know that. “Be right back.”

I slip into the hall. Evan is there with a bunch of other Classics men in tuxedos, all shiny patent leather shoes and the curling allure of whiskey. He waves them on ahead and then calls out to me.

“Marcie!”

God, why does everyone at Preston call me that stupid nickname? Pasting a smile on my face, I turn. Evan thinks he’s such hot shit, and with Arjun gone, I’m sure he views himself as heir apparent. His tuxedo’s got to be a rental with those pinned pant hems, but he’s also got a folded piece of expensive invitation in his lapel pocket—probably for the after-party, as mine was. I only catch the smallest glimpse before he shrugs into a black overcoat.

“You coming tonight?” Evan asks.

“Of course. What would life be without parties?”

“Who’s your date?”

I roll my eyes. Long ago I learned that men are the most jealous beings on this planet. “If you must know, Lacie and I are going together.”

He goggles at me. “What?”

“This is 2026, Evan, the gender of my date doesn’t matter.”

“It’s not that. It’s just her.”

“Whatever do you mean?”