There was probably a simple explanation. Maybe Ty hadn’t used all the dye. Maybe she’d taken the rest home with her. Maybe Ty had dyed her hair the same way she did everything else—flawlessly.
Which brought Skylar’s thoughts back around to her mission: to get what she wanted and deserved. All the embarrassing stuff was going to be water under the bridge by tomorrow, when Skylar started selling dance tickets and leveraging her social prowess into social status.
A rush of adrenaline and power ran through her veins as she shut off the bathroom light. It’s working.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Em had swallowed her pride and called Drea several times over the weekend; no answer. She’d even texted Crow: Did Drea get her phone back?
When Crow responded Yes, Em felt even worse. So Drea was deliberately avoiding her. It proved that Drea was still pissed. . . . Or could Drea be in trouble? Maybe there was another reason? Something to do with JD? Or the Furies? Em was getting anxious. Of course she wanted to apologize for freaking out at JD’s, but she also wanted to tell Drea about the creepy house and how Skylar was wearing an orchid and probably knew the Furies. . . .
Despite the fact that their friendship was so new, Drea’s absence gnawed at Em. It reminded her how much they didn’t talk about. It was like there was something big that Drea wasn’t spilling. A secret. Em was becoming increasingly curious about Drea’s connection to the Furies. Why would she be so obsessed with them but not tortured by them in the same way Em was?
Em waited like a stalker outside all of Drea’s afternoon classes, but there was no sign of Drea at school on Monday. On Tuesday, when Drea was still absent, Em ran around to each of her teachers, making up an excuse about Drea’s “mystery illness” and collecting her homework assignments for her. It was the least she could do to prove that she cared.
It also provided an opportunity to spy on JD, who she spotted coming out of his and Drea’s American history class, stuffing papers into his backpack as he walked. She looked at his back as he went down the hallway away from her. Working on his dad’s car was bulking him up—he seemed more muscular than usual. She ached for him. And while she considered asking him if he knew where Drea was, she didn’t want to know if he did.
Em’s anxiety began to skyrocket. Had the Furies gone after Drea? There hadn’t been any sign that Drea had been marked—the opposite, in fact. Drea had always seemed like the hunter, not the hunted. But still . . . people going MIA made Em extremely nervous these days.
At lunch Em sat down at the table intent on continuing her conversation with Skylar, who had become a fixture at their traditional table in the Gazebo—which was almost unheard of for a sophomore.
But Em couldn’t get a word in edgewise. The whole vibe at the table was bizarre. Gabby seemed somewhat dazed and out of sorts, while Skylar was talking a mile a minute to an apparently rapt audience of Fiona, Lauren, Jenna, and the rest of their crew. Skylar barely glanced at Em when she sat down.
“So I’m trying to arrange a predance dinner with the Dusters—VIP only,” Skylar was saying. “Isn’t that the best idea?” The girls squealed.
Em had heard through this morning’s grapevine that Skylar had been the one to come up with the Spring Fling theme. She knew that this turn of events must have stung Gabby’s pride, given that Gabby had talked about struggling to find a theme just a few days ago, as they’d gotten ready for the party in the Haunted Woods. Em kicked herself for not having helped brainstorm. Not that she would have been much help. She could picture it now: How about an insane supernatural witch-beast theme, Gabs?
Gabby turned away from the other girls at the table, who were all babbling excitedly about the dance. “Bt-dubs, I wanted to ask you, were you at the old mall yesterday? I could have sworn I saw you.” Gabby picked at her wrap. Em looked her over, taking in the drooping curl over Gabby’s left ear, the frayed thread over the top button of her cardigan.
“Nope. Wasn’t me,” Em said. “Were you doing some retail therapy or something?”
“I went after the dance committee meeting, to return a dress.” Gabby leaned in and whispered, “It was so much like the dress that Skylar had on the other night. I wouldn’t want her to see me wearing it and think I was copying her or something, you know? Or that I thought she was copying me.”
That was so like Gabby—to be concerned for Skylar’s feelings, and not realize that Skylar was blatantly copying her.
“I called out to you,” Gabby continued. “I figured that since you skipped the committee meeting, maybe you didn’t want me to see you, or something.”
Em winced. Had she really been that bad of a friend recently, that her bff thought she’d blatantly ignore her in public? “I haven’t set foot in any mall—old or new—in months,” Em said, relieved to be speaking a truth for once.