She circled the room. Her eyes fell on a plaque she hadn’t noticed the other day—an engraved certificate, commending Gabby for her charitable work at the regional food pantry. Then Skylar’s eyes took in the framed photos. Gabby hugging each of her brothers on their graduation days. Gabby and Em, tan and smiling on the beach. Gabby, younger, sandwiched between her parents with her hair in pigtails and her face smeared with chocolate ice cream.
Butterflies began to flap at the bottom of Skylar’s belly. Her purse, which she still had strung over her arm, was starting to feel heavy. She was having second thoughts. Gabby was nice. A good person. It’s wasn’t her fault everyone loved her. Maybe Skylar would just give her the headband and leave it at that.
Bing. A chat message popped up on Gabby’s laptop, which was sitting open on her desk. Skylar sauntered over coolly, keeping one eye fixed on the door in case Gabby emerged from the bathroom. She skimmed the screen, and her heart stopped.
Pierce Travers had just chat-messaged Gabby. Her breath caught in her throat, Skylar leaned down to read the message.
Hey pretty lady. I have a present 2 give u b4 the dance.
Jealousy pounded through her like a flash flood. She felt desperate. Blinded. Disoriented. So Gabby had been leading Pierce on behind her back, just to feed her own damaged ego.
Without thinking, she sat down. Typed back: when??
Should be ready midweek, he responded with a smiley face.
At that moment Skylar resolved that no matter what, Gabby would not get Pierce’s present—whatever it was. This had gone far enough. She had to make her move. She wrote, meet me in the gazebo at 8 pm, Wednesday. She added a wink for good measure.
You got it, he wrote.
And then, mind whirring, she added, but let’s keep it our little secret, okay? IM me at PinkLady13 from now on—my mom is a total control freak and she snoops in my account sometimes . . .
Then, with several frantic clicks, she closed down the chat window and deleted it from the conversation history. She couldn’t have Gabby find out about this. If all went according to plan, Gabby would be out of the picture for a day or two. Skylar would show up on Wednesday night instead of Gabby. She would make Pierce see that he and Skylar were perfect for one another. Gabby would never even have to know that Skylar had gone behind her back.
As the finishing touches of the plan came together in her head, Skylar heard motion from the bathroom. It was now or never. Tingling from head to toe, as though she’d been plunged into a vat of ice water, Skylar moved deliberately from the desk to Gabby’s dresser, where her prized jar of La Mer cream sat next to a bottle of perfume and a shallow bowl of bobby pins.
The room felt almost windy as she unscrewed the cap on the bottle of clam juice. She whipped around. Was that a whisper? There was a prickle up the back of her neck, as though someone was watching her. But she found her hands still moving, as though they were not hers, as though they were possessed. She tipped a few splashes of the juice into the cream. Stirred it around a little with her finger so it blended. Quickly replaced the lid. Shoved the bottle back into her purse and wiped off her finger just as Gabby breezed back into the room, still wrapped in a towel, asking Skylar whether she wanted to join Gabby and Em at a movie.
“Em’s supposed to be here in half an hour or so,” Gabby said, meandering over to her closet. “I gotta get ready.”
“Actually, I just came by to give you the headband,” Skylar said, practically panting with nerves. “My aunt’s probably already waiting outside.”
She had to get out of the room before Gabby went near the cream.
“See you in school,” she shouted as she ran downstairs. She slammed the front door so hard she could have sworn she heard something shatter.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Persephone was down in the world beneath the earth. . . .
Em had shut herself up in the Dungeon all day, trying to do some work on her independent project for English before picking up Gabby for their movie date tonight. Despite two lattes and a regular coffee, she was—shocker!—finding it difficult to concentrate on school with thoughts of banishment rites weaving through her head. She’d been reading all about various sacrifice rituals, but it was only freaking her out. What could she and Drea do? It wasn’t like they were going to kill a baby pig. Or another snake.
And now she’d stumbled on this stuff about Persephone, the beautiful goddess who was kidnapped by Hades. She was tricked into swallowing pomegranate seeds while in his dark netherworld, and as a result, belonged in part to that underworld, where she was forced to dwell for six months of each year for all of eternity.
Em heard Ty’s silvery voice saying, This will bind you to us forever. The coffee between her palms was still piping hot, but suddenly she went cold—What had she done?
Impulsively, she pulled out her cell phone and called Drea. She wouldn’t tell her the exact truth. But she could hint around it. She whirled one of her twin braids around her finger as she waited for Drea to pick up.