“But—but . . . I’m just as pretty as her,” Skylar said, knowing she sounded desperate and jealous, but unable to stop the words from gushing out. “And I . . . the dance—I thought up all the stuff for the dance. Did you know that? And we’re in the same class, you and I!” She swallowed a massive lump in her throat. “Why are you so obsessed with her? Why is everyone so obsessed with her?” She was near tears now.
Pierce gave her a sad smile. “There’s just something about Gabby,” he said. “She’s a good person. She’s always thinking about other people. She doesn’t have anything to prove. She’s just . . . fun.”
Just fun. A good person. Nothing to prove. Nothing like Skylar, was more like it. In an instant it became clear: She wasn’t anything like Gabby, no matter how much of Gabby’s personality she’d tried to usurp.
Pierce started to walk away. “Wait!” she called after him weakly. He just kept going.
She stood there for a moment, motionless, trying to regain her breath. And then she heard something, a sound simultaneously far away and near. Like a shriek of laughter or a high-pitched creak. Or maybe . . . a footstep? Had Pierce changed his mind? But the sound was behind her. Skylar spun around; by now her eyes were well adjusted to the dark. Something was glinting on the table where Gabby, Em, and their crew usually sat. The popular table. The table directly below the Gazebo’s glassed-in roof, the one where she’d sat for the past few glorious days.
She walked closer. It was a glossy photo with two figures on it. She leaned over to pick it up, but as she got close enough to see it, her heart started drilling in her chest. She staggered backward. No. Impossible.
It was the picture. The picture of her and Lucy that she’d destroyed weeks ago, when she’d first moved to Ascension. The photo she’d torn up. The memory she’d tried to get rid of. It sat in the middle of the table, taped together like an elementary school art project. The hair on the back of Skylar’s neck stood on end. She didn’t dare touch the image. She just stared at it as though it was alive. Like it was going to bite her, or slither up her side.
She was so focused on the picture that she barely heard the faint groaning from up above.
But then the sound got louder, and Skylar knew something was wrong. It was like the sky was moaning. She squinted out into the parking lot. Nothing. She looked out through the door Pierce had walked through. Equally still and silent. But something was coming at her—she could feel it, she could hear it, she could sense it.
The rumbling got louder still, something like a train coming from the distance, until it was whooshing into her ears. All this in a matter of seconds, but still she had time to wonder: Is there going to be an earthquake? And then: It’s like the sound of a bending ice cube tray, only a million times louder.
That’s when she felt the blast of cold air hit her scalp. She looked up with just enough time to see the ceiling collapse into a million deadly pieces under the weight of the snow.
It felt like slow motion; the way the snow mixed with the splintered glass was almost beautiful, like sharp white feathers. It took her breath away. Rooted to the spot, she marveled at their terrible beauty even as the giant shards rained down over her hands and face in a freezing blur. Through the almost deafening roar, she could swear she heard girlish shrieks again—maybe laughter—as her head hit the linoleum floor.
Then the roar, the laughter, became a searing fire of pain.
Then darkness.
ACT THREE
VENGEANCE, OR THE LAST DANCE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
An accident? Bullshit. Em knew better.
They were saying there was something “structurally unsound” about the Gazebo roof, but the whole thing felt off to Em. Why had Skylar been at school so late in the first place? She’d been marked by the Furies—Em was sure of that—and now she’d paid the price. And hadn’t Ty just said Em should watch out for her other friends? Not that Skylar was a friend, but her “accident” seemed all too coincidental.
While everyone else buzzed about what had happened and about the Spring Fling—which, it was decided, would still take place as planned (“The kids really need something positive,” the administration had said)—Em was lost in darker thoughts, wondering how the Furies had lured Skylar to Ascension High in a snowstorm, how they’d tampered with the glass so that it would break right over Skylar’s face. And what she could have done to prevent it, or at least better warn Skylar.
Still, as guilty as she felt, Em was also furious with Skylar for putting herself in this situation, for not listening.
She had to go see Skylar. She had no other choice, even though she was sick to death of hospitals. First Sasha. Thinking of that night still made Em’s skin crawl. Sasha’s dead eyes, her bloody smile . . .