Then Gabby. Surrounded by flowers—white, pink, yellow. No orchids, thank god. The hospital was not exactly a place you wanted to see your best friend.
And now Skylar, in a quiet hospital room, with her weird aunt Nora slumped and sleeping in a chair in the lobby. Em considered waking her up to find out what she knew. What she’d seen in Em that day at Skylar’s house. Em harbored a strong suspicion that Nora was connected somehow to the Furies. But the poor woman looked so drained that Em decided to spare her further distress, at least for now. She still wanted to keep the Furies a secret from anyone who didn’t know of them. The risk was far too great.
Skylar lay in the hospital bed; her face was totally bandaged, but her eyes were open, and they looked simultaneously wild and drowsy. She was probably delirious from the pain meds they’d pumped her with. All around her, machines beeped and buzzed in irregular rhythms.
“Skylar? It’s Em,” she said, standing about three feet from Skylar’s metal hospital bed.
“Hiiii . . . ,” Skylar mumbled. It sounded like she was speaking through a mouthful of tissues.
“How are you feeling?” Em asked, taking in the IV tube inserted into Skylar’s arm and the part of Skylar’s head that had been shaved so that the doctors could stitch up a gash on her scalp.
For a second Skylar just stared at Em blankly, and Em wondered if this whole thing was pointless. Was Skylar too out of it to even have a conversation? But then Skylar croaked out, “I—I did something. I did something bad.”
You sure did, Em thought. But what?
“I made my sister Gabby hit her head,” Skylar slurred.
“Your sister? What are you talking about?” Em leaned closer to make sure she didn’t mishear.
“She’s damaged,” Skylar said. “I’m so ashamed. Is this why this happened to me? Is this why I can’t be the queen?”
Em shook her head. She had no idea what Skylar was talking about. Gabby? Did Skylar somehow feel guilty about Gabby’s allergic reaction, like she did? “If you think this is payback, you should consider yourself lucky,” Em said. “Your friend Meg could have done a lot worse.” She waited to see Skylar’s reaction to Meg’s name.
Through the bandages, Em could see Skylar’s eyes narrow. “She told me . . . she told me I would be the queen of the dance. . . . They said it would all happen tonight,” Skylar murmured, and Em’s stomach dropped as she remembered Ty’s words in the nail salon—Spring is my favorite season. An idea began niggling at the back of Em’s mind.
Were the Furies planning on crashing the dance?
She thought of Gabby, who had put so much effort into planning the event, and her friends, who were excited to dress up and gossip about boys and stare at girls in too-short skirts. Normal high school people, doing normal high school things. And JD, and her plan to fix things between them tonight.
Em needed to know what Meg had told Skylar. She needed to know everything, “Skylar . . . ,” she began.
But Skylar interrupted her. “Are you Ty or are you Em?” she asked in her dreamy, drug-induced haze.
“What?” Em froze.
“Sometimes I can’t tell the difference . . . ,” Skylar said, her eyes drifting over Em’s face.
Em shuddered and stood up straight. “You—you think we look alike?”
“Ummmhmmm,” Skylar said, starting to doze off, “both so pretty . . .”
Em remembered how she had thought the same thing when they were grappling in the gravel outside of Benson’s Bar. Their long, wavy brown hair and their tall, lanky bodies. Now that she thought about it . . . she and Ty did look, if not identical, then at least . . . similar. Like they could be from the same family.
The very thought made Em feel like she’d swallowed something too big, or too hot. She watched as Skylar’s head slumped to one side; Skylar was fully gripped now by a doped-up sleep. Em wouldn’t get any more answers from her. Not now, anyway. She slipped out of the room as quietly as she could, hoping to avoid disturbing either Skylar or her aunt.
As she drove home she thought about what Skylar had said. The queen. The dance. It would all happen tonight. The more she turned the words over in her head, the more certain she was that the Furies were planning something that would go down this evening. Something that would affect not only her, not only Skylar, but Ascension as a whole. As Drea had said, the Furies could be plotting revenge against the whole town.
While she’d been determined to make an appearance for her own reasons, this new information made her less sure about whether to risk going to the dance or not. Would it be smart to show up and try to disrupt their plans? Or would it be safer for everyone if she stayed home? Were the Furies really after everyone—or just her?