Skylar let her eyes close while the girl began unhooking and unplugging various machines and IVs.
“How . . . how did you get out?” she murmured, listening as the machines stopped whirring one by one. The rehab facility was almost like an asylum—once admitted, patients were unlikely to leave. How had Lucy found her here? She grew tired trying to unscramble the mixed signals in her brain.
“They let me out,” the girl responded brightly. “I wanted to come and see my baby sister.”
If they’d let her out, she had to be fixed, right? “Then you’re all better?” She looked at Lucy’s face imploringly.
“All better, Sky-Sky,” the girl singsonged in response, smiling a smile that was even more perfect than Skylar remembered. The words caused another wave of relief and euphoria to wash over her. “Now come on. I’ll help you get ready once we get you out of here.”
She was better. Lucy was better. She’d be forgiven after all. With hope in her heart, Skylar swung her legs over the side of the hospital bed and stood up shakily, still swinging between dream and wakefulness. Slipping quietly through the darkened halls, miraculously undetected by the few doctors and nurses they passed, Skylar followed her magically healed sister out of the hospital, still in her thin blue-green gown and bare feet, with bandages concealing her face.
They were going to the dance.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Em got ready in a matter of minutes. She grabbed a short, flowy white dress from her closet—she’d worn it only once, to a party at Gabby’s country club last summer—and a lavender shawl. On her feet, silvery flats. She was flushed with nerves and anxiety; it barely registered that this outfit might be more appropriate for a summer celebration than a winter dance. But with her hair pulled up into a tight dancer’s bun, silver strands dangling from her ears, and a slick of berry-stain gloss across her lips—all this done on autopilot—she could see, with a quick look in the mirror on her way out the door, that she looked okay. Pretty, even. It didn’t matter, anyway. She wasn’t going to make a fashion statement. She was going to stop the Furies. She was going to make things right, to find Drea, to put an end to this cycle of hurt and revenge.
Hastily she transferred her things from her school bag to a simpler, smaller silver purse, noticing in the process that she had several missed calls on her cell phone from Crow. She hadn’t spoken to him in a few days—not since their strained interaction at the Dungeon—and she felt a twinge of guilt. Sure, he could be an asshole, but he was also genuine. Weirdly, even though she hardly knew him, she felt like she could trust him. What was it he’d said? Something about just wanting to make sure she was okay . . . ? She was curious about the rest of his mysterious revelation.
But it wasn’t Crow who she needed right now. It was JD. Her love.
She shoved the phone into her purse, vowing to call Crow tomorrow once all this was over. If she hurried, she could catch the last half of the dance.
? ? ?
Screeching into an illegal parking spot outside the gym, Em spotted Mr. Shields, a senior adviser and a government teacher, working the door. Shit. Em realized that in the chaos of the last few weeks, she hadn’t bought a ticket. Ascension admin insisted that students buy tickets in advance in order to be admitted to school dances. Something to do with some drunken dance crashers from Trinity a few years back. She considered trying to sneak in; maybe she could go around the back? Sometimes smokers propped the door open. . . .
Shields was busy lecturing a freshman dance committee volunteer about keeping watch on the door, which was being held open by a garbage can.
Just as Em was about to make a run for it, Shields swung his face over in her direction. With his arms crossed over his barrel chest and a frown on his face, he looked like an actual bouncer. But as soon as she approached him, it was like he melted, or something. Like he was under a spell.
“Mr. Shields?” Em gave him her sweetest smile. “I think I forgot to bring my ticket, or lost it. . . .” She craned her neck, trying to see inside.
He looked at her distantly, as though seeing her through a fog. “Oh . . . that’s fine, Emily. Go ahead.”
She raised her eyebrows. That was easier than she’d expected.
A maze of mirrors had been set up throughout the dance floor, sheets of sheer fabric were suspended sporadically from the ceiling, and the gym was full of smoke from a fog machine. The air smelled overwhelmingly sweet, a combination of the chemicals in the fake fog and the Axe body spray used by most Ascension boys.