Crow shook his head. He smiled, but his eyes were black, expressionless. “Sorry, sweetheart. You’re too stubborn. Like a mule. You’d try to get in my way.”
“So you have a plan, and you won’t let me help—much less even tell me about it. And I’m just supposed to trust you?” she asked, feeling her voice rise. She wasn’t sure she could, not sure if he could even trust himself.
“Looks that way.” He raised an eyebrow at her. “Believe me, you don’t want to be part of this. You’re in deep enough already.”
“But I do want to be a part of this. It’s my life—and yours. We’re supposed to be here for each other.”
Crow cocked his head, like he was really thinking about it. “Well, all I’ll say is—I’ve gotten nowhere ignoring them. So maybe instead I need to study them,” he said.
“Study them?” she repeated incredulously. “Who? The Furies?”
“Not exactly,” he said. “The visions. I have to let myself listen . . . and give in to them.”
“Are you kidding?” she asked, jerking her hand away from his and sitting back up, a little dizzy. “You’re saying you’re going to surrender to them? Try to get closer? Whose side are you even on?”
“I’m not even going to answer that,” Crow said with a hint of bemused humor in his voice. “You think I’m a Mr. Fury?”
“This isn’t funny to me. And the fact that you can joke about it makes me sick. I’m scared, Crow. And I’m worried about you too.” All she felt was sadness and worry, but her words were coming out so angry. She couldn’t control herself.
“I don’t need a babysitter,” Crow fired back. “And I sure as hell don’t find this funny either.” She felt him drifting back into the abyss.
“I know,” she said, trying to reel him back in. But it was too late. He was on his feet, leaving wet footprints on the warm rocks in his wake. Already, she regretted her reaction. But she was terrified by what he wanted to do. Submit to his visions? Give in to the darkness? It was too dangerous, too awful to consider. ?And yet, a chord was struck deep within Em. Would Crow’s strategy work for her, too? If she played Ty’s game, did she stand a better chance of winning?
Impossible. She’d lost so much of her old self already—she couldn’t risk letting go of the last threads holding her to this life.
? ? ?
On her drive home from Devil’s Run, Em got a text from Gabby: Excited for the movie—glad you called this morning. See you in a few!
Her stomach plunged all the way down through her toes.
She hadn’t called Gabby this morning. She wasn’t going to meet Gabby at the movies.
But she had a feeling she knew who had, and who was.
Instead of going home, as she had intended to do, Em headed straight to the theater. Rage began to overcome her. Ty was impersonating her—that much was clear. The dyed hair. And now this. She gunned the gas petal with her foot and felt the car groan in response. She kept reminding herself to keep her eyes on the road. It had to be the work of ?Ty. But why? What was she hoping to achieve?
The only rom-com currently playing—the only movie Gabby would agree to see—was in Theater Five. Em paid for a ticket and stalked across the lobby, deliberately avoiding looking at the new girl working the concession stand—the girl who’d taken Drea’s place. Only a few short months ago, she’d come to the movies with JD . . . sitting in the front row, like always, craning their necks up to the screen and sharing popcorn out of a jumbo-size bag. . . .
It seemed like a memory from someone else’s life.
She made her way past the EMPLOYEES ONLY velvet rope. There was no way she could just barge right into the theater itself—if Gabby saw her and Ty together, she’d be completely confused. No, Em needed to figure out a way to get Ty out of there, to confront her privately.
She hated to believe that Gabby, her best friend in the world, would ever confuse Ty for Em. Not up close, anyway. But if Ty met her in the darkness of the theater, it might be possible. . . . And what other explanation was there? Unless Em had made the plans and somehow forgotten. It seemed anything was possible these days, including the fact that she might be completely going crazy.
Perhaps that was all Ty was after—threading her way deeper into Em’s life, confusing her, spinning different realities.
As Em moved up the back stairs, she felt like she was coasting on her anger. She was invincible, as though a bubble of protection had formed around her—as though, like a character in one of JD’s video games, she was suddenly infused by a volcanic force, and could do anything.
She pushed open a door that said DO NOT ENTER. The projection booth was tiny and dark and the guy running it was small and pimply. He whipped around, clearly shocked.
“Hi,” she whispered.