Echo Soul Seekers

forty

Daire

“What’s this?” I pause just shy of the entrance. Peering down the alleyway at a throng of people standing before a wall plastered with pictures, flickering tapered candles clutched in their hands.

“Candlelight vigil for the missing.” Lita chases the words with a groan. “As if this town isn’t depressing enough.”

I glance among the photos, recognizing many of the faces from Cade’s bogus job fair, as Lita steers Xotichl and me away from the crowd and inside the club. Easing into her usual smiling, waving, air-kissing routine, she turns to us and in a mocking voice says, “Hello-hello! Kiss-kiss! Wave-wave!” She frowns and shakes her head. “What am I—the freaking welcome wagon?” Spying Jacy and Crickett waiting in the usual place, she purposely veers the opposite way. “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t keep it going. I’m so freaking sick of this scene that for the first time ever, I’m actually considering early retirement. If Phyre’s so eager to replace me, let her. She can be the new queen, for all I care.”

“You sure you want to give up the crown?” Xotichl teases. “Without so much as a fight?”

“Being this popular is a total energy suck.” Lita sighs. “You have no idea. I have literally known these people all of my life, yet I’m still expected to act overjoyed whenever I see them. If we could just get some more new students at Milagro—ones that aren’t girls—I might reconsider. But look at them…” She motions toward a group of boys sharing the same table as Crickett and Jacy. “I’ve kissed every one of those dorks, and trust me when I say they got way more out of it than I did.” She makes a face, turning to me as she adds, “If you go to LA to visit Jennika, you have to promise to take me with you. Seriously. I’ll curl up in your carry-on—I’m so not joking. Think of it as a rescue mission. Only you’ll be rescuing me from the very real risk of dying of boredom.”

I try to picture Lita in LA, deciding she’d probably like it so much I’d end up returning to Enchantment without her.

“We can spend our days shopping and going to the beach, and at night you can take me to all the celebrity hot spots. How does that sound?”

“Better in your head than in reality,” I say, my gaze drifting, on the lookout for Cade but catching a glimpse of Dace instead. And while I’m happy to see him up and about, the fact that he’s here doesn’t bode well for my plans. Now more than ever, I need to get to Cade before Dace can make good on the scheme he hinted at.

I force myself to turn away and focus on my friends, knowing better than to keep my attention on Dace. Though it’s only a moment later when Lita taps my shoulder and says, “Uh, maybe you should go break up that party. I trust that girl about as far as I can fling her.”

She gestures toward the place where Dace stood by himself just a few seconds earlier, only now Phyre is with him. Inching toward him. Crowding his space. Not seeming to notice or care how he leans away, purposely sways from her reach. And while part of me longs to march right over and demand to know what she’s up to, the other part, the smarter part, stays rooted in place.

“Seriously.” Lita nudges me, a little harder this time. “Aren’t you going to do something to stop her from stealing your man?” She shoots me a look of outrage. “Why are you acting so passive? I don’t get it. It seems so unlike you.”

I’m just about to respond, when Xotichl speaks for me. “You can’t steal another person, Lita. They either go willingly or they don’t. And if they do go willingly, then good riddance—you’re better off without them.”

Lita’s eyes narrow, weighing Xotichl’s words as she fiddles with her Marilyn piercing, while I force myself to look anywhere but at Dace. Whatever he and Phyre are discussing is none of my business.

“Okay,” Lita says. “Even if Xotichl’s right—and I fully and reluctantly admit that she is—there’s no doubt Phyre is poaching. And I think she needs to know that you’re totally on to her and that it’s neither appreciated nor cool. It’s a tough world out there, and us girls need to stick together. We’ve got to quit with the backstabbing, bitching, and competing for boys as though they’re some kind of grand freaking prize.”

“You’ve come a long way,” I quip, remembering how poorly she treated me on my first day of school.

“Yes, I have.” She shoots me a tight-lipped grin. “And just so you know, if you don’t march yourself over to Ms. Phyre Youngblood and repeat everything I just said—I’ll happily do it for you.”

I shake my head, allow my gaze to settle on Dace for a moment. Long enough to glean a bit of his warmth, before I look away and say, “Things are complicated with Dace…”

“They’re taking a little break,” Xotichl cuts in, supplying a truth that’s too painful for me to admit.

“What? Exactly when did this happen? Are you saying we’re both single now? Does that mean I’m competing against you?” Lita squints, trying to decide how she feels about that.

“Competing for what?” Xotichl says. “You just said girls have to stop competing for boys. You also said there’s not a single interesting boy in this town.”

“True.” Lita turns to face Xotichl. “And I meant every word of it. What can I say? Sometimes there’s a bit of a delay in putting my words into practice. Besides, the whole thing’s moot. You snagged the only good guy to be had in these parts. Where is Auden, by the way?”

Xotichl tilts her head to the side. “He just arrived.”

Lita and I look toward the door, where, sure enough, Auden stands, scoping the room, searching for Xotichl.

“How do you do that? How does she do that?” Lita glances between us, but I just shrug in response. I’m too busy forcing myself not to obsess over Dace.

“I’m here to collect,” Auden says, working his way toward Xotichl. “Unless something drastic happens in the next few hours, the most we can hope for is a wet Christmas, not a white Christmas.”

“Oh, ye of little faith.” Xotichl grins. “Don’t you know it ain’t over ’til the fat lady sings and the white stuff drifts from the sky?”

I look at them. Hardly able to believe I’d been so busy trying to find answers in the codex, trying to rearrange the prophecy in my head and come up with some kind of plan, that I forgot about the snow.

Forgot about the one thing that’s still—maybe—within my realm of control.

“I’ll be back!” I turn away from my friends.

“Where you going?” Lita calls, as Xotichl’s face creases with worry.

“I’m going to give Xotichl her white Christmas.” I speed toward the exit, leaving Lita, Xotichl, and Auden staring after me.