“Course not,” Lilith said, standing up and grabbing her guitar.
It wasn’t just the band Lilith needed to hold together. It was her friendships with Jean and Luis. Unlike Cam, these boys weren’t complicated. They hadn’t taken hold of her heart in dangerous ways. But what they had done—showing her a place where she belonged—mattered to Lilith, and she wasn’t going to give it up. “Let’s do it.”
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Jean said, and powered up his synth.
“Hell yeah!” Luis said, readying his drumsticks.
“Two, three, four,” Lilith counted off, a new confidence stirring inside her as Revenge began to play.
“There you are.” Mrs. Richards flagged Lilith down as she was leaving her locker after school. “I need a favor.” Her glasses were smudged, and she looked frazzled. Lilith knew the teacher had been working overtime with the prom committee, ensuring they were making “green” choices for the dance.
“Sure,” Lilith said. Since she’d apologized to Mrs. Richards and taken her advice about Bruce’s diet, the two of them had been getting along much better.
“Chloe King went home sick this afternoon,” Mrs. Richards said. “I need a student to deliver her homework to her house.”
“I’m not friends with Chloe,” Lilith said. “I don’t even know where she lives. Can’t June or Teresa or the other one do it?”
Mrs. Richards smiled wistfully. “Last-minute prom court meeting! Besides, I thought you were turning over a new leaf.” She pressed a stack of folders into Lilith’s hands. Chloe’s home address was written on a green sticky note on top. “It would really help me out. I hate to see a bright student fall behind.”
So Lilith boarded the bus for the rich kids, which was mostly empty because the upperclassmen who lived in Chloe’s neighborhood all had their own cars.
She watched the street signs as the bus meandered through the fancy neighborhood, dropping kids off at big new houses tucked away behind huge, well-manicured lawns. She watched one freshman boy walk into a house with a For Sale sign planted in its lawn and wondered where his family was moving.
Lilith imagined them packing up their belongings, climbing into a luxury car, and speeding down the open highway, fleeing Crossroads. The fantasy was enough to make her envious. Escape was never far from Lilith’s mind.
Soon they turned onto Maple Lane, and Lilith double-checked Chloe’s address. She rose to get off the bus when it stopped in front of a huge white faux-Tudor McMansion girded by a moat filled with koi.
Of course Chloe lived in a house that looked like this.
When Lilith rang the doorbell, someone buzzed her in and lowered an electric drawbridge over the koi moat.
Across the moat, a housekeeper opened the door to a gleaming marble foyer.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
“I’m here to drop off Chloe’s assignments,” Lilith said, surprised by the way her voice bounced off the walls; the foyer had crazy acoustics. She handed the folders to the housekeeper, eager to jog back to campus, where she was supposed to meet Jean and Luis.
“Is that Lilith?” Chloe’s voice called from somewhere upstairs. “Send her up.”
Before Lilith could argue, the housekeeper ushered her inside and closed the door.
“Shoes,” the housekeeper said, pointing at Lilith’s combat boots and the white marble shoe rack next to the door.
Lilith sighed and unlaced her boots, then kicked them off.
The house smelled like lemons. All the furniture was massive, and everything was decorated in shades of white. A huge white baby grand piano sat on a white alpaca rug in the center of the living room, playing automated Bach.
The housekeeper led Lilith up the white marble stairs. When she deposited Lilith at Chloe’s white bedroom door and handed her back the folders, she raised her eyebrows as if to say, Good luck; she’s in rare form today.
Lilith knocked on the door.
“Come in,” a voice said.
Lilith peered inside the room. Chloe lay on her side, her back to Lilith, facing a white-curtained window. Her bedroom was nothing like Lilith would have expected. In fact, it looked just like the living room: an oversized white four-poster bed, white cashmere throws draped over the bed and the chairs by the window, an expensive crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling.
Chloe’s bedroom made Lilith think of her own room more fondly, with its old twin bed and thrift-store desk, the mismatched lamps her mother had found at a garage sale. She had three Four Horsemen posters, one from each of their most recent albums. She used the space above her desk to tack up lyrics she wanted to find melodies for and quotes by her favorite musicians.