“I know he’d hate to see you give a lap dance to some other guy!”
Zack shook his head in seething pique. “Hannah, you’re way off base and way out of line.”
“Well then let me be the second one to call you clueless. I swear to God, there isn’t a single man in this group who knows a single thing about women.”
“Look, you’re angry at me,” Amanda said. “Don’t take it out on him.”
Hannah laughed bitterly. “Oh, you just love being noble. The great and noble Amanda Given. Oops. Sorry. I meant Amanda Ambridge. Hey, Zack, I hope you’re not intent on having her take your name. She’ll just drop it the minute you die. That’s how noble she is.”
Amanda gritted her teeth. Her eyes filled with tears. “You sad little child . . .”
“Yeah, the child. Your other favorite meme. You just love being better than me.”
“Well, you make it so easy!”
“Oh, go to hell!”
“You go to hell! We did this for you! We took this whole week so you could feel better! Of course you’d do everything in your power to stay miserable! That’s all you know how to do!”
“Shut up!”
Theo reached for her. “Hannah, don’t—”
She turned to him, red-faced. “You do not say a word to me. You do not say a word!”
Amanda eyed the two of them with dark revelation. She burst into a caustic chuckle.
“Oh, I get it now. I see why you’re so pissed.”
“Shut up! You don’t know a thing!”
“And you call me the pathetic one? Amazing. You never learn.”
Theo and Zack both yelled as Hannah hurled a second glass. This one hit Amanda in the face.
—
Mia gathered her bags from her room, her stomach churning with bitter acids. For all she knew, this latest fight would plague them for months. Worse, it could split them up forever. What would happen then? Who’d go with who?
As she adjusted her bedspread, she noticed a rolled-up note. She read it with growing fear, then fled back to the living room.
—
The flute glass cracked in two against Amanda’s forehead, leaving a pair of gashes along her brow. She touched her new wounds, then stared in trembling rage at the blood on her fingers.
Hannah covered her mouth in white-eyed horror. “Oh my God . . .”
Zack made a furious beeline for Hannah. “What the hell’s wrong with you?!”
The cartoonist could suddenly feel every molecule in Hannah’s body. It scared him to think that he could rift her dead with a single thought. Scarier still, a part of him wanted to.
Mia ran to the door. “Zack, stop! The drinks were drugged! You’re all drugged!”
Though her future self hadn’t elaborated, the chemical that affected them was called pergnesticin. It was initially developed as a mood enhancer, as it did a fine job turning good feelings into great ones. Unfortunately, it also had a tendency to turn bad moods into violence. The drug was illegal in the United States but remained wildly popular as contraband. In dermal patch form, it was appropriately known as a leopard spot.
Theo could suddenly see the shape of the problem ahead. He knew now that Evan wasn’t content to return a middle-finger gesture at Hannah. He was going to give her the whole hand.
“Hannah, you need to get out of here . . .”
“I’m sorry, Amanda! I didn’t mean to do that!”
The widow’s world fell hot and silent as chemical rage overtook her. There was no sister, nurse, or Christian inside her anymore. There was only the tempis.
The whiteness exploded from her left palm, a spray of solid force that toppled everything in its path. A wooden chair fell while another snapped to pieces. The dining table flipped over, spilling drinks and dishes everywhere. By the time the tempis reached the other end of the balcony, it took form as a six-foot hand. It shoved away the two men who had the unfortunate luck of standing near Hannah. Theo toppled to the right, colliding painfully with the hot tub. Zack flew to the left, flipping over the side of the balcony railing. He caught a loose hold of the edge.
The tempic palm barreled into Hannah, shoving her six feet through the air. Amanda retracted her hand in time to see Hannah crack her head against the far brick wall. She spilled to the floor in a lifeless heap.
David lunged toward the railing, rushing to grab Zack before he lost his grip. Between the blood in her eyes and the many alarms in her head, Amanda processed the simple but devastating notion that the boy wouldn’t make it in time.
Indeed, just inches before David could reach him, Zack’s fingers lost their hold. He dropped from the side of Tower Five.
—
Ten days ago, as he floated over Kansas in a giant teacup, Zack wondered what it would be like to plummet to his death. He debated how much time his mind would give him to process the sad and messy end of his tale.