It’s so weird to think that most of these people in here aren’t really people at all. Like, what’s this girl? A pixie? Her eyes seem teal, though, and her skin is sort of sparkly.
My babysitter, Freya, settles in beside me and leans against the wall. She shoots a sneer at the girl next to me. “Wow, the dregs are out tonight.”
Lollipop Girl tips her head in an endearing way. “And apparently so are the petri dishes,” she says in a giddy voice. “How is the bottom-feeding Shade Brigade these days?”
Freya looks like she’s about to scratch off Lollipop Girl’s face.
I clear my throat and try to divert her attention. I consider asking if she knows that the lead actor in that new superhero movie is drinking a cosmo at the bar, but I decide to focus my distraction on her super-red hair instead, since she seemed pretty obsessed with mine. “Hey, so, can you give me some tips on—”
Freya shoves me aside and gets in the other girl’s face. “You seem to be forgetting last solstice, little thief. We have video. You and your pet male amoeba are so going viral, selkie.” She sneers.
“Sure, Aelia clone. Whatever.” She tilts her head. “I hear you failed Cast finals, poor baby. Sucks not having a mind of your own.” She rubs her fingers together in front of Freya’s face, then flicks.
Small drops of water sprinkle Freya’s cheeks and forehead. She doesn’t seem to know what to say. She just blinks and makes weird noises as her mouth moves.
As much as I’m enjoying watching Lollipop Girl make Freya squirm, I decide to take the opportunity to find some sorely needed space.
I walk farther down a hall, away from the main room and the dance floor that’s beginning to fill up. Eventually, I pause in a corner. It’s just me and a tangled couple who are sucking face while leaning against the wall. Both have lit cigarettes between their fingers.
They don’t seem to know or care that I’m here. Which is nice. But the show they’re putting on, groping with their cig-free hands, isn’t super enjoyable. The craving for my own cigarette bubbles up as the trails of smoke slink around me, and I kick my traitorous brain when an ache follows; I miss Ziggy so much my chest hurts. How pathetic. I can’t believe I let my guard down with anyone. I should’ve known better.
I push the fake friendship out of my mind and head for the “Exit” sign.
The door swings open, and I take in a lungful of fresh air.
Scratch that, I take in a lungful of alley air. The rot and smog hit me, and I cough and cover my nose, surprised at how strong the smell is. The pounding music is a low drone in the background now, and the temperature is less smothering without all the bodies. It’s a huge relief to be away from the otherweirdly.
I step over an oily puddle and pause once I get to a spot where I can see the opening of the alley. I search the street, watching the cars pass. People walk by, laughing and twisted up in each other, totally oblivious to what’s inside the building they’re passing. I wish I was oblivious.
Maybe I should just walk away from this. I could run from these freaks right now, if I wanted to.
But I . . . I can’t run from myself. No matter how far away I get from Aelia or Faelan or any of this, I’ll still have this thing inside me. This thing that starts fires, a thing that can burn with a touch. Or kill. If I left, who knows what it might do. I have no idea how to control it.
I linger in the shadows, my stomach churning as I move to the wall and lean on a drainpipe. I’m completely stuck.
Out of the corner of my eye I spot a dark shape at the other end of the alley, and an odd sound, like water moving, slinks through the air.
The back of my neck prickles, a chill sliding down my spine.
But when I turn, I can’t see anything.
I need to calm down. I’m just on edge. My sanity’s been through a paper shredder the last twenty-four hours. I try to let the traffic humming in the background calm me, like the sound of the tide, as I focus on the light from a billboard reflecting in marbled blue and pink on the surface of an oily puddle beside my foot.
My God, these heels I’m wearing are ridiculous. Sequined, Aelia? Really? They probably cost more than the average person makes in a week.
A rustle of feathers comes from above, and I look up, spotting a small shadow flying overhead from one building to the other. Then the strange water sounds come again, like a slurp, echoing down the alley.
My gaze shifts quickly back to the darker shadows, tingles sliding up my legs as I step out and search the shapes around me. It’s probably just a rat—
It comes again. An odd slush and sloop. Louder. Closer.
Movement catches my eye again. And I see it, a shadow on the wall across the alley, shifting, sliding upward like a snake slinking from its coil, while the sound of something fighting to emerge from a drain fills the air.
My pulse jumps as I watch the dark shape glide across the wall.
I stumble sideways, pressing into the bricks at my back as the ground under me tilts.
And then I realize. The shadow is from something coming out of the ground.
Beside me.
Ice fills my veins as I look down at the puddle.
But what I see doesn’t make sense: a long tentacle of oily water is sliding up, like gravity is reversing in just that spot. Swirls of light reflect off the surface as it stretches out. But, no—I can’t be seeing it right. Because it’s impossible.
Suddenly the tentacle shifts, bending sideways, the tip growing claws, and a second tentacle emerges beside it. Both become arms. The sucking grows louder. The talons dig into the asphalt with a crunch as a skeletal face surfaces, a writhing body pulling free of an unseen trap.
I quake, rooted to the spot only a few feet away, watching a dark creature take shape, dripping oily water from its body: a hooded figure, black as pitch, bone thin, with overlong limbs.
The slurping shifts into a moan, and I realize the puddle down the alley is moving too, more shapes climbing from the water.
“Child,” comes a low growl. “Fire child.”
I stumble back, tripping over a pipe sticking out of the wall. My butt hits the ground, and I scramble along the asphalt to get away, my palms scraping against it. The black ooze creature breaks free of the puddle and crawls toward me, its eyes vacant, two silver voids ready to swallow me.
A claw reaches out and grabs for my ankle. “Mine,” the creature moans.
I kick with a scream, losing one of my shoes. A smear of goop stains the thousand-dollar heel.
The thing hisses in rage, mouth agape, revealing dripping fangs.
Every nerve in my body lights, and I lurch to my feet, stumbling toward the mouth of the alley, focused on the streetlights ahead and the cars buzzing past. Safety.
Something bursts into my path, wings flapping wildly, screeching at me, forcing me back into the shadows again. A raven. It caws and beats at the air between me and the road. But as I turn to get away, it flies past and dives for the oily creature.