It worked. Holy shit! It worked! Score another one for no plans, Martinez.
I released the wires as if they were on fire and thrust myself forward, feeling for the lock. I found it, swiveled it upward, and pushed the door open just a fraction. There were about twenty people in the room, most of them standing at the bar, and the ones that weren’t were so wrapped up in the drama of a power outage, there was no way they would see me. Not if I moved fast.
So I moved fast. I didn’t even bother to shut the door behind me. I spilled out onto the carpet, got to my feet, and booked it to the stairwell.
THE REST OF the ship still had power, and word hadn’t yet reached other decks about the outage upstairs. The main deck was wall-to-wall people, some of whom I recognized from Pear Magic, all dressed in fancy gowns and expensive-looking suits. All drinking and talking over one another. It wouldn’t be long before someone would start investigating what was wrong on the upper deck, and then they would find the open storage door and the loose wires inside. I had only a minute or two to make sure the rest of the ship was in the dark.
I raced downstairs, no longer worrying about the sounds of my footsteps. Nobody was on these stairs—they weren’t fabulous enough. It would be impossible to Make an Entrance on a back staircase. I plunged into the engine room of the lower deck and looked around. Nobody here, either. The circuit breaker box was there, though. It was time to take care of that.
I scurried into the storage room next door and looked around until I found a toolbox. Inside were the usual—screwdrivers, wrenches, nails, a hammer. I picked up the hammer and went back into the engine room.
My skin buzzed in silver squiggles. Bubbling and burbling yellows and oranges burst up into rusty splats. Beneath it all was a field of bumpy gray and black. I had to take a few deep breaths to stop the kaleidoscope from spinning.
As soon as I felt stable, I threw open the circuit box and smashed it with the hammer. The first hit sent a jolt of neon green up my arms, but I didn’t let that stop me. I swung again and again, even after I was bathed in darkness, pieces of plastic flying around me and skittering across the floor.
Satisfied, I dropped the hammer and walked out.
I HAD GONE to school with overdramatic rich girls long enough to know what kind of mayhem was going to ensue. People would scream in fear—dainty little squeals that they would later pretend to be embarrassed about. They would cluster together, all talking over one another. They would suppose this and suppose that, and nobody would have the first clue what to do, because there was always someone else hired to know how to take care of these kinds of things. I remembered thinking during one of our many fire-alarm pranks that I would be the only person to survive if there was actually an emergency at our school. The rest of them would die, in the most lovely, photogenic poses they could think of.
It wasn’t much different on a dark ship full of actors in the middle of the ocean.
For the first time, I was able to waltz right through the main deck without turning a single head. I wound my way through, listening to the ridiculous theories and complaints and the occasional couple who didn’t seem to really even notice anything was going on. I paused every time I came across anyone who even remotely resembled Luna, the boiling oranges and yellows licked ragemonster and drained into a sea of ink, until I realized it wasn’t her. Also, no Peter Fairchild, who would make a very satisfactory runner-up in the Who Becomes Nikki’s Punching Bag First contest.
I scoured the entire dance floor, the packed living room area, the bar. I pushed my way outside, where the people seemed much more chill about the power outage. I heard rumors of someone named Tony checking out the breaker to see what had happened. The lights should be on soon, the consensus outside seemed to be. The party would go back to full swing.
I sank onto a lounge chair in a shadowy corner and studied each face, each voice on the deck. No Luna. No Peter.
Frustrated, I pulled out my phone and checked for word from Chris. Still nothing. I shouldn’t have checked—now my nerves were out of control, the slate sliding over me, dampening the fire colors.
I got up and went back inside, taking everything more slowly this time, staying on the fringe of the crowd but paying close attention to each person. I continued to search in a second living room next door, where people were quivering on couches like this was the Titanic and the whole damn thing was going down. Beyond that, I passed through a less formal bar area—nearly empty, save for an entwined couple making full use of the dark—and into a quiet hallway.
More cabins. I hadn’t had the chance to explore these earlier because of the housekeeper. A quick look in the first one told me it belonged to Peter Fairchild. Men’s shoes lined the floor at the end of the bed. A jacket hung from the closet door. Colognes and aftershaves were scattered atop the dressing table. I took a quick tour of the room, looking for anything that might help me bust him, but of course I found nothing.
I peeked in another room; it was empty.
But there was a third room at the end of the hallway, and I heard voices coming from it. I edged along the wall and positioned myself just outside the door, near a hallway bathroom, so I could see inside.
A man and a girl. The girl crying, the man bent over her, gently murmuring, consoling her. Even from the back, I could tell it was Peter Fairchild, his white-blond hair nearly glowing in the dark. My skin crawled and I felt a tingle go up my spine. Finally, I had found him.
He shifted position, and I could see the brown wavy hair of Celeste Day peeking out from the side. But there was something off about her. She was shorter than she’d originally appeared at Pear Magic. And there was something about her cry. Something familiar. I inched closer so I could hear them.
“This was supposed to be my big night,” she whimpered. She blotted her eyelashes—carefully, carefully, just the lashes—with a tissue.
“And it still will be,” Peter assured her.
“The tabloids are here,” she said. “They’re supposed to be here to cover me. To make me officially part of the scene.” Her cry had gone angrier, and the familiarity deepened.
“And they still will.”
“How can they?” she seethed. “There are no lights on this piece-of-shit boat. How is anyone supposed to see me? How is anyone supposed to appreciate me and all that I’ve done?”
He put his hand on her arm, a calming, almost sweet gesture. “They will. The lights will come on and everyone will see you, Luna. I promise.”
“Don’t call me that,” she growled.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s a habit, I’ve told you. I will always see my little girl under that face, even if you get a million surgeries.” He ran a thumb down her cheek. “Even if you change your hair a hundred times or buy a hundred colors of contacts. You’re beautiful, just like your mother. Much prettier than that silly little starlet was, Luna.”
She slapped his hand away. “I am not Luna. I am Celeste. Why can’t you get it through your thick skull that I am Celeste? Not a silly little starlet. I am a star. Luna was a nobody. Luna is dead. I am not a nobody. I will not let you make me a nobody again.”
Realization washed over me like a tidal wave, and I swam in a gray and black sea. Of course. That was why her cry was familiar, why her voice was familiar. She wasn’t disguising it because she thought they were alone. But now I could see it. In her movements. In her posture. In her pitiless crocodile eyes. I sagged against the wall.
“You were never a nobody,” Peter was saying, but I couldn’t pay attention to his words, my mind was racing so hard.
I heard footsteps coming up the stairs and pressed myself into the shadows of the restroom.