Eternity (6 page)

“JD has a total crush on Em,” Melissa blurted out.

JD stared at her. “I give up with you, Melissa. You’re worse than
Gossip Girl
.”

“Sorry,” she said, not sounding very sorry at all. “But it’s true, isn’t it?”

Fortunately, Ali only laughed. “Well, if you like Em, you’ll have to meet my cousin Ty,” Ali said as she walked toward the Founts’ front door.

“Ali, wait,” Melissa called out. “When are you going to show Jenny and me those drills, the ones for high kicks?”

JD rolled his eyes. “You wanna talk about crushes? I think you have one on Ali.” He ducked to dodge the pillow that Melissa lobbed in his direction.

“Oh, don’t worry, you can’t get rid of me that easy,” Ali said musically as she sailed out the door. “You’ll see me really soon—that’s a promise. And I
never
break my promises.”

The house felt eerily quiet with Ali gone. JD stood there for a moment, thinking of what to do next. It was weird—Ali was clearly very sweet, but she’d left him somehow feeling sour.

“Is that Ali’s glove?” Melissa asked, pointing at a bright red leather glove on the floor.

JD picked it up and ran outside, strangely grateful for the excuse to get some fresh air. To thank Ali again, too, and try to
shake off the bad feeling he had. But outside, he found that Ali had already disappeared.

Had Ali brought a car here? He didn’t remember seeing one when he pulled up, but then he’d been stressed out and worried about Mel, so maybe he just hadn’t noticed.

He looked at the glove still in his hand—it was kind of old-fashioned. Who wore driving gloves anymore? He stood on the porch another moment, inhaling the wet smell of new growth. The sky was navy, and spring peepers were chirping somewhere in the woods. New life. That was what Ascension needed.

He turned to go back inside, and as he did, he instinctively looked up to Em’s window to see if she was home. Her lights were out. Her windows were dark. No one was home.

Crow’s obsession with music extended to an active online presence—where he shared his favorite music and tirelessly promoted his band, The Slump. Plastered all over his Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr was news about everything band related, from the latest numbers hitting iTunes to tour info and recordings of gigs. He even had his own YouTube channel with an extensive following, where he posted videos of covers and his own songs.

What was supposed to take two minutes took half an hour. Em’s one goal was to find out where Crow would be on Monday night; she needed to talk to him about what had happened in the gym earlier. Yet she felt compelled to watch video after video of him. His voice was fantastic and he played just about every instrument there was: piano, ukulele, mandolin. The list went on.

Em had watched a series of posts made over the last month, but she’d noticed a trend that disturbed her. Crow’s earlier videos had been engaging, funny, and even a little bit flirtatious—but in recent posts he seemed careless and sometimes incoherent. His voice seemed to have gotten grittier and lower. More tortured. But it was still beautiful. It still got her every time she heard it.

“I’m trying something new,” he said into the camera in this latest video, smiling breezily as he held up a harmonica. “Because I’m drunk and tired and pissed off . . . and when you play a harmonica in a minor key? It can sound like all those things. . . . ”

He took a swig out of a pint glass. “And don’t worry, moms and dads—this is apple juice.” He smiled, big and plastic, then went on to hum a melody and stomp out a beat. Despite the grainy recording, it moved her. When Crow blew into the metal harmonica, the notes seemed to bend and expand. It was bluesy and haunting—but just thirty seconds into the video, the music stopped abruptly.

“This is shit!” Crow yelled suddenly—then threw his harmonica at the camera, which fell to the floor and ended the video. The whole thing was bizarre. Others could write it off as the outburst of a moody rock star, but Em felt it was something else entirely. Knew it, in fact, because she felt the same way—the hopeless frustration, the feeling of being deeply misunderstood . . .

She signed off, realizing that she was borderline stalking him.
Plus she’d found out what she needed already: His next gig was tonight at the Armory, a newish, all-ages club in Biddeford, about twenty minutes up the highway from Ascension.

Which is how Em decided where
she’d
be that night. Who knows if she’d get ahold of him otherwise? He had this irritating pattern of never having his phone on when she called. She remembered he always used to answer for Drea, and wondered if he did this on purpose to torture Em. Maybe after climbing in her window last week and telling her she was becoming a Fury, he’d had second thoughts about wanting to hang out with her. It would be just like him to offer help one minute and then avoid her the next.

Or maybe he regretted their kiss that day in his truck.

Or maybe he just spent a lot of time rehearsing with his band.

But he was one of the only ones who knew anything about the Furies, and she needed to tell him that she was starting to fear that Drea was right. Em was turning, slowly. She was still trying to explain away Drea’s wild ideas. Drea had been obsessed with the Furies, blaming them for the death of her mom and the subsequent collapse of her family—her dad was a drinker, and their house stayed upright only because she was there to make sure it didn’t fall down on top of them. It was very possible that her need to destroy the Furies had just gone a little too far. Em totally got that. Thinking about the Furies for too long would
drive anyone insane. You might start to think they were following you. Like predators stalking their prey . . .

But then again, the signs were there, and they were becoming impossible to ignore.

The heat. Her unnatural speed and strength.

Those seeds.

If only she hadn’t swallowed those five seeds, binding her to the Furies forever . . .

But of course, if she hadn’t swallowed the seeds, then JD would still be in danger. Or worse, dead.

She didn’t know who, or what, to believe.

Her first day back at school had been harder—much harder—than she’d anticipated. Now she was feeling ragged and raw, like any little thing could set her off into screaming. She felt like she might snap in two. She was still on somewhat restricted driving rules, and anyway, she wasn’t sure she was up for getting behind the wheel just yet. So she would have to ask her mother for a ride to Crow’ s concert.

As she padded down the carpeted stairs, she reminded herself that Crow had always seemed decent and honest—sometimes too honest—from the first days she’d spent with him.

Either way, based on what she’d promised the Furies, there was practically no one she could talk to about this. He was one of her only potential allies.  And he
seemed
to know more than he let on. Meeting him on his own territory? It had to be worth a try.

Thankfully, her mother was thrilled that Em actually wanted to leave the house after so many days of hiding in her bed, and eagerly agreed to drive her out that night, making Em promise a million times to call if she couldn’t get a ride back home. “I’ll come get you, no matter how late it is, okay, honey?”

Em hugged her mom, assuring her she’d be fine, and got out of the car.

“Em?” Her mom called her back.

She turned and ducked into the open passenger-side window. “Yeah, Mom?”

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Her mother looked older then, grasping the steering wheel with thin hands. “I feel like I’m losing you.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Em said firmly. “And being here tonight? It’s what I need.”

Her mom offered a tight smile. “I’m trusting you, Em. Call if you need to.”

As she watched her mom’s car disappear around a bend, Em readied herself to talk to Crow. She wasn’t going to let him pull his sleepy-eyed caginess on her, not tonight. She wanted
answers
. How much did he know? If he’d been lying to her before, she was going to find out the truth now. If this was all head games, it needed to end.

And if it was something more, well . . . she’d find a way to make it stop. Somehow.

The chilly spring air felt great against Em’s always-burning skin and it fueled her forward as she pushed open the heavy wooden door and walked into the Armory. She was on a mission.

The club’s crazy architecture fit right into her mood—dark, gothic, dramatic—and the music from The Slump, who were already midset when she arrived, wrapped around her like a warm cloak. The place was really an old church that had been repurposed into a music venue; pews still served as seating around the downstairs stage (what used to be the altar), and a long mahogany bar ran the length of one entire side wall, lit by ornate iron sconces. A spiral staircase led from the foyer to a velvet-draped balcony level, where dark corners and metal poles clashed with the piety depicted on the stained-glass windows. There were so many places where people could hide. Do things and not be seen.

Em felt a sudden tightness in her throat. How many people had confessed their sins here? How many people had asked, and been granted, forgiveness?

And would Em ever get that chance?

She was surprised to feel tears burning the back of her eyes, and she blinked quickly. She was dying to talk to Crow, but he had just begun a set, so she leaned against the back wall, fiddling with her
UNDER 21
wristband and listening to Crow strum the opening notes of a new song. False start. He leaned his lanky body over the strings to tune them. When he did, a piece of his long black hair fell into his eyes. She felt a bizarre itch in her
fingers—like she wanted to reach up there and brush the hair out of his face herself.

He started up again. This time the notes were good, strong, powerful. Crow’s voice was powerful too: liquid and dark, like something you wanted to drink. Crow owned the stage. Once he got going, it was impossible for Em to take her eyes off of him. All thoughts of the Furies were temporarily defused, as though they were floating up to the Armory rafters along with the ringing notes of Crow’s chords.

The last song was one he’d just written, he announced before he started playing—it was called “Vision.” He took a swig from his beer. “I think it’s going to be part of a series,” he said cryptically before playing the first chord. He grimaced; it hadn’t come out just right. For a second he looked up with a mad glint in his eye and Em flinched, reminded of his YouTube breakdown that had gotten more than two hundred views. He didn’t even feel a need to hide it. . . .

But then he leaned over and tried again. Once he started singing, his lyrics were poetic and somewhat mournful; Em found herself leaning forward to catch every word.

“
Haunted by my dreams

Like startled birds so fast

With visions of the future

And memories of the past.”

In the church chamber, the wailing of the guitars soared
overhead, while the pounding of the drums coursed through the floor. The highest notes, like those of a choir, seemed to linger long after the next chord was strummed. And Crow’s voice cut through it all—forceful and passionate, like a preacher giving a sermon.

She’d been spending time with Crow for a month or so, and she’d always known he was a good musician—his videos only proved that over and over again. But here, in the old church, Em was blown away by his talent. She grew warm thinking of the afternoon she’d gotten into his car to escape a harsh winter rain storm . . . the song he’d played for her . . . the way he’d slipped off his shirt for her to wear . . . the way his lips had brushed against her jaw . . .

It was crazy—she almost felt like Crow was singing right to her, stirring up emotions that she’d tried to ignore. And his words, they were so real. Like he could somehow see inside her head, like he knew her secrets. Like he knew what she’d come here to tell him. Like this was her confessional, her moment to ask for forgiveness.

Somehow, Crow’s song made her feel less alone. She wasn’t the only one caught up in this mess. She had the uncanny sense that Crow was part of it too.

With a burst of feedback from the monitors, The Slump’s set came to a close. There was loud applause, and as the crowd broke apart, with most people making a rush for the bar, Em watched as
Crow jumped easily down from the stage and walked straight in her direction. So. He
had
seen her in the crowd. She’d wondered. There had been a moment when their eyes had met, and it was as though an electric current had run straight through her. . . .

She shook out her shoulders, slung on her black blazer, and reminded herself why she’d come here: for answers.

Then he was standing next to her—very close. She resumed her pose against the wall, feeling her shoulder blades against the brick behind her.

“You know this isn’t a real church, right, angel?” He put his hand on the wall above her head and looked down into Em’s eyes. There was a sheen of sweat along his hairline and he smelled like fire.

She felt her knees buckle ever so slightly but managed to swoop sideways and out from under his arm. “I had to leave my halo at the door,” she said. “Beautiful set.”

For a second, she saw a real flash of pleasure in his face, lighting up his greenish eyes, turning them temporarily golden. Then he shrugged. “Just a few things we’re playing around with,” he said nonchalantly. There was whiskey on his breath.

“Well, it was good,” Em said firmly. Crow smirked and she added, “But I didn’t just come to hear you play. We need to talk.” She looked around at all the people still milling around the club, waiting for the next band. There it was again—the feeling of being watched.

“I’m gonna need another drink if we’re going to get all serious,” he said, turning and striding toward the bar without waiting for her to respond.

She trailed after him, watching girls lower their eyelids flirtatiously as he passed by. He was oblivious.

“I’ll have a another,” Crow said just a little too loudly when he got to the bar. “And a PBR chaser. And whatever she’s having.” He tossed a thumb over his shoulder in Em’s direction.