Fragile Darkness (2 page)

The memory brought the stabbing feeling back all over again. I'd wanted Chase to look at me and smile, to feel the same awareness that rushed through me.

Back then I hadn't known about the shadows waiting, or strangers who knew more about me, my life, than I did, who could heal with a simple touch, and devastate without lifting a hand.

Now I wanted the horrible things I saw to never come true, the fact that I saw them to never touch anyone I cared about.

Looking at Deuce, there was only one way to answer his question.

“I
want
you to have this gig,” I said. Playing the Greenwood party was a huge deal. “And I
want
Victoria to hear Trey sing.” Because whenever she did, my best friend lit up like a thousand-watt lightbulb.

And my aunt. I wanted her to be okay again.

And Grace. I wanted her to come back to New Orleans, for her to be okay, too.

But neither of those had anything to do with Deuce's question.

The word I'd found scribbled in my journal that morning did.

Tonight.

I didn't remember writing it, but the therapist I saw every Friday said that was normal, good even. That things locked inside me were finding ways to get out.

But the seven scrawled letters had sent something cold swirling through me.

Running through the dark. That's all I'd seen since the afternoon I slipped inside a killer's mind and discovered a deception that left the community in shock.

After that, it was hard not to jump at shadows.

But the word
tonight
didn't mean anything ominous. I knew that. It wasn't from somewhere unseen. It was merely confirmation that spending the evening with friends was the right thing to do.

That was all.

“So yeah,” I said, pushing aside the memory. I'd been here over an hour. Aside from some dizziness, nothing had happened. Nothing was going to. “This is where I need to be.”

Even if the thought of walking back inside the loud crush of people from every high school within thirty miles had my chest tightening all over again.

The charcoal of Deuce's eyes gleamed. “Needing is a start,” he said all quiet, soulful. “But someday you'll
want
again.” Watching me, he slid an arm around my waist. “You'll want something for
you,
not only other people. It's Deuce 101, the law of jumper cables. There may be nothing inside right now, but that doesn't mean it'll always be that way.”

I leaned into him, holding his gaze longer than normal before turning back to the oak-shrouded mansion.

“Come on,” I said, sliding my phone back into my hoodie. “Let's go find Victoria and Trey.”

*   *   *

Through the frantic fusion of music and light, we made our way to the elaborate home theater. Three rows of cushy media chairs faced the giant screen framed by dark velvet curtains, while oil-painted movie posters lined the walls. In every space in between, guys and girls danced, oblivious to the muted movie playing in the background.

I found Victoria immediately, thanks to the bobbing purple feathers of her showgirl headband. I'd done a quick double take when she showed up at the shop in her little black dress and mismatched stilettos, not only in different sizes, but different heights, too. She'd scored them at the Muses parade, one covered in pink and purple feathers, the other shimmering with glitter. In total she'd been awarded seven, all because of a glitter-drenched sign proclaiming herself the founder of Glitterholics Anonymous.

She'd given me a clog and a mule, both the same height thankfully, one with thick purple and pink rhinestone stripes, the other covered in orange sequins.

Now with her back to me, she was absorbed in Trey's orbit, their bodies pressed tight as they moved in slow, almost nonexistent, motion. If Deuce was the boxer, his Blood Brothas bandmate was pure California beach boy, with sun-kissed brown hair and a lazy, steal-your-breath smile.

He and Victoria, with the pink streaks in her bright blond hair and her tilted green eyes, her compact gymnast's body, made a knockout couple. Hip to hip, he held her close, his arms slung around her waist. And as I moved closer, I could see his eyes were closed.

The tight feeling in my throat loosened a little.

Their flirting had turned serious the past few weeks. She insisted they were only friends, but I saw the longing in the way she looked at him, and in the way he looked at her. The way he touched her. It was no secret how into each other they were.

It was part of my agenda for the evening, to show her it was okay for her to be happy.

Deuce started toward them, but I caught him by the arm and pulled him back. “Not yet.”

Habit made me glance around, searching the dimly lit sway of grinding bodies for her ex. I hadn't seen Lucas yet, but knew he was probably around. Everyone at school had been buzzing about the party, with the exception of Drew, whose family was joining Chase's at the New Mexico cabin where they'd been since late February.

“Give them a few more minutes,” I said, stepping back against the wall. “Why don't you go set up,” I suggested. “I'll send Trey out in a minute.”

He hesitated. I could tell he didn't want to leave me alone.

“It's okay,” I assured him with an overly bright smile. “No more wandering off. Promise.”

It took another minute or two, but finally Deuce glanced at his watch and relented. “I'll be out back if you need me.”

I shook my head, sending a few long, curly tangles against my face.

He slid them back and reluctantly turned away.

With two steps, the crowd swallowed him, and I was alone.

The song ended. Another blasted from the speakers.

Slipping against the wall, I watched the sweaty, energetic dancing and the groups standing around laughing and drinking, the couples wrapped around each other in the big chairs, not spending too much time on anything, not the girl in a blue butterfly mask or the one with the short pixie hair standing on a media chair, crying, nothing until the velvet drapes swayed.

He stood in the shadows, tall, apart from everyone else, his face concealed by a half-gold/half-white Venetian mask. But I didn't need to see the hot burn of his eyes or strong line of his cheeks, not when the quiet, guarded intensity slipped through the frenzy, as if instead of watching, he'd lifted a hand, and touched.

Because he'd never needed that, a hand to touch me.

Dylan.

My heart slammed hard, and a thousand little pieces started to scatter. The hair was the same, maybe a little longer, but the same sharp curtain cutting above his jaw. But it was the unmistakable stillness to him that fired through me, the way he watched, exactly like that very first day from the shadows of his father's porch. He wasn't a come-over-and-say-hi kinda of guy.

The party fell away, taking with it the blast of music and crush of bodies, leaving only the shadows, and the remains of the dream I'd wanted so badly to believe. He watched me breath by breath, each deeper than the last, slower, until even that fell away.

Four weeks had passed. Four weeks since I'd opened my eyes in an unfamiliar hotel room to find him leaning over me. Four weeks since he'd dragged me from a fire and held my hand as I ran through a killer's mind. Since I'd heard him shout my name.

Four weeks since I'd let fantasy carry us past the point of no return, since one second,
one mistake,
changed everything.

“Say yes.”

The voice registered, echoing in through some distorted tunnel, but I didn't turn around, couldn't turn around, not when everything inside me rushed.

He didn't belong here. That was all I could think. Dylan Fourcade did not belong at an ordinary Friday night party.

“Hey, you okay?”

This time the voice ripped in closer, more urgent, and with it a guy blasted in between us, tall and thin with dark, chin-length hair tucked behind his ears and narrow eyes. He stood close, the way friends did, even though I'd never seen him before.

I took a quick step back. “Yeah,” I said, glancing from him to the sea of dancing beyond.

My view of the curtains was gone.

“You scared me for a sec,” he said. “You were really pale.”

I blinked, bringing everything back into focus. “I'm good,” I assured him.

The music changed, faster, more frenetic, everyone lifting their arms in the air, everyone except Victoria and Trey, who drifted in their own little bubble.

“Awesome,” the guy said, stepping me against the wall. “Then say yes.”

I kept glancing around. “Yes?” I hadn't heard a question.

His eyes met mine. “Awesome.” With a this-is-gonna-be-good smile, he pressed a purple cup decorated with gold comedy and tragedy masks into my hand. Inside, something dark fizzed.

“Come on,” he said, sliding an arm around my waist. “I've been waiting all night to get you to myself. Let's dance.”

I stiffened.
Normal,
I told myself. This was what happened at parties. But I didn't want some random guy's arms around me, didn't want to feel his body pressed to mine. The last time someone had held me—

I didn't want that memory, either.

“Not now,” I managed. My hand tightened against the cup. “I'm waiting for a friend.”

“Your bodyguard guy?” he asked with a slow, knowing smile. “Yeah, he went out back.”

Bodyguard guy.

More memories surged, memories I didn't want.

“So, what? He appointed you my bodyguard?”

“I wish it was just your body.”

But the narrow-eyed guy didn't mean Dylan, I realized, refusing to look back to the curtains. There was no way a stranger could know about that. He meant Deuce.

“He's not my bodyguard,” I said, pulling my arm away.

“S'okay.” He swayed. “I get it. If I were you I wouldn't go anywhere without a bodyguard, either.”

I slid along the wall, not wanting to draw attention by pushing him away and bolting like a freak, but more than ready to be rid of him. “I really gotta go.”

“It must be hard, living with what you know,” he said, closer now, so close I could feel his breath against my cheek. “That's why you went outside by yourself, isn't it?”

Then I realized this wasn't normal at all. I jerked back.

He stopped me with a hand to my forearm. “You're that girl everyone's been talking about.” His eyes, suddenly dark and intense, met mine.
“The prophet.”

 

TWO

The word crawled over me.

I'd grown up fascinated by people like Nostradamus, who foretold future events.
Prophet
made me think of wisdom and big predictions, cultures like the Mayans and their knowledge of the universe.

Hearing the word used in reference to me by some random guy I'd never seen before made me feel like I stood there naked for the whole world, or at least the whole party, to see.

I wasn't a prophet.

“Trisha?” he muttered, watching me expectantly. “Trina? Munson?” Stepping closer, he shoved a phone into my hand. “That's you, right?”

With the party swirling around me I glanced down to see my own face staring up at me, a picture I'd had no idea someone was taking, of me standing in the shadow of a crumbling angel. My hair was loose and blowing, my eyes fixed on some point in front of me. And the headline:
A PROPHET AMONG US.

I'd seen the blog before, but seeing the words again, here, made me want to hurl the Droid across the room.

Instead I mechanically arrowed back to the main browser, where he'd entered the search terms “New Orleans teenage psychic,” to see what else his search had pulled up.

PSYCHIC TEENAGER TAKES DOWN PSYCHO COP.

TEEN SEER SEES BOYFRIEND'S DEATH—WHAT WILL SHE SEE NEXT?

VOODOO ALIVE AND WELL IN THE BIG EASY

At first the police and media had tried to conceal my identity, but the kids at my school knew too much, and within hours “unidentified teen” turned into Our Lady of Enduring Grace junior, Trinity Monsour. The stories went viral. My picture had been everywhere—my school picture, candid shots I'd never seen, and some that I had, such as the ones from last fall, when I'd run from the darkness of the old abandoned house, along with wild speculation and outright lies.

I saw through a killer's eyes.

I dreamed the future.

I could read minds.

I knew when the world was going to end.

I was an angel, a demon, a time traveler, marked, cursed …

“Is that why you're here tonight?” the guy asked, dragging me back into the moment. “Because you think something's going to happen?”

A dull ache started at the base of my skull, fraying the edges of my vision. “No.”

“So how does it work?” He kept on, like it was a trick or game. Swaying, he shifted, revealing a bold “A” inked inside a dark circle against the bottom of his neck.

I tried to jerk back, but the wall stopped me.

“I mean, the stuff you know, where does it come from? Is it like a Ouija board or a séance, or do you go into a trance?”

Yanking my arm away, I shoved the phone and drink back into his hand and turned to leave, but before I could, a blur of pink staggered in, and cold, wet hands grabbed mine.

“Omigod! Trin-Trin!” Amber slurred, steadying herself against me. Droplets of mascara-smeared water slid down her face, dripping from her jaw to the pink feather boa wound around her neck—the
very wet
pink boa. She held on to me as if she would fall over if she didn't.

“I can't believe you're here!” she gushed. “Isn't it
amazing
?”

A few hours before, she'd looked at me from within her circle of friends in the cafeteria, held up a voodoo doll, and driven a needle right through its heart.