Unforgiven (25 page)

He made it to homeroom a few minutes before the bell. There were only a few kids in the classroom, but all of them turned their backs toward him when Cam walked into the room.

A girl with long black hair and freckles glanced over her shoulder and scowled. “I can't believe that monster was nominated for prom court!”

Cam ignored everyone, sat down, and waited for Lilith.

She walked in as the bell rang. Her hair was still wet, her clothes were wrinkled, and she was clutching a half-eaten apple. She wouldn't look at Cam.

He waited fifty torturous minutes, then pulled her aside right after class.

“What?” he said. “What's wrong?”

“It's not my business who you were with before you knew me,” Lilith said, her eyes wet with tears. “But that girl
killed
herself.”

“
What
girl?” Cam asked.

“Why do I have to explain this to you?” Lilith said. “Have you been with more than one girl who killed herself?”

“Where are you getting this from?” Cam asked, though, of course, he didn't have to ask. Lucifer must have whispered some trumped-up story into one kid's ear, and now Cam was the school pariah.

“Everyone on my bus was talking about it this morning.” Lilith noted the glares aimed at Cam. “Seems like the whole school knows.”

“They don't know anything,” Cam said. “But you do. You know me.”

“Tell me it isn't true,” Lilith said. Cam could hear the pleading in her voice. “Tell me she didn't kill herself because of what you did.”

Cam looked down at his boots. Lilith was in Crossroads because she'd killed herself, but had she killed herself because of Cam?

“It's true,” he said, in agony. “She took her life.”

Lilith's eyes widened, and she backed away. Cam understood that she hadn't actually been expecting the truth.

“Is he harassing you again, Lilith?”

Cam turned to find Luc, his hair slicked back and perfectly coiffed. The devil took Lilith's arm, flexing his bicep. “Shall we, gorgeous?”

“I'll make it on my own.” Lilith pushed away from Luc, but she was looking at Cam as she spoke.

“Meaning,” Luc murmured as she turned away, “don't follow her, Cam.”

Cam clenched his fists.

“Last chance to fold,” Lucifer said.

Cam shook his head in silent rage. As he watched Lilith walk away, he feared he'd finally lost her for good.

“It's not
all
bad,” Luc said, and pulled a folded note from his back pocket. He handed it to Cam. “The principal will see you now.”

The secretary's desk outside Tarkenton's office was empty, and the principal's door was closed. Cam straightened the
APPETITE FOR DESTRUCTION
T-shirt he'd picked up at the thrift store, finger-combed his hair, and knocked.

The door swung open.

He stepped in hesitantly, seeing no one.

“Mr. Tarkenton? Sir? You wanted to see me?”

“Arrrrrrrrrgggghhhh!!!”
Roland and Arriane jumped out from behind the door and doubled over with laughter. Arriane slammed the door behind Cam and locked it.

“
Sir!?!
You wanted to see me?” she said in her best Cam voice.

“That is the funniest shit I've seen in centuries,
sir,
” Roland said.

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up,” Cam said. “Forgive me for trying to blend in here.”

He found himself hugging Roland, then Arriane. They were the last people he had ever expected to turn up here, but Cam had never been more grateful to see friends.

“You are
going
for it, man,” Arriane said, wiping her eyes. She'd shaved her head and was dressed all in black. The only color on her was the bright orange fringe of her false eyelashes. “And I love that. But, uh”—she grimaced, glancing at Cam's midsection—“what's up with the wheat belly?”

“Lucifer's idea of fun,” Cam said. “He thought it would be a turnoff, but Lilith can't even see the difference—at least she
couldn't
see it, back when she liked me. I don't know about now.” He looked at his friends, overwhelmed with emotion. “How did you guys get in here, anyway?”

“Also Lucifer's idea of fun,” Roland explained. He looked exquisite in a tailored pin-striped suit and a lavender French-cuffed shirt, and he smelled like expensive cologne.

“Right,” Cam said, understanding instantly. “He knows he's going to lose, so he wants you two to talk me out of going through with the bet.”

“Could be, brother,” Roland said, “but we're in agreement with him on that.”

“In other words,” said Arriane, “what are you doing, Cam?”

“If I'm not mistaken,” Cam said, “the last time I saw you, you suggested I fix my mistakes. Remember?”

“Not like this!” Arriane shoved Cam. “After Luce and Daniel earned your sorry soul a second chance…I just—I mean—
dude.
”

Back at Sword & Cross, Arriane and Roland had spoken of Luce and Daniel as if the angelic lovers were a model of love the rest of them should follow. But the way Cam saw things, Luce and Daniel had really only ever cared about each other, and that was fine with Cam. They had never intended to start a revolution.

And yet, somehow, they had. Because of Luce and Daniel's choice to risk everything for love, Cam was here in Crossroads.

“I'm not seeking advice,” Cam said.

“That hasn't stopped Arriane yet.” Roland leaned against Tarkenton's desk. “Why throw your eternal future away on a rigged bet with the devil? And then, when he makes an offer to let you out of that bet, why refuse?”

Cam could see it looked impossible from the outside: fifteen days to get a girl to love him—a girl whose hatred of him had been forged by three thousand years in Hell. But Cam didn't care what it looked like. In his heart, there was no question that he had to save Lilith. It wasn't a choice. It was a measure of his love for her.

Arriane took Cam's shoulders and pushed him into Tarkenton's leather swivel chair. She balanced the principal's bronze hog in her palm. “Look, Cam. You've always been self-destructive. We get that, and we love you for it, but it's time to stop playing games with Lucifer.”

“He never loses,” Roland said. “Maybe once in a violet moon.”

“I can't do it,” Cam said. “Don't you see? This is how I honor Luce and Daniel's choice to give up their immortality. I have to save Lilith. It's the only way I can save myself.” He leaned forward in his chair. “The person I love is being abused. What happened to your sense of duty? The Roland and Arriane I know would never forgive me if I didn't try to get Lilith out of here.”

“We had a sense of duty when it came to Lucinda's fate,” Arriane said. “But Lilith is so much less important than Luce. A blip on the radar.”

Cam blinked. “Maybe to you.”

“To everyone,” she said. “That's why we all spent six thousand years following Luce around. She faced a choice with cosmic implications.”

“Lilith matters, too,” Cam said. “She deserves better than this.”

“Are you at least taking her to prom?” Arriane asked, and sighed. “I've always wanted to go to prom.”

“I haven't asked her yet,” Cam admitted. “The moment hasn't been right.”

“You are so off your game!” Arriane said. “Maybe Ro and I can help in that department. After all that practice with Luce and Daniel, we're masterminds of the romantic setting. Think about it?”

The door flew open. “Is there some way I can be of service to you?” Tarkenton asked.

Arriane carefully set Tarkenton's paperweight hog back on his desk. She patted its head. “This is a real nice pig. I'll give you a quarter for him.”

“GET OUT OF MY CHAIR!” Tarkenton thundered at Cam. He turned to Arriane and Roland. “Who are you delinquents?”

“We're fallen angels,” Roland said.

“Don't insult my religion!” Tarkenton commanded, his face twisted. “I could have you arrested for breaking and entering. And you, Mr. Briel, you're suspended for the rest of the day and all of tomorrow. Leave campus before I have you removed.”

“Please don't suspend me, sir,” Cam said. “I need to be here.”

Roland squinted at Cam. “Are you kidding me, dude? You
care
?”

Cam cared. The days were long and lonesome when the girl you loved was in school and you were not. His bet with Lucifer ended in four days. If he was going to free Lilith from this hell, he needed every moment he could get with her.

Three Days

A
t lunch the next day, Lilith, Jean, and Luis met in the band room.

It was finally free, since the Perceived Slights were all busy at a prom court meeting. Lilith had walked by their table in the center of the cafeteria after grabbing a sandwich and had noticed the empty seat where Cam was supposed to sit. He hadn't been in homeroom or poetry that morning either, and Lilith was trying not to wonder why.

“Hey, Luis.” She mustered a smile for the drummer in his blue tank top and fingerless leather gloves.

“Hola,” Luis said, playing a tight drumroll. He was getting better. He was almost good.

“That sounded fly,” Lilith said.

Luis grinned. “Fly's my middle name.”

The battle was three nights away. They were down one guitar player—again—and far from having their act together, but Lilith was determined not to give up. She would figure out a way to pull this performance off.

“I take it we're not waiting for Cam?” Jean asked, giving her a sympathetic look. He had taken off the top of the Moog synthesizer and was tightening the screws inside.

“Nope.” Lilith sighed. “Just us.”

She was rusty and exhausted. She'd been nauseated since yesterday when she'd boarded the bus and felt every kid's eyes on her. At first, she'd been stupid enough to think that people were suddenly noticing her because they'd heard she'd won the lyrics contest. But not one person said anything to Lilith about the Four Horsemen playing her song at prom.

Instead, Cam's horrible news eclipsed Lilith's good news entirely. By now the whole school had become a buzzing hive of students spreading the same ugly story: The last girl Cam had dated, a girl who'd been in love with him, had killed herself when they broke up.

Lilith knew Cam had known other girls. But this latest story…

Suicide.

“It sucks,” Jean said. “I mean, Revenge will be great, but without Cam…”

Lilith knew what he was thinking. Cam was a great musician. He was charismatic onstage. He brought a needed edge to the band. Revenge would be lesser without him.

Plus, he really wanted to be in the band. She knew that because he'd called her home phone seven times the night before.

“Don't answer it—” she'd said to Bruce a second too late.

“Hello?” Bruce had said, then held out the phone to Lilith, mouthing, “It's Cam.”

Lilith had quickly scribbled a note and held it out to Bruce.

“Sorry, Cam,” Bruce said. “She says you have the wrong number.”

Lilith had mouthed for Bruce to hang up the phone quickly and groaned once he did.
“Thanks.”

“Why don't you want to talk to Cam?” Bruce asked. “What happened?”

“It's a long story,” Lilith told her brother. “I'll tell you when you're older.”

“But I like him,” Bruce said.

Lilith frowned. “I know. Just don't pick up the phone again.”

It was possible Cam had called more than seven times, but seven had been her mom's limit. After that, she'd disconnected the phone. And in the silence that followed, Lilith's heart began to ache. She hadn't meant to let him get close enough to hurt her, but here she was, hurt and bewildered and longing for him to make things right.

She would have to go back to looking out for herself, expecting nothing from anyone, guarding herself against pain.

Now Jean put down his screwdriver, rubbed his jaw, and studied Lilith. “You don't mean you believe those rumors? Cam's a good guy. You know he is.”

“I don't want to talk about it.” Lilith sat down against the wall between two giant xylophones. She took out her notebook and riffled through the pages.

“What are you doing?” Jean asked.

“Making an edit to the chorus of ‘Somebody's Other Blues' before we practice,” Lilith said.

“Wait, does that mean we're not breaking up?” Luis let out an audible sigh of relief.

“Course not,” Lilith said, standing up and grabbing her guitar.

It wasn't just the band Lilith needed to hold together. It was her friendships with Jean and Luis. Unlike Cam, these boys weren't complicated. They hadn't taken hold of her heart in dangerous ways. But what they had done—showing her a place where she belonged—mattered to Lilith, and she wasn't going to give it up. “Let's do it.”

“
That's
what I'm talking about,” Jean said, and powered up his synth.

“Hell yeah!” Luis said, readying his drumsticks.

“Two, three, four,” Lilith counted off, a new confidence stirring inside her as Revenge began to play.

“There you are.” Mrs. Richards flagged Lilith down as she was leaving her locker after school. “I need a favor.” Her glasses were smudged, and she looked frazzled. Lilith knew the teacher had been working overtime with the prom committee, ensuring they were making “green” choices for the dance.

“Sure,” Lilith said. Since she'd apologized to Mrs. Richards and taken her advice about Bruce's diet, the two of them had been getting along much better.

“Chloe King went home sick this afternoon,” Mrs. Richards said. “I need a student to deliver her homework to her house.”

“I'm not friends with Chloe,” Lilith said. “I don't even know where she lives. Can't June or Teresa or the other one do it?”

Mrs. Richards smiled wistfully. “Last-minute prom court meeting! Besides, I thought you were turning over a new leaf.” She pressed a stack of folders into Lilith's hands. Chloe's home address was written on a green sticky note on top. “It would really help me out. I hate to see a bright student fall behind.”

So Lilith boarded the bus for the rich kids, which was mostly empty because the upperclassmen who lived in Chloe's neighborhood all had their own cars.

She watched the street signs as the bus meandered through the fancy neighborhood, dropping kids off at big new houses tucked away behind huge, well-manicured lawns. She watched one freshman boy walk into a house with a For Sale sign planted in its lawn and wondered where his family was moving.

Lilith imagined them packing up their belongings, climbing into a luxury car, and speeding down the open highway, fleeing Crossroads. The fantasy was enough to make her envious. Escape was never far from Lilith's mind.

Soon they turned onto Maple Lane, and Lilith double-checked Chloe's address. She rose to get off the bus when it stopped in front of a huge white faux-Tudor McMansion girded by a moat filled with koi.

Of course Chloe lived in a house that looked like this.

When Lilith rang the doorbell, someone buzzed her in and lowered an electric drawbridge over the koi moat.

Across the moat, a housekeeper opened the door to a gleaming marble foyer.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“I'm here to drop off Chloe's assignments,” Lilith said, surprised by the way her voice bounced off the walls; the foyer had crazy acoustics. She handed the folders to the housekeeper, eager to jog back to campus, where she was supposed to meet Jean and Luis.

“Is that
Lilith
?” Chloe's voice called from somewhere upstairs. “Send her up.”

Before Lilith could argue, the housekeeper ushered her inside and closed the door.

“Shoes,” the housekeeper said, pointing at Lilith's combat boots and the white marble shoe rack next to the door.

Lilith sighed and unlaced her boots, then kicked them off.

The house smelled like lemons. All the furniture was massive, and everything was decorated in shades of white. A huge white baby grand piano sat on a white alpaca rug in the center of the living room, playing automated Bach.

The housekeeper led Lilith up the white marble stairs. When she deposited Lilith at Chloe's white bedroom door and handed her back the folders, she raised her eyebrows as if to say,
Good luck; she's in rare form today.

Lilith knocked on the door.

“Come in,” a voice said.

Lilith peered inside the room. Chloe lay on her side, her back to Lilith, facing a white-curtained window. Her bedroom was nothing like Lilith would have expected. In fact, it looked just like the living room: an oversized white four-poster bed, white cashmere throws draped over the bed and the chairs by the window, an expensive crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling.

Chloe's bedroom made Lilith think of her own room more fondly, with its old twin bed and thrift-store desk, the mismatched lamps her mother had found at a garage sale. She had three Four Horsemen posters, one from each of their most recent albums. She used the space above her desk to tack up lyrics she wanted to find melodies for and quotes by her favorite musicians.

The only thing on Chloe's wall was a platinum record in a white frame with a plaque that read
AWARDED TO THE PERCEIVED SLIGHTS FOR FUTURE SALES. MERRY CHRISTMAS. LOVE, DADDY.

Lilith knew Chloe had a lot of passions—not just her band but also the prom court, the bingo team, her student-government campaigns. It was weird that there was no sign of them in the place she spent the most time. It was like her interests had been whitewashed by an expensive interior designer. It made Lilith feel a little bit sorry for Chloe King.

Chloe sniffed and reached for a box of tissues on her nightstand.

“Sorry you're sick,” Lilith said. She placed the folders on Lilith's white dresser. “I brought your homework. You think you'll be better by prom?”

“I'm not sick,” Chloe said. “I took a mental health day.” She rolled over to face Lilith, her face splotchy from crying. “I didn't think I'd ever want to see you again after what you did to me today, but now that you're here, you might as well entertain me.”

“What are you talking about, what
I
did today?” Lilith said, leaning against the doorway. “I didn't even see you.”

“I heard your band practicing at lunch,” Chloe said. “I was just walking by after the prom court meeting, but then I heard you guys through the door and I couldn't help listening.” A sob shook her shoulders. “You weren't supposed to be competition.”