Vesper (14 page)

Like I had.

"They interviewed Nikki," she went on. "You know, that snotty cheerleader?"

"She's not..." I stopped myself. "Yeah, I know her."

Megan snorted a laugh. "Yeah, of course you do. With the face-licking thing." Snorting again, she continued. "Anyway, they were arguing, she said, then he started walking down the street and she chased after him. Some guy stepped in front of them, said something to Dalton, and shot."

I pictured it: the perfect high school couple, alone under a streetlight, Nikki worried about her boyfriend, and Dalton not afraid of anything. A dark figure appearing before them, talking in a low tone, raising a gun...

"How did Dalton survive?" I asked. "The report, did it say his injuries or anything?"

Megan nodded. "The guy shot once and Dalton raised his arm, got shot there. The guy shot again at Dalton's head. It hit one lobe of one hemisphere or something like that, but since most of the brain survived and he was responsive, they think he'll maybe be okay. I Googled it and only like five percent of people survive being shot in the head. He's lucky."

"Yeah," I whispered. "Super lucky."

Megan leaned back and once again swirled her finger over the armrest.

"Well, anyway, Nikki said that after that the guy didn't even pay attention to her despite her screaming. He just turned and walked away."

So both Emily C. and Dalton were acting different from their normal selves those nights. And both of them ended up getting shot—by a guy who
ignored
Nikki Tate, who seemed to act the same way she always did.

Maybe they hadn't had the exact same intensely crazy change that I suffered at night, but still, they
had
changed. Somehow, someone out there knew this about them. And he'd hunted them down.

So what did that mean for me?

Something triggered in my brain then. Some hazy memory from the party the night before.

"Did the police report have a description of the killer?" I asked Megan.

"Did Nikki get a good look?"

"Sort of," Megan said. "She couldn't see his face. She said he was wearing some long coat and a hat that hid his features."

And I remembered reaching Mikey Harris's house, waiting for Dawn to park the car. I remembered the strange guy dressed like he'd stepped out of a noir film, who somehow7 knew my name and started to ask me some question.

It was the killer. It had to be. He'd meant to shoot
me,
not Dalton, but when I got dragged away he switched targets.

Which meant I was right. Whatever made me, Emily C, and Dalton different meant that someone wanted us dead.

I didn't know what to say or do. I suddenly didn't feel at all safe alone in my house with only Megan to protect me. Turning around in my seat, I peeked behind us. The foyer was dark save for the blinking blue and green buttons on my dad's computer. The dining room and the kitchen beyond were almost pitch-black, despite the pale light streaming through the curtains, and the sky outside was just about completely dark. In fact, the only light on at all was a single lamp in the living room where we sat, casting long shadows in the corners.

"Boo," Megan said.

I jumped, then reached over and smacked her. "Stop it." I shivered, my mind racing. "Those stories are freaky."

Megan rolled her eyes. "Whatever, some people got shot, they'll catch the guy, life moves on. Besides, hello, we were just watching a horror movie.

Your skittishness about all this is weird. You and your dad were dressing up like Laurie Strode and Michael Myers when you were in diapers."

The full impact of what had almost happened to me the night before hit me then, and I began to shake. Someone had shot Dalton. Someone had
meant
to shoot me.

"Megan," I said, standing up from the couch. "Megan, we need to call the—

"

I gasped and clutched my stomach. Pain tore through my midsection as I reached out for the coffee table, and I missed and fell to the rug. Twitching and jerking, I clenched my teeth, my fingernails tearing through my shirt and into the flesh of my stomach.

Megan was at my side immediately. "Is it happening?" she asked. "The change?"

I tried to speak, but all that came out of my mouth was a wheeze.

Straightening up, Megan began to back away. "Okay, well, this is real," she said, her voice wavering. "Okay, okay..."

But then, with one last gasp, it was over. I lay on the floor for a moment, looking up at the blinking digital clock on the DVD player. It was only 8:04.

Plenty of time to make the most of my Friday night.

Noticing I'd stopped convulsing, Megan kneeled down beside me. "Are you all right?" she asked. "Is it over?"

I answered her with a groan and by stretching out my arms and legs. She stepped back, and I considered kicking myself up to stand. But that was something my daytime self wasn't even remotely capable of doing. And hinting that I wasn't the same girl I'd been a minute ago wouldn't help my plans at all.

Instead I reached out and said, "Can you give me a hand up?"

Megan grabbed my outstretched arm and hauled me to my feet. The rug was plush beneath my toes, so I wiggled them, enjoying the tickling sensation. I felt more alive than I had before. I could feel the currents of the air against my bare arms as it coursed out of the AC vents, could smell the lingering scent of pot roast from the kitchen. I flicked off my glasses and the living room was crisp and clear, brighter than it had been moments ago even with only the lone lamp on in the corner. I could make out everything—the scuff marks on the floor from when we'd moved the couch last summer, the little stars I'd scratched into the entertainment center when I was ten and thought it needed some sprucing up, the hairline cracks in the glass coffee table that no normal person would be able to see without a magnifying glass.

My body coursed with all these sensations, my muscles felt taut, my arms and legs limber. I wasn't slouchy and lethargic anymore. I was pretty, I was strong, I was graceful.

And I was wasting it by being stuck in my house with big-nosed, bitter, boring Megan Reed.

"Emily?" she asked. "Are you okay?"

I snapped to attention, then smiled as I caught her concerned eyes. "Yeah, I'm good, no worries. I had the change spasm, but I feel... normal? I guess whatever it is isn't as strong anymore."

Megan didn't stop studying my face. "You're sure?" she asked. "You don't have any desire to dress trashy and go streetwalking?"

Picking up my glasses, I slipped them on. The room went blurry, and I laughed. "I'm positive."

Megan was silent for a long time. "I don't believe you," she said at last.

"You're way too twitchy."

I waved my hand dismissively and plopped down on the couch. "I'm just so
relieved.
Maybe I was just temporarily sick, y,know? That's a good thing!"

"Yeah ..." Megan's eyes didn't move from me as she sat down stiffly on the couch, her arms crossed.

"What?" I asked. "Don't believe me? Want to tie me up or something?

That's totally kinky, Reedy."

She slunk lower into the couch. "Fine, whatever, Em. Say I do believe you.

What do you want to do now, then?"

What I wanted to do was to get out of this house and have fun. And though some voice was screaming in the back of my head that someone wanted to kill me, that I needed to stay put and hide, I ignored it. Instead I thought of a plan to get Megan out of the way and, ahem,
borrow
her car.

"Hmm," I said to Megan. "I'm thinking ...
Scream
movie marathon. Since you're so into pretty teenagers getting murdered all of a sudden, and after those police stories I feel like rooting for Sidney Prescott. Oh!" I sat straight up. "You know what we haven't made in a long time? The Emily and Megan Milkshake Spectacular."

"Yeah ...," she said again, then grinned. "Nothing like horror movies and milkshakes."

I leaped up from my chair. "Okay, you go get them started, I need to go pee. Back in a sec."

Before she could protest, I raced up the stairs, ran into the bathroom, and shut the door. I took my glasses off, then regarded myself in the mirror. I looked so plain. Sticking out my tongue at the image of Daytime Emily staring back at me, I turned on the faucet, then proceeded to dig through the medicine cabinet above the sink.

There. My stepmother's prescription sleeping pills. Palming several, I put the pill bottle back in place, flushed the toilet, and turned off the faucet.

With glasses back on my face, I opened the bathroom door. Megan stood there, hands on her waist and tapping her foot.

"Whoa," I said. "Don't scare me like that."

She looked me up and down, then glanced over my shoulder into the bathroom. Narrowing her eyes suspiciously, she let me pass her, then followed me down the stairs and into the kitchen.

I grabbed the tub of vanilla ice cream from the freezer, setting it on the kitchen counter next to the blender along with the jug of milk, the bag of sugar, and the little bottle of vanilla extract. I gritted my teeth as I did all this, while Megan gathered utensils from the drawers so we could scoop and measure. I glanced at the clock. It was almost eight thirty. Playing Martha Stewart was the last thing I wanted to be doing right now.

I tried to focus on the task at hand, forcing laughter and making geekyjokes with Megan as we put the ingredients in the blender and made our milkshakes. She poured the resulting beverage into tall glasses, and I went to the fridge to grab the chocolate syrup. I poured the syrup into the glasses, tightening my fist and using my super-handy nighttime strength to crush the handful of pills clutched in my palm. While Megan went to put the ice cream back in the freezer, I sprinkled the pill dust into her milkshake, then stirred it together with the syrup.

"Here you go.” I handed Megan the sleeping-pill-laced cup with a sweet smile.

She took a sip. "Awesome," she said. "Now let's get to the movie."

It took another half an hour of doing my best impression of Daytime Emily before Megan finally became drowsy and, mercifully, fell asleep. Her empty glass sat on the coffee table, a little puddle of spilled milkshake leaving an unsightly ring. Megan let out a honking snore while on the TV Neve Campbell chatted breezily on the phone with the ghost-faced killer for the first time. I shut the TV off just as the killer leaped out of a closet, cutting Neve off midscream.

Despite having a body like a bundle of twigs, Megan wasn't exactly light.

But I lifted her in my arms with ease, carried her up to my room, and buried her under the covers on my bed. Leaving her sleeping there, I went to Dawn's room, raided her closet, and got dressed in the bathroom as quickly as I could.

"There," I said, as I lowered the mascara wand. I was dressed in this slinky, sparkly blue dress that ended at my upper thigh. This time I stole Dawn's black heels to go with it. My hair hung wavy to my shoulders, and my face was done up just the way Dawn had showed me before the party the day before.

I looked fan-freakin'-tastic. Much improved from my previous forays into the world of dressing to impress.

The urges from my unknown self swirled together with my own desires to head out and do something crazy: Party. Dominate. Find a guy. Find
the
guy.

Do something I had never before been brave enough to do.

Down the stairs I went. Megan's purse was on the dining room table where she'd left it. Reaching in, I dug through crumpled-up tissues and her unopened pads until I found her car keys.

It was time for me to take my show on the road.

No matter how made up I was, it was difficult to seem glamorous driving Little Rusty—Megan's tiny, boxy car was white trash supreme. It was all I had, but driving up I-5 to Seattle, with the window down to air out the car's weird smells, modern cars zipping past, was completely annoying. Despite how good it felt to have the wind rushing through my hair.

The clock on the car's ancient radio read 9:23 by the time the highway curved to reveal Seattle's skyline: The stadiums lit up, Qwest Field glowing blue and gold. The Space Needle with its little blinking light on top.

Skyscrapers to the right and the glittering water of Puget Sound off to the left, past the docks.

Skopamish was small beans compared to the big city. For how close I lived, I'd only ever been up to Seattle a few times in my life. Despite being Washington natives, my dad and I had done stupid, touristy crap like head to Pioneer Square with its twenty-foot-tall totem pole standing sentry before taking the Underground Tour, or ogling the fishmongers at Pike Place Market, after which I dragged my dad down to the comic-book store on the second level. There were school trips to the Pacific Science Center at the base of the Space Needle, and one time my dad made me go with him to a gaming con at the convention center downtown.

Fun times for easily amused children and old people wearing fanny packs, I'm sure. But Seattle isn't just famous for its coffee. It's also famous for its music, its hip twentysomethings stalking the streets at night, having a good time.

Part of me wanted to turn around, head back to Skopamish to hunt down Patrick and his oh-so-right smell. But I resisted the urge. I'd done the high school thing, and it had been fun. But I longed for more. I had so much to make up for after all the years of doing
nothing.
Sneaking into adults-only clubs was a time-honored teen tradition—and now it was my turn.

I wasn't exactly sure where to go—I'd been in such a rush to leave that I hadn't bothered researching any clubs first. But I remembered the time Megan took me with her to the Art Institute of Seattle so she could sign up for some four-day workshop thing, and I recalled a club near there, nestled underneath the ancient viaduct that ran parallel to the water and right beside downtown. At the last second I saw the exit we'd taken, and I swerved into the right lane. Bright white headlights flared through the back window, reflecting off the rearview mirror and momentarily blinding me. The car behind me honked.