“You are.”
“Yeah? How many lollipops did you have to suck to swing this one, Rid?” he asked.
The words stung. She looked away.
“Regular girlfriends don’t do things like that, Rid.”
“Then why don’t you go ahead and get yourself one of those?” Don’t snap, Rid. Back it down. “Because I was only trying to help.” Myself, she added, as badly as she felt about it.
He looked skeptical.
“Really, Link. I’m just trying to be honest with you.” Nice touch.
“Whatever.” He looked away, back in the direction of the graffiti-covered Duane Reade.
“Why don’t you ever believe me when I say I’m sorry?” Ridley attempted to appear sorry, but she was having trouble remembering how that particular expression looked. She went with sick instead, because she’d faked that one enough times growing up that it was almost second nature.
“Because you’re never sorry,” Link said, as if the thought had only just now come to him. “Because you never really believe there’s anything to be sorry for. This is all just a game to you. It’s never goin’ to be anythin’ more real than that. Not for Ridley Duchannes.”
Ridley knew what he was talking about. Earlier in the summer, when Link had confessed that he loved her, she had freaked out and bailed on him. Neither one of them had said a word about it since.
Sometimes real was too real, especially for Ridley.
“No. That’s not true,” she said, suddenly feeling sort of awful.
Link stood up. “I need to walk.”
“No, please don’t,” she said. “Link.”
He took off down the street—away from Ridley and the Beater and the Duane Reade and the whole conversation.
She’d been tricking Mortals her entire life. At least, manipulating them. She’d always gotten by before. Why did she feel so bad about it now? And who was Link to make her feel so rotten for doing what she’d always done?
Most Dark Casters didn’t give Mortals a second thought. They were there to be taken advantage of—it was why they existed.
Like for target practice, or Casting lessons.
They’re just, you know, Mortals.
Ridley sat alone on the curb in the circle of a sad yellow streetlight. The night was dark, even in the city, and once again she was alone.
This is who I am. A girl sitting alone on a curb. This is all I know how to be.
She knew she needed to tell Link the truth, but which truth? And what did it matter? In the end, she’d still find herself alone on the curb.
Maybe that’s where I belong.
She shivered, feeling conspicuous, like the world was watching.
Literally watching.
She looked up.
Because someone is watching me, Rid thought. She could feel it, the eyes on her. She glanced up and down the street. The night grew darker in the cracks and crannies beneath cars and stoops, inside doorways and behind bushes. There were so many places to hide.
But as she watched, everything remained still.
Maybe I’m imagining things.
There were no footsteps, no sounds.
I don’t have that great of an imagination.
Ridley was still trying to hammer it out when Link shouted back to her.
“Rid!”
“Go away,” Ridley said. “I don’t want to hear it.” It was what he expected her to say, the Siren alone on the curb. So she said it.
“Well, that’s too bad, because I found us a puking clown.”
CHAPTER 8 
Stairway to Heaven
Where are you taking me?”
“Have a little faith, Rid,” Link said.
“Right.” As if.
Link stopped and pulled her in front of him, putting a hand on each of her shoulders. “Look. I’m tryin’ to help, here. I’m not sayin’ it’s a slam dunk. I gotta make sure it’s a good fit, I mean. The band.”
Ridley held her breath.
“Yeah?”
“If it’s important to you, I’ll give it a shot. I mean, I’m your guy. But you gotta be straight with me.”
“I am.” She reached up to push a spike of hair out of his eyes.
“You sure there’s nothin’ else goin’ on here?”
She shook her head. Nothing I can tell you, anyway. But she was still spooked by the feeling that she was being watched. And more than a little guilty about having to lie to her own boyfriend.
She had a bad feeling about this whole night.
“I’m fine,” Ridley said, as much to herself as to him.
Link looked relieved and grabbed her hand. “Then let’s go.”
She followed him across the street from the Duane Reade—the very real drugstore, not the infinitely less real person—where there was a small, run-down, otherwise nondescript one-story diner. Though the street itself was dark, the front window of the building was lit by a blinking neon light that said one word: DINER. It looked like it hadn’t changed much, or been cleaned much, in half a century.
“Does that mean it’s a diner? Or that the name of the place is Diner?” Ridley stared up at it. “I don’t get it.”
“Marilyn’s Diner. Can’t you see where the rest of the neon’s blown out?”
She examined it more closely, but she could barely make out anything in the window. Now that he had transformed, the hybrid Incubus Link could see and hear things well beyond the abilities of a Mortal, or even a Caster.
“Anyway, I’m not talking about that. Look at this.” Link pointed to a wall on the side of the diner, the one that faced the corner of the intersection. It was a relatively average wall of brick covered with graffiti. Tagged words became abstract spray-painted shapes, swirling one into the next. A row of monsters. A sea of faces. Hands lining the ground like flowers.
And one word, arching over it all.
The lettering reminded Ridley of something, but she couldn’t recall exactly what. The name was familiar, or maybe just the artwork. “It’s like those paintings by that one guy. You know, in the museums in Paris, or Spain.”
“Oh, that guy. I see what you’re saying.” But Link didn’t see, since he had never set foot inside a museum in his entire life. Not even the gift shop.
“Dalí,” she said, snapping her fingers. “Salvador Dalí, the guy with the droopy clocks and bizarre faces and skulls that have skulls for eyes. Monster heads walking around on chicken legs and whatever.”
“Last time I checked, you paid about as much attention to museums as I did.” Link grinned. “You’re so full of it.”
“See right there? Where the monster coming out of the creepy egg thing with legs is eating those little guys? That’s what I’m talking about.” Ridley gestured to the wall.
“I think you’re missing the point.” Link looked smug.
“Yeah? What is it, then, Picasso?”
Link reached toward the white monster. “It’s that.”
He touched the wall right behind the white monster, where another creature, one that looked like a cross between a squid and a giraffe—with a strangely round, red nose—was spewing what looked like a bunch of eyeballs out of his enormous mouth.
“He’s throwing up,” Rid said. “Clown Nose is throwing up.” Suddenly, she saw it. Clown Nose. Throwing up. Puking clown!
“Pukin’ like Savannah Snow at Senior Night.” Link seemed more chipper than he’d been since they left Gatlin. “Or Emily Asher at prom. Or that really drunk Summerville kid with food poisoning at Meatstik’s last gig. Or—”