What had he meant by not wanting things to “end” this way? Why did it feel as though the note was his way of trying to tell her good-bye? And why had he said everything would
“disappear” after tonight?
Isobel squeezed her eyes shut. She wanted to reach into her bag and read the note again. It was as though she hoped the writing there could have changed while she wasn’t looking.
Then again, why not, when everything else around her seemed to be doing just that?
An unnerving feeling unfurled through her stomach, a poisonous blossom of uncertainty and doubt and fear. She wondered if Varen had known what the Nocs would do. Worse, she wondered if he’d sent them—Pinfeathers, after all, had come bearing his letter. Or were the Nocs part of what he’d meant by having lost control?
“Done,” Gwen said finally, dropping her arms. “Now, where’s your tag?”
Freed, Isobel opened her eyes. She pulled the tag from her gym bag. Gwen snatched it from her, grabbed Isobel’s hand, and looped the red ribbon around her wrist. She tied it there, tightening the knot until the ribbon pressed into her skin, almost to the point of cutting off her circulation. “Whatever you do,” she said, “don’t lose this.”
The Cadillac slowed suddenly, and Isobel had to brace herself as the front tires bumped over what felt like a log. Gwen bounced as though having expected the jolt, and went to securing her own tag. They shuttled off the last of the long, snake-winding back roads, the tires crunching and popping over gravel.
Mikey switched off the brights, and the Cadillac’s normal headlights dimmed to cast a yellowish white light over a wide lot of pale dirt and rock. Dust and grit kicked up to swirl through the two beams like mist. Rows of dark cars lined their path like sleeping monsters. Isobel scooted forward, grabbed the back of Mikey’s seat, and squinted through the windshield.
Ahead she saw groups of figures standing outside a long two-story building—something that looked part barn and part warehouse. A pulsing green-to-pink light radiated from within, and distantly Isobel could feel more than hear the low thump of music.
As the car crept closer, its beams passed over a set of tall, pallid figures. Isobel’s insides tightened at the sight of them, at the way they stood huddled together beside a black Honda, sharing a cigarette. She pressed to the window, scanning their faces.
Smoke swirled up from the group, and as the Cadillac crawled past, each white face turned to stare. They glowered at her, their sharp noses and starkly painted faces menacing but nevertheless whole. Isobel sat back, taking a moment to breathe, to urge her heart to slow.
“Hey,” Gwen said, nudging her. “Look.”
Her heart thudding anew, she turned to scan the parking lot. The headlights passed over the rear of a familiar car, and Isobel let out a small cry as she caught sight of the jagged letters against the black finish, the hateful word FREAK spelled out on the side of a Cougar.
Isobel unlatched the door. It swung out, and the Cadillac stuttered to a halt.
“Hey, what gives?” Mikey shouted.
She slipped from her seat into the cool air that instantly latched to her bare shoulders. A shiver ran through her, but the sharpness of the cold felt good—further evidence that she was really here, that she was awake, alive—that Varen must be too.
“Isobel, wait!”
Ignoring Gwen, she ran at full speed for the warehouse, her feet joining in with the thumping, chaotic beat of music. She glanced up at the sky. An almost full moon beamed silver-white through a gauzy haze of cloud cover. Shining like a lazy serpent’s eye, it cast the world around her in a ghostly pallor and caused the pink satin and lace of her dress to turn luminescent.
Even over the crashing drums that joined in with the drone of bass guitar, Isobel could still hear the quiet rustling of her skirts.
A wide wooden door stood open before her. Inside, colored lights raged. Flashes of violet and red blinked and pulsed, flaring through a writhing throng of black-clad bodies. She slowed her run as she drew into the archway and took in the sea of masked faces. Against one wall a band, the source of the tortured music, played atop a makeshift stage. A boy dressed in a long black coat, his face painted like Death’s, screamed into a microphone. He dropped to his knees. The drummer and guitarist behind him thrashed out a violent rhythm while he reached toward his audience, begged them with anguished lyrics to pray for him.
Fighting against every instinct, Isobel drifted farther inward, deciding to try her best to keep back from the carnage that was the dance floor. She glanced up to see pockets of figures standing around a wooden gallery that rimmed the circumference of the room. Like decorative gargoyles and cemetery angels, they stood huddled close to the edges, elegant hands poised on the banisters. She caught a few stares, flinty gazes turning in her direction. She looked quickly away. A flash of black light caught her, turning the pink of her dress deep violet for a fleeting second. She wished that the light could have stayed, could have stained the fabric, hidden her.
She felt someone tap her on the shoulder, and she swung around. A tall boy with an unruly black Mohawk and tiny round sunglasses took her wrist without asking. Black lipstick coated his full lips. A spiked dog collar fastened with a padlock encircled his neck. She jerked away from him, realizing too late that it was her tag he was after and not an open vein.
Annoyed, he grabbed for her wrist again. Isobel let him check her tag this time, knowing better than to try and shout a coherent explanation for her very blond, very frilly presence over the deafening music. He flipped the tag over several times before actually reading it, as though to first confirm authenticity. Isobel stood her ground and watched his face as he took in the purple writing. His eyes flashed to hers, disbelieving. He looked as though he wanted to speak but he didn’t, maybe deciding it wasn’t worth the trouble to yell.
Isobel jerked her wrist back, remembering Gwen’s warning not to lose her tag. The point was that she had one. So what else did he want?
She took a step backward, but he shook his head. It didn’t seem as though he was ready to let her go. He crooked a finger at her to come closer, and this time it was her turn to shake her head. He scowled and turned to point at a nearby gathering.
The group he gestured to looked like a stately if not unusual funeral party. There were three young men, two of them with black umbrellas open and held aloft over the head of a girl, her golden-bronze arms coated in black lace sleeves, her thick dark hair piled atop her head beneath bands of silver, secured with large roses and long drapes of black ribbon. She looked like a queen, her full dress a deep bloodred, accented with black.
Lacy.
For a moment Isobel thought about bolting straight into the crowd, but then the other girl saw her and it was too late. Like a mouse paralyzed in the gaze of a cobra, Isobel stood frozen.
Lacy’s artfully painted eyes narrowed hard on her. She surveyed Isobel for a long moment, a sneer contorting the perfection of her ebony lips. By this time the other members of her party had turned to stare as well, lowering their goblets.
Isobel gulped. They were going to eat her alive.
She silently cursed Gwen for dressing her in baby-girl pink. Why couldn’t they have swapped? A little eyeliner, a dash of sullenness, and she could have slipped beneath the radar completely.
Apparently growing inpatient with her, Mohawk Man placed a large hand against her back and urged her forward, toward the group. Isobel, not knowing what else to do, went where she was pushed.
The guys with the umbrellas looked like they were in their twenties at least, each of them clad in top hats and long coats. The third had a more edgy look. He wore a leather jacket laced in chains, his hair spiky on one half of his head, shorn clean on the other. Lacy handed off her goblet to Mr. Mohawk and seized Isobel’s tag. Her dark eyes narrowed as she read, and when she looked up she stared past Isobel, searching the crowd behind them.