Chapter 24
Twenty-Four
Phillip was tense with rage beside me in the little boat. He had recognized Sloan’s voice too. I, on the other hand, found myself oddly calm. My hand, which had been grasping for him, found his leg and gave it a squeeze. No, I thought, forcing myself to calm down and hoping that calm translated into my thoughts. Don’t do anything. Stay right there.
Somehow, I’d known it would come to this. That Sloan would sniff me out, hunt me down, and force me into a confrontation. That’s just who Sloan was. She wouldn’t let me go without some final showdown.
But I was fine with that, I realized as I sat there in the darkness, the little boat rocking beneath me.
I felt okay.
I was okay.
I looked down at the little pot of gloss, repressing the urge to laugh. Oh, she’d tampered with it somehow. I should have known the moment I’d seen her dumb Tweety mask (who had always been her favorite), or at the least when she’d pressed that lip gloss into my hand. She’d tried to warn me, after all, at my own wedding. ] How stupid was I to believe that it had fallen out of my pocket and rolled into the back of the boat?
But would Sloan actually stoop so low to poison me?
I cleared my throat and tried to speak. My voice was a bit squeaky, but at least it came out. “So,” I managed to sputter. “Crashing the party again, I see.”
“Are you having a good honeymoon, Storm?” she asked me, her voice still calm and cool as a cucumber.
My hand closed into a fist, a feeling of buzzing numbness filling my fingers. A feeling that was quickly becoming familiar. The tingling, buzzing feeling of my power, pooling into my hands, at the ready should I need it. I opened my fingers and closed them again, taking another gulp of air into my lungs. The darkness freaked me out a little, but I vowed to remain calm.
“What’s going on?” a voice cried from another one of the boats. “Is something wrong? Is somebody hurt?”
“Are you okay, Stormy? For real?” Benny’s voice was close to my ear, and I reached out and found his arm, giving him a reassuring squeeze. He called out, “Everything’s fine, guys!” Then, his voice lower, near my ear again, “Do you want me to handle her?”
“I’ve got this, Ben,” I said, then reached for Lee, fumbling until I found his wiry shoulder. “I suspect Clara’s here somewhere. I think she jumped from the boat right before the lights went out.”
“She put the lights out,” Sloan said from behind me, her voice easy, as though this were the most natural thing in the world.
“How in the hell did none of us notice the two of them in our boat?” Lee said incredulously, his voice full of rage.
“Masks,” I said. “They were wearing masks.” I turned back to Sloan. I couldn’t see her well, but from what I could make out, she was just sitting there in the back of the boat, her hands folded in her lap, pretty as you please. The same way she’d been back at the trailer on my wedding night. The same calm, cool, unbothered stance she’d been taking for the past year while secretly, covertly trying to undo every facet of my life behind the scenes. If I had been paying better attention, I would have known her figure, her posture, anywhere, even in the baggy shirt and oversized gym shorts she was wearing. Clara, too; after all, she was a literal wrestler with the muscles to go with it. But I’d been too busy flirting and lusting after Phillip to pay attention to anyone else. I’d had my head in the clouds for days, and it was making me stupid. “And she disguised her voice. But I figured it out. Eventually.”
Time and again, I’d fought against her, railed against her, but she kept slipping away. Only to return again, with that same cool smile on her face, and she’d keep trying until she finally succeeded.
I couldn’t let that happen.
I was finally ready to do what needed to be done.
“Stormy,” Phillip said uncertainly beside me. His hand on my leg gripped me like a vise.
“Go with Benny and Lee; get everybody off the boats and to the exit. Then try to find Clara,” I said. I thought for a moment. “And look for the attendant with the ponytail and the eyeliner. Don’t let him get away.”
“I don’t want to leave you alone with her,” he seethed.
“I can handle it,” I said. “I promise. Really.”
Reluctantly, he stood up, the tiny boat wobbling beneath his weight. It swayed in the water as he stepped off the ledge onto the fake grass of the attraction, off into the darkness. After a moment, a little square of light lit up from his phone as he turned on the flashlight app. He turned back to me, illuminating Sloan and me in the boat—she was sitting exactly as I had imagined—and then walked off toward the fake monsters, all of whom seemed a lot less creepy and whimsical without their mechanical operations. Behind them were a set of signs, including one that said EXIT and another that said LIGHTS. Off to the side, Benny and Lee were helping a young couple off the first boat and onto the fake grass.
I turned back to Sloan, who was once again shrouded in darkness.
“It’s getting kind of sad,” I said, rubbing absently at my still-tingling hand. “You following me around like this. I never pegged you for one of those types.”
Sloan didn’t answer.
My lips had started to burn a little, but I kept smiling.
“I know you didn’t poison me,” I went on. “The effects are already starting to fade. It just burns some. What did you use, cayenne? Ghost pepper? I don’t believe for a second it’s poison.” I pressed my lips, which felt slightly swollen and tender, but nothing too serious. “You must’ve been pretty sly to get it out of my pocket, I’ll give you that, but what are you trying to do here, Sloan? We both know you aren’t going to kill me . You don’t have it in you.
Sloan snorted but still said nothing.
“Besides, you couldn’t hurt me even if you did really want to. I’m too powerful. I think you know that. Is that why you keep showing up, trying to test me? Are you trying to force my hand? Is that it?”
Silence.
“And now you’ve dragged Clara into it. What reason could she possibly have to help you? Why get mixed up into all this?”
“Clara hates you.” There. That had done it; I’d finally goaded Sloan into talking. Her voice was sullen in the darkness. “As if you didn’t know.”
“Yeah, I knew,” I replied. “And I couldn’t give less of a shit.”
“You don’t want to know why she hates you?”
I shrugged. “Not really. It has to do with Benny, and him and Lee, I guess. Maybe she just doesn’t like outsiders. Maybe it’s an alpha female thing. Honestly? It’s none of my business, and I just don’t care. I don’t like her, either.” I realized as I said the words that it was true. Clara disliking me was none of my business. The feeling was mutual. We didn’t have to all sing kumbaya and be besties just because we had mutual people in common. Knowing you weren’t liked and being okay with it was a very freeing feeling.
“That’s your problem,” Sloan said. “You don’t care. You don’t care about the hurt you’ve caused. The people who have suffered because of you. The people who have died because of you.” Sloan grabbed my shoulders, her fingers icy cold. My own hand tensed into a tighter fist. “Shank. Tess. Guthrie and Elvin. All of them are gone because of you.”
“No, all of them are gone because of them,” I said coolly, breathing through the tension as I carefully, calmly extracted Sloan’s hand from my shoulder. “Just because I learned what they were doing and decided to defend myself doesn’t make me to blame for what happened to them. Every single one of those people is dead due to the consequences of their own actions.” I swallowed, feeling tears spring to my eyes. “Even Tess. Though I suppose your friend Colt Leather helped him along, didn’t he?” I hadn’t recognized him right off—he’d dyed his greasy burgundy hair black and was wearing it different now, and the heavy eyeliner had disguised those piercing, wild eyes of his, but the attendant who had waved us forward was him, all right. I should have guessed he was running with Sloan all along. He was just her type.
“It’s just so easy for you to deny all responsibility, isn’t it?” Sloan sneered, poking me in the shoulder with another icy finger. “Poor, precious, sweet little Stormy. She’s never to blame for anything. She’s so fragile, we all have to protect her, even though she can read minds and raise the dead and knock people out cold with her hands, but oh, she’s such a delicate little flower, she needs all the big bad men to come to her aid!”
“That’s rich, coming from somebody who spikes makeup to hurt people, like a weirdo fucking coward.” I sneered. “You’ve got so much talent, a whole business doing hair and makeup, and you’re squandering it, to what? Cosplay as some kind of medieval-style poisoner? Bum around with bitter, jealous drug addicts and plan revenge plots? Do you think you can really just play at being a witch by stirring some shit into a bottle of foundation?”
Sloan’s hand, still resting on my shoulder, curled, her fingernails poking into my skin.
“Touch me again and you’ll regret it,” I warned, pushing her off me, feeling the light pulsing into my fingers. I glanced up, seeing shadows in the darkness heading toward the exit. Benny and Lee had gotten most of the people off the boats, though I could barely make out Ollie and Jason over by one of the monster figures, hovering, watching. I smiled, touched. They wouldn’t leave me. I wondered if Phillip had found Clara yet.
“You want to know why I’m here?” Sloan asked, her voice low and cold in the darkness. “Why I followed you?”
“Sure,” I said. “I’m all ears.”
“I hacked Phillip’s phone. Really early on, before you guys ever went to Boston. He’s damn stupid when it comes to technology; he didn’t even notice. I’ve been tailing you everywhere.” So that explained it. How she always knew where we’d be. It hadn’t been all Clara, after all. “I was honestly starting to get bored,” she went on. “You and that lump of crap you call a boyfriend are the most boring people on the planet. Colt was right—he’s a washed-up has-been. He’s supposed to be a legit rock star, and all you two ever do is lay around doing nothing.
“I guess you’ve never had a good sex life, Sloan,” I said with a laugh. “Especially if your latest guy is Colt ‘sex scandal’ Leather. My condolences.”
I could feel her indignant huff of breath. I’d wounded her; since we were teens, she’d been bragging on her healthy sex life and how attractive men found her. She’d always been more blessed than me, a perpetual wallflower, in that regard. There were plenty of proms and homecomings I spent holed up at home with no date while Sloan had to fight off suitors. How far she’d fallen—going for men like Guthrie and Colt—and so quickly, and what was worse, she knew I knew it. It must be killing her. Still, she went on. “After your wedding, I thought about laying low for a while, just letting shit go. I’d made my point, anyway. And I have a business to run. But then I saw Phillip was planning a little honeymoon for you, with a stop off in Atlanta for a Six Flags’ day. Well, I couldn’t resist that. For old times’ sake, you know?” I sighed. Sloan and I had come to Six Flags together more than once when we’d been teenagers. Day trips with friends, field trips…We had plenty of memories together at this place, in these very boats at Monster Plantation, in fact. It had been both of our favorites. It was oddly flattering that Sloan would follow me here. Flattering in a completely unhinged, maniacal sort of way, but flattering all the same.
I sighed again, massaging my fist with my other hand. The burning in my lips had almost completely subsided, and I found that my voice had returned to normal. “So now what? You’ve stalled out the boats and cut the lights and we’re here. You’ve got me alone. So what’s next?”
“Next,” Sloan said, her voice suddenly inches from my ear, “is that I kill you.”
For a moment, I couldn’t catch my breath, unable to form words, to think of what to say next. My heart thudded dully in my chest. Then I forced a shaking breath into my lungs and burst out laughing.
“Oh, Sloan,” I said through my laughter. “You can’t kill me. That ship has sailed, girl. Pun very much intended.”
“Wanna bet?’ Her voice was like ice in the darkness. She was angry. Furious. I knew that tone.
“Oh, absolutely I do.”
The rickety little boat shook as Sloan stood up. I could make out her outline, standing over me. I stood up too, trying to get my bearings as the boat swayed on the tiny beam of metal that acted as the track. The water was surprisingly high; it sloshed over the boat and soaked my shoes.
“You think I don’t have the power?” Sloan demanded, her voice deep with fury. “You think just because I wasn’t born with it, because I wasn’t one of Elvin’s golden children, that I don’t have any power?”
“That’s exactly what I think,” I said, my voice matching hers in intensity, staring her down, meeting her eyes in the dark. “And I think you’re so mad about it—you’ve been so mad about it for years— that it’s made you lose your mind. You’re jealous, Sloan. So jealous that it’s made you bonkers. You’ve created this whole persona to try and fight it, but at the end of the day, you’re still just a little girl with no powers, out of her element and out of her mind.”
Sloan let out a fierce, mad howl, and propelled herself forward, throwing the entirety of her weight at me, crashing into me hard, throwing us both off the small boat.
We hit the water, Sloan still clutching at me, trying to tear at my hair, my face—and sank.
I’d thought the water was surprisingly deep. Really only a couple feet were necessary since the boats were actually operated by the little metal track, but I thought, as I sank into the depths, that the water was at least four feet deep, if not more. My feet kicked and flailed in the water, trying to get to the floor, but found no purchase. I struggled to wrench myself free from Sloan’s grasp, her hands tangled in my hair, still pulling and trying to cause me pain even as we sunk.
Finally, with one quick jerk, I wrenched myself free from her grasp, sending her floating off into the depths. Kicking my feet, I found the floor and tried to stand up, cracking my head on something hard as I moved to stand. Stars appeared before my eyes, and I waved wildly with my arms, trying to find a way out of the water. I sputtered, forcing my mouth to stay closed, lest I swallow a mouthful of nasty, stale water.
My hand reached above me and found a blank, empty space. I tried to stand again, doing so easily this time. On shaky legs, I pulled myself up, the water coming up to my chest, and surveyed the scene. The little ledge with the fake grass was right beside me; that’s where I’d hit my head. All the boats were empty. Jason and Ollie were no longer crouched by the monsters; off in the distance, near the EXIT sign, I could hear yelling. They must have found Clara, I assumed. The monsters seemed to leer at me in the darkness, the twinkling green lights in the fake trees casting the entire space in an eerie glow. It was little more than a room, but it felt like I was lost on some deserted desert island, only Sloan, still flailing beneath me in the water, here to keep me company.
I sighed, watching the ripples just a few yards away, Sloan struggling to find purchase with the slick floor, the water closing over her head again and again. I shuffled through the waist-deep water and grabbed her arms, pulling her up and onto the ledge, both of us drenched. Sloan sputtered for a moment, spitting out a mouthful of water, and stared at me, her eyes dark and black as coals.
I stared back, saying nothing, just watching her. She suddenly looked very small, and very sad.
“You’re right,” she said finally, wiping at her wet cheeks. “I couldn’t hurt you—not really—even if I wanted to. And I don’t really want to.”
“Then why all this?” I asked, gesturing in the darkness. I could still hear yelling off in the distance.
Sloan took a ragged breath. “I got tired of being the guest star, the best friend character, I guess. You’re so powerful and…and…sought after. And for years, you didn’t even know it. Tess, Phillip, Elvin…all those weirdos at the Wolfden…they’d all die for you, and you didn’t even know. I just wanted to feel like, even a third as powerful. As desired. As respected.” She looked down at her drenched shoes. “I was tired of standing in your shadow, Stormy.”
“You’ve never been in my shadow,” I argued, but she silenced me with a hand.
“Yes, I have,” Sloan insisted. “I guess it was just easier to blame you for it than to step out of it and move on with my life.”
“I never did anything to hurt you on purpose, Sloan,” I said solemnly. “I had no idea you felt this way. I had no idea…about so much. For so long.”
“I know that,” Sloan said. “But your ignorance was one of the reasons I hated you so much. The world falling down around you, and you were just…oblivious.”
“I can see how that would be hard,” I said. I had no intention of apologizing, but I could give her that. Make her think I empathized. Which I did, in a weird, fucked-up way. My own trauma, I supposed.
“I loved Tess too,” she said in a whisper, wiping at her eyes. Then she looked at me. “And…Guthrie too. It was fucked up, what we had but…I did love him. In a way.” She shook her head. “I haven’t handled anything well. I shouldn’t have brought Clara and Colt into it, but…but I just…I’m just so angry.”
“So am I.” On impulse, I grabbed Sloan’s hand and squeezed it. To my surprise, she squeezed it back.
“I guess this is the end of our friendship,” she said simply, her hand hanging in my mine, both of them damp. “Unless you can find a way to forgive me.”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly, tears prickling at my own eyes. “I really don’t. Sloan, people have died because of you.”
“I never meant to truly hurt anyone.” Her voice was small, and for a moment, sounded sincere.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” a voice said behind us, and we both turned, startled, to see Clara standing there, hands on her hips. “I hijacked a boat and climbed into the rafters to cut the lights just so the two of you could sit there and hold hands like two lovers on a picnic?”
“Clara, we’re just talking—" Sloan began, her voice a little unsure.
“You might be too much of a coward to follow through, but I’m not,” Clara said in a tight voice, her hands curling into fists.
I let go of Sloan’s hand and stood, my damp shorts trickling water down my legs. “I don’t know what beef you think you have with me, Clara, but I should warn you?—"
“What beef I have with you?” Clara laughed, her voice low and tight with anger. “I wouldn’t know where to start! You got Tess killed, didn’t you? You broke up any chance Benny and I had of getting back together. And you inserted yourself into my family like Queen Shit and just took over, breaking up the whole group! Then there’s Sloan here and all you’ve put her through. I have every reason to hate you, Stormy Spooner. And I do. Believe me, I do.”
“I had nothing to do with Benny—" I started, but Clara wasn’t stopping to listen. She lunged at me, grabbing me by the hair before I had a chance to finish the sentence, the two of us stumbling on the ledge and tumbling into the shallow water.
I could hear Sloan’s muffled shouting from somewhere above us as I fought to untangle my limbs from Clara’s vice-like grip. She really was strong. I kicked and tried to wrench myself free, but she held my arms tight, locked in front of me, and as I tried to kick at her, my right leg hit something mechanical and my entire body erupted in bright-hot pain.
My chest was beginning to tighten; I needed to find the surface and breathe. I was rapidly running out of oxygen, my head light and woozy, my uninjured leg still kicking but finding nothing. Her strong arms pinned mine down against my chest, a pressure that made it even harder not to open my mouth and scream, letting the dark water in and drowning me. I flailed uselessly, sparkles of white light appearing behind my eyelids. I was going to lose consciousness soon.
Then, suddenly, hands grabbed me and pulled me upward. Clara’s grip tightened even more, then abruptly gave way. A loud grunt sounded in my ears as I hit the water’s surface, gasping for air, my eyes flying open just in time to see Clara stagger backward and hit one of the boats with her lower back.
I was pulled back onto the ledge, this time falling into the fetal position, taking a few moments to catch my breath and squeeze the water from my eyes and nose. I turned, expecting to see Phillip, or perhaps Lee or Benny, but Sloan sat there before me, her eyes wide and clear. “Are you okay?” she asked.
I nodded, surprised. “Are you?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’m sorry. That I started this.” Then her eyes cast upward. My gaze followed hers, unsurprised to see Clara advancing on me again, stepping out of the water onto the ledge, completely undeterred. Jesus, she was strong.
“Clara, please,” Sloan said in a pleading voice. “I…I don’t want to do this anymore. Let’s just sit and talk, okay? We don’t need to fight.”
“Don’t you dare touch me again,” I warned, not believing her for a second. I was still panting. “Or you’ll regret it.”
“Do you think after all this I’m just going to let it go?” Clara demanded, her face red with anger. “Do you think I’ll just let her walk out of here?”
“Please,” Sloan said again, but Clara didn’t seem to hear her. She reached forward, her hand curled into a claw, her intention clear. She was going to drag me by my hair back into the water. Drown me, most likely. A cold rope of fear wrapped around my heart, but I stared at her head on, raising my cold, wet right hand.
“Benny taught me this,” I murmured, saying a silent thank you to my friend as the ball of light made its way down my arm and into my curled hand, hovering there in a little orb, glowing and illuminating the room with the fake monsters. “See? For a long time, I couldn’t control it. It just came out whenever it wanted to, whenever I was in danger. But now? Now I know how to use it. When to use it. It’s totally within my control. He was right.”
Clara smiled. “So you can choose not to use it.” Her hand was close enough to touch me. She grabbed a tendril of my hair, wrapping it around her finger, a shudder going through me.
“Yes, I can,” I said, holding the tiny glowing orb there in my hands. “But the thing is, Clara, I told you not to touch me again or you’d regret it. You heard me, clear as day. And then you fucking did it anyway.”
“Clara,” Sloan pleaded again. “Please.”
Clara took a step back, her eyes wide, the water sloshing against her as she backed into one of the boats. She grabbed ahold of it, trying to clamber in, but she couldn’t get enough leverage. She landed back in the water with a splash. It was as though she’d suddenly realized the magnitude of the situation, that she had no power. “You can’t. You wouldn’t.”
“The old me wouldn’t have,” I said calmly, twisting my wrist to move my hand round and round the little ball. “But I’m not that girl anymore. And you’ve messed with the wrong bitch.”
And with that, I threw the ball of light directly into Clara’s chest.
She sunk into the water without another word, her body slipping under the water silently, like a ghost. Like she’d never been there at all. Then, after a moment, she resurfaced, facedown, bobbing in the water, her light-purple hair trailing behind her.
I stared at Clara’s lifeless body for a moment, watching her faded purple hair flowing in a halo around her head in the murky water. Benny had been right. I could kill too. And now I had.
I turned to Sloan, tears in both our eyes, and shrugged pitifully. “I’m sorry,” I said to my former best friend, watching as one single tear rolled down her cheek. “I did what I had to do. And I’d do it again.” I stood up and squared my shoulders. “I forgive you, Sloan.”
I swallowed the sob in my throat , and climbed up onto the grass ledge and trudged toward the exit sign to find my chosen family.
The lights came back on right as I hit the exit, the music resuming and the monsters animated, robotic dancing all around me. I found myself face to face with an animatronic spider that loomed down from a phony web and was suddenly laughing. I almost felt giddy as I pushed open the door and stepped out into the sweltering sun.
Outside, it was so bright I had to squint, temporarily blinded after being in the dark for so long. My hair dripped onto my clothes as I looked around. I was in the back of the building, the area where normally only employees were allowed. It was deserted back there, and I made my way down a pathway toward a storage building, hoping to find my way back around front to people.
But first I needed a minute. A minute to collect myself. I sat down right on the grass, looking down at my hands. I had left Clara inside, face down in the water. She was dead; I knew she was. And I’d just…left her there with Sloan. I had killed her.
What—and who—was I now?
“Stormy!”
I turned, surprised to see Roberta in the doorway of the exit I’d just come out of. She ran over to me, pulling me into a hug. “Fuck, you’re dripping wet! What happened?”
“A lot,” I said, gulping, watching as Jamie, Nikolai, Beth and several strangers came milling out of the door. Everyone but my friends walked past single file, headed back toward the front.
As one woman passed by, she muttered, “Stupid old equipment. They ought to do regular maintenance on these rides so you wouldn’t have them quitting right in the middle.”
“We were stopped in the first part of the ride for the longest time,” Roberta explained, looking down at my wet clothes, her brows furrowed. “It seemed like an eternity before the boats began to move again, and then when they did, once we got into the second part of the plantation, the lights came on. Then it stopped again, and the employees made us get off the boats and leave through the emergency exit!” Her eyes were wild with excitement. “Security arrested one of the attendants right in front of everybody. It was wild.”
“Let me guess—the guy with the ponytail and the thick eyeliner,” I said, and she nodded. My shoulders relaxed with something like relief. Phillip had moved fast. Colt Leather was in police custody, and I couldn’t be happier.
“They didn’t say anything about it, but I’m pretty sure I saw someone floating in the water,” Nikolai said in his quiet voice, his eyes meeting mine. “We got worried for a second, worried that it was you.”
“Well, I’m fine,” I said. “But I know who it is in the water.”
“Who?” Beth asked.
It’s Clara.”
Roberta stared at me, her eyes wide. “You didn’t.”
“I did.”
“Fuck.” The words lay unspoken between us, but we just stared at each other, the weight of what I’d done hanging between us in the air.
I opened my mouth to speak, but Roberta knew what I was going to say before I had the chance. “You want to go back in, don’t you,” she said, and it wasn’t really a question. “You want to go in and bring her back.”
“Do I have any choice?”
Roberta stared at me for a long moment, then finally shook her head, her curls, damp from the humidity, bobbing against her cheek. “I don’t suppose you do. Not if you want to be able to live with yourself.”
“Let’s go then,” I said, grabbing hold of her arm. “Before I change my mind.”
As we walked back toward the exit, we heard yelling from inside the plantation. “Hurry!” I shouted, still holding Roberta’s arm with one hand and Beth’s with the other. I had to get in there and undo what I’d done before Clara’s body was discovered, before calls to 911 were made, before people found out—before I lost my chance.
The three of us ran back into the plantation, past the creepy singing monsters and over to the water, where the boats were still suspended, and gaped.
Jamie stood on the little ledge, looking down into the murky water. His face was drawn tight. He looked up at us as we approached. “Did you do this? he asked me, pointing to Clara, who lay floating face down, her purple hair floating listlessly, and I nodded. Nobody had noticed Sloan, who was still sitting on the fake-grass ledge, her head tucked between her knees, rocking back and forth.
“Damn,” he said, shaking his head. “Well, we’d better get her out of there and hide her, fast. What should we do with her, y’all?”
It was a little sick, but I couldn’t help the flutter in my stomach and the warm feeling that spread through my limbs as I realized that Jamie—and all my other friends at the Wolfden, most likely—were more than willing to just accept that I’d killed someone, someone who had been one of their own, and help me hide the body. No questions asked.
Instead, I shook my head and balled my hand into a fist, a gesture Jamie understood immediately. He stood up and took a step back, his face clouding over. “Are you sure you wanna?—"
“She has to, hon,” Roberta said, stepping over to him and putting a hand on his shoulder. She pulled him back another few steps to give me space. “She can’t leave it like this. She can’t leave Clara’s death on Sloan’s conscience, for one.” So she had seen Sloan. I looked at my best friend and gave her a tight, grateful smile.
“I guess you’re right,” Jamie said reluctantly. “But I kinda hate it for you, Stormy. That girl is a fuckin’ bitch.”
“She sure fuckin’ is,” Beth agreed, undoubtedly thinking about the poisoned makeup that had almost done her in.
“Alright,” I said, jumping back into the lukewarm water. “Better get it over with.” I approached Clara’s body with something like reverence, almost afraid to touch her, to look at her. With a gentle hand, I moved to turn her face up so I could see what I was doing. I stopped. “Wait. I can’t do this without…I need Phillip. Can somebody find Phillip for me?”
“Phillip’s right there, darlin’,” Jamie said, pointing.
I looked over at the animatronic ghouls, leering with their monstrous teeth dripping with fake blood, and began to laugh. Standing there amongst the singing monsters, huge and hulking, soaking wet and looking like a demented, furious Frankenstein’s monster himself, was Phillip Deville, his hands on his hips, his eyes blazing like fire as he watched me clutching Clara’s body.
“You’re going to do it again,” he said, his tone somewhere between accusatory and awestruck.
I leaned down and pressed my face to Clara’s chest, her T-shirt waterlogged, and felt no movement or heartbeat. “I didn’t want to kill her, Phillip,” I said, my voice starting to crack. The weight of what I’d done began to wash over me. Clara and I had never liked each other. We’d been enemies from the very beginning. And yes, she’d been a total bitch. But she’d been roped into this by Sloan, overcome with jealousy and heartbreak over Benny. She might’ve been a shitty person, but no matter what she’d done to me, she hadn’t deserved to die.
I might be a lot of things—a novice witch, a nosy busybody, sometimes a judgy, indecisive, and co-dependent friend—but I was not a cold-blooded killer.
“I know,” Phillip said softly, so softly that I couldn’t hear him against the loud sloshing of the suspended boats, but I could feel his words. I could feel them in my head and all around me, enveloping me like a warm blanket. He was standing yards away, but I could feel his arms around me, tight. “You don’t have much time. Do it now. We’ll try to keep everyone out.”
Thank you, I thought, smiling sadly at Phillip in the low light of the room. I bent back down to Clara’s lifeless body, her face serene and peaceful. I could see the heartbreak and pain in her face, and it made me sad. “I don’t even know her last name, y’all…”
“It’s Jennings,” Burt said quietly, putting a hand on my shoulder, then stepping back to give me space. I noticed absently, gratefully, that she stepped over to Sloan, sitting down beside her as she still rocked back and forth. Burt was such a good friend.
I put my hands under the water, on Clara’s lower back, and allowed her to float upward as I cradled her, mimicking how one would hold a baby being baptized. When she was suspended in front of me, I removed one hand from her back and made a fist, feeling the power pool in my fingers. I released the fist and let the ball of light linger there in my palm for a moment, becoming rounder and pulsing with a glowing gold light. I closed my eyes, allowing the power course through my veins and into my hands, imagining a magical, invisible tether transporting that power from me into Sloan.
I thought back to the night in my little trailer when I’d melted cinnamon-scented wax, burned sage, and recited a few odd lyrics. I remembered it like it was yesterday. The room almost devoid of air, humid and sultry, the only sound in my ears the odd crackle of lightning and thud of thunder from the impending storm outside, the only light I could see the small, blinking red light of a phone recording. I had recited the spell with intent and purpose, and everything that had happened sense was because of those few lines, spoken by a drunken witch who didn’t know she had powers.
I recited the words soundlessly, knowing that everyone in the room could hear me. They could hear me in their heads. A gift from the departed Guthrie that none of us minded anymore.
With salt in air and water in veins
I call the pale rider to loosen his reins
I call for death to loosen his chains
I call for air to return to the breast
I call for fire to ignite the rest
Let what was earthside return once more
Restart the clock, and settle the score
Reanimate the dead flesh of woman
Render Clara Jennings alive again.
The lights, which had just come back on moments before, flickered, then went out. Roberta screamed.
“You’re soaking wet,” Phillip said as he clutched my arm, leading me out of the Monster Plantation. “You said you hit your head? Do you need the paramedics to check you out?”
“I’m fine,” I insisted, giving him a look. “It’s nothing Benny can’t fix. Stop fussing over me, Deville.”
“You scared the shit out of me,” he said, not ready to be over his anger yet. “I came back in and you were gone, and that bitch was lying face down in the water—" He swallowed, his eyes bright with tears. “I thought you had?—"
“I’m fine,” I promised. I stopped as we reached the walkway and stood up on tiptoe to kiss his lips. “Phillip, I swear. Stop fretting. I’m okay.”
“Alright.” He put his hands up in mock surrender, but his eyes betrayed the worry he felt. “I’ll stop fussing over you. I’m just so fucking pissed that they ruined our honeymoon. I wanted this day—everything—to be absolutely perfect.”
“It is absolutely perfect,” I declared, reaching up to brush a lock of his damp hair from his eyes. “They didn’t ruin a damn thing. Sloan doesn’t have that kind of power. She doesn’t have any power.”
“I love you,” Phillip said, his eyes blazing as he looked down at me.
“I love you too.” We kissed again, and I was happy to see Phillip smiling for real when he pulled away. I would never forget the splash he’d made, jumping into the water to come and rescue me when the lights had flickered out. When the lights came back on, he was standing beside me, clutching me in his arms, our eyes wide as we realized Clara was staring back at us.
I had still been holding her in the water, suspended, and she’d turned her head to the side, spit out a stream of murky water, and turned back to me, her eyes blazing with anger. “You bitch,” she’d said, then wrestled herself from my grasp, standing up in the water and screaming bloody murder.
We hadn’t needed to subdue her. Moments later, the paramedics had shown up. Evidently, the employees had seen her body floating in the water and had already called 911. Thankfully, now there was no dead body to greet them. But Clara had done enough yelling and screaming to convince them she wasn’t well. Even though she was very much alive, Clara had still been carried out of Six Flags on a stretcher. I hoped she would make a full recovery, but beyond that, I also hoped I’d never see her again.
“The guys found someone who wants to talk to you,” Phillip said as we walked, his arm looped through mine.
Down the walkway in front of the carousel were Jason and Ollie, each perched on either side of the park bench. Between them, clutching a wet Wonder Woman mask in her hand and looking like she’d rather be anywhere but here, was Sloan.
“Got something you’ve been looking for,” Ollie called to me gaily as we approached. I noticed that his brand-new Vans were scuffed and dirty; he and Jason must have chased her all around the park.
As we neared the bench, my eyes locked on Sloan, who looked back at me, her eyes clear and wet with tears. “Are you alright?” she asked as I neared her, and I nodded.
“Yes. You?”
“No,” Sloan said, her voice choked with tears. Her fingers clutched at the wet mask. “I’m sorry,” she said. “About Clara. And Colt. And about…everything else.”
“I know.”
If there was anything else she wanted to say, it would have to wait. I wasn’t hanging around to hear more. I had a honeymoon to finish.
As we walked right past the bench, Phillip’s arm still hooked in mine, I turned to him with a grin. “Ready to ride the Scream Machine?” I asked, and he grinned back at me.
“I thought you’d never ask.”
“I think it’s time we call it a night, guys,” Benny said, raising his glass for another toast and downing the last dregs of his whiskey. “Leave these two honeymooners to do what comes naturally.” We had invited everyone—Benny, Lee, Jason, Ollie, Roberta, Beth, Nikolai, Jason, and Ollie—up to our suite for a drink. After the events at Monster Plantation, to say nothing of riding coasters all day in the sweltering heat, we’d all been ready to get good and toasted.
Lee groaned, tipping back his beer. “How is it that you’re not even thirty and you talk like an old timer in the 1950s.”
Benny grinned and poked him in the chest. “Keep it up and you won’t get any tonight yourself.”
“I’m sorry, lover.” Lee leaned in for a kiss that Benny returned readily.
Phillip’s arm grew tighter around my waist. I could feel his thoughts, and they were none too innocent. Benny was right. It was time for everyone to go. I put a hand to my mouth and gave a theatrical yawn. “I am pretty tired,” I said regretfully.
“You’re the worst fucking actress on the planet, Stormy,” Roberta said, standing up and taking her glass to the kitchenette, where she rinsed it out and sat it on the counter. “But I’ll forgive it since you’re on your honeymoon. Come on, y’all. Let’s leave the old witch bitch to her man.”
“Thanks, Burt,” I said, putting my hand to my heart. “You really know what to say to make me feel so warm and fuzzy inside.”
“I love you, beyotch,” she said in response, grabbing Jamie’s arm and tugging him to the door. “Bye.”
“Love you too,” I said after her, then turned to the rest of my friends. “I love you all too. I hope you know that.”
“We do,” Nikolai said, coming over to give me a hug. “We’re heading out too.”
“Call me when you get there,” I said, smiling down at Beth, happy they were together. “It’s a long drive back.”
“We’re flying back to Boston tomorrow,” Jason said after getting his own hug. “But we’ll all be back together soon enough. We’ve got a tour to plan!” His voice lowered and he looked at me. “But first…Would you mind, Stormy, if I…if I visited that girl Clara in the hospital before I left?”
I looked at him in surprise. “No, I wouldn’t mind. Why do you ask?”
“I just thought…Well, I feel like I understand her in some weird way,” Jason said, shrugging. He looked embarrassed. “Other than Phillip, she’s the only other person who…who knows what it’s like. To come back. I keep thinking about her, alone in the hospital... Is that wrong?”
We had all been saddened, but not surprised, to find that Clara was in the hospital. Not because of any physical injuries—she’d easily overtaken me at Monster Plantation, and I’d never stood a chance in that regard—but because she was clearly unwell. I wasn’t at all surprised when Benny told me she’d checked herself into an outpatient program to address some mental health issues. I sincerely wished her well but still hoped I never saw her again.
The name Colt Leather had been trending on social media for hours now. A crude cellphone video of his arrest outside of the Monster Plantation attraction had cropped up and immediately gone viral, circulating across news outlets. It was just another in a long list of scandals and fuck ups the former Necrofeelya singer had brought on himself in the past year or so, and from the looks of it, his goose was well and truly cooked. I didn’t know how long he’d be in jail, but he’d have plenty of time to read his serial killer books and mull over the death of his music career — and to come up with more shitty band names — that was for sure.
As for Sloan, she’d also checked herself in to rehab. Looking back, I should have seen the signs that she had a drinking problem—and one with drugs as well, thanks to Tess—but I’d been so caught up in my own bullshit I’d never really thought about it. I hoped she was getting much needed therapy too, something I myself planned to seek out as soon as I had a chance to breathe. Thinking all of it through, I’d reached a decision. “Only if you don’t judge me for visiting Sloan when I get back to Brunswick.”
“You’re a good one, Spooner,” he said, pulling me in for a hug.
“So are you, Langley.” I grinned, grabbing Ollie to envelop him in a hug too. “Did you get those girls’ numbers from Six Flags? Maybe you can invite them to the show.”
“On it,” Ollie said with a laugh.
Soon it was just me, Phillip, Benny, and Lee. Phillip opened the sliding glass window to let in the night breeze, stepping out onto the balcony for a moment to take in the stars. I’d join him there soon, but first, I needed to say something to my friend.
Lee was tidying the suite, picking up the candy wrappers and beer bottles that had been scattered around the little table. “Leave it, Lee,” I said, looking at him gratefully. “I’ll take care of it later.”
“No, you won’t, because I’m doing it now.”
I walked over and put an arm around him, pulling him close for a clumsy hug. “I love you best, you know,” I said softly in his ear as he clutched the empty beer bottles to his chest. “After Phillip, I mean. You’re my favorite. Even if you did kidnap me that one time.”
“I love you too, girl,” he said, his eyes bright. “You’re my best friend. Even though you zapped my dad with your magic hands.”
“I guess we’re even,” I said with a laugh, giving him a sloppy kiss on the cheek.
“Even Stevens,” Lee said with a grin.
“At least it’s all over now,” I said hopefully as Lee deposited the bottles in the recycling bin. I smiled. “Well and truly over. Though I have to say, if Elvin wasn’t dead, I’d bring him back to life and kill him all over again just for putting all of us through so much.”
“I mean, I’m just sayin’, between the two of us, we actually have the power to do that.” Benny was grinning as he leaned against the doorway, his eyes flashing mischievously. “We really could.”
“Now that’s an idea,” I said, raising my eyebrows.
“Bring him back from the dead just to kill his ass again,” Benny said, throwing back his head with a hearty laugh. “Just as a treat.”
A jet-black head poked in through the window from the balcony, the eyes blazing with fire, the face a picture of annoyance. “Don’t you even think about it, Spooner.”
I looked at my husband, my very own dead rock star, Phillip Deville, with doe-eyed innocence. “Who, me?” I said, and he glowered.