Didi
The bright lights from the football field blind me as we walk up. Remy keeps a steady hand on me as we approach the Sigma party. Tommy, Talia, and Bax are close, but are scoping the perimeter of the football field to make sure it’s all clear, leaving Remy and me alone.
I lean my head against his chest and let him cradle me as we stand behind the shadowed trees and the chain-link fence that runs along the edge of the field.
There must be at least twenty people on the field, dancing and twirling.
The girls are wearing sleeved dresses, their hair bouncy and curled to perfection.
Their dresses remind me of the kind Mama wore when she was younger when we went to church, before the church broke her.
We’ve been here for a few minutes, and no one has noticed us.
I suppose it’s easy to hide among the shadows when that makes up the very essence of your soul.
Despite the rumors of Shadowface all over campus, they are laughing and smiling as if spitting in his face with their righteousness. A couple of them hold a large sign that reads: Peace, Love, and Resurrection.
Remy snakes his arms around my midsection.
“Jesus freaks,” he mutters, and my head falls back on his cool leather as I watch them.
I now understand why he has such hatred for them.
A long time ago, the Jesus Freaks would have been my people.
But my faith brought only darkness and pain.
And one Jesus Freak isn’t as pure as she portrays herself.
A few of the boys line up in a row, their muscles rippling as they take off their shirts and do pushups with the girls sitting on their backs giggling.
I watch Cindy in particular, especially after our intense interaction at school the other day and that moment of recognition. Her arms are wrapped around her handsome boyfriend, who is also the Sigma leader. I can’t stop visualizing Tommy and Remy fucking her, and it’s driving me insane.
“What are they doing?” I ask Remy as the two of us breathe in unison with his arms around me. He hasn’t taken his hands off me since I came upstairs from Tommy’s room. He must sense something’s different about me. I plan to do the same with him as soon as I can.
“This is one of their mixers. They do some stupid rituals to welcome new members to their little Jesus Freak club.”
I glance up at him and arch my brow. “Sort of like what we’re doing tonight.”
He presses his lips to the back of my head. “Yeah, baby, same idea.”
My pulse quickens, and I exhale slowly. The last time I hurt someone, it was born of desperation and burning fury. I don’t sense either of those things now.
I start to shake. “I…I don’t know if I can do this, Remy.”
He squeezes me, his lips grazing my ear. “You don’t have a choice, little lamb.”
Something’s shifted…the soft side of Remy I’ve had recently is replaced by the edgier version of him I first met in the library. I don’t know if I’m the one causing this, or if it’s something bigger.
“What if I screw up? What will Talia do with me?”
He swallows hard. “Do exactly what Talia says, and you’ll be fine. Remember what Cindy did to you, Didi. What Father Malcolm tried to do. Hang on to the memory of drowning and don’t feel guilty about this.”
Tommy slides in beside me. I didn’t hear the rest of them join us. “Focus on the dark places in your mind, firefly. It makes everything easier.”
Tommy’s holding a flask, and he takes a swig before offering some to Remy. Remy holds it up to me, and I open my mouth so he can pour some in, wiping a bit off my chin. The alcohol burns as it goes down.
Tommy stands back with his hands in his pockets, and my heart hurts for him. He clearly wants to hold me, yet he won’t, and there’s nothing I can do to change that. My feelings for Remy haven’t disappeared just because we slept together.
Talia walks up next to him, her dark hair blowing in the cool breeze, and watches our classmates carefully.
She doesn’t seem to mind Tommy openly pining after me right in front of her.
In fact, she doesn’t seem to register us at all.
Her eyes are laser-focused on the sign, and her lips curl as if it’s a threat directed right at her.
She lets out a small laugh. “If they want a resurrection, then let’s give them what they want. In order for there to be a resurrection, someone needs to die.”
I shudder, anticipating the hell that’s about to be unleashed.
Talia slips something rough into my palm, and I look down to see a face I know better than my own. Those black eyes of the mask are etched in my mind.
“Are you ready, Diana?” she asks me.
“Yeah,” I whisper. “At least, I think so.”
We move as one, raising masks to cover our faces in perfect unison. In one moment, we are united, like a binding force is flowing through us all.
Beneath the mask, we are all the same. The perfect image of Him.
All of us, except for Talia. Something tells me I haven’t scratched the surface of her.
She spins me around, and I meet her dark eyes. She reaches out, smoothing my hair back, making sure it’s all tucked in. Her face is a blank slate behind the mask.
I reach for her hand to stop her, and I thread my fingers through hers. A wave of heat rushes through me. Different heat than what I experienced with Tommy and Remy, almost as if fueled by Shadowface himself.
I’m ready to give in to this evil, but I need to understand it. I need to understand her.
“What did Cindy do to you?” I ask softly, and she lifts her chin in response. A subtle movement followed by her hands curling into fists. A gesture that doesn’t go unnoticed.
She calmly says, “Half the fun is unpredictability. My choices have no rhyme or reason, Diana, so don’t try to puzzle me together.
They won’t anticipate this. Surprise breeds chaos, and chaos breeds fear.
It’s only through fear that we truly see what makes us human.
Fear makes humanity powerful.” She shares a look with her brother, and I believe there is so much more they are not saying.
Talia is not merely unleashing chaos; she is exacting revenge. But revenge for what exactly?
I watch Cindy’s boyfriend, clearly marked on the field as if inviting the devil to strike him down, and Talia grabs my hand. “It’s time. Let them revel in their God while burning at the stake.” She turns to Bax, who seems to have been waiting for this moment. “Time to go, Bax.”
He nods. “Yes, sexy boss.”
He moves in a low and controlled manner through a small hole in the chain-link fence. His body moves like a sharp point, rather than with his usual lanky hippy swagger. He heads to another hiding spot directly across from us.
If anyone on the field were paying attention, they would have seen him.
I hold my breath as he crouches in position and only let it out once he’s hiding again in the shadows, safe from nearby gazes.
Talia jerks her head toward Remy. “Your turn, angel of darkness.”
Remy squeezes my hips before leaning down for a kiss. “Don’t fuck up, little lamb.”
He bolts off in a similar tight crouch, but in the opposite direction of Bax. My heart is on the verge of collapse until he is in his spot, carefully covered by the shadows of the trees.
The spot beside me is now empty and cold. It’s not long before Tommy is by my side, replacing him.
We watch as the leader of the fraternity stands in front of the group. Tommy grabs my hand in the dark.
“I need to talk to Diana for a second,” Tommy says suddenly.
Talia turns to face him and shakes her head. “No. She has to move now. We have no time.”
He grabs her hands and pulls off the mask and keeps his handsome face soft. “I need to talk to her alone. For one second.”
“Don’t try to talk her out of this. Don’t go soft on me now, Tommy.”
I want to scream, “I will. I will. I will.” I will burn anything for her if it means belonging somewhere. I’ve spent my entire life alone, and I can’t be alone for a second longer. Before I can say anything, she disappears into the dark, leaving me alone with Tommy.
I turn to face him, then he pulls my mask up so he can see my face. His soft eyes bear down on me. “You don’t have to do this to be with me, Didi. I told you before, we can make it work. We can run and leave this town behind.”
I blink at him a couple of times, reaching up to cup his face. “I want to do this… I want to stay here. I can’t run away with you, Tommy. I can’t leave Remy.”
He lets out a deep sigh, his eyes darting to Talia, then he kisses me so hard and deep I feel it between my thighs.
“Okay,” he whispers against my mouth as Talia walks toward us. “I love you, firefly.”
“I love you, too, Tommy.”
I place the mask back on, adjusting my eyes to the sinister darkness that engulfs me. “I’m ready,” I call to Talia as the field lights die, and the group begins to sing along with the song blaring from the speakers.
Spirit in the Sky.
I walk onto the field, and Tommy grabs Talia’s hand. They hold back as I take the final spot on the eastern side. Reaching into my pocket, my fingers brush against the box of matches, and I wait for Bax’s signal. It doesn’t matter if they see me now.
They must smell the kerosene, as they all stop in a hushed whisper and glance around. The music stops. But they won’t be able to escape this…it’s already too late for them.
Bax raises both arms and bows his head, mimicking the pose of Jesus. It’s the signal I’ve been anticipating. I strike the match, watching the flame consume it, holding it longer than necessary. As it begins to burn my skin, I flick it away, hoping for a blister to mark the moment.
It’s the least I can do…
The fire spreads rapidly, the eruption of flames causing intense pressure along the small line of kerosene Bax, Talia, and Remy dripped behind them as they made their way to their spots on the field. Bax was here earlier, leaving faint traces of it near where they are standing.
The other three light their matches, and I watch as the flames spread in a perfect circle, as if an invisible force is willing it and the fire is merely doing its bidding.
I watch, mesmerized, as the fire runs in a straight line at the end of the field and shoots into the center from all four corners, crashing into Cindy’s boyfriend, who must have done a push-up on the kerosene. He bursts into flames.
Chaos breaks loose. Screams echo through the air as the fire rages, trapping those caught in its heart.
A symbol. We made a symbol with fire. It’s so beautiful—the chaos, the fire, the symbol…all of it.
The fire begins to snuff out. The only flames left are the ones burning Cindy’s boyfriend. He withers and rolls and dithers in pain—pain that I caused him.
I can barely register their screaming as I try to make out the symbol of ash Bax created.
My head whips when I hear my name. “Diana.”
A masked face darts toward me, but I ignore him—I can’t take my eyes off the burning man in front of me. I can’t breathe. The mask is suffocating me, so I pull it off, gasping for air, releasing my hair with it.
Tommy nearly plows into me and grabs my hand. “You’ve got to run now, firefly,” he says, out of breath. I don’t move, not as the weight of my actions crush me.
Tommy’s voice brings me back from the brink. “Diana, please run. We’ve got to go, now.”
He doesn’t let me respond; instead, he wraps his arms around my midsection, yanking me away. But I hold strong. “Tommy, I can’t leave him. He’s burning.”
“They will help him. We have to go. Put your mask back on, Didi.”
Shoot. I forgot I had pulled it off. The damage is already done; they’ve seen me. A few of them are pointing while the rest do what they can to snuff the flames on the burning man.
“Didi, now,” Tommy pleads. “They will catch you. And if they do, it will all be over.”
It’s part of my test, I realize, to see what I will do next. Burning the match was the easy part. I glance around and don’t see any signs of the others. Remy, Talia, and Bax fell back when the flames started, and I didn’t see any of them. Each escaped through nearby holes in the fence.
“Tommy,” I whisper, letting out a breath pulling the mask over my face. “Get me out of here.”
Tommy leads me back toward the hole in the fence we came through, and we disappear, running as fast as we can into the forest. Once we are safely out of view, I stop to catch my breath.
Tommy turns to face me. “He’s going to be okay, Didi. Remember what Talia said. You helped him. He’ll never see life the same way again. He will appreciate it more now.”
We stand together as I take in his words, at how much he sounds like Talia, while also knowing it’s bullshit. She wanted him to burn, and she used me to do it. Finally, I turn and we run.