Chapter One
My blood pooled on the tile floor, turning the stark white into a canvas of smeared red. The smell of it turned my stomach and made my already weakened legs tremble. If I hadn’t been dying, I’d have been upset at the mess I was making.
“Riley…”
My best friend’s voice was a terrified whisper. Iris crouched behind one of the sinks of the fairground’s bathroom, eyes wide, knuckles white.
“You’re hurt. He…he—”
“You okay?” I asked through gritted teeth, keeping our assailant in my peripheral. Even speaking those two words sent waves of fiery pain from where the guy had driven his knife into my side.
“I’m…I’m…”
She seemed physically fine. Just emotionally traumatized. I wished she’d scream. I wished I could. Maybe somebody from the rest of the fair would hear. Maybe they’d batter down the door this creep had locked behind him.
Mr. Stabby himself stood in the way of our escape. I’d tried to get a good look at his face the moment I’d noticed him follow us in here, but he wore a deep hood. The little of his face I could glimpse beneath was wrong. Half-formed, mushy, and clay-like. Burned, maybe.
But he was smiling. I could see that much.
I pressed my fingers harder against my wound. Blood leaked through. “Okay, creepazoid. Last chance. Let us out.”
I tried not to shake. I tried not to let him see my fear.
The guy smiled wider. He raised his knife and brought it down straight at my heart.
***
“Riley!”
I pulled my eyes away from the Ferris Wheel to see Iris waving at me from one of the food stalls.
Ho-boy.
“Deep. Fried. Butter,” Iris said when I went over. “We gotta try it.”
“Uh…” I looked at the chef. He seemed way too proud for someone who moved his customers’ date of heart attack thirty years closer. “Are you sure that’s the most appetizing thing here? You haven’t found the fried scorpions yet?”
Iris rolled her eyes. “Come on. You only turn seventeen once. Better eat it now while your arteries can handle it. Two please,” Iris told the stall owner.
“Your birthday coming up?” the man asked as he wrapped Iris’s and my future stomachaches into wax paper.
“Today, actually,” I said, smiling at him.
“And tonight’s a surprise celebration!” Iris snagged my arm and pulled me close, pretending to wipe a tear from her eye. “My little girl’s all grown up.”
I had been totally surprised when Iris had shown up at my house and dragged me out to Cliffside’s end-of-summer-fair. If I was being honest, I hadn’t expected much, if any, celebration. Most of my few other friends were still gone on summer trips or internships. I’d kind of expected my parents to do something, but they’d been…weird the last few weeks leading up to my birthday. Don’t get me wrong, they were always weird. But this bordered on paranoia: insisting on driving me to school; wanting me home way before curfew; texting me in the middle of the day to ask if anything was wrong.
Like that wasn’t ominous. They’d been so clingy I was glad I’d snuck away with Iris tonight. She was right: you only turn seventeen once.
The stall owner handed us our fried butter on sticks, then held up a hand when Iris tried to pay. “On the house. Er…cart. For the birthday girl.”
I smiled again as we thanked him and blended back into the crowd, meandering between the booths of games and more heart-stopping fried delicacies. Joyful screams came from the direction of the rides we’d promised to hit later.
“Mmm…” Iris polished her butter off in a flash, then eyed mine. “Are you…”
I took a bite (Helloo taste buds!) and handed her the rest. “All yours.”
She took it, grinning. “I knew you were my best friend for a reason.”
She proceeded to scarf mine down until there weren’t even crumbs left. Not that she had to worry about a little thing like gaining weight. Iris’ muscles were insanely toned from all the days she spent competitively swimming. Her chocolate hair was braided with three strands, hanging almost to the middle of the skirt she wore over her tights.
I stopped in front of one of the game booths, the kind where you had to knock over some obviously weighted bottles to win a prize.
“That,” I said, pointing at an enormous stuffed panda, nearly as big as I was. “If you were trying to decide what to get me for my birthday, wonder no more.”
Iris showed me her butter-stained hands. “Napkins first. Then I can get you that monstrosity you’ll dump on your poor parents when you leave for college.”
She disappeared into the crowd in search of a place to wash up. I approached the booth and handed the woman running it a few bucks.
“Anything you have your eye on?” she asked as I took the three balls and lined up to throw the first.
“The panda up there. It’s destined to be mine.”
The woman nudged her head to the cereal-mascot-looking tiger beside it, his fur obnoxiously orange. “Feel like that one would match you better.”
My first throw went embarrassingly wide. I gave the woman the side eye.
“Because of your hair,” she added, as though what she’d been referring to wasn’t the most obvious thing in the world.
My hair was the kind of fiery red that made me think God had turned the saturation up to eleven on his divine Photoshop. It was always frizzy like I’d walked out of a thunderstorm, and I had to keep it tied back in a messy ponytail or else it’d blow all over my face at the worst times.
“The panda’s just fine,” I said. I wiped my hand on my torn jeans and lined up again.
“Whatever you say,” the woman answered right as I threw again. I winged the bottles. They jiggled but didn’t fall.
I threw the last one before the woman could distract me again, and as I did I felt a prickle on my skin. Not the kind that told me a thunderstorm was coming (I’m that kind of weird), but the kind that said I was being watched. Stalker sense.
“Better luck next time,” the woman said cheerily, but I’d already swung around to scan the crowd. The fair had grown far busier than when we’d first gotten here, jammed thick with hundreds of screaming kids, stressed parents, and couples. The lights from the rides dazzled in every color, glinting off the metal beams of the stalls.
A boy was staring at me.
I easily picked him out, even surrounded by dozens of people, as though my eyes had been drawn right to him. He stood in the dead center of one of the main thoroughfares, but everybody breezed right by him as though he wasn’t even there. I don’t know how they couldn’t notice him. Even this far away I could practically feel a strange sort of energy crackling off him. His gaze was the very definition of intense.
I took a step toward him, right as Iris reappeared. “You would not believe what one of the stalls is selling. Wait for it…Fried bubble gum.”
I looked over at her for only a second, but when I turned back the boy was gone. Vanished just like that. Like he’d never been there at all.
“Riley? Are you all right?” Iris said concernedly.
“I’m…Did you see someone just then? In the crowd?”
Iris squinted where I pointed. “Well…I see a lot of someones. Anyone in particular?”
“It was…” I felt my cheeks heat just a little. My first day as a seventeen-year-old and I was already imagining boys shooting me smoldering looks from across fair grounds.
“Oh…I get it now,” Iris said, mentally filling in what I hadn’t said. “Rawr. You’re a real vixen.”
“Oh shut up,” I said, giving her a playful shove.
“Riley,” Iris continued in a mock serious tone, “when a girl reaches a certain age—”
“You…”
She laughed again as I tried to grab her. I chased her toward the rides until we started walking again. I grinned over at her, expecting her to crack another joke, but she looked strangely serious now. “So do you…I don’t know, feel any different?”
“Iris, I swear, if you’re asking me if I—”
“Not that.” She rolled her eyes. “I mean, do you feel grown up? Like I said, different?”
Did I? Besides my parents’ odd behavior, I didn’t feel anything about me had really changed. My friends and I had begun to grow a little distant through the summer, and especially now with our senior year coming up. The only thing of note were the weird dreams I’d been having: dark skies, complete with booming, disembodied voices speaking things I couldn’t make out. I often awoke with only the barest recollection of them, and they never really bled into my everyday life. Nervous symptoms, I was sure, of having to make a final decision on colleges. But other than that?
“Nope,” I said. I beamed at her. “Same old me.”
I could have sworn Iris looked sad when I said that, but for the life of me I couldn’t guess why.
And just like that the Iris I knew was back and we were chatting away as though nothing was wrong.
After debating which rides we wanted to go on, Iris said she needed to use the bathroom and hurried off. I lingered at a picnic table, totally not scanning the crowd for mister tall, dark, and intense whom I’d seen earlier. It shouldn’t have been too hard to spot him. After all, he’d practically jumped out at me the first time.
Another prickle on my skin. I casually turned around to look, not trying to seem too eager. No one was there. Then I heard the thunder rumble in the distance and sighed. Of course. It was just my built-in Doppler radar.
I got up. If a storm was coming then I didn’t want to be outside when it hit. I didn’t mind getting a little dirty, but I’d never liked rain, even as a kid. It always made me feel crappy and sluggish. A little under the weather. Pun intended.
I looked for Iris. She was taking a long time, and if we were going we’d have to leave soon. My parents had probably found out I’d taken off by now and would have a talk about responsibility waiting for me when I got home. Definitely wasn’t looking forward to that.
I found the nearest bathroom one thoroughfare over. It looked completely deserted. Like the boy, dozens of people walked right around it as though it wasn’t there.
Okay, that was weird. My skin was prickling again, and not in a good way.
I entered the girls’ bathroom.
“Iris? Not that I wouldn’t love to say I told you so, but if that fried butter’s giving you trouble—”
I froze when I spotted her taking shelter behind one of the sinks, whimpering.
“Riley, he’s—”
I heard the door close behind me. Heard the lock click into place.
I spun just in time to see a hooded man lunge at me.
***
Now I barely moved out of the way in time as his knife flashed past. My side screamed as I twisted the wrong way. More blood pooled through my fingers. I slipped a little on the slick floor as I backpedaled toward Iris.
This was bad. Bad, bad, bad. We’d been in here for over five minutes and nobody was coming to help. Thanks to my parents’ insistence that I take self-defense classes, I’d been able to survive this long. The classes had taught me a lot, but this wasn’t sparring on plush mats in an air-conditioned studio. This was real. This was so, so real.
My vision began to split in two from the pain. I felt Iris’ shaking hand grip my arm. “Riley…”
“When you see an opening, run,” I gritted out.
“No, I can’t! I—”
“I’m telling you to.”
“I—”
“You will. Please, Iris.” I looked down at my best friend. She was many things, but a fighter wasn’t one. If this creep finished me off she’d be next. “Run when I give you the chance.”
Then I charged straight at our attacker.
That threw him off. Score one for me. He’d probably thought he’d found easy prey. But if I was going to die here, I’d make it far from easy.
I rammed my shoulder into him and shoved him into the nearest stall. “Now, Iris!”
There was a horrible moment when I thought she would stay behind. Then her shoes squeaked as she took off, fumbled with the lock, threw open the door.
Then she was gone, and I was alone.
I stumbled back as my attacker swiped again. I felt so sluggish. How much blood had I lost? At this rate, my only chance at survival was to avoid him long enough for Iris to come back with help. All I had to do was—
My foot slipped on the blood. I felt an intense bite of pain and looked down to find the attackers’ knife protruding from my stomach.
Well. Crap.
Bright lights glared down at me as I collapsed. I could make out the shadowy outline of the man as he loomed above. My skin was prickling again. But not like I was being watched or sensing a storm. A heat was building from somewhere deep inside me. My skin grew warm, then unbearably hot, until I thought I was going to combust.
The walls flickered orange and red. My head spun as I looked over and, as out of it as I was, I realized that somehow a fire had started inside the bathroom.
I gasped again and the heat rushed from my skin, collecting into a ring of flames that shoved my attacker back. The stall doors melted, the mirrors shattered. I heard the guttural roar of some enormous creature that couldn’t have possibly been real. Too feral. Too loud. Like something you’d hear in a nightmare.
Another wave of pain rushed over me. My breath hitched. The fire shrank back and the room went silent. Black was creeping into the edge of my vision. I heard the light footfalls of something walking over to me. I grew hot, but comfortably so, as whatever it was stopped beside me. Something licked the side of my face. It felt like sandpaper.
The black rushed in and I saw no more.
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