“You won’t turn me?” I ask, pulling away.
“We cannot risk losing you.” His words whisper against the skin near my lips, heating it. “I cannot risk losing you.”
My hands find his hair. My fingers sink into the softness of it and then our mouths meet again. In the back of my head, I hear something. A door?
Astley pulls away, turns his head to look. Issie, Devyn, and Cassidy all stand in the living room. Betty still sleeps behind them. Cassidy’s mouth is open in a big O shape, but Issie’s the one who speaks.
She punches Devyn in the arm. “We never kiss like that.”
“Sure we do,” he says, all defensive, rubbing his arm.
“We kiss like old people,” Issie retorts, crossing her arms over her jacket. “Like old people on TV, actually.”
Cassidy laughs as Devyn starts making excuses.
I decide to save him, so I wink at Astley, jump off the counter, and say, “Time to plan more?”
Astley nods. “Time to plan.”
FBI INTERNAL MEMO EXCERPT
A local fund-raiser tonight should corral the population into one small area for many hours. Due to the high probability of an event occurring when people are returning to their motor vehicles, I have placed both my people and the Bedford Police Department on high alert. Curfews are in place, but I don’t feel that’s a sufficient measure to keep the town citizens safe.
Originally, they were going to cancel the Winter Showcase, which is a fund-raiser for show choir and jazz band, but Betty convinced the acting principal, Mrs. Fuze, to let it go on. Our last principal is missing. A lot of people are missing. Mrs. Fuze understands this. When Issie and I head down the maroon-painted aisle to take our seats in the front row of the theater, Mrs. Fuze gives us the tiniest of nods. Her hands twitch at her sides. She’s a wreck.
People have packed the Grand Auditorium. The showcase is always here. It’s a tradition. The smallish theater holds maybe five hundred people in between its art deco walls. The columns are painted with maroon and fake-gold triangles. Issie tells me that it makes her think of Klimt, this artist she was into her freshman year. I am proud of her for even trying to make conversation. I’m so nervous, I can barely think. So many things could go wrong. I grab Issie’s hand. “Tell me how Buffy averts the apocalypse.”
“Which time?”
“You pick.”
She looks up at the curtains as if they will give her inspiration. “There’s so many choices.”
There were theater curtains in Cassidy’s vision of me dying. That vision also included burning and violence and me in Astley’s arms. It’s doesn’t have to come true. That’s what Cassidy says. With destiny there are always too many variables involved.
Betty strides down the aisle and folds herself into the chair next to me. She pats my hand. “We will kick their asses. You’ll see.”
Her voice is almost a hiss. She wants so badly to shift. I think she can barely hold it in.
Issie leans over me to talk to her. “Where’s Devyn?”
“Backstage,” Betty says, voice low. “With Cassidy and Nick and Astley and the rest of the musicians and a good amount of the pixies.”
Part of the plan is to lull Frank’s minions into a false sense of security, to make it easy for them to strike. The only known shifter in the audience is Betty. The only known pixies of Astley’s are Becca and Amelie. The rest of them wait backstage in the greenroom and just down the street. Some are hiding in the tiny two-stall bathrooms.
The audience itself is full of armed humans and Frank’s pixies. It’s a standing-room-only event, thanks to us. The weirdest part about it, if anyone was noticing, is that there isn’t one kid under fourteen. There are no toddlers here to watch their big sisters. There are no fussing babies. There are hardly any old people either. But it’s still packed. The show choir members, if they survive, will have a bunch of money to help get them to nationals at Disney World. That’s assuming the world doesn’t end, of course.
Betty’s face hovers in front of mine. She snaps her fingers. “What are you thinking about?”
“Nothing. Uh … I don’t know.”
With my right hand I check for my weapons. A special knife that Devyn’s parents coated with a fast-acting pixie poison, and some mace that’s not really mace, but something they’ve devised working off our blood. Hours ago, Keith and Cassidy and Jay and some others stashed crossbows and swords under the chairs. Hopefully, none of Frank’s pixies will realize they are there.
It doesn’t feel good enough.
“I just want everything to go right,” I say.
Betty raises an eyebrow and I’m not sure if it’s because she’s annoyed that I’m doubting myself or the fact that I’m so grammatically incorrect.
“I’m glad Mom’s not here,” I say.
She grabs my hand. “Me too.”
The lights flicker and Mrs. Wilson comes out on stage. She’s got two cans of mace tucked underneath her red holiday sweater and one of the pins holding up her thick black hair is coated with pixie poison. I know, because I put it there. She smiles at the audience and opens up her arms in a super-dramatic-theater-person way and says with her strong, soprano voice, “Welcome to the Grand Auditorium and Bedford High School’s award-winning show choir and jazz band’s Winter Showcase.”
She nods at us, encouraging the audience to clap. We do.
Issie leans over and says in my ear, “She’s such a pro. She doesn’t even look nervous.”
“Theater people,” I say.
Issie makes big eyes.
“No. Really. They are so good. They can even act in real life-or-death situations,” I say as Mrs. Wilson does a dramatic bow and exits stage left. The maroon drapes made of heavy velvet open to reveal a set of white Christmas trees and menorahs. Glittery snowflakes dangle from the ceiling. They look like the same ones from the dance.
“It’s pretty,” I murmur. “They make winter look nice.”
Betty snorts.
“They do!” I object. “You’re just cranky because you don’t like show tunes.”
“It’s like being stuck in an episode of Glee,” she retorts as Cassidy takes the stage. The banter is nice but I know we’re just pretending to be calm.
My fists clench as I watch Cass. I’m nervous for her. I’m nervous for us. I have stage-fright empathy and prebattle jitters. Cassidy’s braids are all pulled back into one big ponytail that we wrapped up. She’s wearing a dark black hippie kind of dress. There’s a knife strapped to her thigh. You can’t tell it’s there. She sings a song from Les Miserables about dreaming a dream and then some guy taking away your virginity, leaving you pregnant, and your dreams all dying. Happy stuff. She’s good though, really good. I never knew that she could sing. I take a quick look around the auditorium and see all the people who are being so brave, risking everything. There’s so much I don’t know about each of them. I don’t know if they dream of being social-networking moguls or rock stars. I only know that they are being brave, so incredibly brave tonight.