“HI, BEN,” I SAY WITH THE LAMEST WAVE IN THE HISTORY of waves.
Ben drops the box he’s holding. He mouths my name, but I just keep standing like a moron. I feel naked. I have to glance down to be sure I’m still wearing this idiotic school uniform because I’ve never felt so exposed in my life.
“Are you a ghost?” he asks in a breath, like he’s not sure if I’ll float away at the sound. I can’t speak, not with the memory of Garnet kissing his cheek and, earlier, stroking his arm. “Anne?”
Oh, God. My name said by his voice. This is why people have names. This is why people have voices.
He glances over his shoulder, checking the open doorway, and looks back at me like he’s worried I’ll be gone. But instead of appearing relieved to see me, his face falls.
“Tell me you’re not here,” he says. He must see my chest moving, my breath struggling to flow. “God, you’re really here. You’re back.”
I nod once, almost imperceptibly. But he’s watching me closely enough that he sees it. He closes his eyes. It’s my chance to get a little closer to him, but I do so only tentatively, on tiptoes, like he might bite if I cross an unseen line. Wormwood Island and its uncrossable lines.
His head is down. He looks the same, but different. I knew him only briefly and left him only hours ago—but he doesn’t seem to be the unaging sixteen-year-old I left behind.
“Did you die?” he asks without looking up again.
“Teddy was waiting for me in California,” I tell him and struggle to keep my voice even, certain it will betray my feelings.
I’ve always known I’d be a fool to believe Ben Zin could ever want to be with me; I should have expected him to reunite with Garnet and forget me as the fleeting memory the universe might have planned for me to be. I should have known better, been smarter. But when’s the last time a person reasoned with a heart?
“That skinny beanpole Teddy?” he asks.
“He’s got some sort of crooked nurse giving me just enough meds to stay in a coma. There’s no escape. Mephisto wants me here, so…”
“He was in California when you woke up?”
“He got there fast. The perks of being a demon, right? Transcending physicality and all that.” I awkwardly search for words to fill the dead air. Ben keeps his head down.
“Of course, he had to fly back here like a normal person. Because he had to carry my vials. Can’t just vaporize into spirit form when you’ve got three real, physical tubes of blood to tote along, I guess. Though how he got them through security is beyond me.” I laugh a little.
He groans. He’s not taking this as lightly as I’m trying to.
I glance at the doorway just as he lifts his head and looks there, too. The doorway’s still empty.
“Garnet’s inside?” I ask.
“She’ll be back any second.”
“So. You and Garnet.”
He doesn’t say anything. He looks down again.
Silence is worse than admitting it. It feels like I could freak out— just totally blow up—at Ben, but in truth only a part of me is angry. The other part, the bigger part, the part that tries to protect my aching heart, is whispering madly for me to avoid saying or doing anything that might prompt him to tell me what I don’t want to hear: that he and Garnet are, in fact, together again—a fact that would make everything that happened last night, including my first real kiss, anything but real.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” he says.
“Neither can I.”
“Anne, listen, I’ve gotta get my head together. I mean, what was it all for? This is…horrifying.”
Bad, yes, but horrifying?
“Please, get out of here before she comes back down.”
“So you’re,” I hesitate over the words, “back with Garnet?”
“No! No. Of course not.”
Thank God. I want to pause time, to stop him from saying anything that might dull my relief. Why does it always seem like the good things will vanish long before I can appreciate them?
“She’s nothing, Anne. A means to an end. Or that’s what she was gonna be.” He finally looks at me fully. The tears blurring his pupils make his eyes seem to be made of pure color. “I thought you were free. I thought I’d actually done something good.”
“You did. It’s just that evil trumps good here.”
“Look,” he says, running his hands through his hair. “Meet me at Gigi’s. Give me ten minutes, okay?”
Without a second look and without even waiting for me to agree, Ben disappears into the dorm. I hear him storm up the stairs and stop midway. He says something, and Garnet says something. And she laughs.
Is she laughing at me?
Are they both? Are they laughing together? As a couple?
The slap in the face that was Pilot’s betrayal still stings; it reminds me that being two-faced is a survival strategy, a universal PT. Just because I want Ben to want me doesn’t mean he does. Just because he kissed me doesn’t mean it meant something to him. And what does that mean, Garnet is a “means to an end”?
I turn to go. But not south, where Gigi’s house is. I go north instead, to the cliff.
I don’t feel the grass under my boots. I don’t hear the whispering of frustrated kids taking pleasure in the humiliation of the Coma Girl they’ve loathed since the day I arrived here, but especially since I killed one of their own—and Gigi, too, as the rumors go. I don’t notice the clouds drift over the sun as I cross the empty parking lot and start up the hill. I don’t wrap my arms around myself as the wind picks up and thick, slushy raindrops start to fall, then cease. I don’t even notice, when I make it to the top of the hill turned pink by the setting sun’s light cast over slick gray rocks, that Dia Voletto is here already. It’s not until he speaks that I realize I’ve got company.
“Anne Merchant.”
“I didn’t see you here, Headmaster.” I move to leave. There’s not enough room up here for his malevolence and my frustration.
“You don’t want to know how I know your name?”
“It’s a Cania pre-req, knowing my name. Everyone knows everything about me. More than I know about myself.”
“That may be true.”
I glance at his feet, expecting to see Villicus’s old jeweled bag, the one he used to transport vials in only to throw them off the cliff. Has Dia got someone to expel? There’s no bag at his feet. It’s just him. He’s traded his ringleader attire for normal human clothes: he’s wearing Doc Martens, fitted jeans, and a big woolly cardigan; his hands are stuffed in the pockets. The cold evening air has colored his cheeks and made his dark eyes glossy. Looking as he does, he could be on a photo shoot for J.Crew.
“Come,” he says. “Stand by me. Take a look at this spectacular seascape.”
The last thing I want is to make nice with the newest devil to curse my life with his presence. When he notices my hesitation, he chuckles.
“Are you cold? Take my sweater.”
“I’m fine.”
“It’s no problem. I’ve got fire and brimstone built into