“Look, before you, what did I have? I had that. Sneaking into clubs with friends, music, playing basketball and that. And if I had the slightest hint that you were going to come into my life—and that my, um, activities would interfere with our happiness at all—I would have been the biggest virgin this side of the LARP Club,” he said, bringing up the two seniors who dressed in homemade armor and ran around the halls of Vince A throwing invisible lightning bolts at each other.
“Really?”
“Of course. Don’t you think I wish my first time was with you?” he asked, and my jaw dropped.
“Guys care about that?” I asked, incredulous. Most guys I had known treated their virginity like it was a CDC-level illness that needed to be cured.
“This one does. Well, I do now,” he amended his statement. “Obviously at the time, I didn’t. But just so you know how things used to go down, Emma, I never used to go after girls. I’m not trying to sound like I’m the man,” he said, laughing nervously, “but they came to me. I treated them the exact same way after the fact as I had before. So maybe I did know, somehow, that you were coming. Because I didn’t pursue anyone until you. I never actually dated a girl before you.”
“Are you serious?” I asked, surprised.
“Yeah, I am,” he admitted, a little shyly.
I smiled at his confession. I won’t be his first, but I am his first love. And that was infinitely better.
“Em, I can’t change who I was,” Brendan said. “But please believe me when I tell you that I never used anyone. Not on purpose. I mean, I never tried to rack up numbers or use girls for sport like some people I know. I was honest and never led anyone on—and I would never do that. And I really, really don’t want you to think of me like that.”
He sighed. “It kills me that you think of me like that.”
“I don’t—well, I don’t now,” I admitted, stretching out in my bed and feeling the relief wash through my limbs. “But thank you for telling me all of this.”
“It’s why I avoided you at first,” he said sheepishly. “I know I told you that I was a little gun-shy, because I liked you so much, and that’s true, but it’s not the whole story.”
I raised my eyebrows, surprised. “So what is?”
“I’m not stupid, I know what people said about me,” he said sourly. “And I didn’t want anyone saying that about you—that you were just another conquest to me. I didn’t know what I wanted you to be, but I knew it was more.”
“Aw, Brendan,” I murmured, turning over on my stomach on my bed. “That’s the sweetest reason for being a jackass that I’ve ever heard.”
He laughed on the other end of the line.
“So are we okay?” he asked hesitantly.
“We’re okay,” I told him. And I meant it.
“Good,” he said, relieved. “I was worried all day that you were going to hand me my walking papers.”
“Puh-lease,” I scoffed. “You’re so stuck with me.”
“Works for me,” he said, and I could picture his grin on the other end of the phone. “How’s Ashley, by the way?”
“She’s fine, and she’s going to milk this into not going to school for the next three days. Why do we get a week and a half for spring break anyway?”
“Two-day teacher conference at the school,” Brendan explained. “I bet Casey dresses up in the uniform and totally does some kinky ‘naughty student, bad teacher’ role-playing with Mr. Agneta in his classroom.”
“That’s the grossest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Sorry.” Brendan laughed. “So does Ashley still think she has a brain tumor?”
“Oh, um…no,” I said, adding, “I told her the real reason. She knows everything—well, almost everything.”
Brendan was quiet for a moment. “She hates me, doesn’t she?”
“No.”
“Are you lying to me?” he asked suspiciously.
“No, I promise you. She took it really well.” I thought about my cousin’s jovial mood—by the time I left her apartment, she was practically expecting me to snap my fingers and teleport out of there. “She’s pretty jazzed about the whole witchcraft thing, actually.”
“So you told her everything?”
“Not everything-everything. If I told her we were reincarnated soul mates that first met in the eleventh century, I think her head would have exploded.”
“You’re probably right,” he agreed, then paused. “You know, it still sounds weird when you drop that into conversation so casually.”
“I know, right?” I laughed. Brendan and I talked a little longer—I updated him on my conversation with Angelique, and reminded him that he shouldn’t go around punching everyone who insults me, even though I secretly loved how protective he was. After we hung up, I raced through my first round of homework, anxious to get to my real homework—which was contained between the leather covers of Randi’s grimoire, tucked safely under my mattress. I started at the beginning again, rereading all the instructions and spells I had read the day before. I memorized the spell I had originally wanted to do on Kristin—Goddess I beseech you in your grace, show me her soul’s only true face—contemplating it as a viable option to use on Megan. Although, considering her scraggy hair, bad skin and scrawny frame, it was possible someone had already beat me to it.
Around midnight, my lack of sleep the night before caught up with me. I could barely make it through a page without stopping to yawn. I considered making coffee—my body was shutting down, but my brain was screaming at me to continue reading—until finally, I closed the grimoire, giving up. Besides, I realized I’d probably need a halfway decent night’s sleep if I was going to make it through the next three days with Megan likely stalking me until the lunar eclipse.
I curled up, hugging my purple fleece comforter to my chest and shutting my eyes, trying to stop my inner monologue from hurling me into total brain overload.
But when I opened my eyes, I wasn’t in my room. I was back in my old Jersey Shore town, Keansburg, at the boardwalk amusement park that overlooked the beach. I could smell the familiar scents: the briny saltwater, the greasy, rich funnel cakes frying in a nearby stand, the creamy popcorn, practically floating in a bath of butter, the pungent scent of diesel from the bumper cars. The stretch of boardwalk looked a little different from what I remembered—and I realized it was the giant house of mirrors at one end, glinting in the bright sunlight and momentarily blinding me as the sunbeams reflected on my face, warming my skin.
I headed straight for the odd, castle-shaped house of mirrors, weaving my way through the crowd. Every person I passed stopped in their tracks, turning to look at me. The hair on the back of my neck began to tingle, and I paused, turning around to see a throng of people staring after me. Their faces began to contort, their hair growing long and stringy. I started backing away from them as they morphed into Megan—a legion of Megans glaring at me.
And then they looked up, straight into the sun. I followed their gaze, but the blazing light didn’t burn my eyes or sear my vision. A black dot appeared in the center of the sun, like a giant yellow eye. The blackness spread, overtaking the sun from the inside and bleeding out into the sky.
And then the Megan copies started running toward me. I raced as fast as I could to the house of mirrors, the overhead lights exploding as I ran by, showering me with glass and filaments. Claws scratched at my back, tearing through my T-shirt and pulling out my hair. I saw my own reflection in the door as the horde closed in on me, grabbing at me. I launched myself at the mirror, crashing through it, and the jagged glass sliced through my skin. I landed on the floor, at the black Converse-covered feet of a figure. I braced my palms against the floor and looked up—right into my brother Ethan’s face, a mirror image of my own when we were fourteen.
He held his hand out and I put my bloody palm in his. He pulled me up, the sound of broken glass crunching underneath my feet. When I looked behind me, the horde was scratching at the zigzag hole in the door, pounding on it as if there were an invisible barrier. I turned back to Ethan, who was wearing the Ramones T-shirt he’d been wearing when I’d last seen him alive—before what we thought was the flu turned out to be meningitis. He was still holding my hand.
“Mirror, mirror on the wall, mirror it or you’ll fall,” Ethan said, his light brown eyes sad.
My eyes snapped open, my breathing labored as I sat upright in bed, gripping my fleece comforter, which was covered in claw marks scratched in the soft fabric. When I first met Brendan, Ethan had tried to warn me in my dreams. But after the fight at Belvedere Castle, when he helped me pull Brendan to safety—I hadn’t dreamed of him. I hadn’t had any warnings, any signs—nothing. Because I was safe.
The fact that he just visited me in a dream—a very cryptic dream—confirmed my biggest fear: things were about to get bad. Very, very bad.
Chapter 12
Getting back to sleep was about as likely as me having a slumber party with Kristin Thorn and staying up all night, braiding her hair. I was wide-awake, an hour before I needed to be up for school. I jumped in the shower, luxuriating in the warm stream of water, hoping the shower could at least work out some of the tension in my tight muscles as I thought about my mystifying dream.
I had just finished blowing my hair dry when I realized something that made me put down the dryer and pick up a full-fledged panic attack.
Emma, you are an idiot. You are Queen of the Idiots. Too stupid to function in polite society, I swear.
Ashley wasn’t going to school today. Which meant I was going alone. Megan could be waiting for me on the corner. She clearly had a mole at Vince A—who knew if she also knew where I lived? What my routine was?
My hands began to shake as I pictured my walk to school. It was a straight shot down Park Avenue, but of course I was imagining many more dark alleyways and sinister, deserted streets. Megan wanted payback. She was out for blood—in the literal and figurative senses of the phrase. And the lunar eclipse was Wednesday night—so she had a deadline looming.
I picked up my phone with trembling hands, hoping Brendan wasn’t on the subway. And then I noticed I had two text messages, the first sent early this morning.
Meet you in front of your building, taking you to school today.
In the second message, sent just ten minutes earlier, Brendan informed me he was already downstairs. I sighed shakily, relief flooding through me to the point of where I actually felt a little light-headed.
I got ready as quickly as I could and headed into the kitchen, greeting Aunt Christine as she poured herself a mug of steaming coffee from the freshly made pot. She was ready for her morning ritual of caffeine and NY1, the local news station.
“You’re up early,” she observed, picking up a barely damp lock of my hair. “You’re going to get pneumonia if you go outside with a wet head.”
“Isn’t that an old wives’ tale?” I asked, grabbing a granola bar out of the Waterford ice bucket on the counter.
“Consider it an old aunts’ tale.” She smiled. “It’s supposed to be chilly out today. We already had one family member in the hospital, we don’t need another.” Worry flickered across her face, and I impulsively hugged her.
“Ashley’s going to be fine,” I promised her, wishing I could tell her the truth. But I couldn’t see my way clear to explaining everything without Aunt Christine thinking I needed to be committed. She agonized over me enough without me adding questionable sanity to the equation.
“I hope so, dear.” She sighed as I grabbed my coat out of the hall closet. “I’ll feel better after she’s up and walking.”
“She’s milking the hell out of this, you know,” I added, shrugging on my coat. “Ashley could totally go to school today and be fine.”
“That’s what I thought,” Aunt Christine mused, leaning against the counter as she added half-and-half to her coffee. “Although I don’t think Dan minds her staying home a few more days. Anything to keep that boy away from her.”
“Oh, Liam’s harmless. He’s a good kid,” I told her. “Brendan likes him fine.”
“Ah, the ubiquitous Brendan,” she said, an entertained smile on her face. “We had a nice little chat while you were in with Ashley at the hospital.”
Uh-oh. “Oh, about what?” I asked casually, pretending to study the oh-so-fascinating pattern on a nearby linen napkin.
“When I asked him if he had called his parents to explain his lateness, he said they were in South America, and would be there until today, possibly even tomorrow.” She paused, giving me a speculative look as I stared down, tracing the Celtic knot embroidered in the napkin with the tip of my finger. “I get the idea they leave him alone a lot.”
I braced myself for a lecture about the lack of parental supervision at Brendan’s house—I was over there enough—but what she said next surprised me.
“Such a shame, young boy like that, alone all the time,” she clucked, taking another sip of her coffee. “No wonder he’s so devoted to you.”
So much so that he’s downstairs waiting for you. That he even admitted to being lonely without you… You are so going to make out with his face hardcore the second you see him.
“Yeah, he’s pretty awesome,” I agreed, and Aunt Christine just snorted at my dreamy tone.
“Well, get to school, young lady. Just three more days and you’re free to cavort around Manhattan with your beau for a week and a half.”
I kissed Aunt Christine on the cheek and headed downstairs, where I found Brendan leaning against a streetlight a few doors away. He was looking down, his hands in his pockets and his cheaper headphones on as he bounced his head in time to whatever he was listening to.
Brendan looked up and pulled the headphones down around his neck, his black hair hanging in his green eyes, As soon as he smiled—a little shyly at me—I couldn’t help myself. I bounded over to him, grabbing the collar of his jacket and pulling his head down to meet mine. It was an entirely inappropriate kiss to have this close to the doorman. At this time of the morning. Although the way I wanted to rip his shirt off pretty much made the kiss inappropriate for any time of day.
His hand raked roughly through my hair, clutching a fistful at the back of my head as held me closer. When I pulled away, I gently bit his bottom lip—one of his trademark moves—eliciting a soft moan.
“Well, good morning to me,” Brendan murmured as he wrapped his arms around me, clasping his hands at my lower back.
“I didn’t expect that kind of greeting,” he confessed, giving me a half smile as I hugged him back. “Especially after our talk last night, I figured it would be a long time before I got a reaction like that.”
“Eh, what can I say? I love the hell out of you. And you’re really hot, so there’s that,” I said flippantly, my voice muffled by his jacket. He laughed a low rumble that vibrated in his chest.
“That makes me so happy to hear.” He sighed, stroking my hair. “The love part, not the hot part. Although that’s nice that you think that.”
I looked up at him and grinned a big toothy grin.
“You’re so damn adorable it kills me sometimes,” he said, planting a soft kiss on my lips.
“If you start kissing me we’ll never get to school,” I said, reluctantly pulling away. He took my hand and started leading me away from Park Avenue.
“I, um, pulled the Son of the CEO card and called in use of the company car service,” he explained. “The car is waiting on Madison.”
“Whoa, déjà vu,” I muttered. He’d had the company limo take me to and from school the week before the winter dance when I had a sprained ankle.
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“It’s not a limo this time,” he said apologetically, pointing toward the sleek black car idling at the curb. “Just a regular car service.” Oh, just a regular car service—you know, a regular old luxury Lincoln Town Car. That old thing.
“I didn’t want to attract attention to you in case Megan—” a repulsed look crossed his face as he said her name “—was stalking you somewhere. This is about keeping you safe, first and foremost.”
“Thank you, but I can’t stay under lock-and-key until Angelique and I figure out some way to stop her,” I said matter-of-factly as Brendan opened the car door for me. I slid across the soft beige leather seat and he followed, pulling the door shut behind him. “Not that I’m complaining about the chauffeur service,” I added, hesitantly eyeing the driver, who confirmed Vince A’s address with Brendan before pulling out into traffic. With what he’s about to overhear, he’s going to think we’re a few hippies short of a drum circle.
“At least this provides her with less of an opportunity to pull something on you going to and from school,” Brendan argued, shifting in the backseat so he was facing me. He then dropped his voice, glancing at the driver. “Especially if that binding spell Angelique and Randi did isn’t effective.”
“Are you going to pick me up every single day?” I asked, secretly hoping he would and secretly feeling like a big loser for wanting him to.
“You know it.” He nodded vehemently, cradling my face in his hand.
“That’s probably a good thing,” I said, leaning into his touch before taking a deep breath. “I had a dream last night.”
“Oh?” Brendan said absentmindedly, resting his head on the back of the seat as he slid his hand through my hair, pulling me a little closer.