Dad froze, keys dangling from his hand. “What in the—Oh my God, what happened?”

  Mara and I looked at each other. I swallowed, trying to find my voice.

  “Cooking accident. Can you drive me to the emergency room?”

  Dad cursed and motioned me out the front door. “Get in the car. Let’s go!”

  I hesitated. “Mara. Mara needs to come, too.” No way was I leaving her alone again.

  “Everybody in the car!”

  Mara grabbed the bowl with my finger in it and shuffled out in front of me. I held my bloody hand tight against my chest and stumbled out the door.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Stop it, Naomi.”

  “I’m sorry, I just can’t believe your pinky was detached.”

  Not wanting to be reminded, I squirmed uncomfortably in the library chair. “Yeah, well, just stop looking at it. It’s creepy.” I moved my bandaged hand beneath the table and glared at her until she looked away.

  “I still don’t get what happened,” she grumbled into her book.

  “I told you. It was just a cooking mishap.”

  “As in, Mara mistook your hand for a cutting board?”

  I blinked and shook my head, trying to form the right words. “You just … you had to be there.”

  “Seems I had to be there for everything lately.” Naomi slammed her book shut. “I’m sorry, Zadie, but your stories don’t always add up. It’s almost as if …”

  “What?”

  “It’s like you’re lying to me, or hiding something from me.”

  I swallowed. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “I’m not ridiculous, and you are lying.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Okay, then what’s really going on between you and Chase?”

  “Nothing.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t believe you.”

  I closed my book. Hard. “So you’re calling me a liar?”

  Her expression changed from suspicious to total self-righteousness. “Yes, I am.”

  “Well, how dare you.” My face suddenly felt like it was boiling. I couldn’t stop the hard thumping in my chest.

  “How dare I? Seriously? How dare you! We’re supposed to be best friends. Tell each other everything. So how come I don’t know why Gavin broke up with you? Why don’t I know what you and Chase talk about in the halls—and don’t tell me it’s history, because that’s a load of crap. Where do you sneak off to after school most days? It’s like I don’t even know who you are anymore. You don’t answer your cell phone when I call you. You’re never home when I call your house. You can’t account for your time. That’s not how it works with best friends.”

  She was right, but what could I say? I sat in silence, with no words good enough to answer her.

  Seemingly cool and collected, she leaned on the table and locked eyes with me. “How about I give you one more chance to tell me what’s going on?”

  I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. If I told her the truth, she’d never believe me. She might think I’d lost my mind. She’d think I was crazy like my mother. It would scare her, drive her away. I didn’t have the guts to tell her. After a second, I closed my mouth and dropped my gaze.

  “You know what, forget it.” She pushed her chair back and stood, grabbing her things and throwing them into her book bag. “Don’t bother calling me, Zadie. We obviously have nothing to say to each other.”

  My eyes stung with tears as I watched her storm out of the library. First Gavin, now Naomi. I wiped at my cheeks and let out a slow, faltering breath. Making as little noise as possible, I gathered my things and left the building, wondering who else—or what else—I was going to lose next.

  I had to rush home to Mara anyway. It killed me that I couldn’t be there to make sure she was all right all the time. But school and Lit papers couldn’t be avoided.

  When I reached my house, Dad’s car was in the driveway. Didn’t he have a dinner meeting with his boss? Something about a promotion, I thought. I let myself in and shouted for him, but he didn’t answer. Maybe his boss had picked him up. I looked for Mara upstairs, but she wasn’t home either. Where could she be? She didn’t exactly have friends to spend time with. A sense of dread coursed through me. What could she possibly be doing? I went back downstairs. I grabbed the car keys from the counter and darted outside.

  I just wanted to drive somewhere, somewhere far away from home. Far enough away that I wouldn’t recognize anything around me, and then I could pretend I was someone else and my life was normal. Twenty minutes into my drive, I realized where I was going.

  It was twilight when I pulled into the parking lot of the psychiatric hospital. I slipped into an empty spot far from the doors and killed the motor. The sudden silence was deafening, but not unpleasant. I stared up at the building, wondering which window was my mother’s. I couldn’t help but wonder if one of those windows would one day be Mara’s. Or mine.

  I leaned my head against the head rest and wiped tears of frustration from my cheeks. I could have used some motherly advice just then. Someone to tell me it would all be okay and that life was not all crap. But I looked up at that building and doubted my mother could have said much to ease my mind.

  Sniffling back the last of my tears, I started the car up and headed back home. The sky darkened to night, and then the night deepened even more with the promise of a storm. Lightning flashed on the horizon, and a second later, thunder boomed through the sky. A few miles down the highway, the sky broke open. The rain was so heavy that the windshield wipers couldn’t move fast enough to give me a clear view of the road ahead. The storm still hadn’t let up by the time I reached my street, but I relaxed a little knowing I wasn’t far from home.

  The car suddenly jumped with a thump. I screamed and slammed my foot onto the brake pedal. The car skidded to a stop. The driving rain made it difficult to see if anything was behind me. My heart hammered against my chest. Did I run over a dog? It felt much bigger than I’d expect a cat to feel like, but then, Sable was a big cat. I threw the car into park, wrenched the door open, and ran to the back of the car. A dark form sprawled out on the road behind the car.

  It was a person. I’d killed someone.

  Before I could totally process things, the crumpled figure under the back bumper moved. Oh, thank God.

  Then, she stood up. Turned. Blinked at me.

  “Oh my God, Mara!”

  The light from a street lamp caught the shiny, dark blood staining her sweatshirt. I choked back a sob and reached out a shaky hand. She stood there, unmoving. So pale. So bloody. Her hair plastered to her scalp in the battering rain. I touched her sleeve, just to assure myself she wasn’t a ghost, that she was really standing there still alive. She felt solid, though she didn’t move under the light touch of my hand. Didn’t do anything, really. Just stared past me with vacant eyes, like she was seeing things I couldn’t.

  After whipping my head around to check for moving shadows, I forced myself to move. We were a block away from the house, so I urged Mara into the front seat, amazed that she could even walk that far. After all, I’d just run her over. Why wasn’t she screaming in pain? I shut her door, then leaned my forehead against the car, unable to quit shaking. I ran over my sister with the car.

  I sped to our house and rushed to get her out of the car and inside where I could find out where she was bleeding from.

  The house was dark. So quiet it actually hurt my ears. I guided Mara to the couch and pulled the soaked sweatshirt over her head—actually, my sweatshirt, one she’d borrowed without asking—and followed it with the white t-shirt she wore underneath. There wasn’t a scratch on her. Not even so much as a bruise. I ran my fingers over her wet skin, wondering if maybe her injuries were internal, but she didn’t flinch. I checked her arms, her head. Nothing. She was perfectly fine. How the hell had she done it? If this was some kind of Vila healing or protection magic, then why hadn’t that same magic kept her from being sliced when she cut herself with the knife?

  “Mara!” I snapped my fingers in front of her face. “Hey!”

  Her eyes darted to mine. She blinked and said in a sleepy voice, “What?”

  “I, uh … sort of accidentally hit you with the car.”

  She looked down at herself, sluggish, like she was just waking up. Then she looked back up at me. She actually seemed afraid.

  “You’re not hurt?” I reached for her, but she flinched. “Mara, let me help you.”

  She seemed to be studying me, then finally, she nodded her head. Water dripped from her hair onto the couch. My head spinning, I pulled her up and helped her to the bathroom so we could dry off. I made a mental note to check the car for dents once it stopped raining. I made another note to throw the blood-stained sweatshirt away. Or better yet, burn it.

  It was then the bigger problem slammed into me, forcing me to grab the doorframe for support. Mara wasn’t bleeding. If the blood on the shirt wasn’t hers, then whose was it?

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I went straight home after school the next day with one goal in mind: my bed. Besides, where else would I go? Naomi wasn’t talking to me, Gavin was avoiding me, and I’d quit on the Blacks. I officially had no life. Which was fine with me. Life got in the way of sleep, anyway. But when I found Mara doing homework at the kitchen table, I knew sleep would have to wait.

  I’d put her to bed after the car incident and spent the rest of the night sponging up rain water and checking the car for damage. Mara had left for school the next morning before I’d even gotten up, and I hadn’t seen her in the halls. I’d looked, too, since I had nothing better to do these days.

  I dropped my school bag and let my tired body drop into the seat across from her. She wrote in her notebook for a moment more, then looked up at me. She looked almost normal, very non-zombie-like. It was probably the best time to ask her questions, so I went for it.

  “You want to talk about last night?”

  She shifted in her seat. “Not really.”

  “Do you know what happened?”

  She shook her head.

  “I hit you with the car,” I said slowly. “How can you not remember? How are you not dead? I mean, there’s not a scratch on you.”

  She looked at me as if I should already know the answer. But I was still baffled. A bus had sent her into a coma, a knife was able to cut her, but running her over with the car didn’t affect her. I wondered if it had something to do with the Reaper.

  “Mara, I’m going to ask you some questions. I don’t want you to freak out.”

  She rubbed a palm up and down her arm, then nodded.

  I took a deep breath, placing my hands on the table. “You said someone was coming for you. Do you know who it is?”

  Her eyes, wide and full of fear, came up to meet mine. “I hear him sometimes. I see him watching me out of the corner of my eye. Only, when I look, there’s just a shadow. But I don’t know who he is. I only know what he wants from me.”

  I swallowed, leaning forward. “It’s a Reaper, Mara. He wants your soul.”

  Tears trickled down her cheeks as she nodded.

  “He feeds off your pain, which is why he makes you cut yourself. But why didn’t you get hurt when I hit you with the car?”

  She wiped at her tears. “When he’s around, when I’m under his spell and have to do what he wants, unless it’s my pain and suffering he’s craving, it’s like he puts a shield around me. So nothing can stop me from doing his bidding. Sometimes, he leaves me alone. Like after I’ve done something for him. Fed him, I guess you could say. I just want him to leave me alone.”

  I considered that, imagining Mara desperate enough to get away from the Reaper that she’d do harm to others. I squirmed in my chair and shivered. “What were you doing in the middle of the street?”

  She rubbed at her temples. “I don’t know. I … don’t remember.”

  Had I hit her so hard she lost some of her memory?

  “What do you remember?”

  She stared at her hands. “I remember Emily. She wanted to talk to me after school. She invited me over to her house.”

  “Did you go?”

  She grimaced and shrugged, and I couldn’t help but think how young she looked. Younger than me, even. “I don’t know. I can’t remember anything after that. Until the car hit me.”

  Until I hit her. “Mara, that’s, like, seven hours you can’t account for.” Seven hours of Mara doing God knows what. I fought off another shiver.

  “What about Emily?” I asked. “Did she say anything to you today?”

  Mara averted her eyes, brows pulled together.

  “She … wasn’t in school.”

  I suddenly had trouble swallowing. “She wasn’t?”

  The front door opened and shut. Mara and I both started. I shook my head and told myself not to be so jumpy. Dad walked into the kitchen, briefcase in hand. I mustered up a small smile, hoping he couldn’t read the dread on my face.

  “Hey, you two,” he said, walking to the counter and setting his briefcase down.

  “You’re home early, for a change.” My voice wavered, so I cleared my throat.

  Dad leaned back against the counter and crossed his arms. “Not really off yet. I left a file here, so I have some work to do still. But at least I get to see my two favorite girls.”

  I glanced at Mara. She picked up her pen and pretended to do homework.

  I stood up and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll start dinner.” He took his laptop out of his briefcase and sat at the table next to Mara. As soon as I opened the refrigerator, the doorbell rang. “I’ll get it.”

  I wished I hadn’t.

  Two police officers stood on the front porch: a tall, overweight man and a petite Asian woman, their blue uniforms a little wrinkled. I cleared my throat.

  “Can I help you?”

  “That depends. Is your father home?” the woman officer asked.

  “Um, yeah. I’ll go get him.”

  I walked back to the kitchen, my head spinning. “Dad, there are a couple of police officers at the door.”

  Mara’s head snapped up. She and I locked eyes. I knew she was thinking the same thing I was: This couldn’t be good.

  “Police?” Dad repeated. He stood, scratching his head, and went to the door. At first Mara and I didn’t move, but then we both rushed to the hall. We stood a couple feet behind him, close enough to hear without really being seen.

  “Hey, Chuck,” Dad said. Chuck?

  “Hey, Jim,” the officer said. “Haven’t seen you around lately.”

  “Work’s been keeping me busy. What’s up?”

  “There’s been an incident. We need to talk to your girls.”

  “Something serious?” Dad asked.

  “Afraid so. Can we come in?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Mara and I stepped back when Dad turned around, but he’d already seen us. He only spared us a glance as he gestured for the two officers to enter the living room. We followed them and stood by our father while they sat on the couch.

  “This is Mara and Zadie,” Dad said, arms crossed over his chest.

  “I’m Officer Nesmith,” the robust man said, “and this is Officer Iturro. We’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  “Okay,” I said, sliding into one of our plush chairs. Mara sat on the arm of it, and I could sense her worry. It totally matched mine.

  “You two know a girl named Emily Broding?”

  My heart sped up; I tried to look calm, like nothing was wrong, but all I could think about were Mara’s words: I remember Emily. She wanted to talk to me after school. She invited me over to her house. This was so not good.

  “Yeah,” Mara answered.

  I glanced at Dad. His mouth was a straight line.

  “What is your relationship with her?”

  “We’re … friends,” Mara said. Why?”

  Officer Nesmith let out a deep breath. “Emily’s body was found late last night.”

  Silence swallowed the room. It took a moment for the words to actually sink in. When they did, I looked up at Mara, wondering what she was going to say. Mara’s mouth hung open, and her body shook a little. The first tear escaped just as she found her voice. “What? How?”

  Officer Nesmith coughed and adjusted his collar. “I’m sorry. I can’t discuss the details of the case. Can you tell us where you were yesterday around eight p.m.?”

  Mara hesitated, wiping her tears away. She opened her mouth, and I panicked.

  “She was with me,” I said.

  “Doing what?” Officer Iturro asked, making notes in a notepad.

  My eyes flitted to Dad. I sat up straight and forced my voice to be level. “We went to the movies. Summer Camp Killer. It sucked, actually.”

  Officer Nesmith eyed us suspiciously. Something told me he wasn’t the type to trust teenagers, anyway. Mara wrapped her hand around my arm as Officer Iturro jotted down more notes. It was the first time I felt she really needed me since she’d been home.

  If the officers were questioning all of Emily’s friends, they must have spoken with Kelly and Nicole. I bit my lip, worrying about what they might have said. Had they mentioned that Emily and Mara had a falling out? Or the incident at Emily’s slumber party?

  “You wouldn’t happen to own a gray Georgetown University sweatshirt, would you?” Officer Nesmith asked. “With a hood?”

  For a second, I didn’t know why he asked. But then I remembered pulling the sweatshirt from Mara’s soaked body, burning it in the fireplace last night before Dad came home.

  “Georgetown?” Dad said. “I gave one to Zadie a couple months ago. My alma mater.” He glanced at me, and I wondered if the wheels in his head were spinning. Did he suspect us? Did he regret mentioning giving me the sweatshirt as soon as he said it?

  “Yeah,” Mara said, standing. “I borrowed it. I’ll go get it.”

  My cheeks and neck were scorching. How the hell was Mara going to get something that didn’t exist anymore? I linked my fingers together and squeezed, pushing my joined hands down on my lap. The officers gave each other a look. Mara returned from the kitchen with her book bag. When she pulled the sweatshirt out, my eyes darted to the hearth. This was magic I’d never seen before.