Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

Anora and Influence

The fight song begins, and players burst through the banner. I search for Shy but don’t see him. I’m not the only one: several players and coaches turn to look behind them, as if hoping he will appear at any moment. Even Lily seems concerned, brows knitted together in a tight line.

My excitement quickly turns to unease—a feeling that spreads to the crowd as their volume dies down.

We leave the field and take spots in the stands, front and center, where the cheerleaders are positioned on the track. I don’t miss the way Natalie glares, both at me and Lily, who doesn’t seem fazed by the attention.

Five of our players make their way to the center of the field. Sara leans over. “Looks like Jacobi’s our quarterback tonight!”

“Yeah, but…where is Shy?” Lennon asks, looking at Lily expectantly, but all she does is shrug, frowning.

The knot in my stomach tightens.

“Good evening, Knights!” An announcer comes over the intercom. He has one of those made-for-radio voices, and everything he says is drawn out and punctuated with enthusiasm. “Tonight we have a special guest joining us at the center of the field for the coin toss. Please welcome the one and only, Mr. Malachi Black!”

Lennon elbows me. “That’s Thane’s uncle!”

Malachi strolls onto the turf, smiling and waving at the crowd. He wears a gray business suit, and his long hair is bound at the nape of his neck. The coin toss reminds me of two things—my own coin I’ve lost and Thane’s persistent attention. Self-conscious, I crane my neck, looking for any sign of him.

“Anora?” I turn to find Lily watching me. “Are you looking for someone?”

“No.” I smile and shake my head, eyes settling on the field again. “What’s the coin toss for?”

“It determines who will be on offense or defense first,” Lennon says, leaning toward me.

Once the toss is made, the game begins and spirals out of control within the first fifteen minutes. Jacobi throws two interceptions and fumbles the ball.

“This wouldn’t happen if Savior were here. Where’s that boy?” a gruff voice says from behind me. I don’t turn to look. I feel sorry for Jacobi. I know everyone’s thinking the same thing. The excitement I had about being at the game soon wears off, and anxiety gathers in my chest—how am I going to sneak away from my friends?

Behind me, the man mouthing off about Jacobi stands suddenly, yelling about another fumble, and knocks over his drink. The liquid spreads, soaking my shirt. Guess I should be careful what I wish for.

I stand quickly, wringing out my shirt. The loud man hasn’t even realized he’s made a mess.

“Great!”

“Oh no,” I hear Lily say.

“We can go back to the dorm, get you a new shirt,” Sara says.

“No, no. It’s fine,” I say. “I’ll just go stand over the hand dryer for a little bit.”

“Want me to come with you?” Lennon asks.

“No, that’s okay. I won’t be long.”

I smile at them and hurry away.

The bright lights burn my back as I wander away from the football field. Ahead, the night is illuminated by a few electric lampposts sprinkled across campus. I don’t mind the night—I prefer it. When we lived in the city, I used to wish there were fewer lights.

I follow the sidewalk as it weaves across campus, making my way to the trees where I captured Vera’s soul. I use my phone as a flashlight, shining it as I step, looking for any sign of the coin. As I get deeper into the woods, farther than I’ve gone before, I start to feel like my energy is being drained. When I look up, I don’t see any dead, but something that strong can’t be good.

I resist the urge to investigate, clutching my fist tight, fighting the thread burrowing out of my palm. I came to find the coin, not the dead. I search the ground at my feet but only find dead leaves, twigs, and acorns. No coin.

That’s when I encounter the first dead guy. He’s standing still, eyes far off and glazed, blood dripping from his nose and drool from his mouth. I step around him, heart racing, only to find another a few feet away. This one has burns covering most of his body. From the corner of my eye, I see another figure and another. They’re all around me.

I’m standing on a mass grave, I realize with horror.

The majority of these dead were killed in a fire. Their skin looks like it was attacked by a cheese grater: vibrant red scars, shiny with fresh blood and plasma. There are others with wounds to their heads and wrists, some with rope burns around their necks and tongues that loll out of their mouths.

I hold my breath and navigate around them, wishing myself invisible, hoping none of them are like Vera and follow me, when something grabs my wrist. A scream rises in my throat, and a hand clamps down over my mouth. I bite into the flesh.

“Fuck!” the voice roars, and I twist to find Thane behind me. “You bit me!”

“You snuck up on me! What did you expect?”

“Obviously not your teeth in my skin.”

“Oh, it’s not that bad. You’re lucky. The last guy who snuck up on me got kneed in the crotch.”

A ghost of a smile graces Thane’s lips. “Too bad. He would have probably preferred your teeth.”

“Shut up. What are you doing out here anyway?”

“Following you,” he says, taking a quick look around. “I figured you’d need help.”

“I’m pretty good at playing dodge the dead, thank you very much,” I say.

We stare at each other for a long moment. I know he didn’t follow me to help; he followed to spy.

Then we hear the voices.

“Sean, stop!” The voice belongs to a girl. “It’s not what it looks like!”

In my experience, it’s often what it looks like.

“I can’t believe you, man!”

Thane surprises me by taking the lead, wandering even deeper into the woods. I follow, led by the voices and that horrible, energetic pull. It makes my insides shake.

“Put that down, Sean!” The other voice is male and alarmed.

Uh-oh.

I try to move faster but drag my feet. Maybe I’ll scare off whoever’s fighting in the woods.

We find them in a clearing—two boys and one girl. The one called Sean is holding a large branch like a baseball bat, and I’m fairly certain he’s about to use it like one. His skin glistens with sweat, and he is breathing hard. His eyes move from the boy to the girl and then go dim, like he’s not actually present in his body. I’ve seen the look before—in people who are dying or grieving.

“Sean! No!” the girl screams.

Sean lifts the branch and swings, hitting the other boy square in the face. He falls like a rock. I burst through the trees.

“Stop!”

Sean’s back goes ramrod straight, his head snaps back, and a plume of gray erupts from his mouth and gathers in a cloud above his head. I freeze. I’ve seen this thing before, tangled with my poppa’s soul after his death. The thing hisses at me and then ripples through the air like the aftershock of an earthquake. Its energy is dark and disturbing. It cuts through the trees, making their branches shake. I run after it, dodging limbs and dead things, but it is dark, and my clothes snag on branches and thorns, and I trip over rocks and raised earth, finally stumbling right through a dead guy.

And it’s like I’ve landed in an inferno—flames scalding, wilting my skin like a flower in winter. I wail, writhing on the ground. My fingers curl into the dirt, and bile rises in the back of my steaming throat.

When the worst of it’s over, pain still vibrates through my body. I lie, gasping for breath, unable to move.

Then something lands beside me, and I roll over to find a creature. It’s nothing like the thing of shadow that burst from Sean. This has the body of a human and large wings. I roll away, moving onto my hands and knees, blinking rapidly, my head swimming…and find that the person in front of me is just a boy, and the halo of wings I imagined, trees.

“Shy?”

“Are you okay? I thought I heard screaming.”

“Y-yeah. I’m fine.” I take Shy’s hand, head spinning as he helps me to my feet. We’re inches apart, and he still has a hold of my fingers.

“How did you…” I start, but I can’t think clearly when I’m touching him. I withdraw my hand. I had clearly heard the thump of feet landing beside me, not footfalls. “W-what are you doing out here? You’re supposed to be at the game.”

“I was just arriving when I heard screams.” He’s staring down at me, studying me. I feel like he can see the last ten minutes of my life written on my face. “Sean ran out of here like he’d seen a ghost.”

Ha, he doesn’t even know he’s being funny.

“Yeah, well, Sean beat that other kid’s face in, so he’s running from his crime.”

Shy frowns. “That doesn’t sound like Sean.”

“Well, I guess you get jealous when your friend is caught with your girlfriend.”

“Sean and Ally are brother and sister.”

“Well, he didn’t like his friend messing around with his sister, then.”

A line appears between Shy’s brows, still unhappy with my version of things. I can’t tell him what I actually saw: something near invisible spewing from Sean’s body like an alien. I shiver. I never thought I’d see anything like that again. What was it doing in Sean’s body? What had it been doing in my poppa’s body?

“What are you doing out here?” Shy asks. His eyes fall to my jersey, and I cross my arms over my chest, feeling self-conscious.

“The same reason you’re here. I heard Ally scream.”

“All the way from the stadium?” he asks, brow raised.

“Well, no.”

“She was looking for me.” Thane joins us in the clearing, and the air thickens, suffocating me as I’m caught between the two. I look toward Shy in time to see him clamp his mouth shut. He steps away, putting distance between us, and passes a hand through his hair, pushing it out of his eyes. That’s when I see it—the blade sheathed at his side. Mostly hidden under his jacket, it gleams eerily. It’s curved like a scythe, but shorter.

I’ve seen a blade like that before.

Someone tried to kill me with it.

Shy drops his hand and pulls his jacket together.

“The police are on the way,” Shy says, not taking his eyes off me. “They’ll want a statement from you.”

As he leaves, I watch him traverse around the dead—a skilled captain navigating rough seas.

He can see them too.