This was the only way I knew how to reach you. After tonight, it will all go away.

I never meant for you to be pulled into any of this— ever. Please believe that.

Somehow I’ve lost control of everything.

I only wish I could see you again. I wish I could tell you everything that I couldn’t before. Most of all, I wish there was a way we could start over.

Whatever happens now, please believe that I didn’t mean for it to end this way.

Yours always,

—V

37

The Grim Facade

After stopping to retrieve her gym bag from the girls’ locker room, Isobel slipped out the side doors of the stadium and into the darkened, car-filled parking lot. As awful as it seemed, she’d moved quickly after reading Varen’s note, using the distraction of Brad’s injury to make a clean getaway. She hadn’t wanted Nikki or Stevie (or anyone, for that matter) to catch up to her or ask her where she was going. It had become clear that she could no longer afford any more distractions. Not when she had wasted too much time already. Not when the only thing that mattered anymore was finding him.

As Isobel made her way through the parking lot toward the Cadillac, she imagined how her face must look—bleak, colorless.

“What’s the matter?” Gwen asked.

A tall, thin boy with choppy black hair stood next to her. He eyed Isobel as she approached, sizing her up, grinning like he found something funny. She glared at him in return, ready for him to say just one thing about her cheer uniform, because she knew he must have pulled the black jeans he wore straight from the girls’ rack at Target.

Gwen, having changed out of her phony prep getup, now wore a black V-neck dress. With enormous bell sleeves and no waist, it looked like a vampire’s nightgown. The whole ensemble was almost as ridiculous on her as the oversize Trenton sweatshirt. Under any other circumstances, Isobel might have laughed. Instead she frowned.

She’d already tucked Varen’s note into her gym bag, next to her tag for the Grim Facade, not wanting Gwen to see it. After tonight, after seeing what the Nocs could do, what they had done, she knew that her promise to herself to protect Gwen from knowing too much was one she had to keep.

“What happened?” Gwen squinted at her as Isobel drew nearer. “We saw an ambulance leave,” she said. “Somebody get hurt?”

“Brad,” said Isobel. There was no reason to hide that detail. “His leg got broken,” she explained, trying not to remember the sight of the jagged bone poking white through the bloody flap of skin.

Gwen winced. “Ouch. He okay?”

Isobel nodded. She moved past them and opened the back door of the Cadillac, tossing in her gym bag.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Let’s go.”

Gwen seemed to deliberate. She swayed on her feet, as though not sure which way to turn or what to say. Finally she said, “Isobel, this is Mikey. Mikey, Isobel.”

After the introduction, Gwen pivoted and rounded the back of the car. She opened the trunk to scrounge. In the meantime, Mikey busied himself by staring at Isobel. She stared back, her distaste for him growing by the second. Finally he winked and climbed into the driver’s seat.

Great. He was driving? Isobel scowled but said nothing, not wanting to waste any more time arguing. She slid into the back on the passenger side. From the front, Mikey twisted around to smile lazily at her, his face angular and sharp. Rows of silver stud piercings lined each ear. “Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” she said, doing her best to smile. There was something about this guy that set off her smarm alert, big-time.

“Scooch,” Gwen said, appearing on her side, a long white box tucked beneath one arm. She nudged Isobel, then wrestled in beside her. She threw the box over Isobel’s lap.

“What’s this?” Isobel asked. “Why aren’t you sitting up front?”

“This”—she tapped the box—“is your costume. It’s Halloween, remember?”

In the front seat, Mikey cranked down the driver’s-side window, stuck his head out, and unleashed a long, loud howl to the moon. Gwen reached forward to grab him by the neck of his hoodie and pulled him back in. He laughed and shoved the key into the ignition. The Cadillac whined, then rumbled.

Isobel looked down at the box in her lap. The last thing she wanted to do when she got there was waste more time in putting on a stupid costume. Even if Gwen didn’t know all the circumstances involved, couldn’t she understand that she just needed to find Varen? That finding him was the only reason she was even going?