I tried to keep my mouth from falling open and then took a good look into that crowd, which contained so many of the people who’d been there the night that Eli had tried to claim Jillian’s soul. Some people didn’t register what Scott had just said. But some of them did, staring up at me with frightened, guilty eyes. I knew I had to strike then, before they allowed themselves to forget again.

“Whether or not you remember,” I said, “whether or not you believe us, that doesn’t make what we’re saying any less true. High Bridge is an epicenter of evil in this town. There are demonic forces that live beneath it—forces that sometimes lure, and sometimes outright drag, people to their deaths. The demons have been after me all year. Soon, they’ll come after you.”

“Why us?” Kaylen asked in a small voice.

“Because the demons know that I care about you—that Joshua cares about you, and that Jillian does, too. That’s just how the demons operate. As far as we can tell, it’s an ancient cycle . . . and we intend to stop it.”

As I finished, Jillian stepped forward and faced her friends squarely. She did so with more conviction than I’d ever seen her show in front of them and, in that moment, I was pretty proud of her.

“So here’s how it’s going to go down,” she announced, placing her hands on the hips of her cocktail dress. “You guys are going to take this keg, move it into another truck, and go back inside to prom. Some of you will try to forget about what you’ve seen here tonight and probably use what’s inside the keg to do so; I’m guessing that those people will be the ones who stop talking to us in the halls at school. But some of you are going to think about what we’ve shown you. About what we’ve said. Those people will be the ones who show up tonight, after prom, to help us. Eleven p.m., near the southern entrance of High Bridge. So . . . think about which side you really want to be on.”

After that, there wasn’t anything else to say. The choice now lay in the hands of the non-Seers. This fact did not bring me much comfort, though, when I considered what happened next.

Acting as though they’d all heard some unspoken cue, the non-Seers began to move. Not to embrace us or attack us, but to leave. Without speaking, the boys in the truck bed went back to work on the keg, tipping it out of its ice-filled trash can so that they could roll it off the edge of the tailgate. I stepped aside for them, feeling defeated when none of them—not one—spared me a second glance.

The non-Seers climbed out of the truck and waited expectantly below the tailgate. After some hesitation, Joshua and Scott lowered the keg down to them. The other boys hefted it over to O’Reilly’s truck, which he’d moved over here before my little performance. They loaded the keg quickly, letting it roll noisily to the back of the bed.

With that task completed, everyone seemed to scurry like rats back into the gym. They did so just as silently as before: no good-byes; no screw-yous; no comments of any kind.

Only O’Reilly and Kaylen remained, although she stood with her arms folded across her chest, staunchly refusing to look back at us. O’Reilly just rocked awkwardly on his heels. Like his friends, he didn’t say anything for a few long minutes. Finally, with his hands shoved firmly in his pockets, he glanced up at Joshua.

“Sorry, dude,” he murmured. Then he jerked his head at Kaylen and the two of them spun around, moving back toward the gym as fast as they could.

Chapter

THIRTY-ONE

After my epic failure to get even one non-Seer to leave prom and join us in our fight, we had no choice but to move forward with our final preparations. Now standing near the fire pit at Robber’s Cave Park, I couldn’t fight the sensation that my clock was winding down, far too fast. It had to be almost ten thirty, and I still hadn’t finished transferring my glow to all the young Seers; Felix and Jillian waited for their turns.

On the plus side, I didn’t have a difficult time summoning the glow—credit that to my growing anxiety, I supposed. On the downside, my mouth felt like the Sahara after I’d had to swallow gulp after gulp of Transfer Powder. By now, I did not think it had a pleasant aftertaste.

“Just two more times,” Joshua murmured, handing me another bottle of water during a quick break. I took a huge gulp of the warm liquid, wishing that someone had thought to bring a cooler. Once finished, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.

“Okay, Jill—let’s go.”

Jillian reached down to the jar of powder at our feet and scooped out two handfuls for us. I held out my palm and, as soon as she’d poured my share of the powder into it, I closed my eyes and called forth my glow. It shined in the dark like a beacon; like a warning.

Soon Jillian had a glow of her own, so I signaled that the Seers should just keep chanting and send Felix forward; why extinguish my glow again, if I didn’t have to?

Felix took everyone by surprise, however, when he shook his head. “No, I’m not going to do it. I don’t want the glow.”

I made a small noise of disbelief. “After everything you put Joshua and me through over this? Why not?”

“Because if I glow,” he explained quietly, “then I can’t get near her. If we can somehow get Gaby out of there, I don’t want to be able to hurt her—it just isn’t worth it, to me.”

Some of the other Seers began to object, bemoaning this loss in their already-thin ranks. But I kept silent and watched Felix. He met my gaze squarely, wordlessly asking me to understand. And I did.

I nodded emphatically, folded my arms across my chest, and concentrated until my glow vanished. When Annabel protested further, I held up one hand to silence her.

“Felix can do whatever he thinks will work—we all can.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” she asked. She cast a glance at Joshua, who in turn frowned at me. He was already suspicious about what I might do tonight, I knew. But I just shrugged defensively, picked up the jar of Transfer Powder, and turned in a direction where the Seer circle had broken by a few feet. For those watching behind me, I made a show of screwing the lid back onto the jar, but not before I’d scooped out as much of the power as I could stuff into both pockets of my jeans. Then I strode over to a rock bench near the edge of the circle and tucked the jar back into Annabel’s bag. That performance over, I turned to face the frowning, bemused Seers.

“What I mean, Annabel, is that we all have to be flexible tonight. We have to keep in mind that we don’t know what the glow will do to the wraiths, if they get close to it. Mine has scared them off before, but I’ve never actually touched one. So just be careful, okay? For yourselves, and for them. If you can, try to remember that they were people once, too.”

Annabel scowled, but after a moment, she conceded reluctantly. “Okay. We’ll be careful.”

“So then: should we go?” I asked, changing the subject before the Seers decided to argue Felix’s decision further. Without waiting for their answer, I walked over to Joshua and offered him my hand. Still frowning, he took it and let me lead him away from the Seer circle, toward his truck.

“What are you doing?” he whispered, when we were far enough away that his family couldn’t hear us.

“Taking over this operation,” I replied with a faint laugh. “From here on out, we’re going to do things my way.”

Joshua seemed troubled by that answer, but he didn’t argue with it. He simply followed me to his truck and waited while I opened its passenger door. When he circled to the driver’s side, however, I took advantage of the fact that he was out of sight and reached surreptitiously under my seat. I removed the purse that I’d stowed there before we left for the prom, took out the handgun, and tucked it between the small of my back and the waist of my jeans. Then, after quickly rearranging my cashmere top so that it hid the gun, I pulled myself into the truck, shut my door, and flashed Joshua my brightest, most innocent smile.