“I didn’t have a choice with Maria,” Ava whispers. “I don’t care if you want to leave. I have a choice with you, and I’m not letting you go.” Her hand twitches, catching in Mack’s shirt, twisting there. And then Ava takes a deep, shuddering breath, and she releases her grip. “No. I’m sorry. You can go, if you want to. There’s still time to hide alone. But Mack. Please. I’m asking you not to. I’m asking you to stay with me. To remind me I’m here. Because I’m scared shitless that none of this is real, or all of it is, and I don’t—I can’t—” Ava’s voice cuts itself off.
Ava’s afraid, and Mack wants to hide from it, because holding someone else’s fear means opening her shell even more. Letting her own fear out.
But she has her mother’s laugh again, and the way Maddie wrinkled her nose up like a pug when she was trying to look extra angry, and it’s precious and devastating and she wants to feel it. Wants to feel anything, for the first time in years. And knowing that Ava—strong, bold Ava—needs help makes Mack feel a little less alone. She puts her hand against Ava’s cheek, presses her forehead to Ava’s. Wonders if the explosion of releasing all the pain and guilt at the core of her will be worth a little happiness, a little joy.
“Yeah?” Ava asks, and neither of them knows exactly what she’s asking, but they don’t need to.
Mack presses her lips against Ava’s. It’s her first kiss, and it’s soft and scared and hopeful, surrounded by darkness and suffused with it.
* * *
—
With the dawn deadline nearing, Brandon steps outside. Mack and Ava have been up in the hiding spot for a few hours now, and he can’t be sure, but he’s pretty sure they’re a thing now. Which makes him happy for them but also feeling a little left out. He doesn’t want their team to pair off, to create bonds he’s left out of.
At least he doesn’t have to worry about that with LeGrand. Maybe LeGrand will become his best friend. It doesn’t seem likely—LeGrand hasn’t really been friendly, even if he hasn’t been unfriendly—but there’s a chance. Brandon can imagine it. Becoming roommates. Staying up late playing his secondhand Xbox. Pooling their money for new games. Inviting the girls over for pizza. Sharing the out-of-date snacks he brings home from the gas station.
“LeGrand?” he whispers into the night.
A click answers, and Brandon follows it. He knows he shouldn’t be out, that maybe Jaden is looking for them, but it feels so lonely waiting in the Lovers’ Hideaway by himself, counting down until it’s light enough to join Ava and Mack in the good hiding spot so he doesn’t feel like he’s intruding. He checked it out when he helped Ava climb in. It’s super cramped up there. He won’t even be able to crawl; he’ll have to scoot on his belly. He’s not looking forward to it. He’s never been afraid of heights, but he doesn’t like enclosed spaces.
A building looms at the end of this path—the one with the rotting demon with skeletal wings. It’s hard to make out the details of it in the night, and somehow that makes it even creepier. At least if it was light, he could see how silly, how old and fragile it was. An impression of it, with his brain filling in the details, is worse than the actual thing.
Brandon leans against the bottom of LeGrand’s tree. He doesn’t know whether he wants his back to the demon so he doesn’t have to look at it, or to face it so he can keep an eye on it. Both options make him nervous, and make him feel silly for being nervous about an old decoration.
“Hey,” he says, looking upward as a compromise. The foliage of the tree is so dense, he wouldn’t know where to start with climbing it, and he can’t even see the other guy. How did LeGrand manage?
“Hey,” a soft voice answers.
“We’re up in a sort of crawlspace in the building. Against the front wall, overlooking the entrance. So you know where to find us.” If Brandon feels left out, LeGrand might, too, and he doesn’t want that. In his head, LeGrand is already his roommate. LeGrand’s weird, sure, but he’s nice-weird. Not mean-weird, like Atrius and Ian.
Brandon instantly feels guilty for the thought, because they’re out, or…well, they’re out. That’s what Brandon is okay with thinking. He understands why Ava’s wigged out, why they’re all scared, because he is, too, but he doesn’t want to be. And he doesn’t think anything bad happened. He just thinks someone here is a dick. Jaden, more than likely. It doesn’t really seem like something Linda would do. She seems too…classy for that. Nothing to do with her age, though. She doesn’t remind him at all of his grandma—Grammy had pink hair from a time she mis-dyed it and then declared Why the hell not, and she wore men’s T-shirts and short shorts, her tanned skin soft and crinkly. There was nothing fancy about his grandma, only funny warmth and honesty. Always honesty. Brandon misses her so much. Nothing’s been the same since she died, which is even sadder, because nothing has changed. He still lives in her tiny house, still works his same job, still does all the same things, only now he does them alone.