Page 53 of Caution to the Wind

As soon as I left the bathroom, the party swallowed me whole. There were people everywhere, clogging the arteries of the rickety house, barely moving even when I shoved past them. Everyone from our grad class seemed to be there, hundreds of kids because we went to a big public school. At least Cleo was home with Lin. There was no way I’d be able to do this with her around.

The first slap of cool air against my face when I pushed outside was a welcome relief. The shadows clung to everything, so deep in patches of the lawn it looked as if the universe had devoured whole sections of the yard. I kept to them, slinking around boisterous groups and a few couples doing very depraved things in the darkness. I wasn’t sure if it was the eerie setting or the strange light cast by the bonfire, but everyone seemed more animal than human, their teeth gleaming red, their features elongated by shadow.

I shivered in my leather jacket and ducked into the barn.

I instantly recognized Michael Hannigan, one of those jock-types who always seemed to thrive in high school and fade after graduation. He moved with a kind of frenetic energy, as if he himself knew the end of his glory days was nigh. There was something about his agitation that called to me. He was holding court in the middle of a large group, which made approaching him risky, but I figured if I could get the King of Cal Oaks High to buy some of my shit, everyone else would soon follow.

I sucked in a deep breath, righted my shoulders, and moved toward the popular crowd I had never, not once, spoken to before tonight.

Michael caught my eye almost immediately, head and shoulders taller than most of the people surrounding him. His eyes gleamed, red-black like a demon’s, and for just a second, his mouth curled, a cruel promise.

Okay, he seemed to say,come here and play.

He didn’t know I’d faced worse adversaries than him. If I could fight Jiang Kuan and stand up to Henning Axelsen, I could face Mr. Popular without fear.

“Hey, Hannigan,” I greeted with a chin lift, stopping just beside his little group to lean casually against a wooden pole. It creaked under my slight weight ominously.

He stared at me a moment more before jerking his own chin. “Marchand, what’s up?”

A few of the girls, all of them wearing next to nothing, shot me warning glances. I almost snorted at the idea that I was after Michael. He was as far from Henning as I could imagine and, therefore, not of any interest to me romantically.

“Nothing much, unfortunately,” I started with a little sigh. “Just bored out of my skull. This party is lame.”

“Yeah,” he agreed slowly, turning a little more to face me properly. “You got any ideas how to fix that?”

I let a smile move across my face, slow and warm as melted wax. My hair shifted over my shoulder, a sleek sheet of inky silk, and I watched as Michael took it all in, as he blinked and licked his lips.

“Maybe,” I suggested, biting the edge of my lip. “Depends on how bored you are…and how much you want to pay?”

He laughed, a quick bark. “You prostituting yourself now, Marchand? Isn’t your daddy rich as hell?”

Michael knew he was. Years ago, before they’d learned better, the rich and popular crowd had tried to recruit me to their ranks. The daughter of Florent Marchand would have been a perfect fit for them, in theory. In reality, I didn’t give a shit about them or anything they gave a shit about themselves.

I rolled my eyes and spoke over the twittering girls who thought his comment was a little too funny. “I wasn’t offering myself. Just a little party favour…”

I unzipped my little bag and pinched a little baggie of white powder between my fingers. It was easy to flash it his way, just a quick peek to entice his interest.

His eyes bulged, almost grotesque in the darkness. “How much?”

“How much do you want?”

He looked at his crew, a collection of twenty odd girls and boys who all seemed to hang in suspended animation around him, just waiting for his cue. One of his buddies clapped him on the back and grinned.

“What the hell,” he decided. “I’ll take whatever you got. It’s our last night as high schoolers, better make the most of it.”

I didn’t have to manufacture the smile that claimed my mouth, but I wondered if anyone could look at me and think I wasn’t feral, intent on wickedness that far surpassed drug dealing to teens in an abandoned barn.

They didn’t empty my collection, but they put a large dent in it. I’d never really gone to high school parties, so I was shocked by the ease of their expertise as they took three bags of coke and started to divvy one up into clean little lines on a small mirror a girl produced from her purse. Another guy took a baggie of weed and set to rolling a joint with the well-oiled movements of a habitual smoker.

It shouldn’t have shocked me. I knew The Fallen probably dealt to teens all the time, but it seemed absurd to me that my peers would want to risk their health, security, and potentially their future on a bit of chemical fun.

Michael neatly snorted a line of coke, then eyed me where I stood impassively in the corner watching them. A mean expression flashed across his face, there and gone.

“Have a line,” he suggested, offering me a rolled-up twenty-dollar bill.

“I’m good.”

“It wasn’t a question.” He stepped closer, caging me into the wall with his towering physique. It annoyed me that men always seemed to do that, using their bodies to intimidate in a way most women never could. “Daddy’s good little girl too prudish to do a line of coke with me? How do I know you aren’t some kind of narc?”