Page 2

Penny

SLOWLY, PENNY TURNS AROUND.

Corey Barrion is standing a few feet away, arms crossed over his broad chest. He glances at Penny, and she feels the heat rise in her cheeks.

Where Alonso is disheveled, pieced together like a collage, Corey is his opposite. His white T-shirt is tight in all the right places, his brown curls shorn close to his head. Where the dim light makes Alonso ghostly, it lends a gentle glow to Corey’s brown skin. And while Alonso is smirking like a stand-up comedian who doesn’t realize he’s bombing, Corey is as impassive as stone.

“I know harassing people gets you off, but you’re not doing it here,” Corey says. His eyes are serious, and behind them is a weariness that makes him look older.

Alonso is still grinning. “Penny and I were catching up. Right, Emberly?”

Just like that, the party’s attention is on Penny.

Oh no. She can’t do this. Between the Indiana humidity and her animal fear of conflict, she’s sweating enough to create a moat around herself.

Corey must see the desperation in Penny’s eyes, because his gaze softens, and he turns his attention back to Alonso. “Fine. Then stay. Hope you have fun.”

The party shivers with whispers and laughter as Corey walks away, and Penny almost relaxes. Maybe this will be okay, and for once they won’t fight. Just because their family hatred goes back three generations doesn’t mean this night has to end badly!

But of course it was never going to be okay.

Alonso takes a step in Corey’s direction and shouts, “Since you already called me out in front of everyone, I have something to say.”

Corey freezes, but he doesn’t turn around.

“This entire lake doesn’t belong to you,” Alonso says. “My family owns half, remember? So next time, you should ask our permission before you decide to trash the place.”

There’s a collective gasp, but Alonso is technically right. Even though they hate each other, the Barrions and De Lucas have been neighbors for decades, and their properties stretch all the way out to Elkie Lake. Any normal family would crumble under the stress of having to see their sworn enemies as they’re rushing off to work and school every morning, but the Barrions and the De Lucas are not normal. They’re too stubborn to be scared off.

So Alonso is right. This lake is his, too, and his self-satisfied smirk makes it clear he thinks he’s won.

Corey slowly turns around. “I sent your mom an email about the party two weeks ago. Ask her.”

“Sure, because there’s no way you’d plan a party out here just to give us the middle finger, right? To show us who really owns Elkie Lake?”

“No, I wouldn’t, because I’m not like you.”

“It’s amazing how much you know about me. You must be my biggest fan.”

The look Corey is giving Alonso would make anyone else wither. “I don’t want to deal with this. I’m only here to have a good night.”

“Yeah, man, of course you are.” Alonso turns, locking eyes with a few people who laugh or look away. One girl even screams, muffling it with her hand, and Alonso glares at her. “Must be nice knowing everyone is on your side. And you didn’t even do anything to deserve it.”

A muscle in Corey’s jaw starts to twitch. “What are you trying to prove?”

Alonso throws up his hands. “Nothing. Just thought everyone could use a reminder that they’re on De Luca property, too. Technically, they’re trespassing. Who knows what could happen?”

The laughter dies immediately, and people start glancing toward the path that leads out of the woods. For years, people have said if you look a De Luca in the eyes, it gives them the power to control your thoughts. Or if you dream the same dream three times, it means they’re angry with you. Even back in elementary school, kids whispered if you looked into a puddle after it rained, you’d see the De Luca witches staring back at you, and they’d pull you inside.

Long story short: You don’t want to get on the De Lucas’ bad side.

Alonso is clearly basking in the effect he’s having on everyone. Corey, for his part, loses whatever calm he had left. His hands clench into fists, and he says, “If you’re going to threaten people, go home. You don’t belong here, anyway.”

Everyone goes quiet. Penny stands completely still, watching Alonso.

And, to Penny’s surprise, he looks at her.

She isn’t sure what she expects to see in Alonso’s face. Rage, probably. But it’s not that simple; there’s a war going on behind his eyes, and when he takes one step back, Penny bites her lip and silently begs him to leave.

But then his smirk returns, and there’s no humor in it this time.

“I don’t belong here, huh?” Alonso says. “Whose fault is that?”

Before Corey can answer, Alonso takes three quick steps forward and punches him in the face.

The party turns to chaos. Corey stumbles, but he barely slows down. He’s their school’s quarterback, so knowing how to get hit and bounce back is a necessary skill. And in this case, bounce back means “hit Alonso in the gut.”

Alonso doubles over, coughing. Just as Corey is about to grab him by the neck of his shirt, Alonso charges forward like a bull, tackling Corey and knocking him over.

People scream and cheer as the two of them struggle on the ground. Someone starts playing “Blitzkrieg Bop” by the Ramones, and a few guys chant along in bad British accents. Across the party, Yvonne Mason holds up her phone, clearly filming. Hannah Hartley clings to her side, eyes flicking from Yvonne’s phone screen to the fists flying in real time. Some of the football players frown and talk to each other in low voices, maybe debating whether they should pull Corey back. But they do nothing.

They just let it happen.

As Corey knees Alonso between the legs, Penny turns away, feeling sick to her stomach. She’s never witnessed these fights up close, and all at once, the hatred between Corey and Alonso is too real. She needs to leave.

“Penny!” Naomi appears behind her.

“Fuckin’ kill him , Corey!” someone shouts.

There’s a collective oooooh , and Naomi cranes her neck to see. That’s all Penny can handle. She pushes through the crowd of people hankering for her front row seat to the bloodshed, and she starts to feel claustrophobic between all the bodies. By the time she’s through, her heart is racing and she breaks into a run.

“Penz, wait!” Naomi calls as she reaches Penny’s side. Soon they’re in the woods, hopping over fallen tree branches and slipping on grass that’s damp with the day’s humidity. Penny’s cup is still in her hand and beer sloshes over her wrist. She dumps it on an unsuspecting weed and keeps running.

They reach Mrs. Salazar’s old Honda Civic, which Naomi parked too far into the grass. But it’s on the De Luca side of the street, and Alonso’s family couldn’t care less about their lawn. His old Victorian house is so dark it’s barely visible, while Corey’s house is lit up like a Christmas tree, all glass and stone and tasteful hedges.

“Seat belt,” Naomi says as she takes off, going from zero to forty a little too fast for a car from the early aughts. They stay quiet until they’re turning onto County Road 500 W, and then Naomi visibly relaxes.

“God,” Naomi mutters as she rolls down the window and turns up the music, making the cup holders rattle with the bass. “Some things never change. Those two won’t stop fighting until one of them dies.”

“Yeah,” Penny mutters, but it doesn’t feel that simple. Because didn’t Corey and Alonso learn this hate from people much older than them?

Naomi squints into the darkness ahead. “Do you hear that?”

Red and blue lights appear, speeding toward them. A police car flies by, sirens shattering the steady silence of the countryside as it heads straight for the party.

“Hope somebody dumps the keg,” Naomi mutters.

The porch light is on when they pull up to Penny’s single-story house on Clancy Street. The outside air smells like smoke from the fireworks at Barrion Park, but inside, it smells like marzipan.

Penny and Naomi lock eyes. “Raspberry bars,” they whisper in unison.

They drop their shoes onto the pile by the front door and snag two raspberry bars from the kitchen before they tiptoe to Penny’s room. Even in the dark, they know to hop over the squeakiest floorboards as they creep down the hall past Penny’s mom’s bedroom. Anita Emberly gets up early to open her café, so she’s probably been asleep for hours.

“Roof?” Naomi asks when Penny shuts the door to her bedroom.

“Roof,” Penny agrees.

Getting onto the roof is second nature: crouch on the sill, grab the ledge, push yourself up. When they’re resting against the shingles, staring up at the moon and handing a flask back and forth, Naomi says, “So. Alonso was chatty.”

Penny grimaces. “You noticed.”

“A lot of people noticed.” She pauses. “Have you ever wondered if he… you know. Has a crush on you?”

Penny sits straight up, the flask almost flying off the roof. “What?”

“It was just a thought.”

“You’re definitely wrong.”

“Sure.”

“Sure?”

Naomi laughs. “Why are you freaking out? It’s not like it matters. You’re Team Corey.”

“I’m actually Team Francois.”

“Well, Francois is a fictional poltergeist on Amityville High— ”

“A sexy fictional poltergeist,” Penny corrects.

“—and you’re a real girl. So that’s not going to work out.”

Penny takes a wistful swig from the flask. “I guess not.”

“What did Alonso want? You were talking for a while.”

Penny opens her mouth, but something stops her from sharing what Alonso said about the yearbook. Naomi will take it as evidence that Alonso has some weird crush on her. If Naomi had been in Penny’s place, she would’ve seen the anger in Alonso’s eyes, the superiority in the set of his shoulders. Alonso looks at Penny exactly the way he looks at everyone else: as beneath him. In the way. Disposable. Naomi wasn’t wrong; Penny is Team Corey, but only because Corey treats people like human beings.

“He was giving me a hard time, as usual,” Penny says, taking another swig.

“Then why didn’t you tell him to fuck off?” Naomi says, grabbing the flask. “You don’t have to be so nice to everyone all the time.”

Penny is about to reply that she kind of did tell him to fuck off—but something in the distance catches her eye. Behind Penny’s house are trees and a fence, weeds and wildflowers. It’s so overgrown that you can’t see their neighbor’s house a few yards away. But outside the fence, before the trees really take over, there’s a shadow.

It could be a trick of the light. The moon might be shining at a perfect angle through the branches above. Except the shadow moves in a way that is distinctly not like tree branches in the wind. It almost looks—

Human.

“Do you see someone?” Penny whispers, trying not to panic.

“Huh? Where?”

“ Shh, ” Penny says, and she points. “Right there, by the broken fence post.”

“I see nature.”

Penny is about to argue, but when she looks back at the fence, there’s nothing there.

“You’re drunk and sleepy, Penz. And probably on edge, after Alonso and Corey went gladiator.” Naomi frowns. “You’re really not going to tell me what Alonso said?”

Penny watches the woods for a long moment before she lies back on the roof. “He asked how my summer was going.”

“He did? That’s weird.”

Alonso has always been weird, but he’s predictable, too. Except for tonight. Tonight, he was almost decent to her for a second, but that’s scarier than all the stories Penny knows about him. It makes her feel like she’s missing something.

As she stares up at the moon, Penny decides she’ll never look for Alonso’s message in her yearbook. Because even though some dark part of her is fascinated by what she saw in the woods all those years ago, she’s sure of one thing: Alonso De Luca is a mystery she never wants to solve.