Midnight Games(17)

“Jamie and I started it,” Lewis said. He was the only one drinking Diet Cokes. “We called ourselves the Night People.”

“Clever name,” Galen said. “Did you think of that all by yourself?”

Lewis ignored him. “Jamie and I started sneaking out before this bar was built. We used to meet inside the old Fear Mansion, right on this spot.”

Galen rolled his eyes. “Tell us something we don’t know.” He slid out of the booth and walked up to the front to get another beer from Ryland O’Connor.

“Pretty soon these copycats started sneaking out too,” Lewis told me. “Jamie and I can’t get any privacy.”

Shark jabbed Lewis in the ribs. “And why do you need privacy?” he teased.

We all laughed.

“Well, this is so cool,” I gushed. “We have secret night lives no one knows about.”

Shark leaned into me. “Tell us some secrets, Dana.”

“No way,” I said, pushing him away.

“Come on. Give us a break. Tell us some dirty secrets.” He took a long pull from his beer bottle.

“Shark, you always act like this after half a beer?” I said.

Everyone laughed again, even Ryland from behind the bar.

Galen brought refills for everyone. Nate lowered his hand from my shoulder to take his beer. “So you didn’t do this back home?” he asked.

I shook my head. “My parents would have killed me. I can’t believe your parents haven’t found out.”

“My parents are divorced,” Nate said. “That means I have only one parent to fool. And she works all day, so it would take a bomb blast to wake her up.”

“My parents drink themselves to sleep,” Shark said. “It’s not much of a challenge to sneak out.”

“Lucky,” Galen said.

Lewis kept gazing at the front door. Maybe he was expecting Jamie to show.

Nate squeezed my hand. “So what did you do for laughs back home?”

I shoved his hand away. “None of your business. You’re too young.”

The other guys hee-hawed at that one.

The five of us kidded around for a while. I could tell Nate was really into me. Just by the way he kept touching me and giving me looks.

I was attracted to him too. But one thing bummed me out—the way he kept getting serious, asking me questions about my life back home and what it was like being a Fear.

What was his problem, anyway?

Finally, he told me about some weird things that had happened to him in October. The stories were totally bizarre. He said one night at the bar, cockroaches started pouring out of his mouth. And then one day in school, both of his ears started spurting blood for no reason at all.

Yikes.

He said everyone believed Candy Shutt was using Angelica Fear’s amulet to cast spells on him. But it turned out not to be true.

Was someone else doing these things to Nate?

Was there someone out there who knew how to put curses on people? Someone who really wanted to hurt Nate and his friends?

The whole idea sounded crazy to me.

“You’re a Fear, right?” Nate said, squeezing my arm. “Do you know spells and sorcery and stuff? Do you know how to do things to people you hate?”

I just stared at him. My head was kinda buzzing from the beers I’d drunk. And my eyes weren’t totally focusing.

But I could think straight enough to know that I didn’t like his questions.

I shoved my beer bottle in front of him. “Drink some more,” I snapped. “Maybe you’ll make more sense.”

“No. Really—,” he started.

“Nate, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I told him. “How would I know anything about that? Just because I’m a Fear doesn’t mean I’m interested in—”

“Sorry. Sorry,” he said. He leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “Sorry. Really. Sorry. Umm, did I say I was sorry?”

Shark laughed. “Kiss her again, Nate.”

I glanced up—and saw Ada staring at us from the middle of the room.

Did she see Nate kiss me?

Yes. It was easy to tell from the angry scowl on her face.

“Hey, Ada—,” Nate started. “Scoot over, Shark. Make room—”

But before anyone could move, Ada grabbed Nate by the arm and pulled him from the booth. He had a goofy, confused look on his face. He half-stumbled, half-shuffled after her. I saw her pin him to the wall next to the bathrooms.

“Ada, want a beer?” Shark shouted. He grinned at me. The whole thing was a joke to him.

But I had this heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach. And my head started to buzz even louder.

The three guys at my table all started talking at once. But they didn’t drown out Ada.