“When I first ran into that guy, Daniel was with me. I couldn’t see his eye color, because it just looked black. Daniel told me they were brown! Why else would he say that—”
“Unless he couldn’t see the color either…” Reese slammed the keys into the ignition, and we floored it out of the lot.
“Hey, you’ve reached Carly. Leave your name and number. If I like you enough, I’ll get back to you,” the teasing voicemail laughed into my ear.
Whatever sparked the power outage must have tampered with cell service as well, because it took a good five minutes for any of my texts to even read, “Sent.” And I found even worse luck when I tried calling Adam, receiving another failure message that said, “We’re sorry, the number you are trying to reach is currently not in service.”
“Goddamn it!” I punched my fist into the passenger door, and Reese outright jumped in his seat, seeing the knuckle-sized dent I left in the metal.
“Just take it easy there, Hulk,” Reese urged. “You said it yourself. Carly was thinking about heading home early. She could be in the shower for all we know.”
“She’s not.”
“How’d you know?”
“I just do.” That weird stirring under my skin was coiling itself around every muscle, propelling me forward. The closer we got to the school, the stronger it grew. “Do you really think Daniel could be Sitri?”
Reese gripped the steering wheel tighter. “Possibly. Only upper level demons can cloak their nature from us. With how much time you’ve spent around him, you would’ve seen past it at some point if he was anything less. Or he could be a Hellhound…”
“Yeah, but we would’ve noticed that. I mean, you saw what the other Hellhounds were like. Daniel’s been acting normal—”
“So long as they aren’t triggered by anything to make them angry, Hellhounds can still act like themselves, at least on the surface. Hell, there are some Hellhounds born with the condition, and they manage to live amongst society without detection. It’s not wholly impossible for Daniel to hide it.” He hesitated. “What if Carly was already turned? If Daniel really is one, he’s been that way for how long now—”
I actually laughed. “We’re talking about the girl who cries every time she watches an animal rescue relief commercial. Hell, she got choked up yesterday over a YouTube video. Carly’s the poster girl of emotional.”
“Point taken,” he sighed, finding what little relief he could in the matter.
My gaze fixed outside the passenger window.
“We don’t even know if Daniel’s planning on doing anything, to her or anyone else. I mean, he’s had more than ample opportunity to attack.”
My eyes remained glued to the sky. I’d seen a few harvest moons in my life, and they’d all been a washed out red. This one was bleeding an unnerving, effervescent scarlet. “You see anything in the forecast for a Blood Moon?”
Reese leaned over, seeing the circular sphere hanging overhead. “Shit.”
Muffled music reverberated through the metal door as we approached the gym entrance. Reese eased the door open just far enough for the two of us to slip through. BASTILLE’s “Requiem for Blue Jeans” played overhead on the loudspeaker, but no other sounds filled the gymnasium. No clamor, no voices, not even a footstep. It was impossible to close the door quietly, so I gently wedged the wooden triangle by our feet behind the frame to leave it open just a crack.
Leafless plastic trees adorned with pale decorative bulbs were aligned down the endlines of the basketball court, and the only real source of light came from the music-synced LED spot lighting solutions system mounted in the center of the gym. The lights eased between blue and red as the song’s ominous drums echoed across the space. Two sets of fog machines continued pumping out masses of thick gray clouds that now engulfed the entire floor up to the middle of my calves as Reese and I stepped out into the gym. At first glance, everything looked normal, until you took inventory of the decorations. Only a handful of balloons had been filled, and dozens of wound up string lights were still stacked on the lone bottom bleacher that was pushed out. Then there was the large banner clinging to the wall, tacked up on only one end, as the stepladder beneath it sat toppled over on the ground.
Where was everyone? I recognized at least ten of the cars in the parking lot including Carly’s.
Reese turned to say something to me when he suddenly seemed to stumble over his own feet, disappearing into the layer of fog hovering above the floor. I ran to help him, only to be met with the same fate. My feet blindly collided with something solid, and I face planted onto the hardwood. The force stirred the fog just enough to clear out the immediate space. I gasped, scuttling across the floor until I crashed into Reese. He seemed to realize the same thing I had, because he pried me up and we both stumbled back toward the bleachers.