“You really think it’s not real?” One of the girls sniffed, looking at Riley with hope in her watery eyes.
“This is a Halloween party, isn’t it? Didn’t our hostess just do something to the lake? She probably put this here to just trick some people.”
Kimber seemed to materialize right next to Riley. She smiled under her witch hat. “Girls, don’t be so dramatic! Of course I put that there! I guess I took the joke too far.”
“So it’s fake?” a guy with dark hair asked, going over to put an arm around his crying girlfriend.
Kimber looked offended. “Please. Do you really think I would allow a dead body to wash up on the night of my Halloween party?”
One of the girls smiled. “I guess not.”
Kimber nodded. “Forget about this. Go have fun. Enjoy the bash!”
The four didn’t seem to want to hang around and they walked up the yard toward the huge mass of people dancing.
“Seriously, Kimber? You did this tonight?” Sam said, pinning her with an angry stare.
“You didn’t exactly give me a specific date,” she countered.
“Is this body real or not?” I cut in, realizing there was more going on here than I thought.
“Don’t you remember Andi, Heven?” Kimber said.
I gasped and looked down at the pile of bones. “That’s Andi?”
“Heven,” Sam began, and I knew by the tone of his voice she was somehow a casualty of my life.
“How?” I asked miserably.
“China,” he replied low.
“That bitch got around,” Riley said.
“You knew she was down there, in the lake?” I asked.
He nodded, looking at the ground. “I asked Kimber to bring her up so she could be found in one piece. So her family would know what happened to her.”
Another death. Another family touched by the struggle raging between me and hell. When was this going to end?
“Why did you lie just now?” I said, turning to Kimber. “We really do need to call the police.”
“I will,” she said, “but not in the middle of the best party I’ve ever had. What a downer.”
“I’m sorry that giving some girl who was murdered some peace is so disrupting for you,” I spat.
“We need to call now, Kimber, before any of her… washes away,” Sam said.
She waved her hand. “She’s not going anywhere. I made sure of it.”
“I don’t care. I’m calling the cops,” I said, pulling out my phone.
The song that was playing turned off and the DJ’s voice came over the sound system. “Who’s ready to get their freak on?”
The crowd cheered.
“This next song is courtesy of the birthday girl,” he said. He was laughing when a song came on, cutting him off. It was an intense song and the crowd started dancing erratically and then a horn cut through the music and a fog machine came on, filling the dance floor with a dense, heavy fog that glowed with the same neon green we’d seen in the lake.
“What the hell?” Kimber said. “I didn’t order a fog machine.” She turned to me. “Did you do this?”
“No, I didn’t know anything about this.”
We watched as the thick fog curled around the dancers, winding its way through the bodies, surrounding them, pressing in on them until it was hard to see them at all. The music seemed to pump louder through the speakers and more fog was released from a machine that we hadn’t even seen, but this time it traveled toward the deck, reaching for the people there, wrapping around them and tinting everything an electrified green shade.
“Something isn’t right,” I murmured, just as the fog began to stretch toward us.
“Gross!” Kimber said and then surrounded the four of us with some kind of clear bubble that kept out the green tendrils.
The fog didn’t seem to like being stopped. It actually seemed to collect itself, grow thicker, until we couldn’t see anything except for it, and then it reared back and rammed the bubble with a force mist shouldn’t possess.
“I knew I should’ve killed that guy,” Riley growled.
“Cole’s out there.” I worried. “What is this stuff?”
Sam looped one arm over my shoulder and across my chest, pulling me so my back came up against him and I could feel the muscles in his body begin to shake. I glanced over my shoulder at the grim expression on his face as I felt the telltale flood of adrenaline push through his veins.
“Sam?” I asked, knowing all too well what was going on.
He pushed me toward Riley and I stumbled, Riley reaching out to steady me. “What the hell, Sam?” he said.
“I’m trying to hold it off.” His voice was like a growl and he shut his eyes, breathing hard. Then his eyes opened and I gasped. They were pure, glittering gold. “Watch Heven,” he demanded through gritted teeth.
“Sam.” I started forward to do something. To help. Riley yanked me back and anchored me at his side. I frowned at him, but he ignored me.
“Is he going to shift?” Kimber asked, her eyes going wide.
I think the answer was fairly obvious.
“Oh, no,” Kimber said and then she shut her eyes and began to chant in a low voice. A great wind seemed to stir through the trees and the bubble that surrounded us swayed a little with the force of it. Riley tightened his arm around me as Kimber raised her hand toward the sky and pulled.
A great howling force rushed through the area, so strong I heard the water lapping at twice the speed it normally moved. The bubble rocked and shook beneath our feet like there was an earthquake and the ground just below our feet was going to crack open and swallow us all whole.
The green fog that hung heavy in the air was blown away, scattering out into the center of the lake and dissolving, raining down into the water, leaving splash marks where it fell. The wind died down and the bubble around us disappeared. I wrenched free from Riley’s grip and stumbled toward Sam, falling against his chest and reaching up to take his face in my hands.
“Get back,” he ground out.
“No.” I pulled his face down so I could stare into his sparking eyes. Everything’s fine. We aren’t hurt. Look at me. I’m okay. I repeated the words over and over until the gold in his eyes gave way to their normal whiskey color. The muscles in his body relaxed with only a tremor going through them every few seconds.
He took a shuddering breath and looked back at me, like he was just now seeing me for the first time. “I think I’m good.”