Dangerous Creatures

CHAPTER 22 Damaged Soul

How’s it going, Rid?” Lena’s voice crackled over the speaker of Ridley’s new cell phone. Nick the Nerd Warrior was a good friend, and she had the reception to prove it.

Aside from that, there wasn’t much to feel good about. It had been a long day of work for Ridley, who, though no closer to finding her dream than before, had at least determined it did not involve Mortal hair.

Ridley sighed. “Great. Perfect. Like a dream come true, Cuz.”

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday. So many days for nothing but work. Why do there have to be so many of them in a row?

Her feet hurt. Her hands had some kind of itchy rash, probably from disgusting scalp fungus. The heel had snapped off one of her black Louboutin ankle boots on the subway. Talking to her cousin only made it worse.

“Is New York amazing?” Lena asked.

“The most.” Ridley tried not to let Lena hear her sniffle. She held the phone away from her face and then brought it back to her ear again.

She caught a glimpse of Lucille Ball sitting in the doorway of the kitchen, judging her. Ridley made a face at the cat, but Lucille didn’t so much as move.

“Have you seen all the sights?” Lena sounded excited. It only made Ridley feel guiltier, like she should have returned one of her cousin’s fifty messages before now.

“Yep. That’s why they’re called sights, L. You see them.” She didn’t elaborate on what glam sights she had managed to see. Like the dirty subway tunnels, the old diner. Oily ladies’ scalps, reeking trash cans in the streets.

“What about the club scene? Charming your way into fabulous restaurants and amazing boutiques?”

“You know me. I’m practically out of lollipops.”

“I’m so jealous. All I do is study, study, study,” Lena complained. “Although I got into this writing class. It’s a poetry seminar, actually, and the professor is really great. I didn’t think…”

Blah, blah, blah.

The conversation faded into a strange collage of images Ridley couldn’t—and to be fair, didn’t really want to—process.

Red cups and college sweatshirts and late-night pizza and dorm restrooms. Football games. The dining hall. The Creation of Adam and Guernica and Hopper’s Nighthawks and the life of Buddha.

Did she really say public restrooms? With the kind of showers that you have to wear shoes in?

The conversation ended when Lena had to go to something called a study group to talk about things called handouts—or something like that.

What could Ridley say?

There was no way to explain the jam she’d gotten herself into, or the mood she was in.

How could someone as Light as Lena understand cheating at a card game and losing a marker, let alone two? How could Lena believe that someone was controlling Link and his stupid band, and using them for their own secret agenda? Worst of all, how could her cousin hear or solve or even understand the one problem that loomed over all the others?

Him and his stupid club. His threats and his lies.

Ridley herself could hardly stand to even think his name.

The phone crackled. “Are you listening, Rid?”

“Yeah, of course. I’m here. I’m just tired.”

“I’m worried about you. Every time I think of you lately, my ring turns bloodred. Like fire. Sometimes it even burns my finger.”

Red? Ridley’s ring always turned green.

“I’m sure it’s nothing.” Ridley glanced down. Now Lucille Ball was sitting at her feet, looking at her with enormous cat eyes, as if to say Red? Really?

Lucille Ball was not pleased.

“I asked Ethan, and he said Link never has time to talk,” Lena said.

“Well, you know. Rock stars.”

Lucille thumped her tail. Tell her.

“You’d tell me if something was going on, right?”

Lucille thumped her tail again. Tell your cousin.

Ridley ignored the cat. “Of course.”

“Anything the least bit out of the ordinary?” Lena asked.

“I’m fine. Everything’s fine. Honestly, I’ve never been happier. Or more ordinary.”

Lucille howled, stalking out of the room.

By the time Ridley hung up the phone, she’d told so many lies she could barely remember her own name. She knew that her life in New York was nothing close to regular, and more importantly, nothing close to a success. She had lied on the phone to her cousin, and she had been lying to herself. She was not cut out for this. It wasn’t who she was.

Link was right. She didn’t belong here. Maybe the two of them really were through.

Maybe this week’s breakup was for real.

She couldn’t ask him, though, because he was avoiding her, spending all his time with Floyd in the practice room.

By the time she went to bed, she felt like crying. By the time she fell asleep, she was. Even in her dreams.

“I told you not to wear that old thing. You look like a hair ball some cat vomited up.”

Ridley pulled on her cousin’s sleeve, twisting the knit sweater out of shape. She knew she was being mean. She even felt mean, but she didn’t care.

Her cousin might as well be walking around with a big old target on her forehead.

“Shut up, Rid.” Lena looked like she wanted to shrink back into her locker.

“That sweater says Kick Me.” Ridley pinched her harder.

Lena was standing by the lockers, because Lena was always standing by the lockers. It was as far as she’d venture into the open waters of middle school.

Ridley had no problem venturing anywhere, on the other hand. It was just the trouble that ventured with her wherever she went that was the problem.

“Did you even do your geography homework?” Lena asked with a sigh.

“Why do you care?” Ridley sighed back, one hand on her hip. She was wearing her favorite outfit: a kilt she’d cut off short with her Gramma’s scissors, a T-shirt with the neck ripped out, and a pair of old black boots she’d found in someone else’s locker, two schools ago.

Her first heels. They made her feel good. Tall, like she could look down on everyone in the whole world, the way she liked it.

Lena handed her a piece of paper covered in pencil scribbles. “Here.”

“Aww, you doing my homework now, just in case?”

“Someone has to.”

Ridley held up her hands, refusing to take the paper. “Has it ever occurred to you, L, that what happens at this miserable little Mortal school doesn’t matter?”

“Stop.” Lena was embarrassed.

“None of these stupid little brats—” Ridley raised her voice even louder.

“They’re not brats. Not all of them.” Lena looked around uncomfortably.

“Or their stupid teachers.”

“I like my teachers.”

“Or their stupid history. Their stupid laws. Their stupid sciences.”

“Rid.”

“It doesn’t matter. Not for us Casters. Not where we’re going. Not with the kind of life we’re gonna have.”

“It matters to me.”

Ridley slammed her cousin’s locker shut. Lena could just make her so mad sometimes. She was a punching bag for Mortals. She had begged to go to Mortal school—she tried so hard to please them, all the time. And she was just so bad at it.

Better not to try.

Better not to expect to be invited to their birthday parties and their trips to the mall.

Better to know the teachers weren’t going to call on you.

Better not to care.

But as soon as Ridley slammed the locker door, she regretted it—not only for the look on her cousin’s face, but for the crowd it attracted.

She had forgotten the first rule of going to Mortal school: Lay low.

Even for a girl who hated rules, that was the one rule Ridley had the hardest time with. Who wanted to lay low when you had it in you to fly high?

Only Lena.

Who was now being circled by a crowd of girls so skinny-legged and straight-haired and mean-spirited that they made their own mothers look friendly.

“Cute sweater, Lena. Where’d you get it?” The girl closest to her, Caitlyn Wheatley, purred. She pinched the greenish-gray sleeve. Lena just stood there letting her do it. She always let them do it, which was why they did it in the first place.

“I don’t know,” Lena mumbled.

“Maybe your mamma knitted it for you from prison?” That wasn’t Caitlyn. That was Sandra Marsh, who never could resist a good whupping, so long as she wasn’t on the receiving end.

Lena didn’t say anything.

Ridley sighed.

“Maybe your old granny knitted it for you in the old folks’ home? Isn’t that where you live with her?” Caitlyn moved closer. The rest of the hallway began to look on with interest. It was a familiar scene. They knew they were just getting to the good part.

Lena tried to walk away. The little posse of girls followed.

Caitlyn raised her voice. “You look like cat puke, you know that? Like a big old hair ball my cat just threw up onto the carpet.”

That was it.

Ridley slammed her own locker door, and Caitlyn stopped in her tracks. “I’m the only one around here who gets to say what looks like cat puke, and I say it’s your face.”

The hallway started to laugh.

“Don’t,” Lena said, looking at her cousin.

Ridley shrugged as she slipped a piece of bubble gum out of her bag and unwrapped it.

“And you want to know why I say that?” Ridley kept on going. “Because I was there, Caitlyn, when your own cat puked it up, and I was there when you ate it.”

More laughter.

Ridley popped the pink square of gum into her mouth.

“Shut up,” Caitlyn said. “Liar.”

“Yeah,” Sandra said. “You’re makin’ that up, and it’s disgustin’.”

“Am I?” Ridley asked. She looked from Caitlyn to Sandra. “Caitlyn, tell Sandra the truth.” Ridley began to chew.

“What are you talkin’ about, freak?” Caitlyn glared.

“Tell Sandra what you did at your house yesterday. Right in front of me.” Rid looked encouraging. She chewed harder.

“Rid,” Lena pleaded. It was the same warning she always gave, and the same one Rid always ignored.

“Tell all of them.” Ridley smiled, blowing a round, pink bubble.

Caitlyn had a strange look on her face now. She looked up at Sandra like she herself was the one about to be sick. Then she looked out to the sea of faces in the hall of Albert Einstein Middle School.

“I ate cat vomit.” The words were strangled in Caitlyn’s throat. Sandra looked at her, disgusted.

“She’s just joking,” Lena said. No one listened.

“And?” Ridley said, encouraging.

“I ate cat vomit, and I liked it,” Caitlyn mumbled, looking stricken.

“And?” Ridley asked.

“And I’ll do it again tomorrow.” Tears ran down Caitlyn’s face.

The laughter was so loud that it was hard to hear her.

Lena ran away, out the door of the administration building, through the gates of the school.

Rid didn’t catch up to her for three more blocks.

By the time she grabbed Lena’s arm and forced her to stop, Lena was no longer crying. Her face was red and her eyes were flashing.

“Why did you do that?”

“Because,” Ridley lied, “I can.” It wasn’t the only reason. It was just the only one Lena expected her to say.

Now she was holding her cousin by both arms.

“I can, and they can’t. It will always be like that. You will never be one of them. Neither will I. They’ll never be good enough or bad enough for either one of us.”

“Why does it always have to be like this?” Lena looked as tormented as Caitlyn Wheatley, in her own way.

“Does it matter? You can’t change the way it is. Stay away from Mortals. They bring out a bad, bad side in us.”

At least, Ridley thought, in me.

Bad to the bone.

Bad to the bone and I haven’t even been Claimed yet.

They never went back to that school again, but Ridley didn’t care. She had already learned everything she needed to know.

Ridley woke up thinking about Caitlyn Wheatley for the first time in years. She wondered what had happened to her. Maybe she’d ask Nick the Nerd Warrior to find out. These days, she had much worse problems than Caitlyn Wheatley. Far more annoying Mortals were bringing out her bad side now.

Even if the one she was thinking about wasn’t completely Mortal, and there had been a time, not that long ago, when he would’ve gladly said he’d eaten cat puke for her.

Just as Ridley had made Caitlyn Wheatley say it for Lena. And after Caitlyn Wheatley, so many others.

Ridley lay back in her bed.

She had been the one to do it. She had always been the one.

I had to be.

I was Dark so Lena could be Light.

It was who they were, but it was more than that. It was who their world had expected them to be. After a while, it was who they expected themselves to be.

Has it always been that way? Does it have to be?

Rid pushed the question from her mind. It didn’t matter. She couldn’t change the way these things worked. She should’ve remembered the basic rule of living among the Mortals: Lay low or stay away.

Otherwise they’d always burn you.