A Girl Called Dust (28 page)

“I guess you’re right.”

“I could try though.” Violet looked up,
holding my gaze with her sky-blue eyes. “Let’s make a deal. I’ll stand up for
my name if you’ll stand up for yours. Arden is a pretty name too.”

She knew. It hadn’t occurred to me that
Takers other than Cadence, Wes, and Hollis knew things about me. Maybe they all
watched the cameras.

I gave her a smile as I stood. “Deal.” I
had no idea if standing up for myself would work, but she was right. We could
at least try.

Chapter
Twenty-Eight

That night I climbed through the janitor’s
closet and let myself into the lair, not knowing what to expect. Wes was
waiting for me in the hallway with one foot propped up against the wall. “It’s
about time. We’ve been waiting forever.”

I glanced at the time on my cell phone.
“It’s two minutes after nine.”

“Right. We said to be here at nine o’clock
sharp. Mr. Mason hates tardiness.”

I was sure he hated a lot of things, but I
followed Wes down to Mr. Mason’s office without another sound.

Wes paused at the office door and stared
at me with a frightening intensity. “Brace yourself. This is not going to be
easy.”

I took a deep breath. “Okay,” I said
although I felt completely unprepared for whatever was going to happen.

Cadence sat in a chair in front of Mr.
Mason’s desk, while Mr. Mason and Hollis stood on either side of a chair. Lacey
sat in that chair, struggling to release herself from the straps that tied her
wrists to the arms of the chair.

Her eyes widened when she saw me. “Dus—uh,
Arden. Thank God. What is this place? What’s happening? Did they kidnap you
too?” It was strange to see fear on the face of someone who was always so
confident and in control.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

Mr. Mason folded his arms across his
chest. “You need to start practicing. If you’re going to become an effective
Banshee, we need to hone your skills. Since you are the last Banshee in
existence, you’re going to have to be self-taught, but of course, we’re here to
help you.”

I hadn’t pictured this. Destroying a Hag
was one thing, but looking at Lacey as normal Lacey, I couldn’t do it.

Hollis looked from his father to me.
“Arden, Banshees can cause death just by thinking about it. We need you to try
it on her. Think about her dying, however you want it to happen. We’ll stay
here until you get it.”

I stepped back toward the door. Reading
and talking about my supposed abilities were one thing, but actually having to
show them was a totally different story. I couldn’t cause someone’s death. Not
even if that person was Lacey. I couldn’t be a Banshee.

Wes stepped closer to me. “Go ahead and
try.”

They all watched me expectantly. They had
wanted me to be their great secret weapon, and I was going to have to let them
down. On the other hand, Lacey was a Hag. She had threatened me and killed
innocent people. She needed to die.

I cleared my throat and tried not to sound
afraid. “I think it would be easier for me if she were in Hag form.”

“Oh, about that,” Hollis said. “This
girl’s no Hag. She’s not a creature at all.”

Cadence wagged her beak at me. “You really
need to work on your sense of smell. She reeks of Human.”

That couldn’t be right. I moved closer to
Lacey. “You attacked me in the bathroom at the ball last night. I saw you with
my own eyes. We had a conversation.” I looked to the others. “You guys are wrong.
She’s a Hag. She knows how to mask her smell.”

Mr. Mason shook his head. “No. Creatures
who mask their smell have no scent. Cadence is right. You can smell her
Humanity a mile away.”

I focused my attention back on Lacey.
“She’s doing this. Somehow she’s making herself smell Human. I’m telling you. I
know what happened. I was there.”

Lacey looked into my eyes, pleading.
“Arden, I swear, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I didn’t do anything
to you in the bathroom last night. I didn’t even see you at the dance.”

Wes knelt in front of her. “Arden, if she
was in Hag form, how do you know it was her?”

I shrugged. “Easy. She told me who she
was.”

The others sighed. Cadence stood up from
her seat so fast that it almost tipped over. “Are you kidding me? A Hag, a
wicked, evil Hag, told you she was this girl and you believed her? That’s all
you have to go on?”

As much as I wanted to slap Cadence, she
was right. The Hag really could have been anyone.

“Nevertheless,” Mr. Mason said, “she is
the girl who gives you a hard time. She’s a bully. That’s a good enough reason
for you to want to get rid of her.”

“Arden, please,” Lacey pleaded. My real
name sounded strange coming out of her mouth. Tears ran down her cheeks. She
couldn’t use her hands to wipe them away. “Please. I don’t know what you guys
are talking about. I don’t know what this is or what these . . .
things
are. I just want to go home.”

Wes stood and whispered in my ear. He was
so close to me that I shivered. “This is the girl who makes your life hell. She
gave you that horrible name. She is going to torture and taunt you for as long
as you know her. Not just you, other kids too. You’ll be doing lots of people a
favor by getting rid of her.”

Cadence plopped back down in her seat as
if she were bored, like nothing out of the ordinary was happening. “Arden,
she’s a Human, and they’re expendable, especially Humans like her. I mean,
there’s billions of them in this world. What’s one less? Let’s get this show on
the road.”

I glanced at each of them. “I can’t think
of Humans like you do,” I shouted. “My mother and sisters are Human, and
they’re not expendable.”

Mr. Mason sighed impatiently. “You don’t
have a mother or sisters. The sooner you accept that those people are not your
family, the easier this transition will be for you.”

Lacey was groveling now, and it wasn’t as
satisfying as I might have expected. “Arden, I’m sorry. I really, really am.
I’ll never call you Dust again. I’ll never say another mean thing to you or
anyone. I’m sorry about what I said about Bailey. I didn’t mean any of it.”

I had no idea if I was even capable of
doing what they expected of me, but I had no intentions of finding out. Without
thinking, I imagined how my life would be without Lacey. Maybe people would
stop calling me Dust. Maybe Bailey would go back to the way she used to be
before they became friends. One thought overpowered all of that. No matter what
Lacey had done, she didn’t deserve this.

I moved toward the door, but Wes stopped
me, squeezing my arm with his strong grip. I tried to yank away from him, but
he held on to me easily.

Cadence moved from her chair to three inches
from my face. She was a lot scarier up close with that fierce look in her eyes.
“Listen, Arden, you may look Human, but you’re not. You never were and you
never will be. Life has given you two choices—which is more than the rest of us
got. You will be either a Banshee or a Wendigo. There’s no escaping it.” Her
beak brushed against my nose. “If you don’t want to become a Wendigo, you
better start embracing your Banshee side. Start doing what Banshees are
supposed to do.”

Lacey’s shoulders bobbed up and down as
she sobbed uncontrollably. “What are you things? Some kind of freak alien
monsters?”

“Lacey, shut up!” I shouted. This was hard
enough without her making things worse.

Mr. Mason pulled Cadence away from me and
stood in between us. “What Cadence means is that one side of you will become
stronger than the other. Once you eat flesh, the Wendigo side will take over.
Once you exhibit your Banshee skills, that’s what you will become. If you
choose to become a Wendigo, we have no use for you, and to the sixth tunnel you
go.”

 I didn’t want to become a Wendigo,
but I wouldn’t avoid it at the cost of a person’s life. I would find another
way. There had to be another way.

I shoved Wes. “Get off me!”

Mr. Mason nodded, and Wes stepped away.

Mr. Mason stood behind me, placing his
cold hands on my shoulders. His touch made my skin crawl. He squeezed my
shoulders. “Clear your mind and think. Think about how you would want her to
die. She could choke on her own saliva. Something can fall on her. She could be
stabbed by a sharp object. So many possibilities. Just think.”

I shrugged his hands away, afraid I would
do what he was asking involuntarily. I never knew when death thoughts were
going to pop into my head, and the wrong thought could cost Lacey her life.

 I glared at Hollis. “Let her go. Let
us both go right now. I’m going home. I don’t want to be here anymore. You said
you’d never force me to stay. I don’t want anything to do with any of you.”

Cadence chuckled. “You say that like you
have a choice.”

“I always have a choice.”

Mr. Mason rolled his eyes at Lacey, who
was screaming bloody murder. “Neither of you will leave until we’ve
accomplished what we’ve brought her here for.”

I had to get out of this. I had to find a
way to get both me and Lacey out of this. I turned to Mr. Mason. “I haven’t
told you the whole truth about me. I’ve killed someone with my thoughts before.
I imagined them dying, and seconds later they did.”

Mr. Mason stared at me with a stony
silence, and I wondered if he could smell my lie.

I didn’t think he could, so I kept going.
“If you don’t let us go, I’ll do it again, right now, but to you.”

Mr. Mason looked at his son, who looked as
if he didn’t know what to think, so I kept talking. “Lacey, won’t say a word to
anyone about what happened today, right, Lacey?”

She only stared at me.
Say yes, stupid
.

Finally, she nodded. “No, no. I won’t tell
anyone anything. I promise.”

Hollis moved closer to me, and I hated the
way they had me surrounded. “That’s not an issue. Wes can erase her memories.
The issue is you siding with a Human over your own and threatening us. You have
no idea what you’re doing.”

I stared at him as menacingly as possible.
“Let us go now. Let us out and don’t come after me again. Whatever happens to
me happens, but I’m done with this place.”

“But—” Hollis began.

“I mean it, Hollis. I’ll send this ceiling
crashing down on all of you. Let us go!”

The four creatures exchanged glances,
trying to decide whether or not to believe me but not really wanting to take
the chance. Finally, Mr. Mason nodded. “Get them out of here.” He shoved his
finger into my face. “You’re on your own now, but you’ll be back, and we’ll
remember this treachery. Get them out of my sight.”

Hollis unstrapped Lacey and threw her over
his shoulder. “Let’s go,” he ordered.

I followed Hollis carrying a screaming
Lacey, with Wes trailing behind us. He brought us to the exit of the lair and
then turned to me. “You have no idea what you’re doing. You’re making the
biggest mistake of your life.”

He was right. I had no idea what I was
doing, but I knew I couldn’t kill anyone. “According to you, I have two
options, and they’re both horrible. They both end with people dying.”

He put Lacey down and held her against the
wall with one hand. She was too petrified to move. “You’re wrong. One option
ends with you being put in the tunnel with the beasts for the rest of your
life. The Givers will hunt you down and kill you if another one of them is
killed. Something is out there trying to frame you. Don’t come looking to us
for help when they put a price on your head. Don’t expect your buddy Fletcher
to help you either. Unlike yourself, he’ll be faithful to his kind before he’s
faithful to you.” He nodded to Wes.

Wes stepped forward and placed his hand on
Lacey’s forehead. She giggled, and a blank stare spread across her face. Hollis
opened the door and pushed us both out.

Outside, I took a deep breath of the
winter air. Lacey looked at me, frowning. She glanced around. “What the hell?
What are you doing here, Dust? What am I doing here?”

Then
she stood and took off running.

Chapter
Twenty-Nine

Four days passed, and I was still at
square one. When Lacey saw me in school, it was the same old same old.
Thankfully she had no recollection of what had happened in the lair. If Lacey
wasn’t the Hag, it was still out there, probably staging more Wendigo attacks.
More importantly, I was still in danger of being blamed for them.

Friday night, I lay on my bed staring at
the ceiling when Fletcher called.

“Hey, Fletch. What’s up?”

“I just got invited to a party.”

I sat up. As long as I’d known Fletcher,
that had never happened unless I counted the plus-one Bailey had given me for
Trista’s Halloween party. “Oh. Whose party? When?”

He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I
don’t know. The text came from an unknown number. It just says there’s going to
be a party at the old farmhouse after midnight. It doesn’t say who’s throwing
the party.”

Everything about the situation seemed
wrong. “That sounds weird. Maybe they sent it to you by mistake. Just ignore
it.”

“I’m going. I think this might be
something.” I went to my closet and slid my feet into some boots while Fletcher
kept talking. “I feel like something bad is going to happen.”

Fletcher had said the same thing about
Trista’s Halloween party, and he had been right. “What makes you say that?” I
asked.

“The farmhouse is outside of Everson
Woods, so the police won’t be out there patrolling. Plus, they invited me. I
feel like this is some kind of setup.”

I threw on a coat just for the sake of
appearances. “That’s all the more reason you shouldn’t go out there, Fletcher.”
I remembered how hurt he had been after being flung into the tree by the
Wendigo.

“I have to. Don’t you want to end this?
That’s not going to happen if we run away from it.”

I was climbing over the balcony by then.
As soon as Fletcher had said he was going, I knew there would be no talking him
out of it.

The old farmhouse was about an hour’s
drive, definitely not in walking distance. “So how are we getting there?”

Fletcher sighed. “I’m borrowing my dad’s
car, but you’re not coming.”

“Save it. You wouldn’t have called to tell
me about the party if you didn’t want me to go with you. I’ll be waiting by the
stop sign on the corner.”

“Fine,” Fletcher said before hanging up.

I spent the whole ride listening to
Fletcher lecture me on how he didn’t want me to do anything. That if something
went down, he would handle it. I didn’t argue with him. I was more worried
about the fact that his teeth chattered despite the heat blasting, his puffy
coat with several layers underneath, thick gloves, and a wool cap.

“Are you all right?” I asked as we pulled
up to the wooden gate that led to the farmhouse.

“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.”

The farmhouse sat alone in the middle of a
huge field. The wooden panels of the house were worn and weathered, and a few
of the windows were broken. Several cars were parked haphazardly in the field.
I noticed Wiley’s truck immediately. Fletcher pulled up beside it, and we
climbed out. Wiley’s truck was running, but his windows were rolled up. As
usual, classical music was playing from inside. I wondered what was going on in
there.

Fletcher and I made our way to the large
swinging door of the farmhouse. Music and shouting came from inside. Someone
was having a great time.

Fletcher pulled one of the doors open, and
I took a cautious step inside. About twenty people were spread out across the
abandoned farmhouse. A cooler sat in one corner, and an iPod hooked up to a
speaker sat in the other. The only other things in the farmhouse were rusted
folding chairs and large bales of hay. Lanterns were placed strategically
around the room, giving off a small amount of light.

A knocked-over lantern could set fire to
the dry hay

The old, rusted tools hanging on the walls
could be used as weapons

The entire rickety structure could give
way and collapse

This is a party, Arden. Stop thinking
about death.

I couldn’t help but roll my eyes when I
spotted Ranson in a corner talking to a couple of his friends. He noticed
Fletcher and I then turned to say something to his friends, who erupted in
laughter. Other than that, the party was pretty chill. People stood around
talking, holding bottles or red plastic cups. Trista and Marley sat on a bale
of hay, looking at something on one of their phones, but there was no sign of
Lacey. I noticed one person standing in front of a foggy window dressed in
black jeans and a hoodie. The hood was pulled over the person’s head, but I
knew Bailey’s Hollister hoodie from anywhere. She stared out into the darkness.

“I’m going to say hi to Bailey,” I told
Fletcher.

He nodded and went to sit next to Trista,
but a bit too close.
Personal space, Fletch.
Trista and Bailey glared at
him as if he was going to give them some deadly disease.

“Hey, Bailey.”

She turned slowly. With her hood on and
the dim lighting in the farmhouse, it was hard to make out her face. From what
I could see, it looked better than the last time I had seen it. “Hey.” She
shifted from foot to foot awkwardly as if she didn’t know what to do with herself.

I was burning up, so I removed my coat and
tossed it onto a bale of hay. “I’m surprised to see you here.”

She looked down at her boots. “I know. I
shouldn’t have come. I think I’m going to leave.” She threw a quick glance over
to Marley and Trista.

“Are they giving you a hard time?”

Bailey shrugged. “Marley’s okay when it’s
just the two of us, but when Trista’s around, she acts like I don’t exist.”

I wanted to ask her how it felt to have a
friend turn on her, but I held back. Bailey had been through enough. “Bailey,
you know you’re still beautiful, right?”

She pulled her hoodie down over her face.
“What’s beautiful, really?”

Someone knocked over the iPod. The
farmhouse filled with sudden silence. Ranson’s friend scrambled to fix it over
people’s loud complaints.

“Whose party is this anyway?” I asked.

Bailey frowned. “I don’t know. I got a
text from a number I didn’t recognize. I needed to get out of the house. I
haven’t been anywhere since . . . you know. I figured I had to show my face
sometime.”

I looked around the room. Why had the
people there been invited? The guest list seemed so random. Why Fletcher? Why
Bailey? Why any of them?

A realization slugged me in my gut. I
needed to take action. Something was very wrong, and no one else seemed
suspicious of what was happening. They drank and danced without a care in the
world. Whoever arranged this party knew these kids would be down for a good
time and free alcohol—no questions asked. Someone had put this mismatched group
together for a reason. I wasn’t supposed to be there. Maybe the party planner
knew that I had the ability to foil their plans. My insides told me to separate
the innocent from the danger. “Bailey, take a walk with me.”

“Um . . . okay.”

We stepped into the darkness. Wiley was
still in his truck, and the air was more chilled than it had been before. It
felt good. Bailey followed me away from the farmhouse and toward the woods.
“How’d you get out of the house?” I asked her. I knew for a fact that sneaking
out under the Bensons’ watch was practically impossible. Mrs. Benson could hear
spiders creeping along the wall in her sleep.

Bailey was silent for a moment. “My
parents are out of town.”

We moved closer to the wooded area. “Are
they? They actually left you alone?”

“Yeah. Just for the weekend. My mom can be
a little crazy about things, but in a year I’ll officially be an adult, and I
think she’s starting to realize that.”

We stopped at the line of trees. I looked
her up and down. “You’re only wearing a thin hoodie. Aren’t you cold? You
should be freezing.”

“No. I’m fine.” Her eyes traveled down my
body. “What about you? Aren’t you cold?”

I had left my coat inside. “No.” But that
was because I wasn’t Human. A Human would have been cold.

Bailey raised her eyebrows and stepped
closer to me. “Is something wrong?”

I studied my friend’s face—the beauty of
the top half contrasted with the lower half riddled with scars. Everything made
sense then. Why Fletcher didn’t like her. Being the only survivor of the
Wendigo attack.

I backed away from her. “What’s beautiful
mean, really? It was you that night in the bathroom pretending to be Lacey.”

Bailey cocked her head to one side. She
laughed to herself. “Dust. That was my idea. I suggested it to Lacey when we
were hanging out at her house one day, and she just went with it. Acted like it
was her idea. Lacey doesn’t have very many of her own thoughts.”

I looked back at the farmhouse. The party
was still going on, everyone completely oblivious to what was going on outside.
“Oh,” Bailey said. “This party was my idea, too.”

“You’re just full of ideas, huh?” I turned
back to her. “What are you?”

Bailey held her head up proudly.
“Doppelganger.”

I drew in a deep breath. “Evil twin.” That
was the difference between a Shifter and a Doppelganger. Like Shifters,
Doppelgangers could take any form, but when they did, they performed wicked
deeds. Bailey had made herself my Doppelganger. Lacey had seen her the night of
the Halloween party coming out of the woods pretending to be me.

“Are the Bensons—”

Bailey turned her head toward a snapping
sound that came from the trees. “No, they’re Human. Or they were.”

Just as I feared. I knew they wouldn’t
have gone out of town and left her alone, just as I knew she wouldn’t have been
able to sneak out underneath their watchful eyes.

“Bailey, what do you want? Why are you
framing me? Why’d you have to kill those people just to get at me?”

She scoffed. “Don’t flatter yourself.
Those people had nothing to do with you. Trent was a dirty cheater. That’s one
thing Lacey was right about, so I killed him and slashed my own face. It hurt
like hell, but it was worth it. Everyone felt so sorry for poor little Bailey.
Mrs. Chin and Mr. Thompson . . .”

“What about them? What did they do?”

“They were Givers. Givers killed my
parents, so I killed them.”

“I thought the Bensons adopted you from
China.”

She pulled something thin and silver from
the pocket of her hoodie. “You thought a lot of things about me. And before you
ask about Ed Hurley, he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. He saw
me changing that night in the alley, so he had to go. Mr. Benson always
complained he was a rip-off artist anyway. I did the town a favor.”

 “What does any of this have to do
with me?” I shouted. “What do you want from me?”

She wasn’t fazed by my outburst. “I like
you, Arden. We’re two of a kind. With my parents gone, I’m the last
Doppelganger. I’m unique, like you. I hadn’t planned on it, but over the years,
you’ve grown on me. I want you to work with me. I’ll help you become a Banshee,
and then we can do whatever we want. We won’t be bound by any stupid oath. We
can kill our Geminis. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to die. We can
do anything we want, and anyone who gets in our way will be destroyed. I even
tried to get you away from them that first night, but you kept going back.”

I narrowed my eyes at her, remembering the
mysterious man in the black cloak who had blinded me. “That was you?”

“Yes. Me trying to do you a favor.”

More sounds came from the trees, but that
could have been from anything. It might have been an animal going about its
business, or it might have been something more sinister.

Bailey watched me, waiting for my answer.
“How am I supposed to trust you?” I asked. “You killed the people who raised
you and gave you everything. Ed and Trent. Mrs. Chin and Mr. Thompson, they
probably had nothing to do with your parents’ deaths. Bailey, you’re insane.”

“Worry about yourself. I haven’t killed
you, have I? I could have done it a long time ago if I wanted to.”

Someone yelled something from the
farmhouse. It sounded like Ranson. “What about them? Why’d you lure them out
here?”

“That was for you—if you decide not to go
with my plan. I’m going to kill them, and once I do, the Walkers are either
going to kill you themselves or demand that the Takers lock you away in the
sixth tunnel. Now if I’m not mistaken, they’ve decided to not help you anymore.
If they had to throw you in the tunnel to save the truce, they would. I can’t
believe you pissed them off just to save Lacey. If Fletcher had to kill you at
the Givers’ request, he would. So would your father. I’m the only person you
have.”

Bailey was good at manipulation, but I
wasn’t playing her game. She may have been right about the Takers, but not
about Fletcher and my father. She was the one who was all alone, but she had
done that to herself.