“I know—”
“Why were you looking in my room?”
Claire sighed. “I didn’t mean to. The cat opened the door and I couldn’t help but see . . . it.”
Dark grimaced again. “It’s not like it’s porn or something. Jesus.”
“Why do you draw them?”
Claire was surprised by her own question and Dark seemed to be just as shocked. He stared at her like she’d asked him to speak against the dead.
“Why do you freak out when you see people at the skate park?”
It hurt Claire, because he already knew the answer. And Dark saw it immediately, his face softening. Everything about the way he was confronting Claire changed.
“Aren’t there things that just make you feel better?”
Claire nodded, but the truth was, there weren’t many things that made her feel better.
At first, it was running—moving to Minnesota. Getting as far away as possible and never looking back, no matter how much it hurt. And once they were in Minnesota, it was hiding under the covers, on their couch—blaming the cold—as they watched old movies, until that no longer worked and they turned to the demon-freak speed of skating.
But none of it was permanent. None of it ever truly stamped out the dread that snuck back into her veins, snaking through her entire body until she was once again unable to forget why they were doing any of it.
“So, it works?” she finally asked. “You feel better?”
He shrugged, and in the immediate silence, Claire thought she’d unwittingly stepped out of bounds. Instead, Dark stared at the closed notebook on his lap, trying to find the words.
“I don’t know. And, like, do you think I want to be like this? Do you think I don’t know what people say—what they think? I’ve been called every name you can think because of it. Freak. Psycho.”
“Dark.”
Dark laughed.
“Well, yes, actually. Did they tell you what it stands for?”
“No. I just assumed it was in reference to, you know.”
She motioned to his hair and then down his body.
“Wow. I feel so attacked right now.”
Before Claire could apologize, Dark waved it away and said, “They used to call me the Lord of Darkness. Fucking Satan! And these are my friends!”
He was laughing, but Claire could tell there was more to the story—more to the way he attempted to keep her next question at bay with the laughter. He gave her a guarded look and shrugged.
“So, I guess I’m just Dark,” he said. “Forever.”
Chapter Nine
ON THE WAY HOME, DERRICK COULDN’T CONTAIN HIS excitement. Even before he was skating full-time, he’d come home from a session, or one of the early promotional tours, and it would be as if he was bouncing on the clouds. So, she hadn’t seen him this way in years. And she sat there, trying to hide her smile—why?—as he told her about the event, even though she’d been sitting on the lip watching with Dark, God, and Leg.
“When I hit that impossible, and everybody lost their mind?”
He smiled even bigger, cherishing the moment, which had admittedly been pretty amazing. Leg nearly had fallen into the bowl, drawing both Mark-O’s and the announcer’s ire.
Afterward they all stood around talking, laughing—normal.
When Dark had finally closed his notebook and agreed to watch Derrick, he seemed fine, as if they’d cleared the air and now had an understanding. But when they got to the lip, she noticed the way God and Leg seemed to relax. How they constantly seemed to flank Dark, almost by instinct, always keeping tabs on him. And they snuck looks at the notebook, too. They tensed up when his usually monotone words suddenly turned aggressive.
Whatever had happened with Dark had made an impact on God and Leg. It was the sort of thing you saw in movies, a life-changing experience that binds a group of friends together in a way that is stronger than steel. Leg, God, and Dark had that. And they obviously cared about one another, even if it meant hiding something big.
“Claire . . .”
They were at a stoplight and Derrick was watching her. “Yeah, sorry.”
“I asked if you were hungry. We could stop at the taco place. Or maybe that Greek spot over on Snelling. What do you think?”
She wasn’t hungry. Her stomach was already full of birds, fluttering around—occasionally jumping into her throat suddenly and making her want to cry out from the surprise of it. But instead she said, “Up to you,” and Derrick made a quick left turn toward takeout.
Claire was running and the hallways were filled with smoke. She heard the popcorn (pop-pop-pop) and it rattled her teeth, like biting down on tinfoil or touching a low-grade live wire.
She ran.
She ducked.
She listened as people she barely knew screamed and tripped over one another, some of them struggling to get up—some of them already on the ground.
Her foot slipped on the newly polished floors. Or maybe it was the blood. She slipped again, trying to turn a corner that would’ve been a straight shot to the doors that—even though she couldn’t see them now—she would later learn had already been chained shut.
She climbed under the stairs first, barely making it underneath before Eleanor was next to her, shaking and crying. Both of them listening as the popcorn went off even louder.
Pop-pop-pop.
And when she started screaming, she wasn’t sure if it was happening then, now, or in some in-between place she’d never be able to escape.
Claire woke up to the sound of laughter—a whole room of it. And when she stumbled into the living room, she was greeted by the smell of pancakes.
“Claire!” Leg had two whole pancakes on a fork, and he lifted them toward her in greeting. “Your brother is the shit. You know this, right?”
Dark and God were also at the bar that looked into the kitchen, both of them too busy eating to acknowledge her beyond a quick wave.
“Hungry?” Derrick asked, holding up a tall stack of pancakes. When she nodded, he dumped three onto a plate and handed it to her. She sat down next to the boys at the bar, her head still foggy.
She hadn’t slept more than a few hours and, while the pancakes would help, all she wanted to do was go back to bed. But Leg wasn’t having it. He pushed in between her and God and looked her directly in the eye.
“Are you ready for today to be the greatest day of your life?”
Before she could respond, he held up his phone—too close to her face, honestly—and then cussed when the video didn’t auto-play. He hit the small triangle button on his screen and then held the phone for Claire once again.
A jaunty acoustic guitar kicked off the video, quickly followed by some sort of Celtic-sounding instrument, and finally a fiddle. In the background a castle rose from the darkness and suddenly there was a picture of Dr. Palmer’s head—quickly joined by a man who was presumably her husband—and together they began trying to knock the castle down. When it fell, the debris spelled out, “Storming the Castle.”
Claire turned to God for an explanation and he motioned back to the video, which now showed Dr. Palmer smiling and wearing what looked like a homemade tunic with STC emblazoned across the chest. She looked absolutely giddy.
“Storm Mob, time to get hyped!”