BLOOD SPLATTERS against me and Ezra, the couch, the carpet, the coffee table, Dahlia.

Dahlia seems to be the most affected by the blood. She reels backwards like it burned her, her skin going white as the snake's fangs. I grab onto her to steady her, scared she's going to pass out again, like she always seems to do around blood.

"It—stinks," Ezra complains, shakily getting to his feet. It does, like reptile and blood and grapevines rotting quicker than they should. "Gross. Ew. Oh, my God."

"We need to do something," Dahlia cries, sniffling as her tears come out in loud, ugly sobs. "Get this—cleaned up before my moms come home."

"Let's get the snake out to your mini bus," I order. "So we can do something with it."

"My mini bus?" Dahlia asks.

"Bertha."

"Oh," she says. "Oh, my truck."

Her what?

"We should just throw it out to sea," Ezra suggests.

"No—we need to bury it."

If it's what I'm scared it might be, just tossing it out to sea would be blasphemy.

"Why?" asks Ezra. "Also, what the fuck? How the fuck did a snake get in here?"

"If we don't give this snake a proper burial I'm shooting the both of you," Dahlia threatens between sobs. "He deserves that much."

"Fine," he says. "But we need to get the blood up first. It'll stain."

I clap for their attention and swirl my hands together, even though I don't really need any theatrics to get my powers to work. Because I am my father's daughter, after all, and I like to add a touch of drama, of intrigue. The blood turns to red wine and dances beneath my control, spinning like a waterspout into the air. I toss my hand forward—again, just theatrics, nothing necessary—and it flies into the kitchen, draining down the sink.

"Antigone Katsaros," Dahlia says. "You're going to give me a heart attack."

"Help me with the body."

Dahlia physically recoils, but she nods and tries to grab the severed head. The second her fingers touch it, she gags. "I—I can't—" she sobs, but she tries once more to grab at it. This time, when she touches it, she vomits all over the floor. "Oh, my God. I'm so sorry. I just—" and she takes off to the bathroom, her hand covering her mouth, heaving.

"Do your thang," Ezra tells me. "Clean up her puke all Avatar-gone-Alcoholics-Anonymous-style."

"What?"

"You had to have been there."

Which just makes me even more confused, but I have a job to do. Except—when it's puke and not blood that you're turning to wine and magicking through the air to the sink, it's not quite as glamorous.

Once the vomit's clean, I pick up the severed head with my bare hands. It's so easy to kill such a delicate little thing, but to hold it in your arms once it's dead? To see the lifelessness in its eyes, watch as its lips curl limply against its fangs? To feel the slippery expanse of blood, and how easy the scales could slide from the bones?

I want to leave it be, let it rot. But it was my kill, and it's my responsibility.

"Let me get that," Ezra offers. "You deal with the body."

He wraps it inside his shirt when I hand it to him. I struggle to lift the body. It's lighter than I imagined, just as heavy as a human, though it's nearly as big around as I am and easily twice as long as I am tall, if not three times.

So I swing it around my neck, either end draped against the ground, my knees nearly buckling at the weight of it.

Dahlia rounds the corner from the bathroom, her skin wan with a green tint, her flip-flops squelching on her feet. "Wait!" she calls. "Guys, wait. I'll get your shoes. You can put them on in the car. And I can hold the door. I'll help with something."

She pushes past me, grabbing Ezra's heavy boots (which he insists on wearing, no matter how hot it is outside or how sweaty his feet get) and my tennis shoes from the shoe bin. Barreling out the door, she does as she said she would, holding it open for us.

A snake corpse around my shoulders and its head in Ezra's arms, two of us barefoot, all of us still in our pajamas and reeking of the mess we made, we fall out into the night.