Chapter 3 | Halos Are Promise Rings For The Dead

[Song of choice: M.I.A. // Sexodus]

The next night, Jack and I camp outside Remington Manor with binoculars and sleeping bags, spying on the Remington boys as they gather in their royal garden of pillars and fountains, wearing black billowing cloaks, satin top hats and their cutting edge stage makeup. I smile darkly to myself, pleased that I no longer have to steal their blueprints for the stage since they're carelessly showcasing their trick tonight.

The moon hangs directly above us like an opal necklace and the spring air is alive with pesky fireflies. I swat a few with my ringed fingers-elaborate ropes of iron, twisted like sultry snakes, jewelled with sacred stones-but the fireflies pay no mind to my curses, almost as if they know that we're trespassing.

"This is a such stupid idea," Jack complains, careful to keep his voice hushed, huddled in his sleeping bag like a grey caterpillar.

"Be quiet."

"Last year you nearly got us expelled for violating the rules. Madame Penelope said that any meddling will result in forfeiting the crown."

"So quit whining and take notes before the Remingtons spot us."

"Why do I always have to take notes?"

"Because you're my assistant so shut the hell up before I make you."

Jack quietens when I win our glaring competition. I cup my flask of tea in my hand and blow the steam off before taking a sip. We've both been shivering in the brisk air for close to two hours yet the Remington boys have done nothing but argue over stage lines and who stands where. Jack sniggers too loudly when the twins run into each other and fly backwards from the impact. It's worse than watching a badly choreographed dance.

When they finally take their positions-a triangle surrounding a poor attempt at a campfire-Karl uses a knobbly staff to trace a hexagram into the dry soil. He gestures to the twins to trace thick roads of salt along the lines. Instantly, the lines of earth breathe fire and the Remington twins jump back, stunned. Karl taps his staff again and the six corners of the star burn brighter. I feel the urge to roll my eyes at his poor showmanship. Why are the Remingtons always so sombre? Even from afar, I can see their thin, red stained lips sealed shut and their heavily powdered faces shadowed.

"He's stealing my hexagram," I hiss to Jack who is scribbling furiously in the palm sized notepad. "That thieving bastard."

"Why does it matter? Pentagram, hexagram, whatever. . . they all does the same thing." He chuckles at his own joke. "They make things look pretty. Aren't they like flowers to a garden? Useless in practice but nice to look at."

"No, they're not." I grit my teeth together. "God, haven't you read the Sacred Geometry textbook from Professor Yugi's class?"

"I don't need to." Jack affectionately flicks my nose. "You're always available to answer all my questions."

I shoot him a dark look to which he responds with a cheeky smile. "I shouldn't have taught the entire class about hexagrams. I didn't think that Karl would be smart enough to incorporate it into his trick." Jack's smile moves to his eyes. They prickle with interest so, like a schoolteacher, I continue, "Hexagrams combine all four physical elements, but not in the same way a pentagram does. You know about the elemental opposites, right?"

He gives me a deadpan look. "Duh. Doesn't everyone? Fire and Water are opposites, as are Air and Earth. When combined there is a balance."

"Exactly, but when you combine Fire with another element that isn't Water, then the balance is disturbed."

"Nonsense. That would create chaos, which defies the laws of physics."

"Physics has no place in magical world," I tell him for the millionth time.

"Well, guess what? Magic has no place in the physical world," Jack recites, the exact words Madame Penelope drilled into our class this morning at half five, though her dark eyes were on me as I looked back at her with a knowing smile.

She knows that I know the truth. That everything she teaches our class are half truths and misdirected answers. When she teaches us to hold fire without burning our palms off, I learn how to put it out with the just the click of a finger. When she teaches us how to meditate with earth pressed between our palms, I taste the dirt to figure out the ground foundations of the element itself. When she teaches us to hold our breath underwater, I spend five minutes every week practising at the bottom of the school's swimming pool like a cross legged monk.

Once young, Madame Penelope was the starlet of her time and the main attraction of The Riviera Circus, spoken for across the globe for being the first woman in history to survive the Water Torture Tank. She has harnessed fame in the circus community for being the greatest escapologist of all time; and for being the only teacher at Millennia who starts her classes at sunbreak.

She's bat-shit crazy, the other kids mutter quietly when we're huddled on the football fields with wheelbarrows of dirt. But I know better. She has always taught the class-first and foremost-how to approach the four elements with caution. From that, I learned how to handle their danger. The rest of the class always see the wonder-trick, sucking in chiming breaths of awe.

My eyes are forever locked on hers. Her wrinkled lips always tighten into a stern smile.

Jack shakes me out of my stupor of glory. "Holly, look!"

I gasp out loud when Ralph accidentally trods on Tate's cloak. Both boys catch fire like a rocket the second they step off their wooden podium at each corner, thus breaking the sacred triangle. The entire garden is swallowed into darkness, as if all the lights have been turned off, as if the stars have never existed and the moon was nothing but an illusion. Then all is right again. The elements are in balance. Yet the Remington twins are still on fire.

Karl curses loudly, batting his brothers with the staff to stay quiet while they scream and throw themselves on the grass to put the fire out. They are twin points of the same flame, burning like a mirror has been held between them. For a moment I believe that I have been diseased with double vision. Until I realise that the twins are the grand finale.

I breathe, terrified and giddy. "Did you just see that?"

I clamp a hand over my mouth to bite back a howling laugh. But it escapes; the bubble bursts. The dam breaks. Jack's eyes widen, his lips clamped down by his teeth. His cheeks swell to the size of apples.

"Don't," I beg him in a strangled whisper, jumping to my feet to scoop up my sleeping bag. I want to tell him that we need to leave but the words are overridden when my throat spasms with choking laughs. "Don't. You. Dare."

A light flicks on in one of the upstairs bedrooms. Principal Remington pokes his head of the window to survey the howling racket Tate and Ralph are making. He spots the hexagram and the billowing smoke and Karl's guilt-stricken expression.

"Boooooys!"

Clad in striped pyjamas and a sleeping cap, Principal Remington looks like he has been electrocuted with fury. Mrs Remington appears over her husband's shoulder just as Rani leans out of her window with bleary eyes. Her hair spills over her neck like Rapunzel.

She doesn't look at the commotion in the garden. Instead her eyes sweep the gates until she finds us, as if she was expecting our intrusion tonight.

Jack dissolves into hysterics and howls loudly. He sets me off like a firecracker. I collapse in one long shriek of laughter. The Remington boys spot us. Karl drops the staff; his lips part, twisting together like the knotted branches in winter. Jack and I look at each other.

I expect Karl to spear me with his staff like a javelin but he just stands there as if he expected this. He doesn't look surprised. He looks pleased to see me.

A cold shower of unease surfaces in my mind but it isn't enough to quell my arrogance. My fingers form a fluttery wave. When Karl lumbers towards us like a wild boar, Jack pales. "Oh, shit."

"Run!" I scream, snatching Jack's wrists as we sprint into the mouth of the surrounding woods.

There's no time to hike to the main road and make a fast getaway in Jack's battered 1970 Chevy Camaro. Bristles and twigs claw us as the densely packed trees close in on us and scratch our naked faces. We flee with our hearts in our mouths and our lungs on fire. Jack helps me up every time I stumble and trip, but our idiocy costs us the rest of the night. By the time we come to a stop, the moon has sunk lower into the sky and the trees have grown taller.

"Damn it. What now?" Jack asks, doubling over to pant like a dog.

I spin around in a circle, trying to make sense of Elms Woods, but the trees have formed an army of darkness. There's nowhere to hide, and no escape.

"Have you got your sleeping bag?" I ask Jack in between hungry mouthfuls of air.

"Where's yours?"

"Dropped it."

Unable to respond, Jack points to the grey mound under his arms. Relieved, I take it from him. I collapse on the ground and inhale the deep earth. Jack flops down beside me and we watch the pinpricks of light in the sky, tiny stars that can never be seen in the city. Tree trunks shoot into the sky like spires all around us, some still naked from the harsh winter and some fully clothed for the coming summer.

"Why the sudden interest in sleeping bags?" Jack asks when he can finally breathe again. He sees my face and groans. "We're lost, aren't we?"

I turn my head to the side. A crooked smile stretches across my lips.

"You're on first watch, buddy." I pull the sleeping bag closer to me. "There are Remingtons on the loose tonight."

***

Sam watches me with hawk eyes when I trudge into the kitchen with twigs in my hair and Jack's tattered notepad in my hand.

"You didn't come home last night," she states with an iron frown

I shrug, exhausted as a starving wolf, grateful when Lucas comes lumbering down the stairs with a towel in one hand. He runs it through his straw-coloured hair and lights up like a puppy when he spots me. I duck into the kitchen to avoid his neanderthal-armed embrace to make myself something quick to eat. Luckily, Sam has already prepared a third plate. She already knows that no matter how far I walk to the ends of the Earth, I'll always come back home in time for breakfast.

"Morning, Sammy," Lucas murmurs, planting butterfly kisses along my sister's neck. She shoos him away, pushing him towards the kitchen table, but he doesn't budge. "No kiss?"

She sighs and briefly pecks him on the lips, eyes open to roll them in my direction because I've been making gagging sounds since Lucas began his attack on Sam. He pads over to me and steals a kiss on my brow before ruffling my hair and snatching my toast.

"Kowalski!" I snatch my toast back. A massive bite has already been taken out of it. "Seriously?" He swoops in like an eagle and steals another bite. "Lucas!"

"All right, all right," he says, apologising with his flat palms held up. Still, it doesn't stop Sammy from clipping him by the ear when she slides his plate across the table.

"Stop being a nuisance, Kowalski, and eat something," Sam says with a giggle because instead of stealing my breakfast he's moved onto stealing kisses from her.

"But this is the second morning that I get to spend with my favourite girls." He grins and pats Sam swollen tummy. His other hand finds mine and I give it a squeeze. "The four of us. Bishop-Kowalski." He pauses, thinking hard. "Or do you think Kowalski-Bishop sounds better?"

"How about you both get married and stick to one name?" I drawl as Sam covers his hand with hers; I retract my hand and lower my gaze to a plate of crumbs and smears of jam sauce, suddenly aware that I'm witnessing a private moment even though my sister and her boyfriend are anything but discreet with their displays of affection. If they're not making out in your face then they're arguing in your face. Either way, they're always in your face.

I focus on the toast Lucas decimated and nibble it thoughtfully as I carefully formulate my question so I ask, "Are you both going out tonight?"

"Why?" Sam narrows her eyes at me, tracking my face as I smile sheepishly.

"No reason."

"No reason, my arse." Sam studies my face closely. "Whatever voodoo crap you're planning with your freakshow friends. . . cancel it."

I grace her with an innocent smile. "I wasn't planning anything, Sammy."

She scoffs and takes a seat at the table, cupping a mug of coffee to warm her fingers before taking a tentative sip.

"You're always up to something these days, Monkey," she mutters under her breath, peering at me from above the rim of her cup.

She's right about that.

After school I pour oil on the back door's hinges as Ralph Remington shuffles impatiently behind me in the garden with a goofy grin. For someone who went up in flames last night, he seems to have got off pretty lightly.

The sun is unforgiving on my back and the wind claws through my wrinkled blazer. March's hands are warms, but her breath is sharp as steel. Slowly, I ease the back door open but it screams so I trickle more oil down its side.

"Hurry up," Ralph whispers, blowing on his icy fingers to warm then. "You'd think that a girl who won Magician Of The Year for two consecutive years would know how to sneak a guy into her room."

I swallow the urge to wring his neck. "Shut up, before I oil you down instead."

"Mmm, wouldn't that be fun," he murmurs, dropping his hands from his lips to cage me in. My skin remains cool when he toys with the hemline of my pleated school skirt, a strip of black barely visible from below the tails of my untucked blouse.

The Italian-seasoned hinges move quietly when I inch the door open. "Hallelujah," I breathe triumphantly, shrugging Ralph off my body like rain off the window of a car. He reaches for my hand but I take it and clamp it down on my shoulder. "Don't make a sound."

His lips bump against my ear when he whispers, "Gotcha, Bishop. Don't tell Karl I agreed to this, OK? He's already furious about what happened last night."

"Yeah, sure, whatever. As long as you've got the blueprints on you then I'm down for anything."

He pats his back pocket and smiles. We tiptoe into the kitchen and slip up the stairs into my room. Ralph steps on every creaky floorboard until it groans and screams, singing murder in the silent house.

"There's nobody home," he assures me.

I corner him to the bed and force him to take a seat. To save him the trouble, I unbutton my school blouse since he lacks every motor skill known to man. My legs split apart to sandwich his hips, tying a knot with my ankles behind his back. Ralph grins, a sloppy effort like his sloppy lips. They work down my neck and dive into my cleavage. I sit still on his lap, waiting for him to resurface but he seems to be surfing on my skin and my Mickey Mouse bra. Maybe he has a weird fetish for Disney. Lindsay Atwell in Year Eleven told me he was a real weirdo behind the pouty lips and bone-white hair.

"Are you OK, there?" I ask after ten minutes, fingers moving through his hair before I cringe and yank them back, regretting the act of affection. My hands come away with flakes of gel. Ralph blows a raspberry into my chest. "Mate, what the hell are you doing?"

He peers up at me, half his face still lost in my chest. "Don't you like it when I do that?"

"You already know I don't."

His thin brows wrinkle. "But every girl loves it."

"Do I look like every girl to you? I'm a girl. Singular. One." His blank expression makes my eyes itch. I roll them. "Don't spit spray my boobs ever again or I'll spit spray your face with acid and see how you like it for yourself, Remington." My ankles loosen their knot and I crawl off him. Ralph ears flush pink, studded each with a winking star. I quietly brood over the stupid detail. Why did he feel the need to pierce both his ears?

Maybe I should have cornered Tate instead after school today. He's less gullible even though he would prefer sulfuric acid in his than my tongue. Still, he would have been far better for company. Last year I made a deal with Ralph to hand over the Remington blueprints. It worked, of course. I just wish I didn't have to stoop so low this year, too. Not to mention that Karl found out and sabotaged my stage for the final show in revenge. I nearly sawed Jack in half during my final trick for being so careless.

But I've got a blueprint to get a hold of, and if the Remingtons like to play dirty, then so can I.

"What are you staring at, idiot?" I snap. "Come here." His eyes light up, striking me with a blue that hurts my irises like a laser-beam. Too bright, I complain soundlessly. No wonder why it rains so often in England. The Remingtons are stealing the sky. I shield my eyes from his gaze until he masks his irises with his translucent eyelids and leans in. "Hey, Ralph?" I ask in a drone, clamping a hand over his mouth.

"Mmm?" He starts to kiss my palm and I hold back a gag.

"Keep yours hands to yourself this. None of that hanky panky nonsense."

He pulls back a fraction and my hand drops. "Seriously?"

"Dead serious. None of that business." I wave my hands at my crotch. "Last time you tried that shit I was on my reds and it was messy and I'm not going through that ever again."

"Are you on your, uh, period right now?"

"No."

"So what's the problem?"

"The problem is you don't know what goes where."

A flush stains his cheeks, colouring them in patches of pink until he looks like a blotchy cloud. "I was a virgin, then."

I cross my arms over my chest. "And sex education is taught in Year Six." I lower my voice to save him the embarrassment but he grows redder when I recall, "You tried to put your ding dong in Hole Number Two."

"It was an accident."

I snort a laugh. "How can you not know where the vagina is located? Don't you watch porn?"

"I-I. . . uh. . ."

I pass a hand over my face. "You know what, just kiss me."

Ralph hesitates, so I grab him by the collar of his shirt and yank him forward. His arms stumble and his chest slams into mine. I groan, winded by the impact.

"Sorry," he apologises quickly, but I silence him with my mouth. The less talking, the better.

My eyes float around the room as he kisses me, searching for my digital alarm clock. The block, red lines glow 16:43 and I stare at them until the lines blur into one blob. When my eyes focus again, it's still 16:43. A current of lead solidifies in my chest, disappointment as heavy as a frozen river. My arms are spread out on either side of me, hanging off the edge of the bed as I blink slowly at the ceiling, bemused at how the pretty girls at school, like Lindsay Atwell, could ever enjoy snogging a fish like Ralph. I feel nothing, like a wind too weak to lift leaves from the ground, like a river with no current to move a boat. A girl, kissing a Remington, emptied and hollowed like pipe.

I just want him out of my house with the damned blueprint in my hands.

"Aren't you going to kiss me back, or what?" Ralph asks, irritated. My eyes float towards the clock. An hour has passed without my noticing.

I hold back a heavy sigh and move my lips slowly, mechanically, awkwardly. His tongue is like a washing machine in my mouth and his lips suction mine with a slurping sound. I offer a moan when his fingers graze the skin beneath the underwire of my bra. The coolness of his touch makes me shrink back and it takes every ounce of strength not to punch him when I hear a large tear.

"Damn it. Not again," Ralph groans, pulling back to glower at his handiwork. I spot his shirt on the floor but I can't recall when exactly he threw it there.

"How many bras do you need to destroy before you figure out how to work a fucking clasp?" I ask, wriggling myself free.

"Aw, c'mon. It was an accident, Holly."

"So was letting you come over."

I shake my head, stray strands tickling my lashes. This is wrong. This is so wrong. What am I doing? Shame floods me in a tidal wave. I shake my head sharply.

His heavy footfalls follow me across the room, muffled by the carpet. Hesitantly, Ralph touches my shoulder but I shrug him off.

"I've got homework due tomorrow. You remember the way out, right?" I glance over my shoulder after I pull my shirt over my head and toss my broken bra away, carelessly replacing it an old shirt off the floor. "Window or door?"

There's a spike of anger lacing his tone. The shame simmering beneath my skin breaks over my face in another tide of heat.

"Are you going to kick me out for something so stupid?" he asks.

My flushed face wavers, quivering. I feel the burn spread to my eyes until they sting. Then I blink, pulling a Rani Romano-a one-eighty flip, a mask curtained so fast that I'm surprised I have it in me to change faces. "Look, you're a decent guy, especially for a Remington, but kissing you is like getting slobbered all over by a dog." I turn around and point to the glistening saliva on my chin, slowly wiping it away. His gaze lowers to my naked torso, sentence forgotten, Adam's apple bobbing up and down. "And like I said, I've got tonnes of work to do."

Ralph's eyes flash, the same shade at a cloudless sky in winter. "Karl was right about you. You really are a heartless witch. Everyone knows how you destroyed Eric van Howe last year. He's a nice guy and you dumped him in front of the whole school. On stage. Who does that?"

My eyes spark. Picking his shirt up off the floor, I throw it to him. "Window or door?" His mouth works soundlessly, eyes livid and mouth curling back. I save him the trouble by answering, "Fine, take the window. Sam will kill you if she spots you. Everybody hates you Remingtons enough as it is." Grabbing a clean towel and pyjamas from my wardrobe, I stride to the door, pausing in front of him to lightly kiss his cheek. He turns red, fists clenched and eyes livid. "Try not to break your legs on the way down. I'd hate to waste time calling an ambulance for you," I add with a glittering smile before shutting the door behind me. The second I turn around, I come face to face with a floating white face, eyebrows raised, amusement surfing amongst the current of blue in his eyes.

"Shit," I mutter under my breath before plastering on a smile. "Hey there, Kowalski. Didn't know you'd be home so soon." I laugh nervously, glancing left and right, listening for sounds. "Is the Beast home, too?"

A bloated figure steps from behind Lucas' towering figure like a dragon with two heads. I pale when Sam confirms, "The Beast is definitely home." Hand on her baby bump, she flicks the other to the staircase. "Living room, young lady. Now."

I glance at my imaginary watch. "Is it dinnertime, already? Boy does time fly when you're having fun doing homework." I tip my head towards the bathroom. "You'll have to excuse me, lovebirds. I'd love to chit-chat, but I really need to shower before dinner." My bedroom door groans and creaks. Ralph appears behind me with a smug smile. Maybe he was never the dull bulb I always presumed. "Didn't I tell you to take the window, idiot?" I hiss over my shoulder but he smiles at me the way Karl always does, holding out a hand to my temporary guardians.

Both my sister and her boyfriend exchange a horrified look; Sam's face shut downs while Lucas pleads her to let it go with tight eyes. I decide to take advantage of him but Ralph beats me to it.

"I'm Ralph Remington."

There's a long silence. Sam looks at me, appalled.

"Nice to meet you," Lucas replies stiffly and shakes Ralph's hand, polite as always.

At the same time, Sam snaps, "The door is downstairs, dick."

"Kowalski," I start, blinking rapidly, batting my eyelashes. "Remember the time I gave you an entire packet of Starbursts and you said: Thanks, Monkey. I owe you one."

I have his attention but Sam interjects, "Get downstairs. Now."

"Yeah, what about that day?" Lucas asks, carefully side-eyeing Sam. She glares at him and wrenches him by his forearm, towing him forward as she takes us each by the ear.

"Both of you. Downstairs." She turns to Ralph, who has only just realised that the window was the easy way out. His Karl Remington smile is gone. "If I ever see your face in this house again I will peel it off with a cheese grater. I don't care who your father is. Got it, kid?"

He gulps and nods vigorously, squeezing past us to bullet down the stairs to shoot out of the house. That's probably the last I'll see of him. Though, I'm not sure what I'll do when Karl finds out about this. He'll probably try to slit my throat with a toothpick or worse.

"And as for you two," Sam starts when the front door slams shut, "I'm going to grate your faces right now."

I swallow; Lucas pales and shoots me a dark look when we're both herded downstairs by the Beast of the Bishop family-a hormonal bitch with a twitching eye and a bloated stomach.

"This is all your fault, Kowalski," I hiss into his ear.

"My fault? You're the one sneaking around with Remingtons!" Lucas echoes, appalled before Sam pokes her face between our shoulders and smiles so wide that I shudder when the hallway mirror reflects her piranha teeth.

"Who wants to die first?" she asks, twisting both our ears. Lucas curses in his native tongue, but I opt to suffer in silence.

He catches my eye in the midst of another ear jerk from the Beast, glaring at me as I narrow my eyes at him. "Kowalski volunteers as tribute," I say at the speed of lightning. Sam's vicious smile stretches wider.

"Great." She releases her boyfriend and kicks me forward. "You're up first, Monkey." Sam cracks her knuckles.

"But-"

The living room door slams shut behind us. I clamp my mouth shut at the dangerous gleam in her eyes. I gulp nervously and eye the window, sealed shut and curtained. I have never been more jealous of Ralph before, the dullest bulb in the Remington wolves. There's no escape from Sam's hell, so I flop down on the sofa and endure a year long lecture from the Devil. And my second spit spray of the day.

***

I'm grounded. Grounded-not because I had a Remington upstairs. No; I got grounded for conferring with one of my two guardians, for attempting to weasel my way out of trouble, for trying to get on Kowalski's good side through the art of manipulation. I can't go to the Rani Romano's party next weekend because I decided that it would be a good idea to turn Lucas against Sam to get my own way. Now how am I going to get that wretched blueprint?

Bloody hell, pregnant bitches really should get their priorities checked. Ralph could have had two hands wrapped around my throat. He could have been choking me like Homer Simpson does to Bart in every episode of The Simpsons. He could have been laughing like a lunatic while I could've been taking my last breath-but, ohno-that's nothing compared to what Sammy will do to me if I ever try to take advantage of Lucas' kind nature again.

"I'm going to kill her," I growl, pacing Jack's football themed bedroom as he tosses a basketball up and down while stretched across his duvet. "She's always been like this. Trying to play second mother to me. Ever since she moved out she's been acting so high and almighty because she's adult enough to fuck Lucas without having to worry about Mum being home. She's not even a proper grown up. God, I hate her! How could she do this to me? We have to go to the yacht party. The Remington boys might be so trashed they'll spill their secret plans for the magic show. I have to go to go. Everyone who is someone is going to be there." I tip back the wine bottle I pressured Jack into stealing from his parents' extensive wine collection. "Dude, are you even listening to me?"

"Mmm hmm. Definitely." He continues to toss the basketball up and down. "Remingtons, bad. Rani, bad. Sam, bad. Party, good. Me, fabulous. You, fucked up." He pauses to look at me. "That's all you said, right?" My seething glare sears him. "What? Am I wrong?"

"Yes. No. God damn it, Jack. Pay attention to me." I groan, and drag a hand over my already long face after I set down the wine bottle in my hand. "So how am I going to go to this party if Sam will body-slam me to ground and impale me with her fucking monkey arms?"

"I quite like Sam's arms. They're a nice shape. Toned, but not too toned, if you know what I mean?" Jack meets my sour look with a sheepish smile. "Sorry. Carry on."

"Do not side with the Beast, Jack, or I will cut your traitorous balls off. Now, where was I? Yes. Rani's party."

"Why is it such a big deal if you skip out? You're not even that close to Rani. Last time I checked you were ready to bottle her face and paint the town red with her blood."

"Neither are you," I bite back.

"Actually, we've been texting each other for the past week."

My jaw drops but I keep my sharp tongue in my mouth and snatch the basketball from him instead.

"So?" I reply, nonchalant, tossing the basketball through the hoop across the room. It bounces back and I catch it.

Jack sits up, brushing his curls back and leaning back on his elbows. He pauses to study my blotchy skin and tight eyes. "You're up to something again."

I swallow a shriek. "Weren't you listening to anything I just said?"

"All I heard was that you were ready to blow a Remington." My dark look has no effect on him. "This has gone on too far, Hols. Why do you care so much about their blueprints? The blueprint is literally a chalk sketch of their stage and what materials and parts they'll need the faculty to pre-order so they can build their stage. That's it. If you want to play builder so bad, go and become a construction worker." He catches sight of my livid eyes. We may be alike, but that doesn't mean fire and fire can put each other out. "You have to got stop doing this. Tampering with the Remington boys isn't going to win you first place."

My shoulders deflate and I sigh heavily. "I hate it when you're right."

He doesn't smile with triumph. Instead his eyes are sad when he replies, "I'm sorry, Hols. I know how much this competition means to you."

"But I'm not planning anything."

"Then why are you so desperate to go the party next week?"

"Because everyone is going to be there. I am a teenager, y'know. I do like having fun. It gets so boring in this deadbeat city sometimes," I huff, blowing out a long breath. He takes the basketball out of my hands and turns it from side to side, thoughtfully tracking my face.

"You're lying to me, Holly. I'm not an idiot." The cogs in his mind click and turn. I can see the gears shifting. He blows out a low whistle, eyes widening with realisation. "No, Holly. No way. You are not bringing Rani into this. You will keep her out of this."

My heart short-circuits. I casually admiring my fingernails. They're bitten back, stubby and strips of pink with fraying edges. I gnaw on my pinky, lost in thought.

"You're going to befriend Rani so she invites you over to their mansion, and then you're going to snoop through Karl's bedroom for a damned sheet of paper just to risk expulsion and an arrest. Aren't you?"

My sheepish smile gives me away. "Something like that."

"God, Holly. What is wrong with you? You can't just use Rani like that. What has she ever done to you?" Jack passes a hand over his face and pinches the bridge of his nose, exhaling sharply. "What you did to Ralph was pretty despicable. He may be a Remington but he's still a person. You can't just dismiss people whenever it pleases you."

"I didn't dismiss him," I mutter, pushing him aside to make space on the bed.

"The road you're on right now isn't going to earn you a hat trick. I used to think you enjoyed circus magic."

"I do," I swear. "It's my whole life. But I have to win again this year. The Riviera Circus is my ticket into the performing industry."

Jack scoots over and stretches an arm out to pillow my head. He looks at me for a long time, then shakes his head. "You don't want to win, Holly. You just want everyone else to lose."

"That's not true."

"But it's not a lie."

I can't reply to that so I press my face into his chest and breathe in the warmth that comes with his solid embraces. He may a happy-go-lucky leprechaun most of the time, but he's pretty vulnerable to my abrupt mood swings.

He stares at the ceiling, and quietly asks, "When did we get so fucked up, Hols?"

I can't reply to that either. It's not his fault. This is all mine. I'm the one who asked him to be my assistant. I thought he wanted to be part of The Riviera Circus just as bad, but that's stupid. He doesn't want to be a circus freak. He never has. Jack dreams about architecture like stars put in the sky.

But he's my anchor and I need him to win the magic show. He keeps me above the surface whenever I float away like this, like today, like everyday. I've become a bottle bobbing up and down, breaking over the ocean's surface, drowning and breathing, sinking and floating, existing and dying, all at the same time. I exist in two parts, separate but never whole.

Ever since Dad passed away I've existed at the bottom of every broken bottle. Sometimes I wonder if Jack gets sick my lack of presence, if he hates it when my eyes glaze over his shoulders in search for my next drink. I can't remember when I had my first drink. I must have been fourteen. I just remember the burn and the numbness. I remember floating away on a current and waking up the next day in a pool of my own vomit and Sam screaming for Mum. I remember red and blue lights flashing, an ambulance, gloved fingers down my throat and my childhood crumbling like a pyramid of ash.

It doesn't matter that I have to go to hell each morning to touch the heavens. I'm content with twenty-three hours of solid misery if I get an hour a day to dance with my devils.

Jack knows that I'm not satisfied with placing first in the magic show. I've held the crown for two consecutive years and I am not going to lose it for the likes of an over-privileged Remington. The Riviera Circus is my getaway ticket. The vacant slot for the opening act is my stars in the sky. It's not always nighttime in my life, and when the sun comes up I'm left wondering if I really want all this.

On those days, I drink the doubts away. I wish the world could crush me, or do me physical harm. I want to burn and cry and break. I want to scream in rage and break a vase whenever Sam points out a flaw in my future, not shrug my shoulders and trudge out of the room feeling unworthy for having a dream.

I also want to remember every name that has ever tried to make peace with my heart-Eric van Howe, Billy Wickers, Danny Heitman, Justin White, the list is endless. But I'm no good at relationships. I can't have a serious conversations with Sam without one of making dirty joke. I can't mention Dad's name without watching Mum power off like a robot. I can't keep my shit together whenever Jack gets a new girlfriend and forgets to message me for an entire month. I can't do emotion.

Worst of all, I'm no good at making room in my chest for anyone else because I can't keep myself chained long enough. Some days I need to get out. Some days I need that hour in the clouds. Some days I need that next drink. It used to be about getting to future, but since Dad died it's been about hours and minutes.

And some days it's just harder than most to exist.

Kids at Millennia have taken to calling me selfish, manipulative, psycho, a know-it-all, and even a whore for the poor boys I spun into my spiderweb. But I'm tired of pretending to be all those things. So I use and use and use people, abuse to no ends, destroy without intention. Last year I smashed Dad's urn with an axe I found in the attic and Sam refused to speak to me for five months. I didn't care. I still don't.

Maybe I'll never find what I'm looking for, but I won't stop searching for it at the bottom of every bottle. Maybe I'll find a message someday that will explain why I'm like this, like a message in a bottle that people send off into oceans to find another life.

Or maybe Jack's right. Maybe I'm lost. But I can't give up on the search just because the horizons never seem to touch whenever I crack open a new bottle; it's only an indication that I should keep going. That the world is not at an end. That there's still more distance I have left to uncover before I find the best version of myself I'm looking for. Maybe we all need to go to hell to uncover heaven.

"Do you want to talk about what happened with Eric?" Jack asks when I'm too quiet. "You never did tell me why you broke up with him."

"Same thing that happened with the rest. He was too nice," I admit, defeated. "He was beginning to like like me, and I got really scared."

Jack scoffs, softening it with a laugh. He doesn't understand what it's like to kiss in coldness. Every month he crushes on a new girl, and the warmth he basks in leaves me shivering alone.

"You mean that you got bored," he replies. "Just like you got bored of every guy."

"Not every guy," I protest, raising my head. It weighs more than a lorry, pressed down with worries that keep me wide awake for nights on end. "Before Eric, I dated Danny Heitman for three months. Doesn't he count?"

"Not if you spent half that time avoiding him."

"I never avoided him." I look away, biting my other pinky finger. "I just happened to be incredibly busy. Y'know, exam season and all."

"So busy that you came to my house everyday to play League of Legends. Yeah," Jack drawls, "definitely too busy."

"He was an awful kisser."

"You said that about Robbie."

I wrinkle my nose. "Which Robbie? The one with the freckles or the one with the gap-tooth?"

"Both."

"Oh yeah," I roll off Jack and smack my brow lightly, "I totally forgot about the one with the freckles."

"See," Jack points out.

"That I have the worst luck with guys?"

He turns to his head and carefully regards me. "That you're not cut out for a relationship. You're supposed to see past their flaws, but you pick at them until it's all you can focus on. You're supposed to accept people for who they are. The good and the bad. So what if Eric couldn't kiss to save his life. Or if Liam always forgot the way you took your coffee. Maybe he was really thoughtful and selfless and a hopeless romantic. You need to stop seeing these boys are perfect just because they're all stinking rich. Perfect doesn't exist, Hols."

I sigh and close my eyes, unsettled by the sudden scrutiny. "I don't want perfect, Jack," I reply, tracking the chess world champions plastered all over his ceiling. "I just want something real. None of those guys make me feel a thing. So if the physical side isn't up to scratch, then what have I got to fall back on?"

"What about the emotional side?"

"Nothing."

"Na da?" I fold my lips into a thin line. His eyebrows rise, slowly. "Seriously?"

"Mmm hmm."

"Not even the tiniest butterfly attack?"

"Nope." I roll over and slip a hand under my cheek, my very own makeshift pillow. My skull digs into my knuckles, crushing my fingers with thoughts that weigh more than I do. I swallow them in one large sigh. "So do you think you can get your mum to call Sam so I can stay here after the party?"

"You mean, so you can go home with a random guy?"

I shrug, closing my eyes to block out his disquieted ones. There's no point voicing words that have already been heard. I've said it all before: drunk dials to him at four in the morning; hammering on his front door whenever an older guy kicks me out before their girlfriend comes home; calling him to come pick me up, trashed out of my mind.

We lie in quietude for close to an hour, weighted with all the words I wish I could withdraw and tuck back under my tongue. We've had this conversation before and we'll have it again. It's simple really; I can't form an emotional connection with a guy of any age. Nostalgia knocks me back. Nauseated, I bury my face into Jack's chest again. He breathes out a long sigh and pulls me close as I hiccup a quiet sob.

"I-I'm sorry about everything. I know you just want to old me back," I cry, shaking all over. I cling onto his shirt as I'm pulled under the water. My tiny fists hold on tight. Jack covers them with his large hands and swallows quietly.

His voice is hoarse when he murmurs, "Don't be sorry. None of this is your fault. You're just a little lost, that's all."

"I just want to be me again. Remember how happy I was when I first won Magician Of The Year?"

His eyes shine quietly. "Yeah, that was a great year."

"I am trying to keep my shit together lately. I really am. But the Remingtons are finally going to dethrone me when it matters most, and Sam's getting on my case all the time, and Lucas knows that something is wrong but he's too scared to ask. I try so hard all the time but there are just too many versions and too many faces I have to keep up." I lift my face up. "What is wrong with me, Jack? Why does it feel like I'm a billion people and nobody all at once?"

"There is nothing is wrong with you," he says automatically even though we both know that it's untrue. I've sieved through twenty guys in the space of two years. I'm this close to being labelled the school's very own parasite-whore.

"Everything is wrong with me," I whimper, lips quivering with each breath that catches in my chest.

"Shh. . . It's all right, Hols. I've got you."

He gently presses my face back down. I want to reverse the past few years, back to when we used play video games and argue over gibberish and pass out on the floor from eating too much pizza. When we used to Google magic tricks and mess around with a deck of cards or squeal over the ouija board we found in my great-aunt's attic. But things have changed between us. I can feel our friendship drifting apart like a ship sailing into the sunset. I'm still on shore, stuck to a life he's desperate to leave behind when he goes off to university.

I want the old Jack back and he wants the old Holly back. I miss the days when we used to hold torches to our faces and tell ghost stories. Now there's always a new girl to fill the space between his sheets and I've sold my soul to the devil for a deck of cards.

Our peace and quiet is cut off. Jack's phone rings.

"Hello?" His eyes light up, surprised. "Rani?" A laugh. "Hello to you, too. Oh, shut up. I knew you'd call me first." A flirtatious grin. "Handsome? Well, you're the one who's a covergirl." His lips straighten out. "What, right now?" He glances at me, torn. " Now isn't a good time." I wipe my eyes quickly and shake my head despite the scratchy stone rising up my throat. I've survived the first wave but by nightfall I'll be drowning all over again. "OK. I'll be right over. . .You're hungry? Well, of course you are." He laughs, getting up from the bed and chattering away as I glide across the room towards the door like a ghost shrouded in a white sheet. "Mmm hmm. . . I'll stop by Subway then."

Forgotten, I slip into the hallway and show myself out. I'm halfway across the next street, hands stuffed deep into my pockets when an old car pulls up beside me. Jack leans across the gearstick to push open the passenger door.

"What is wrong with you, Holly? One second I'm reaching for my coat and the next you're gone." He heaves a sigh, worn out by my behaviour. A stone of disappoint ripples through me. "Get in."

I shake my head and keep walking. "I can find my own way home, thank you very much."

Jack makes a face, eyes rolled and lips pressed tightly together. "Stop being a baby and get in. Rani's waiting for us."

My limbs grow into tree trunks and root themselves to the pavement. "Us? At the Remington manor house?"

"Yes," he drawls. "Us. Now, hurry up and get in. She said she's hungry."

I manage a slight smile. It's hard enough, but he appreciates the effort anyway. "You never drive this fast to my house whenever I text you that I'm hungry."

Jack breaks out into a crooked grin, eyes crinkling at the corner. "Your name isn't Rani Romano. You're just a hormonal beast who can eat three large portion chips from McDonald's in one sitting."

"Your point is?"

"Your friendship costs too much."

"Hilarious."

"Get in the car, Hols." I fold my arms across my chest and tap my foot against the pavement. "Please?" Jack adds, dark eyebrows sloping like two sides of a triangle trying to meet at the peak. "Pretty please?" I study my fingernails, picking at my cuticles, bitten back into a thin strip of pale pink. "Free food?"

I glance up. "I'm listening. Keep talking."

"I'll pay?"

I roll my lower lip into my mouth. "Can I get anything I want?"

His face contorts itself into agony, a smile hindering its ability to move me. "As long as you stay within your budget."

"Which is?"

"A fiver."

"Make it a tenner."

"No way, Holly. I'm supposed to be saving up for university."

I start to walk again, arms crossed and face straight. Jack follows me in his car. When I'm at a traffic light, he groans. "Fine. You can get two footlong subs."

I chuckle smugly before sinking into the leather seats, worn and aged to the shape of my bottom. The second I shut the passenger door, Jack slams his foot down on the gas, accelerating, flying like a bullet on asphalt. I fumble with the broken seatbelt before giving up and playing with one of my many stringed bracelets-most of them homemade friendship bracelets I used to make before I got into magic.

When we're on our way to Rani's house in the suburbs, Jack prods me with his elbow and steals a glance at me before turning back to the road.

"Are you feeling OK?"

I pat my full stomach. "Right now I am."

He doesn't laugh. "You know what I mean, Hols."

I plaster on a smile. "I'm being serious. Right now, everything is all good."

"Subway did that?"

"No, you did," I reply, ears pink when Jack's cheeks bunch up into a smile. "Only because you know the way to win my heart."

"Too bad you don't have one or you'd still be with Eric." Jack laughs at my flat expression. My fist flies like a rocket to his chest. "Joking!"

"You better be, O'Reilly," I grunt, glaring at the newborn world outside.The tree leaves shine with fresh, glittering raindrops. The bricked houses are a blur of grey and brown; I find myself wondering if I, too, could shed my leaves every autumn to rid myself of a year's worth of loneliness. Sometimes it gets so empty in my head I wonder if I'm just bones, flesh and unanswered thoughts. Jack smiles to himself and hums in time to the radio, breaking every speed limit to make it to Rani's house before her food gets cold.

__________________________________________________________

A/N: My concentration span is rapidly declining, I kid you not. I can't focus long enough to edit a chapter so from now on I'm just going to write and post. I'm sorry if this means that my writing will be more sloppy but I'm just too tired to write these days. It's becoming a bit of a chore.

I want to love writing again. I used to get this feeling when I wrote LtL and BtBB... As if my entire chest was going to spill everywhere. Don't get me wrong, I love writing this story but I write for that feeling. It's like my high. And I don't know how the rest of you write without feeling your entire body coming undone by the seams so props to you guys.

Let me know how you found this chapter.

See you in a couple of days.

-Kaddy.