He had followed them to the party. Until that night, Mikey had resisted the urge to spy on the two of them, but there was only so long he could fight his own curiosity. He kept far behind them, out of view, until seeing them skinjack that disgustingly beautiful couple. Once the two were ensconced in flesh, their eyes would see only the living world, and so Mikey could come right up to them, just inches away, and see it all, without them ever knowing he was there. To Mikey, they now just looked like a living teenage couple, but he knew Milos and Allie were inside them. He could tell by the way they walked and the things they said to each other.

He was there when Milos asked her to dance, and he witnessed Allie’s initial reluctance—which gave him a brief moment of hope … but she gave in far too easily, as if her refusal was nothing more than her being coy.

He watched them dance. He watched them dance close, and then he followed them outside to the pool, where it seemed everyone was a couple.

And then they kissed.

The first kiss was horrifying, and the second was devastating—because it wasn’t Milos shoving his lips against Allie anymore—the second kiss was Allie kissing him back. This confirmed everything he suspected, everything he feared—and what made Mikey even more furious was that he had trusted her. How could he have been so stupid?

He screamed at them, a primal wordless howl, but they couldn’t hear him.

Mikey knew what he would do to Milos once he was back in Everlost—he would push Milos right through that pool deck so hard, he would have made an express trip to the center of the earth, but Mikey knew if he let his fury loose, once he was done with Milos, he would turn his wrath on Allie, and do the same to her. He couldn’t let that happen, and so he ran.

He never saw Allie pushing Milos away.

He never heard her tell him “no.”

Mikey’s grief and rage was unbearable, and yet familiar— so much like the rage that filled him when he commanded the Sulphur Queen.

And as he ran, he let his fury transform him.

His rage became red-hot spikes erupting from his skin. His frustration became jagged shark teeth, multiplying row after row, and when his mouth couldn’t fit them anymore, it stretched. His jealousy pulled his eyes into narrow glaring slits, and his sorrow hardened his Afterlight skin into a shell as hard as steel.