Closing my hand around the rose, I crushed it, deciding anew that Valor was strong enough. And that I was, too.

That, for the time being, we would have to be.

THIRTY-ONE

Stephanie

I hadn’t planned on going to the dance. I wouldn’t have, either, if Dad hadn’t point-blank made me. But I wasn’t sorry I was here now, parked just two cars down from Lucas’s Dart.

The good news was that, in exchange for agreeing to “get out of the damn house already,” I’d been able to make Dad promise to take Charlie to dinner at Chuck E. Cheese. Which would get them out of the house for a while, too.

Also, there was the really shiny silver lining that I was going to get to see Lucas. I’d seen him at school yesterday and the day before, but only fleetingly since he and Charlotte had spent lunch rehearsing again. I’d stayed away this time, granting them space due to the competition being so close. I’d been thinking about him all day today, though, resisting the urge to text him since I knew he had to be prepping for tonight. Was he nervous about competing? If he wasn’t scared to go charging into haunted mansions that had played host to several fatalities, then maybe not.

Again, I’d flip-flopped during the drive here on whether or not to tell him about Erik. Really, though, how could I? Now that Erik had almost kissed me. Like that wasn’t going to be an awkward conversation.

Yeah, hey, Lucas, I realize that you and I might be a thing, buuuut remember that Erik guy you told me about? He’s approximately twenty times more smolder-y than described and, just FYI, I think he has a thing for me. Also, I almost let him lay one on me in a dream. Anyway, I’m not sure if I should feel guilty about it, because it’s still not clear if you and Charlotte do more than just slow dance together.

I sighed. Loud and long, grabbing Charlie’s drawing from where I’d laid it in the passenger seat. Marring the white page like an angry wound, an antlered skull-faced figure in red glowered up at me.

Though my sister’s recounting of her latest conversation with the thing had repeated itself umpteen times in my head, the meaning still evaded me. I could have pressed her. But I didn’t want to make whatever was happening more real for her than it already was. Instead, what I wanted to do was take this drawing in with me to show Lucas.

I shouldn’t bother him with it tonight, though. Certainly not during his competition, which was looking like a way bigger deal than what had been sold to me.

Vehicles packed the gravel-and-grass lot, and the lit-up barn glowed like the jack-o’-lanterns set up on the surrounding bales of hay.

Inside the barn’s mouthlike door, girls and guys my own age mingled with women and men in their twenties and thirties. While the men sported slacks and vests, bow ties and suspenders, the women wore floral-print dresses that matched kerchiefs tied around their heads, or flowers tucked into short, vintage dos.