Last Rites by Danielle Vega

Author:Danielle Vega
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2018-06-11T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 15

After

I experience the next few hours in flashes.

Flash: sweaty people, fists pumping, too-sharp teeth gleaming.

Flash: twisted rubber, snarling devil’s masks, drooping eyeholes.

Flash: makeup running down faces in streaks.

Harper and Mara dance beside me. Their hands are on my shoulders, spinning me in fast circles that send me careening into the people around us. They wiggle their hips, and their mouths twist, laughing and shouting.

They open their hands, and small white pills appear on their palms. We place them on our tongues and toast with champagne. “You’re only young once!” and then the bubbles chase the pills down our throats.

I take a sharp inhale, and oxygen burns up my lungs. Cold air nips the back of my neck as bodies press in around me, sweat rolling down bare skin.

And then they’re gone, and Giovanni is in front of me. He flashes me a smile filled with brilliant white teeth. He drops his arms around my shoulders, pressing his hips into mine.

“Bella,” he whispers. He says it again and again, his voice tangling and echoing in my head. Bella bella bella bella . . .

This is what it’s like to be free, I think. I feel the smile in my mouth and cheeks, and then it stretches through my whole body, filling me like sunshine. Giovanni tastes like ice and cigarettes. The air smells like sweat.

It’s all I’ve ever wanted.

Hours or minutes later, a girl separates from the crowd and makes her way over to me. I try to focus on her, but she blurs into the night. My head pounds.

She’s dressed like an angel, all in white, her dark hair a shocking contrast to the lace veil draped over it. Her features seem familiar, but they don’t add up to anything in my head.

I turn to ask Giovanni if he knows her. But Giovanni isn’t there. The people dancing around me are strangers.

The girl is beside me now. She says something, and the words seem to float in front of her mouth, like a thought bubble in a comic.

“Do you want to dance?”

The music throbs in my ears, making my head spin. “Where’s Giovanni?”

The girl puts her arms around my waist. She leans in close to me, her lips brushing against my earlobe, as she says, “He went to get us more wine, remember? Come, dance.”

My body starts to move, obeying her command before my mind has a chance to think it over. Bleary questions form in the back of my head, never quite coming into focus.

Why did . . . ?

Didn’t Mara and Harper . . . ?

Who is . . . ?

I blink, slowly. I can’t remember anything that happened in the last few hours, but I feel the lost time in the arches of my feet. They ache, like they always do when I’ve been wearing heels all night. I feel suddenly dizzy.

I sway, but the girl holds me around the waist, pulling me upright again. Her hands are strong.

She’s a good dancer. Her hips swing with the music.

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