Lying on my bed hours later I can’t think of anything else but my dad’s words. What did he mean? What was he planning to do? I don’t think there’s anything he can do. He doesn’t have any power, he wasn’t chosen by the goddess. I was. And I’m really starting to like that fact.

On the beat-up old desk that holds my computer my cell phone vibrates. I don’t want to answer it but I guess I should. I know it’s only one of the girls, they’re the only ones who ever call me. They probably want to know what happened after Principal Dumar called me into his office. I didn’t see any of them after that. It stops ringing and I sigh, resigned to keep staring at the stained ceiling and thinking. But it rings again.

Rolling off my bed with a string of curses running through my mind, but thankfully not falling out of my mouth, I pick it up.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Jake. It’s me.”

And “me” would be Krystal.

“Oh, hey,” I say, wishing I hadn’t been so agitated and had looked at the display screen. I didn’t want to sound grouchy to her.

“Are you busy?”

“No.”

“Are you punished?”

That was a good question. Dad hadn’t said so either way. So I guess the answer is no.

“No.”

“Can you come out?”

I hesitate.

“I’m right in front of your house.”

Well, I guess that answers the question for me. “Sure. I’ll be out in a minute.”

“Hi,” Krystal says as soon as I step out the front door.

My street’s really dark, especially at nine o’clock at night. There’s a breeze, too, a cool one that taps the bare skin of my face and arms like some sort of wake-up call.

“What are you doing all the way down here at this time of night?” I ask instantly. “Your mom doesn’t know you’re out, does she?”

She shakes her head. This is the first time I’ve seen her with her hair all out. It makes her look older. I like it. She’s wearing old faded jeans and a white Old Navy shirt with dark blue letters. I look away because I realize I’m paying a lot of attention to how she looks.

“She thinks I’m still at the church. They were having some youth rally there tonight. You know the cops are still looking for the rest of those kids from the bus.”

“So the church is looking for them now, too?”

“No,” she says sticking her hands into the small pockets of her jeans. “The grown-ups are gathering all the kids they can for prayer.”

“And what do they think that’ll do?”

Krystal gives me a funny look and I think maybe I’ve said the wrong thing.

“They think it’ll help bring solidarity to a town that’s frightened and thinks a serial killer might be on the loose.”

“Why don’t they just band together to fight?”

“Some don’t believe that fighting back’s the answer. They look to a higher being, you know, they have faith that it’ll be taken care of.”

We’d started walking down the block, like it was broad daylight outside. “Do you think we’re the higher being?”

She chuckled. “Goodness, I hope not. But I guess it’s like we’re looking to Styx to tell us what our purpose is.”

“And she’s ignoring us. I hope whomever they’re praying to down at your church is listening.”

“I think He is,” Krystal says quietly. “So what’s going on with you, Jake?”

That’s a loaded question if ever I’ve heard one. Again I find myself wanting nothing more than to tell her everything, to just let the floodgates loose. But I can’t. I don’t want to be judged anymore, and certainly not by Krystal of all people. I just want people to accept me for who and what I am without all the questions. And that’s ironic, since I have so many questions of my own.

“I’m cool.”

“I know Mateo and Pace have been giving you a hard time.”

I shrug. “No biggie.”

“Bullying’s a big deal, Jake. So big that even movie stars and politicians are getting in on trying to stop it. You should say something to somebody about what they’re doing to you.”

“They’re not bullying me,” I say, and figure that at least after today they won’t be.

“Yeah, they are. You can tell me. I thought we were friends.”

And she says that in a voice so quiet and so, well, sweet, I feel like a total butt for brushing her off. “You still consider Franklin your friend?” With that said I’m so far beyond my prior estimation of myself. I didn’t mean to ask her that, or I guess I did. It’s something that’s been on my mind a lot, and since she’s talking about us being friends, it should be okay to ask.

“Franklin’s gone,” she says, and sounds farther away than I like.

“I know that, but you still think about him, right? I mean, you were his girlfriend.”

“I was.” She sighs. “I guess if he was here we’d still be friends.”

“Would you still be his girlfriend?”

“I don’t know,” she says at first. “Probably not. Were you mad that I was his girlfriend?”

“No,” I say quickly, then decide that if I want her to be honest, I should be, too. “Kind of, I guess. I just couldn’t figure out what you saw in him. What he had that I didn’t.”

She starts shaking her head immediately. “There’s no comparison. I mean, I never compared him to you.”

“Yeah,” I sigh. “I figured that.”

We keep walking. It’s quiet except for the normal night sounds—a car in the distance, crickets chirping from wherever they’re hiding. The cool breeze is steadily blowing but I’m not cold. I don’t know if Krystal is. She might be because she pulls her hands out of her pockets and crosses her arms over her chest.

“I like you, Jake,” she says suddenly, and I stop right there in my tracks.

“What?”

She stops and turns to face me. “I like you. I mean, I know we were sort of thrown together because of the Mystyx thing, but I want you to know that I’d like you anyway. You know, if we were normal.”

I swallow, then do it again because the first time didn’t really help me figure out what I want to say in response. My heart’s beating a serious rhythm in my chest and there’s little bits of sweat beading on my forehead. The cool breeze hitting it makes me shiver.

“I, ah, I like you, too.” The words finally stammer out of my mouth. “But what about Franklin, did you, like, love him?”

Krystal shakes her head quickly. “I don’t think so. I mean, I’ve never been in love but I assume I’d know when I was. Franklin was nice and sort of helped me get through a rough time. I mean, so did you guys. But Franklin changed, even before he fell in the lake he was changing. He wanted things that I wasn’t ready for.”

I nod my head, remembering the day we found out Lindsey was a Mystyx. The day Lindsey read Krystal’s mind and inadvertently told all of us that Franklin had been asking her about sex. I had a headache for the rest of that day thinking about Franklin putting his hands on Krystal in any way. It made me sick to my stomach to think somebody else could be with her. Then he disappeared and I hoped…

“He shouldn’t have done that.”

“It’s over now,” she says, then extends her hand to me.

I take it and we start to walk again. Now holding hands like we’re boyfriend and girlfriend.

“Would you like me if I wasn’t a Mystyx?” she asks.

“Sure,” I say instantly. “I liked you before I knew what you were.”

She smiles and I swear everything inside me warms up. I love the feel of her hand in mine, the feeling I get when she looks at me and smiles, like it’s just for me alone.

The breeze picks up a bit and my chilly arm rubs against Krystal’s.

“Being a Mystyx is kind of scary,” she says.

“I’m not afraid.”

“Really? We don’t even know what we’re up against and you’re not afraid?”

I shake my head. “Nope. I can handle anything. And you shouldn’t be afraid either, I’ll protect you.”

“You don’t know what you’re protecting me from.”

And the minute she says that, the raven—my raven—swoops down in front of us.

Krystal screams, jerking back as the raven flies close to her face, its beak wide open, a screech echoing through the night escaping. Instinctively I push her back behind me, hoping the raven would see me and go back to its usual post of just watching. But that doesn’t work. There’s some kind of disconnect. A little while ago I felt like the raven was a part of me, hanging around as some sort of animal friend. This time it seems angry and violent and out for something. Out for Krystal.

It circles around us, because I’m blocking Krystal, but it keeps dipping back behind me, screeching as if yelling its fury and poking at Krystal. She’s crouched down a bit, huddling her head in my chest while I keep my arms around her, trying to shield her with my entire body.

“Go away!” I yell. “Get out of here!”

But the raven doesn’t listen. It screeches louder, swooping down and grabbing chunks of Krystal’s hair. She’s shaking in my arms, sobbing. I want her to stop, to smile up at me again. I don’t like her this way, hurt and afraid. My helplessness quickly turns to anger.

“I said stop!” Yelling I look up at the raven and catch its intense red-eyed gaze with my own.

If it were possible the bird halts right there, like it’s caught in midair or in freeze-frame. The noise of screeching and crying stops, the air is now still. But I hear something else.

Footsteps.

Someone’s coming.

My arms tighten protectively around Krystal. Her head’s still buried in my chest so she can’t see what’s going on around her. That’s probably a good thing. I’m just saying, the lunatic bird had her trembling in my arms. Seeing the larger-than-life blob of black smoke moving steadily toward us would probably have her running scared within minutes.

The night had grown darker, streetlights mysteriously going out at just the precise moment the raven appeared. And now this, the Darkness that we’ve been leery of these past few months is coming right at me. And although I can hear footsteps as loud as the thumping of my heart, the blob of smoke doesn’t touch the ground. It just hovers above it. The top of it looks like a body, head, shoulders and all, but from the waist portion down it’s just smoke, thick, black smoke.

“She’s holding you back. You must let her go.”

It speaks to me, not in my head like the other entity I’d been entertaining lately, but out loud, like it’s a real person. Krystal keeps crying as if she has no idea what’s going on. I hope she doesn’t.

“Get away from us,” I say first, then think of something better. “Why don’t you stop slinking around and just do whatever you came to do?” I don’t know where those words come from and would probably regret them in the light of day, but as for now, the strange empowerment is moving over me again.

“You feel it growing inside. I know you do. He said you would. But she’ll hold you back. She’s trying to keep you from choosing what’s right for you. You must let her go.”

“No!”

“She won’t understand.”

“Go back to hell where you came from!” I don’t know what else to say, I just want him, it, whatever, gone. My words have the same effect as they did on the raven, freeze-frame and the Darkness is like frozen. He hovers there for just a moment then shrinks down as if he’s being sucked back into a space and disappears.

At that exact moment Krystal lifts her head. “Is it gone?”

I’m not sure how much of what just happened she’s aware of so I ask, “Is what gone?”

“That freaky bird” is her reply.

I’m relieved that’s all she mentions.