Page 122 of Death is My BFF

Whispering, along with the faint noise of footsteps behind me, sent me whirling around. Nobody was there.

A headache pounded against my forehead. I gripped both sides of my skull. Sweat pooled at the back of my neck and slid down my spine, my breaths mere gasps of air. I shut my eyes, willing my thoughts to relax. I couldn’t black out. I wouldn’t.

Faith. Death’s silky voice slithered into my skull. He was furious.

My eyes burst open, and I looked around once more. For a moment, the world was slightly fuzzy, like a dream. When I pinched myself, I felt the pain fully. I looked around and realized the haze was a thin gray glittering fog pouring into the path. I thought it was from a fog machine, except it smelled peppery, like an herb of some sort. As I inspected the sparkling mist in bewilderment, my vision blurred, and my head felt droopy on my neck.

To my left, a shadow slinked through the cornstalks.

“Thomas?”

Rustling. Deep, psychotic laughter. My spine straightened.

Frozen in fear, I told myself they were only workers on the farm hidden in the maze. Then animal noises growled behind me, and I thought otherwise.

I turned, stunned to find David Star’s receptionist standing in the center of the path. Tiara. She wore a tight all-black business outfit, her striking red hair the color of summer cherries beneath the bright football stadium floodlights. I gazed down at her fingers.

Blood dripped down the lengths of them, and her nails were unnaturally long, like talons.

She strutted toward me, red stiletto heels carefully balancing on the compacted ground. I retreated against the cornstalks. Her image wavered for a sliver of a second into something else, something monstrous, and it was too fast to process.

A small, hostile smile lined her red painted lips. “Hello, Faith.”

“Why are you here?” I asked, fighting to focus on her face as she grew closer. “What . . . what is that fog?”

“What, this fog?” Tiara lifted her closed hand. With a sharp exhale, she blew a puff of gray glitter fog into my face. I inhaled the contents out of reflex, and it burned all the way up my nostrils and down my throat. Thrown into a coughing fit, I doubled over. She started to cackle, her high-pitched giggling hitting me like knives jabbing into my brain.

“Look at you,” she said, her voice distorted. The cornstalks shifted colors from purples and blues to neon green and pink, tripping me out. “A pathetic girl, drooling over aman. Don’t you see what you really are? You’re nothing,nothingto him. All he’s doing is using you, playing with you like all his other pets. Like the insignificant, wretched little whore you are.”

Any other night, her words would have cut me deep. “You know, I’m a nice person, but just because my name is Faith doesn’t mean I’m a pacifist.” I rolled up the ends of my sleeves. “Kicking your ass is long overdue.”

I wound back a fist and connected with Tiara’s sculpted cheek.

She shuffled back, clutching her face in astonishment. I came at her again, but Tiara disappeared in a blur. A clawed hand grabbed me from behind, drawing blood. I kicked out, nailing her in the leg and twisted around to backhand her across the face.

Tiara recovered fast and struck back, much harder, landing a blow to my stomach that knocked the wind right out of me. She got a hold of my shirt with those talon-like nails and shoved me to the unforgiving ground with an inhuman force.

“You stupid bitch, you don’t deserve him! He’s a prince, agod!”

Black swallowed the whites of her eyes as her face altered, sharpening into an unrecognizable creature with ruby irises. “I’ll be damned if I letyoutake him away from me!” Tiara moved toward me like a snake, but abruptly stopped. She scanned our surroundings. “Ah, I thought they were never going to show up.”

My whole body ached as I tried to get a deep breath. “They?”

“My friends,” Tiara said with a spiteful grin. “Death can’t know it was me who killed you. No hard feelings, I hope. I don’t share.”

She turned and darted into the corn.

“That’s what I thought!” I shouted, shaking a wounded fist in the air. “You better run away!”

“Do you know where the Bad Man is?”

My skin prickled.

I had not been left alone.

Straight ahead was a little blond-haired girl with two French braids. She stood with her back to me and sang under her breath. My eyes locked on the blood soaking her shirt, the teddy bear clutched tightly in her pale hand by her side.

“What the . . . ?”

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