Page 99 of The Glittering Edge

“I don’t know.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not going to be an outcast like Alonso De Luca. He’s alone. He’s always going to be alone. I don’t want that life.”

Penny’s hands tighten on the steering wheel. “What about your grandfather? Did he have a reason to use magic on the Barrions?”

“My grandfather didn’t care about them. He got their money for our family’s land, and he gambled it away before he died. Left our family with nothing.”

Penny sighs. This isn’t getting her anywhere. Dylan doesn’t practice magic, and it sounds like her grandfather didn’t, either.

Suddenly Dylan straightens up, her eyes going foggy for a second before her regular old sneer is back. “Take a right onto Wagner Street.”

“What?”

“I said take a right.” Dylan crosses her legs and starts texting.

So that’s it. The truth serum is out of her system, and Dylan is acting totally normal, like none of it happened. Penny tries to relax, but she keeps glancing at her passenger.

Dylan glares at her. “Why do you keep looking at me like that? I’m just drunk, I’m not going to—”

And that’s when she vomits.

Penny gasps as Dylan empties her stomach onto the car floor. “Oh my god, are you okay?”

“Fuck,” Dylan says, and then she vomits again.

Penny’s heart races. “I’m going to open the windows. I’ll turn around and take you to the hospital—”

“No,” Dylan says through coughs. “No, I… I’m not okay. He doesn’t love me.”

“What? Who?”

Dylan wipes the corner of her mouth and laughs. “Corey. And I’ve tried to stop loving him, but I can’t. I’ll never get anyone like him ever again, so I need to keep him no matter what. Because I… because nobody can see past all the… all the…”

Dylan is shaking. Violently.

Penny pulls over and puts the car in park. There’s no other traffic; they’re alone in the quiet evening. She grabs her phone to call 911, but Dylan grabs her hand, digging her nails into Penny’s skin. Penny lets out a cry, and her phone falls onto the floor by Dylan’s feet, narrowly missing the vomit.

Dylan doesn’t let go of Penny’s hand. Her eyes are unfocused, and when her mouth opens, an avalanche of words come out.

“I want to leave this town. I want to go somewhere and start over. Where nobody knows what I’ve done.” Her eyes open wide; they’re unblinking. “What’s wrong with me? Am I a sociopath?”

Whatever was in that vial wasn’t a simple truth serum. Either Alonso messed it up, or he lied to her.

“I… I don’t know,” Penny says. “If you’re worried about being a sociopath, I don’t think you are one. Will you please let me take you to the hospital?”

It’s as if Dylan doesn’t even hear her. Instead, she’s running her free hand over her own face, into her hair. She’s blinking rapidly like she can barely see what’s in front of her. Penny’s heart is racing. She wants to drive to the hospital, but this part of the county isn’t familiar. Idlewood is tiny, but Penny lives near Main Street, and out here it’s a mess of country roads and farms and dirt driveways.

Then Dylan stops shaking. She’s staring at Penny with an unreadable expression.

“You know,” Dylan says, her face tearstained, “Corey has never once looked at me the way Alonso looks at you.”

It’s as though an ocean tide has caught Penny by surprise, and she’s flipping head over feet, unsure which way is up.

“Corey cares about you, Dylan,” Penny says, but the words are empty. And maybe it doesn’t matter. Dylan knows he doesn’t love her, but it hasn’t stopped her from being with him. It’s only made her try harder.

And it’s breaking her. Penny can see it written across Dylan’s face.

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