She was so close to taking form I was terrified I was going to end up with a dead teacher to explain. Never mind suspension; they’d lock me up and throw away the key.
There was no doubt that Mr. Fisher could hear her. “I tried to stop you,” he protested, as his dead girlfriend held his heart in her icy fingers. “You ran away.”
Daria actually growled. “Because I found you screwing my best friend!”
“Wren?” I glanced at my sister. “Little help?” This was going to hell fast.
Daria turned her attention to me. “This is between me and him. One step and I’ll crush his heart.”
“Isn’t that what you plan to do regardless?” I asked.
She smiled. “Yeah, but if you make me do it quickly I won’t enjoy it as much.” The smile faded, morphing into something that was going to wake me up at night for weeks to come. “Now, back off, bitch.”
Everything happened in a blink. One moment my sister was beside me, and the next she was on Daria, shoving the teacher aside as she threw herself onto the other ghost.
Sarah gasped. Roxi stared. Mr. Fisher made a small mewling sound in the back of his throat as he sank to the floor, clutching his chest. I ran to him.
“What do you have of hers?” I demanded. When he gave me a blank look, I added, “Of Daria’s!” Who else could I possibly mean?
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a key ring. There was an aged brass D hanging from it. D for Daria, not Daniel.
I fumbled with the keys, trying to pull the large letter off the ring. Freaking hell! Who invented key rings, anyway? Couldn’t they have thought of a more user-friendly setup?
Wren and Daria smashed into the row of shower stalls, buckling the metal frames.
Finally, the letter came free. I pulled a plastic baggy partially filled with salt from my pocket and opened the seal, dropping the letter charm inside.
A few sparks, but other than that, nothing. Shit. If it wasn’t the letter anchoring Daria to the world of the living, then what was it?
Anger. Vengeance. I didn’t know how to break that, and Mr. Fisher wasn’t going to fit into a sandwich bag of salt. If I didn’t do something fast, Daria and my sister were going to wreck the locker room.
Mr. Fisher, Roxi and Sarah were on the floor near the wall of lockers, huddled together. They looked terrified, and I didn’t blame them. I dropped to my knees in front of them as Daria flew toward me, crashing into the lockers above my head.
“Get out,” I ordered. “Get out now!”
I didn’t have to tell them twice. They scrabbled across the floor, keeping low until it was safe to stagger to their feet and run for the door. Mr. Fisher paused and looked back at me.
“Dee, no!” he shouted.
My brain froze, but my body didn’t. I dropped to the floor, twisting so that I landed on my back. Daria leaped onto me like a cat on a mouse, all darkness and stink and sharp teeth.
“Hold her!” I cried.
Wren seized her, fingers like talons as they restrained Daria’s arms. I tried not to look at her. I didn’t want to see my sister looking like something out of a horror movie. I ripped open the bag of salt and shoved my hand inside, scooping up the sharp grains and the charm. I looked up into the ghost’s fathomless eyes; there was no shred of humanity left.
“Do it,” my sister growled. Her voice was like the drag of a shovel across a gravestone, and it was all the encouragement I needed to end this shit storm fast.
I bolted upright, slamming my fist into the gaping side of Daria’s skull, burrowing my hand deep into the ectoplasm of her brain. I gagged.
It’s not really her brain. She’s dead. A ghost—she has no brain, not physically. Telling myself that was the only thing that got me to open my fingers and release the salt and charm inside her. She reared up, screaming.
I fell back on the floor, hands over my ears. It felt like my head was going to explode. I gasped for breath as tears streamed down my cheeks.
And then, it was quiet. No other sound but the muffled music from the dance, reverberating through the floor.
Daria was gone, and my sister sat beside me, her back to me, legs splayed and shoulders slumped.
“Wren?” My voice sounded small.
She held up her hand—it still looked like claws. I knew not to say another word. Instead, I sat up and took that hand in my own. Once we made contact it didn’t take long for it to morph back into its usual state. I didn’t understand my effect on my sister any more than I understood any part of our existence, but it didn’t matter. I was the one thing that could bring her back from a manifestation.
“You okay?” I asked.
She nodded. “Yes. You?”
“I’m covered in salt and ghost-goo, but, yeah, I’m okay.” I was sore, but that would be gone by morning—another side effect of this whacked-out life.
“This room’s a mess.”
I glanced around at the damage. It was too much for me to undo. “We need to get out of here. Is she gone?”
Wren nodded. “She’s gone. How did that even work?”
I shrugged. “Don’t know. Don’t care.”