Page 95 of Flickerstate

“The dance is a go,” I tell Candace.

Griffin texts again:Want a corsage?

I don’t like flowers.

You don’t like flowers, you don’t like dancing. What do you like?Seconds later:The correct answer is: you, I like you, Griffin.

“Lots of texts, just to confirm a date,” Candace says.

I slide my phone into my pocket. “Are you still mad at him? For, you know, not helping? Or maybe helping the wrong way.”

Candace looks around. There’s no one in earshot, though on the campus loop, a half dozen more runners are jogging. “I’m not sure what the stepdad would have told him, but he must have guessed something, and he never said a word.”

“Don’t be too hard on him,” I say. “If someone offered to help my dad, butonlymy dad…it would be hard to say no.”

Candace’s expression goes bleak. “I know it happened because my family loves me. Or Mom and Griff love me, and the stepdad loves them. That makes it harder to live with.”

I don’t have any words to comfort her. We set off toward campus in silence.

Chapter Twenty-Three

That evening, I text Bree:Can we talk?The next morning, I text again:I’m sorry for how I acted after we lost. It was shitty of me.She leaves me on read.

I’m really sorry about Aria.On read.

Heard you turned 18 over break. Happy belated birthday.On read.

I see Bree in Clinic B, where Dr. Langmore deposited the Clinic A teams eliminated in the trials, but she sits with Peyton and avoids my eyes. Once, I bump into her in our block doorway—I’m coming in; she’s going out—and she flushes dark pink and darts around me down the hall before I can think what to say.

Sometimes, flopped in bed, I hear her talking with Candace in our common room. I could walk out and force aso sorryon her before she has time to dodge. But that would add insult to injury, I think. I leave her alone. When she wants my apology, she knows where to find me.

If she ever wants my apology.

***

Meanwhile, Griffin.

Between the last trial and the formal, I see him a bare handful of times. The trial winners are buried in the Archive, and I’m dodging human contact.

That said. He’s been texting me. A lot.

A blurry photo of a squirrel downward-dogging toward the Great Tree with the captionBESTIAL SATAN WORSHIP???Memes involving Supergirl. Random questions about my life, which he calls “inquiries into my mysterious past.”

I don’t want to give him the wrong impression, to let him convince himself that I must be falling madly in love with Griffin Minter, Golden Boy. The idea affronts my ego (I’m not hisfangirl). Besides, Vik’s stuck in my head like a song. We’re not together anymore. So long as I’m bitten, we can’t be. Even if we find the cure, I don’t know whether he’ll want me back. But every time my phone buzzes, a stupid aching part of me hopes it’s him. Still, I can’t ignore Griffin’s texts. I can’t make it weird. Or make him suspicious. So now we have a whole thread going. Almost like we’re friends now.

Strange.

***

Meanwhile, meanwhile. Teaching Candace to league.

It’s a bitch.

The day after I show her my bite, she, Vik, and I gather before dawn in the clearing. Clouds hide the stars, and my breath ghosts white in the black air. I’m bundled into my thickest leggings and an oversize hoodie, but I shiver a little, pacing to keep warm, phone flashlight gripped tight in one cold hand.

Vik shows up a couple minutes after I do, i.e., a minute early. In a concession to the frosty weather, he’s wearing fingerless leather gloves and a knee-length black peacoat that emphasizes his long legs and broad shoulders. By now, I’m so used to his faded tees and ripped jeans that his unexpected finery has me staring, deer in headlights.

Unfortunately, he notices. “You okay?”