Bumping and jostling into one another as they retreated, Isobel and Varen’s classmates formed a wide circle around the two of them.
Smiles fell. Faces paled.
And as the shock of their sudden presence rippled its way through the gymnasium, through the attendees of Trenton High’s annual Valentine’s Day dance, it dawned on Isobel what had just happened.
They were back.
37
Neither of Ingress or Egress
No one spoke. No one moved.
For five fleeting seconds, they all just stared.
Then from the midst of the crowd rose a sweater-sleeved arm. Its hand held aloft a cell phone. Flashing bright white, the device snapped Isobel and Varen’s photo.
When a second flash sparked, Isobel whipped her head in that direction, her damp, clotted hair swinging.
A third flared right in front of her face. Then a fourth from behind.
Even over the throbbing music, Isobel could hear the digitized clicks of the cameras, the pings and chirps of phones receiving alerts.
With the rise of the discordant chimes came murmuring and pointing fingers. Isobel heard their names repeated again and again, growing louder with each utterance as the shell shock in the room began to thaw.
“Move!” a voice roared above it all, and Isobel turned, her heart thrumming.
Scanning the sea of cell phone lights, she searched for the source of that brash voice, recalling in the same instant the text she’d sent earlier before crossing into the dreamworld.
At first Isobel saw only the wide eyes of the cameras.
Then, wrestling between a pair of clinging couples, someone broke through.
“Isobel!” Gwen shouted, throwing off the hood of the oversize black-and-white checkered sweater Isobel recognized as Mikey’s.
Slung across one shoulder, Gwen wore her patchwork purse, and in one hand, her own cell glowed.
Isobel had just enough time to register the ash-smeared forms on its screen before Gwen rushed her.
Isobel released Varen’s hand to catch her friend.
“I’m glad you’re alive,” Gwen said, her voice high, pinched with fear. “So I can kill you.”
Though Isobel wanted to return Gwen’s fierce squeeze, to tell her how relieved she was to see her, her thoughts swarmed around the photo she’d glimpsed on Gwen’s cell.
Had someone texted the photo to her? Or had the snapshots already splashed their way across the Internet and all of social media?
How many more minutes—how many more seconds—before those images found their way to Varen’s parents? To her parents. To the police . . .
She and Varen couldn’t afford to get caught, to be hauled off in different directions. Not now. Not without first severing their ties—Varen’s ties—to the other side. To Lilith.
Taking Gwen by the shoulders, Isobel parted their embrace.
“Gwen, listen to me. We have to—” She stopped when she noticed a flitter of shadows skirting the room.
Gwen had clearly sensed it too, because her eyes went to Varen, who stared at the ceiling.
Looking up, Isobel saw what held his attention.
A dark haze had begun to wrap the mirrored surface of the lazily spinning disco ball. Sharp faces, distorted, broken, and jagged-toothed, appeared between the smoky tendrils, causing the globe’s grid of projected light to flicker again.
“Thaaat’s . . . not a special effect,” Gwen said, “is it?”
Snapping from his trance, Varen moved. He snatched Isobel’s hand, and she, in turn, grabbed Gwen’s.
In one fell swoop, the legions of cell phones winked out, screens going black.
A screech of feedback sliced through the music, its piercing shriek killing the thudding bass and vocals.
Everyone ducked their heads and covered their ears.
Pulling Isobel and Gwen after him, Varen ran toward the glowing exit sign and the double doors beneath—the only barrier between them and the parking lot, which contained, Isobel hoped, Gwen’s car.
Girls in heels backpedaled from their path, shoes clattering while boys in dress shirts peeled away, everyone giving them a wide berth.
The colored lights dimmed, fluttered, and snapped out, plunging the room into darkness.
Screams rose, followed by an earsplitting crash.
Through the coarse material of Varen’s mechanic’s jacket, Isobel felt debris pelt her shoulders. She looked back to see Gwen’s stricken face, pale pink in the red glow of the nearing exit sign, and behind her, lying in shambles on the cleared floor, the obliterated disco ball.
Though Isobel no longer saw the Nocs, she knew they were there. All around them. All around everyone.