I pulled away to look into his face. “How are you tonight? We can leave if you want to go home.”

He shook his head and smiled at me. “It’s your party. We’re not leaving.”

I smiled, happy to see him so willing to be with me in my human world. I hadn’t been out with my friends in … I didn’t even know when the last time was. I needed this, and I was grateful to him. I didn’t want to go anywhere without him. I touched my fingertips to his lips. His gaze softened. “You’re good to me,” I said.

“You’re everything to me.” He kissed my fingertips. “Let’s go back to your party.”

He took my hand and I followed him back out into the crowd of my friends, determined not to let the end of the world take this happiness, this single peaceful moment, from us.

30

BEING THE SUBJECT OF MOST GOSSIP IN SCHOOL made me long for open campus during lunch hours. That was always the worst part of my day. It was finally May, but the storm still had not quelled. In the hallways, as students were all rushing to get to their next classes or swarming around lockers talking about the upcoming prom, I went mostly unnoticed. But at lunch, we always sat near the corner, and the entire cafeteria looked only in one very obvious direction: right at me.

“Ellie.” Kate’s fingers snapped in my face. “Ignore them,” she said, loudly enough that the surrounding tables heard her very easily. “They’re idiots, and they’re just jealous because you’re pretty.”

I wanted to hide under the table. “I don’t think the second part is all that true.”

Rachel gave me a sad look. “I think you’re pretty.”

I smiled weakly at her. “Thanks, Rach.”

“It’s been over two months,” Landon growled. “They ought to just ignore you and concentrate on the downtown hysteria.”

I nodded but was thinking otherwise. Landon was referring to my final and very public fight with Orek. The media storm surrounding the incident had only gotten worse since it had happened, and on top of the gossip at school, I lived in fear every day of someone connecting me or Will to the grainy cell phone videos taken that night.

“Speaking of,” Chris began, fluttering with excitement. “Did you hear that special effects expert they had on CNN last night ruled out animatronics? He said we don’t have the technology to make something that big and that complex. Something about the way it moved. I can’t remember exactly what he said.”

Landon huffed. “That’s because it was aliens, dude.”

“It wasn’t aliens, man,” Evan grumbled and folded his arms across his chest. “It was probably some brand-new 3-D technology, something so good it was like a hologram.”

Chris gave them both reproachful looks. “Anyway, they also had a witness on who said he saw a girl jump off the roof into the explosion. You know, the one that made the monster disappear? But she disappeared too, and so did the guy with wings.”

My heart pounded like a hammer against my rib cage.

“That’s why I’m thinking it wasn’t even real,” Kate chimed in. “Everything just disappeared afterward. Maybe that expert last night was in on the hoax and was just trying to cover it up.”

“I wonder if the people behind it will go to jail,” Rachel said, looking out the window.

I swallowed hard. “See, now this is way more exciting gossip for people to concentrate on than me.”

“Exactly,” Landon said. “You’d think they’d get over what happened to you.”

I’d already accepted that I’d have to endure this until, at the very least, graduation. If I wasn’t so determined, I’d have begged Nana to homeschool me for the last couple months of school, but I wasn’t a wimp and I was determined to be normal. As normal as possible for me, anyway.

Chris laughed. “Not going to happen. I can’t believe people were saying you were in rehab while you were gone.”

“Why are there so many psychos in this school?” Kate grumbled. Then she suddenly perked up and stared directly at me. “I have to pee.”

“Uh, okay,” I said, eyeing her. “Thanks for the memo, but I’m not changing your Depends.”

She shot to her feet and grabbed my hand. “Come with me, Ellie Bean.”

She dragged me away from the table as I looked back at the rest of my friends pleadingly; they didn’t even move to save me. They knew better than to get between Kate and Kate’s mission. She shoved through the door to the girls’ restroom, let me go, and proceeded to kick open each of the stalls until she came to one that was locked.

“Get out,” she ordered as she pounded on the door. “You’ve got five seconds. The toilet’s for pissing, not for loitering.”

The girl in the stall made small, frightened noises as she finished her business and flushed. She appeared—she had to be a freshman, the poor thing—her eyes wide and terrified, and she skirted around Kate to get to the sink.

“Did you piss on your hands or something?” Kate barked sharply. “Get out of here! There are Purell dispensers in every hallway. Keep your pee fingers off the faucet.”

The girl whimpered as she darted from the restroom, letting the door slam shut behind her.

“Kate, really?” I asked, giving her a disparaging look. “That was mean.”

She shrugged. “What? We only have fifteen minutes left of lunch, and we need to talk.”