The Evil Within by Nancy Holder Page A

“English history? First he boffs them, then he cuts off their heads?”
    “You find that attractive?” I jibed.
    “Well, actually, Miles Winters is a bit too Aryan for my taste. My parents are modern Iranians, but I wouldn’t push them past their limits.” Her grin turned mischievous. “I mean, I might boff him, but I wouldn’t bring him home.”
    “Oh, eeew,” I protested, working overtime to sound only mildly disgusted.
    “I’m just kidding. He’s Mandy’s brother.” When I didn’t say anything, she said, “I am not a fan of Mandy’s anything , not since Kiyoko . . . ” She trailed off. “Mandy wasn’t nice to her.”
    “No, she wasn’t.” She was so not-nice to her that she killed her.
    She killed her. This wasn’t about dead birds and gossip. This was about a frozen body in a lake, and me nearly dying, and Mandy just sitting over there, laughing while she pushed food around her plate. Who knowingly started all this by inviting Belle to possess her. It hadn’t happened to her by accident, as it had with me. She had made it happen.
    I clenched my jaw. God, I really did hate Mandy Winters. I hated her down to my soul. And I hated Belle just as much. They were two evil bitches who deserved to die.
    But did I hate them enough to kill them?

EIGHT
    CLASSES ENDED at three thirty; then there were extracurriculars, which included all the sports teams. So while Julie was busy kicking soccer balls in the powdered-sugar snow, I was at Stewart at three thirty-five, ready to talk about dislocated souls. If Shayna knew about the possessions, maybe she knew some way to get rid of Celia without killing Mandy. I would give anything , everything I had, if that were true.
    I was shaking as I rapped on the front door. Stewart was a new dorm, with brick faces and lots of windows trimmed in white, very airy. Very not vintage Marlwood, which was Victorian and dark.
    The door opened, and Rose, not Shayna stood on the threshold. Her hair pulled back into a ponytail, she was wearing purple sweats shot through with cheesecloth and a black cashmere dove wrap sweater with the ends dangling around her knees. She had on black socks with white peace signs on them. She threw her arms around me and kissed my cheek. My anxiety skyrocketed. I was desperate to talk to Shayna, and I had to do it alone.
    “Oh my God, Linz, come in, you’re frozen,” Rose said. “Don’t you remember how to dress for these climes?” She reached forward and shut the door as she urged me inside. “Did you get my Christmas card?”
    “No,” I said.
    “The one with the puppy in the stocking? No? Maybe I got your address wrong. My parents turned Christmas into the OK Corral. They’re getting divorced. It’s in the tabloids. I’m glad you don’t read them.”
    She quickly shook her head. “Don’t say you’re sorry. It’s completely irrelevant to my real life. But how’ve you been? You look tired.”
    She walked me into the common room, where three of the other Stewart girls were studying. Shayna was not among them.
    “We’re making hot chocolate,” Rose said. “Shayna,” she bellowed, “Linz is here.”
    “Coming,” Shayna announced.
    “So.” Rose led me down the hall to her bedroom. I looked at her autographed poster from Cirque du Soleil in the red frame and a tie-dyed goose down comforter practically floating on her bed. Matching pillows were squashed into a nest and a book in French lay beside a dirty plate—looked like hummus—and a can of Red Bull on its side. New items were a poster of the rocker David Bowie as Ziggy Stardust, very glam and metro, and a vintage yellow rocking chair. She’d threaded strings of yellow and red beads through the arms of her de rigueur Marlwood chandelier. “We’re in my room,” she yelled.
    She plopped cross-legged onto her bed and folded her arms over her chest. I perched on the edge. I was very nervous.
    “Mandy’s already throwing down,” she said. “You should have heard her rip