Leila was on a date, a custom that had been falling by the wayside in favor of quick hookups since the demons had proven how cheap life was. Ted, her boyfriend sitting across from her in the diner’s booth seat, was Rodrigo’s polar opposite. Ruggedly handsome instead of boyish. A high-school senior instead of a junior dropout. Talkative and charming instead of increasingly withdrawn and sullen.

  And yet, even as he spoke, her mind was wandering, thinking about what to buy Rodrigo for his seventeenth birthday. For several days, he had been harping on about not wanting any gifts or celebration, not that Leila had any intention of listening. She’d known him since he was seven and knew how he liked to play the stoic. But things had been so awkward between them lately that she had kept putting the task on the back-burner, and now today was the day.

  She was meeting Adena after this so that they could shop for outfits for tonight’s party, activities that seemed surreal with everything going wrong in the world. Despite their many differences, the two of them had found common ground, and ended up becoming good friends. It was hard not to be when Leila learned the lengths Adena had gone to to save her life from Jezebeth, cauterizing her stab wound, and even bribing a doctor $600,000 to prioritize her surgery. But Leila was still shocked that she managed to convince such a loner to come to a high-school party.

  It was Jett’s high-school, really. After the invasion, society had been on the brink of collapse. Schools and most work places were closed for months, so Leila had only recently been transferred there with the rest of her surviving schoolmates, because their building was one of several to have been damaged beyond repair.

  “So, babe, we’re still going to Valerie’s party, right?” Ted asked, maybe noticing how his self-congratulatory recap about his role in their school’s previous football victories, was putting her to sleep. Not that any full contact sports were currently permitted. They were viewed as a potential waste of a hospital bed and medical supplies, which both remained scarce.

  The sad thing was, she used to love the excitement of football and the boys who had the mettle to play it. It was why she had been a cheerleader in ninth and tenth grade. But after her family’s murder, she lost her enthusiasm for most of her passions. However, unlike Adena, she did a much better job of hiding it.

  Leila forced herself to smile, as she stirred her untouched strawberry milkshake with her plastic straw. “You know it. I haven’t been to a party in over a year, so if the demons could mind their own business tonight, that would be great. I’m going clothes shopping with my bestie right after this.”

  Even though it was true that Adena was her closest friend nowadays, it still felt weird using that word for her instead of Bianca, whose parents had adopted her. Before hopping into Carlito’s body, Jezebeth had been squatting in Leila’s, and had used her hands to stab Bianca to death with a fork.

  The mental image of that and the knowledge that there might be nothing to return to but more dead family members, made going back to Mr. and Mrs. Diaz’s house the hardest thing Leila had ever done. It took her weeks to work up the courage. When she finally did, the Diazs were just so overjoyed to have one of their children survive, that they never asked for the gruesome details of Bianca’s death, and Leila didn’t offer them.

  Ted slid his large hand across the lacquered wooden table, grasping Leila’s free hand in his. She could feel the calluses on his palm from weightlifting. “Y’know, my schedule’s wide open. I wouldn’t mind being the pack mule for you ladies. Maybe I could help you pick out something sexy...for the after-party.”

  Leila pulled her hand away from his, then tried to downplay the motion by using it to grab her milkshake and drink directly from the glass. It wasn’t like she had been born yesterday. Ever since starting puberty, she could feel the hungry, expectant gazes on her body from boys and men alike. She and Ted had been dating for a little over two months now, and hadn’t gone any further than light petting, so it made sense that he was getting antsy. But was she being childish to want her first time to be special? With someone she loved, instead of someone whose best quality, in her eyes, was being emotionally available?

  Ted was a tall, attractive guy, who besides his near single-mindedness about football, defied the worst aspects of the jock stereotype. There were plenty of girls around their school interested in him, so he had options for when...if this didn’t work out. But right now, he had a look of dejection on his face. “Shit. My bad. I’m not trying to pressure you into anything.”

  Leila snickered, hoping to put Ted’s doubts at ease. “It’s okay. I just don’t think my friend would be too happy with the idea. She gets kinda prickly around strangers.”

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  As if she had willed her to appear and save her from this uncomfortable conversation, the glass door swung open and Adena entered the homey diner. As usual, even though it was over seventy degrees out, she was dressed conservatively, in dark, muted colors, that didn’t show an inch of skin below her pale neck. Her hood was up and she was wearing sunglasses. Before Leila could wave her over, Adena already spotted her and was marching toward them on her long legs.

  “Hey, Adena, this is my boyfriend, Ted, that I’m always telling you about,” Leila lied. The truth was she could count on one hand the number of times he’d come up in their conversations. Not because Ted wasn’t important to her, but because unlike most friends, the two of them never discussed their love lives. With all the time Adena and Rodrigo spent alone together in the warehouse, and the bouts of dry-humping in the gym the two swore was training, it’d only be natural if feelings, or more, had developed. But just because Leila understood it, didn’t mean she wanted to know the extent of it.

  Adena stopped in front of their table, barely glancing at Ted before giving him a curt nod, then returning her attention to Leila. “Ready to go?”

  “We haven’t gotten the check yet,” Leila said. Knowing that was a weak excuse and that Adena had no patience for small talk, she began draining what was left of her milkshake.

  Adena sighed, pulled out her masculine wallet, and placed a crisp hundred-dollar bill on the table. “That should about cover it, no? Now, come on.”

  Ted stared after Adena striding out the door like she had slapped him in the face. “Wow. You weren’t kidding about that one. Cold as ice.”

  Leila giggled at the irony in that statement, then said, “Sorry about her, hon, but I did warn you. Maybe she’ll warm up to you during the party.” She rose and leaned across the table to give him a brief kiss before he could protest her swift exit.

  When she got outside, Adena was waiting in front of her newest Escalade, the replacement for the one that had been eaten by that horrible toad demon during the invasion.

  “Well, someone sure is feeling extra rude today,” Leila said.

  “Oh, please. You’re wasting his time and yours,” Adena replied.

  “W-what do you mean?” Leila asked, not so much feigning ignorance as surprised that Adena was peddling romantic advice.

  Even through Adena’s shades, Leila could see her eyes narrow. “You know exactly what I mean. He’s a placeholder, and a poor one at that.”

  The tinted back window of the Escalade rolled down, and Leila stumbled back, fearing it might reveal an amused Rodrigo staring at her. She rarely saw he and Adena apart during the day.

  Raquel was the Beltran in the backseat, her long black braid resting against her left shoulder as she slurped a slushie. “True that. I could see if it was Jett, or even Resent. But your standards are too high now for some dude-bro.”

  “Ew, isn’t Resent, like, 400 years old?” Though he did bring a certain assertiveness and maturity to Rodrigo’s progressively more muscular body, and he had those gorgeous violet eyes to boot. But with his age, she got the impression that the prince saw all of them as the kids they technically were. To Adena, Leila asked, “And what’s the munchkin doing here?”

  “Excuse me, Ms. bachelorette! But you’re four years older than me and barely two inches taller. In a few years, you’ll come up to my hip.”

  Even with having shared a room together for over a month, Leila kept forgetting how combative Raquel was. Maybe it was because of the bullying she hadn’t fought against early in elementary school, which her brother was expelled for defending her from, that she couldn’t help but clap back at every perceived insult.

  “Besides, if it wasn’t for me, this one,” Raquel jabbed an accusatory finger at Adena, “wouldn’t have even left the building. She was rambling about calling you over and just getting everything delivered same-day to the warehouse.”

  “I don’t do my own shopping. I have...had people for that.” Adena fell silent, maybe thinking about the absence of her butler, Stefan. Thankfully, he hadn’t been killed by the demons, but because of all the close calls he suffered while traveling to his family in Connecticut, he was taking his first extended vacation since Adena had lost her father. “I also don’t like how the outside air feels on my skin, or how bright out it is during this time of year.”

  “Oh my god, you’re acting like you were a hermit until now. You’ve literally taken dozens of trips to and from Hell. Are you seriously going all agoraphobic on—”

  Raquel had put her slushie in the cup holder so that she could clap her hands. “Can you chatty Cathies talk about your feelings as we drive. If I have to pull my gun on some d-bag who sees three girls, a fancy car, and an opportunity, I’m gonna be pissed.”

  Adena unlocked the car’s doors with a remote. “I suppose I better acclimate myself to crowds before the real ordeal begins.”