How to Save Your School From Soul Stealing Demons

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 9TH
7:13 AM
VANTERBEST HIGH, WATTS' LOCKER

It hasn't taken long for the four of us to form a routine where we meet up every morning. So today, as usual, Watts and I go to my locker first, then his, where Renny and Ambrose come and find us. 

Today I'm not sure how things will go, since this morning on the news they revealed Layne's body was found. Mauled, just like the others.

Renny strolls up and leans against the locker next to Watts's. Apart from slightly puffy eyes, she seems okay. I'm guessing part of it is because she already knew—it was obvious she accepted it after seeing Darren in the cafeteria with Kayla last week. "Anything new? Apart from... the obvious."

I guess there's no need to talk about it. It would just hurt the two of them, and there's nothing to learn from repeating the information we got from TV. Plus, today I actually do have something else to talk about. 

I wait for a chatty group of girls to pass before answering with a shrug. "Sort of."
Watts looks at me with raised eyebrows, probably because I didn't mention anything on the ride to school.

"It's nothing much—might even be nothing, period. But I had a dream about us fighting Kayla and Paul."

You'd think I said I won the lottery this morning with the way all three sets of eyes go wide, locking onto me with a scared intensity. Well, except for Ambrose—I don't know if he could look scared if he tried.

Watts seems to struggle to find his voice. "On the football field?"

I don't know whether to feel better or worse that I'm obviously not alone in my experience. "Yeah."

Renny closes her eyes with a sigh and pokes a tongue against her cheek. "What was I holding?"

The answer comes from all three of us at once. "An ax."

She nods with a sigh. "And Watts was—"

"Reading," we all answer again.

"And who ended up dead?"

"Me."

At the chorus of answers, her eyes shoot open. We all look between each other, silently asking how we had the same dream with mismatched outcomes. In everyone's dream, they were the one who got killed.

Watts breathes out, shoulders relaxing. "I thought it was some kind of premonition. Figured I was a goner for sure."

"What does it mean?" Renny questions as if she doesn't expect anyone to know the answer.

"My best guess?" Watts zips up his backpack and shrugs it onto one shoulder. "Bozzanath somehow knows we're planning to go to the game on Saturday. He's warning us. Threatening us with the knowledge that we might die if we keep getting involved."

"Sounds to me like he feels threatened by us."

Ambrose laughs shortly. "Or he's just playing with us for kicks."

There's a wave of silent, mutual understanding that he's probably right. The four of us know next to nothing about Bozzanath or how to stop him. If he knows we're trying, who can say what else he knows? He's in our heads, in our dreams, and somehow even morphing our realities like he did in the library.

"Can you remember what you were reading?" I ask Watts as he shuts his locker.

He frowns. "No. I couldn't even make any sense of it in the dream."

"Add it to the list of unanswered questions," Ambrose says, then points his chin behind me. "It's them."

We all turn to see the usual group of Vanterbest's elite walking down the hall, lead by Paul. He looks like any normal, freakishly-handsome teenage guy. But I still get a chill up my spine just looking at him, remembering how dead he looked on Friday.