Or was that too vain?

“Let’s see it Stel!” Piper called from the other side of the door. I took one more minute to adjust the long sleeve, blood red velvet number she had demanded I try on. The sleeves swallowed my hands, opening up at the end in extra fabric that reminded me of something a witch would wear. The too big dress had enough fabric to spread out in a long train behind me and the color completely washed out my complexion.

I tromped out to the hallway, trying to suppress my laughter. Piper stood waiting for me, impatiently tapping her foot. She looked as equally ridiculous as I did in a white, chiffon ruffled disaster. The tight bodice fit her awkwardly and made her look like she had the chest of a little boy, while the ruffles tumbled in messy, gaudy waves from her waist to the floor and gave her the hips of a woman who could claim giving birth to at least twelve children.

“Are those feathers?” I burst into laughter at the realization Piper looked like a partially plucked chicken.

She gave me a stern glare and then burst into her own hysterical giggles. “You look like Valentine’s Day threw up on you!” she wheezed, clutching at her stomach.

“I’m not coming out there if you two are just going to laugh at me!” Bree hollered from behind the fitting room door. “I already feel ridiculous enough!”

“We promise not to laugh,” Piper swore stoically. She swatted my hand away as I tried to pull on one of her shredded, dilapidated feathers, poking out from where her belly button might be.

A foreshadowing giggle escaped Piper as Bree opened the slatted wood door and stepped tenuously through the narrow doorway. Piper and I held our breath for three whole seconds before exploding in laughter, tears streaming from the corners of our eyes. We leaned on each other for support, sucking oxygen in through laughter that had become completely silent as it racked our bodies in hysteria.

Bree stood before us in a vintage, as in eighties, Pepto-Bismol pink taffeta gown, the sleeves ballooning into giant puffs that sat unevenly on her shoulder blades, the sweetheart neckline, dipping crassly into her cleavage, the skirt swallowed her body in folds of wrinkled fabric and the apron of lace both seemed to domesticate the outfit and tie the whole awful look together. Under her wounded scowl, Piper and I tried to pull ourselves together, but then she turned to get a better look at herself in the three fold mirror and her gigantic skirt swooped around and whipped Piper in the side. Piper took an exaggerated side step and we dissolved into more laughter, this time with Bree taking part.

“This was such a terrible idea,” Bree whined when we had come back to ourselves and the sales clerk had stopped to check on us twice, not understanding our sense of humor.

“Sometimes you get lucky and find something amazing,” Piper defended her thrift-store idea, although she was still laughing so neither Bree nor I took her seriously. Suddenly she stood up straight and cocked her head to the side examining us all over again. “This could work….”

“What could work?” I asked, feeling the flare of panic at the look in Piper’s eyes.

“This,” she gestured to the three of us. “We could splash black paint over all of the dresses and then wear like corsages with dead flowers in them as like a statement against the greeting-card holiday that defines the awfulness that is Valentine’s Day.” Piper proclaimed, growing passionate at the end of a speech that fell on Bree’s deaf ears and my vain ones.

“Absolutely not!” Bree shrieked, immediately trying to rip off her dress before Piper could pull out some hidden black paint to splash it on her. “Go right ahead and protest consumerism all you want, but I want to look pretty!”

“Are you saying Piper wouldn’t look pretty covered in black paint, carrying dead flowers?” I gasped. “For the record, Pi, I think you look gorgeous in any color of death.”

“I’m not worried about what will look good on Piper! I’m trying to get Tristan to notice me!” Bree lectured and I suddenly had to quell the unfurling of a very angry, desperate beast that seemed to take hold of my insides. I clutched against my stomach that was determined to make me sick. A darkness settled on my shoulders, one that refused to let Bree claim what belonged to me, what I could never have but wanted ferociously anyway. I swallowed against the hole in my chest, the pit dug out by irrational jealousy. Tristan wasn’t mine. Could never be mine.

“Well, he’ll definitely notice you in that,” Piper gave her a suggestive look and we all burst into laughter. And just like that I found myself again.

“Ladies, what is going on here?” the sales attendant poked her head in for the third time and we knew our time was up. We offered apologetic smiles and ducked back into our separate fitting rooms to change back into the clothes we came in and the clothes we were thankfully leaving in.

Two hours later, shopping bags stored in the trunk of Piper’s parents Durango, we met back up with the guys at a city based pizza chain. We had ridden together into the city, since Piper’s SUV had three rows of seating and was big enough to hold us all, but we had dropped the guys off at an arcade to kill the time while we shopped. When we met back up at the restaurant all of them looked a little worse for wear and definitely on edge, even Lincoln.

We ordered at the counter, the boys respectfully paying, even Seth, and then went to the back to find a table big enough to fit us all. Unlike at our designated lunch table, where we sat definitively segregated, we mingled together here so we could sit by our dates. I was thankful the petty immaturity of Mead did not follow us into our Friday night. So we sat boy, girl, boy, girl around a large circular table.

“Did you ladies get your dresses picked out?” Tristan asked, breaking what had turned into an uncomfortable silence.

“Yes,” Piper sighed, sounding sorely disappointed.

“Do you not like yours?” Lincoln asked quietly, picking up on her tone. She leaned into him, making him squirm just a little before he relaxed too and put his arm around her.

“No, I like it, I mean…. I’m definitely going to look hot,” she bragged and I hid my smile behind my napkin. “It’s just I had this great idea for really sticking it to Valentine’s Day, but they didn’t want anything to do with it.” She pursed her lips and shot both Bree and I a look promising her future wrath.

I giggled.

“Piper, we loved your idea, seriously, it’s just that personally, I don’t have anything against Valentine’s Day,” Bree explained, giving Tristan a look that made me thankful I hadn’t eaten yet.

Tristan pretended not to notice.

I giggled again.

He elbowed me in the ribs discretely.

“I thought you wanted to go to the dance?” Lincoln asked Piper in a quiet, shy voice.

She let out a long, exasperated sigh before admitting, “I’m a complicated woman.”

“That’s an understatement,” I laughed. She shot me another warning glare before tipping her head up to Lincoln and whispering something reassuring before kissing him.

The rest of us averted our eyes as she made it clear to Lincoln just how excited she was to go to the dance. A little making out in front of your friends was Ok, but Piper was officially taking things into a situation where it was entirely and not at all annoyingly appropriate to yell “Get a room!”

“She’s my best friend, but this is just getting awkward,” I mumbled to Tristan since Seth had politely engaged Bree into conversation over us.

“No kidding,” Tristan laughed awkwardly. “Come on you two before my eyes start bleeding.” Tristan threw a crumpled up napkin at them and successfully got their attention. Lincoln ducked his head, his cheeks blushed bright red and he avoided everyone’s eye. Piper however, sat proudly up in her chair, her face glowing with excitement. I was so happy for her I could burst.

The pizza came and we all dove in.

“So what should we see tonight?” Tristan asked the table. “Zombies or aliens?”

“Is that all that’s out? How about we meet in the middle…. like a romantic comedy? Or just something that isn’t all about killing?” Bree argued, her distinct whine tingeing her every syllable while she batted her eyes flirtatiously at Tristan.

I was definitely going to need something that involved killing.

“Let’s put it to a vote!” Piper declared democratically. She raised her hand to signal Lincoln be the first to share his opinion, and her bangles clanked down her wrist loudly.

Tristan turned his head to mumble something to me, but his words were lost when a purely evil feeling slithered over my skin. I froze in my chair as the Darkness entered the pizza restaurant. Before I even lifted my head I instinctively felt that whatever presence joined us now was more incredibly evil than all of the Shadows I had fought put together. A cold terror settled in my stomach and spread through my veins like a sickness. The breath whooshed from my lungs and my fingers clenched against the table with the strength that promised to destroy my cover. The world around me narrowed into a darkened tunnel that sent my equilibrium reeling violently.

Tristan looked down at me with panicked eyes, but I gathered my senses enough to shake my head slightly in warning. All at once my senses and instincts rushed back to me and I whipped my head toward a partially hidden, corner booth with the mission to extinguish whatever evil presence lingered in this world where it did not belong.

My gaze shifted to Seth next. He sat rigid in his chair, his fists balled on the table, and his right knee bouncing up and down frantically. A wave of relief washed over me when I saw Seth’s reaction. I hadn’t realized how afraid I was that I was the only one who felt the malevolent presence until I saw how acutely aware of the evil Seth was.

“Earth to Stella!” Piper called. I looked up to see her arms waving at me while I stared seeing only the supernatural world around us. “Zombies or Aliens?”

“Or love?” Bree squeaked.

“Uh, definitely zombies,” I mumbled, my eyes flicking back over to the booth in the corner. I couldn’t see what sat there, what wickedness had entered this place, but I could feel how the entire atmosphere of the restaurant sagged under the weighted presence of such concentrated Darkness.

“Zombies it is!” Tristan declared, standing up and clasping his hands together as if he had just won some big bet.

My stomach churned with anticipation for what was ahead of me tonight, and whatever it was did not include zombies, or outrageously buttered popcorn, but it was definitely akin to a horror movie. I turned to Seth, asking him silently with my eyes what we should do.

“I uh, I just got a text from my grandpa, I need to go make a call,” Seth explained super awkwardly before getting up to step outside.

He was so not good at lying, but it didn’t matter because at least he had a plan. Tristan’s eyes cut down to me, demanding I tell him what was going on. All I could do was offer a weak smile and pray that the battle didn’t start until Seth got back.

“Is everything Ok, Stel?” Piper asked, picking up on the weird tension.

“I don’t think so,” I confessed, knowing Seth and I needed to split up from our group as soon as possible. “I’m not sure.”