The lights are already dim, but they cut the swirling dance strobes. The video begins, some cheesy Top-40 music swelling in the background. The first scene is of the bell tower, picturesque against Preston’s backdrop of ancient oaks. Next is a cheering crowd at the state football championship—a sea of red filling the bleachers.
Abruptly, the music cuts, the lights drop, and the screen turns black. Girls squeal like they always do when the lights go off, the sounds of fledgling confusion feeding itself.
Letters begin slowly fading in, blurry at first, but then becoming crisp, bright.
Hell is empty and all the devils are here.
A sinister laugh begins echoing out of the speakers. Up on the wall-sized screen, an image flickers, then another, and another, flashing bold and erratically, no pattern to the casual eye. But I know what it is, and Reyn, whose fingers lace with mine and squeeze, does too. It’s a history of the past few weeks, the rites of passage, the new Devils, up there for everyone to see.
It starts with fuzzy images of black hoods and the creepy passage that leads from the lake. Next are the pranks at the rival schools—the swapped-out Viking horns, the removed shield, the other iconography that symbolizes each and every school. The next images come fast and furious—bleeding tattoos, photos of the founders, each located in the upstairs bedrooms of the Preston House—a house all the alumni are currently watching this in. There are the stamps, a shot of the bell tower, the infamous notches. Heat flickers in my belly, remembering being up there with Reyn. My heart pounds at the memory of the other rites. The fear, the adrenaline, the power. Over and over, the photos are shown in a turbulent, blurred montage, until the laughter returns along with the Devil’s logo. The following words are overlaid:
The best trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.
The lights go down completely, sinking the entire gym into a darkness that would be opaque, if not for the stickers. The room is absolutely glittered with them, stuck to each and every chest—pitchforks surrounded by a glow-in-the-dark circle. This had been my idea—inspired by Reyn’s firefly, which is glowing even more fiercely than my sticker—but my breath still catches at the sight of the gym. The glows move and shift, erratic yet graceful, just like a blanket of fireflies.
We’ve marked them all.
“Oh my god, this is amazing,” I whisper, leaning into Reyn. He looks down at me and smiles, and I can see the same spark in his eyes.
Things have been so tumultuous the last few days, so full of tense frustration and doom, that being here now is almost like a dream. I clutch onto it as tightly as I’m clutching Reyn’s hand, and when he bends toward me, I meet him halfway.
The kiss is soft and sweet and boldly public, even if people can’t actually see us. I’m thinking that no matter what comes after this, at least we have this moment. Special. Rare. Shared.
In the distance, I hear the Headmaster’s panic. The microphone crashes to the floor while he shouts for the video to be stopped. It’s futile, because in a blink, the original content has been restored and the whitewashed pride of Preston is currently on screen, going through the motions like the well-kept, dignified student body that is the face of our revered community.
But the students know what’s going on. They’re howling with laughter, shouting in alarm, gasping with awe.
Across the crowded gym, our eyes slowly find one another—the Devils and Playthings. In the split moment chaos reigns, I realize I’ll never turn on these people. My people. It’d be so easy to hold my article over Emory’s head, to force his hand, but it’d also be wrong. I didn’t join the Devils to get a boyfriend. I joined to bring it down.
But I don’t want to.
I want to watch Georgia smile. I want to see Tyson finally show Presley the real him. I want to see Afton and Elana take Caroline under their wing, much like they did for me. I want to see Aubrey get my brother away from Campbell. I want to see Sebastian stop fighting so much.
I want to see the Devils become something better.
Collins actually ends the entire dance, just like that. He instructs the staff to turn the lights up and bathes us all in the blinding gym fluorescents, ordering us to go home. Most