toppled over the edge, and you're going away. Me, I'll always be the townie slut. I'm the anchor that will keep us marginally connected, at least."
She grinned at me, but I didn't smile back. "You're more than just the townie slut."
"Oh, I'm not ashamed," she said. "And speaking of shameless, I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but I think I'm in love with that man."
I was so surprised by the comment that I almost laughed. "What?"
"Oh, don't worry, I'm not gonna piss in your flowerpot again but" - she waved her hand in front of her face, and then motioned to the front door where Cain had gone - "he is something else."
"Go ahead and piss on him," I said. "He's not my flowerpot."
Her eyes widened. "Really? Because you know, he's just my type."
I laughed. "The type that will screw you senseless, give you shit, and leave you stranded?"
She looked at me and shrugged. "What can I say? Daddy issues." She gently took the article from my hands, and said, "You know everything's gonna be okay, right?"
"Yeah? How would I know that?"
"Because, eventually," she said, leaning back, "it always is."
And then, the article in her hands burst into flames.
It was quick, less like burning and more like disintegrating. A red ridge of fire rimmed the edges and consumed the whole thing with a zip sound, until there was nothing but pieces of ash floating to the ground. Stacy didn't seem surprised at all. She shook out her hand, and as she did, I saw flickers of red light dancing around her fingertips.
"Wow," she said, swallowing. It was the first time in my life I had ever seen Stacy even remotely flustered. "That was weird, wasn't it?"
"Oh, crap," I said. "You, too?"
She looked at me for a moment, then said, "Me, too, what?"
I reached over to the coffee table, picked up a cork coaster, and held it in my hands. I closed my eyes and concentrated, surprising myself with how easy it was this time to draw the energy through myself, to focus it. When I put the coaster back down on the table, it was a turtle, slowly making its way across the surface.
Stacy blinked a few times, then looked at me. "What the fuck is going on here, Liv?"
"Stacy, I'm so sorry. I didn't do it on purpose, I swear - "
She gave me a pointed look. "You did this to me?"
"I think ... maybe. I don't know how. Something happened at that last Confessional - "
And then I stopped. The coffee. That Saturday morning before the girls came over, when Davina had told me about my sister, she'd given me a cup of coffee.
And I drank it.
"Shit." I shot up from my chair. "What an idiot!"
I headed for the door, Stacy following closely behind, and pushed my way through. I glanced both ways down the street and didn't see Cain, so I started down the street.
"Liv," Stacy said, on my heels. "Wanna tell me what's going on here, babe?"
And then Cain darted out of the narrow space between my house and Dale Hibbert's, and grabbed me by the arm.
"Where the hell you think you're going?"
"I was looking for you."
"Well, you found me." He shot a suspicious look at Stacy, then said, "What's going on?"
"Davina, she - "
Cain stepped out toward the street, putting me behind him. "What? She here?"
"No, last week. Listen." I stepped around him to face him again. "She gave me a cup of coffee, and I drank it."
Cain's expression got even more grim, if that was possible, and he said, "What happened?"
"It was right before the girls came over last week; she brought me coffee. Later that day, I touched Peach, and there was this static electricity shock between us. I didn't think it was a big deal, but then Peach has started making things ... I don't know. Kind of dance around? And I saw this pink light on her fingers, like the yellow light that I get, and the blue light that Betty gets. And now Stacy ... there was a moment when we had a static shock thing, too, right?"
I looked to Stacy, who nodded. "I thought that was weird."
Cain eyed her. "So, what's your power?"
"Intense heat, apparently." Stacy pulled her car keys out of her pocket. One of them was wavy, as though it had been thrown into the heart of a blazing fire and then shaped around someone's fingers. "I don't have a normal goddamned spoon left