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Contents

Cover

Title Page

The Exterminator’s Daughter MEG CABOT

The Corsage LAUREN MYRACLE

Madison, Avery and the Dim Reaper KIM HARRISON

Kiss and Tell MICHELE JAFFE

Hell on Earth STEPHENIE MEYER

First Book

Copyright

About the Publisher

The Exterminator’s Daughter MEG CABOT
Mary

THE MUSIC IS POUNDING in time to my heartbeat. I can feel the bass in my chest—badoom, badoom. It’s hard to see across the room of writhing bodies, especially with the fog from the dry ice, and the flickering light show coming down from the club’s industrial ceiling overhead.

But I know he’s here. I can feel him.

Which is why I’m grateful for the bodies grinding against one another all around me. They’re keeping me hidden from his view—and from his senses. Otherwise he’d have smelled me coming by now. They can detect the scent of fear from yards away.

Not that I’m scared. Because I’m not.

Well. Maybe a little.

But I have my Excalibur Vixen crossbow 285 FPS with me, with a twenty-inch-long Easton XX75 (the tip, formerly gold, now replaced with hand-carved ash) already cocked and ready to be released at the merest pressure from my finger.

He’ll never know what hit him.

And, hopefully, neither will she.

The important thing is to get a clean shot—which won’t be easy in this crowd—and to make it count. I’ll probably only get one chance to shoot. Either I’ll hit the target … or he’ll hit me.

“Always aim for the chest,” Mom used to say. “It’s the largest part of the body, and the spot you’re least likely to miss. Of course, you’re more likely to kill than wound if you aim for the chest rather than the thigh or arm … but what do you want to wound for, anyway? The point is to take ‘em down.”

Which is what I’m here to do tonight. Take ‘im down.

Lila will hate me, of course, if she figures out what really happened … and that it was me who did it.

But what does she expect? She can’t think that I’m just going to sit idly by and watch her throw her life away.

“I met this guy,” she’d gushed at lunch today, while we were standing in line for the salad bar. “Oh my God, Mary, you wouldn’t believe how cute he is. His name’s Sebastian. He’s got the bluest eyes you’ve ever seen.”

The thing about Lila that a lot of people don’t get is that beneath that—let’s face it—slutty exterior beats the heart of a truly loyal friend. Unlike the rest of the girls at Saint Eligius, Lila’s never pulled an attitude with me about the fact that my dad’s not a CEO or plastic surgeon.

And yeah, okay, I have to tune out about three-fourths of what she says because most of it is stuff that I have no interest in—like how much she paid for her Prada tote at the end-of-season clearance sale at Saks, and what kind of tramp stamp she’s thinking about getting next time she’s in Cancún.

But this caught my attention.

“Lila,” I said. “What about Ted?”

Because Ted’s all Lila has talked about for the past year, ever since he finally got up the guts to ask her out. Well, I mean, all she’s talked about besides the Prada sales and back tattoos.

“Oh, that’s over,” Lila said, reaching for the lettuce tongs. “Sebastian’s taking me clubbing tonight—at Swig. He says he can get us in—he’s on the VIP list.”

It wasn’t the fact that this guy, whoever he was, claimed to be on the VIP list of the newest and most exclusive club in downtown Manhattan that caused the hairs on the back of my neck to rise. Don’t get me wrong—Lila’s beautiful. If anyone is going to be approached by a random stranger who happens to be on the most sought-after VIP list in town, it would be Lila.

It was the thing about Ted that got to me. Because Lila adores Ted. They’re the quintessentially perfect high school couple. She’s gorgeous, he’s a star athlete … it’s a match made in teen heaven.

Which is why what she was telling me did not compute.

“Lila, how can you say it’s over between you and Ted?” I demanded. “You two have been going out forever”—or at least since I arrived at Saint Eligius Prep in September, where Lila was the first (and, to date, pretty much the only) girl in any of my classes to actually speak to me—”and it’s the prom this weekend.”

“I know,” Lila said, with a happy sigh. “Sebastian’s taking me.”

“Seb—”

That’s when I knew. I mean, really knew.

“Lila,” I said. “Look at me.”

Lila looked down at me—I’m small. But, as Mom used to say, I’m fast—and I saw it at once. What I should have seen from the beginning, that ever-so-slightly glazed expression—the dull eyes … the soft lips—that I’ve come to know so well over the years.

I couldn’t believe it. He’d gotten to my best friend. My only friend.

Well. What was I supposed to do? Sit back and let him take her?

Not this time.

You’d think seeing a girl with a crossbow on the dance floor of Manhattan’s hottest new club would maybe generate a comment or two. But it is Manhattan, after all. Besides, everyone is having too good a time to notice me. Even—

Oh God. It’s him. I can’t believe I’m finally seeing him in the flesh….

Well, his son, anyway.

He’s more handsome than I ever imagined. Golden-haired and blue-eyed, with movie star-perfect lips and shoulders a mile wide. He’s tall, too—although most guys are tall—compared with me.

Still, if he is anything like his father, well, then, I get it. I finally get it.

I guess. I still don’t—

Oh God. He’s sensed my gaze. He’s turning this way—

It’s now or never. I raise my bow:

Good-bye, Sebastian Drake. Good-bye forever.

But just as I have the bright white triangle of his shirt front in my scope, something unbelievable happens: A bright bloom of cherry red appears exactly where I’ve been aiming.

Except I haven’t pulled the trigger.

And his kind doesn’t bleed.

“What’s that, Sebastian?” Lila shimmies up to him to ask.

“Dammit! Somebody”—and I see Sebastian raise his stunned cerulean gaze from the scarlet stain on his shirt to Lila’s face—“shot me.”

It’s true. Someone has shot him.

Only it wasn’t me.

And that’s not all that doesn’t make sense. He’s bleeding.

Except that’s not possible.

Not knowing what else to do, I duck behind a nearby pillar, pressing the Vixen to my chest. I need to regroup, figure out my next move. Because none of this can really be happening. I couldn’t have been wrong about him. I did the research. It all makes sense … the fact that he’s here in Manhattan … the fact that he went after my best friend, of all people … Lila’s dazed expression … everything.

Everything except what just happened.

And I had just stood there, staring. I had had a perfect shot, and I’d blown it.

Or had I? If he’s bleeding, then that must mean he’s human. Doesn’t it?

Except if he’s human, and he’s just been shot in the chest, why is he still standing?

Oh God.

The worst of it is … he saw me. I’m almost sure I felt that reptilian gaze pass over me. What will he do now? Will he come after me? If he does, it’s all my own fault. Mom told me never to do this. She always said a hunter never goes out alone. Why didn’t I listen? What was I thinking?

That’s the problem, of course. I hadn’t been thinking at all. I’d let my emotions get the better of me. I couldn’t let what happened to Mom happen to Lila.

And now I’m going to pay for it.

Just like Mom.

Crouching in agony, I try not to imagine what Dad’s going to do when the New York City police ring our doorbell at four in the morning and ask him to come to the morgue to ID his only daughter’s body. My throat will be gouged open, and who knows what other atrocities will be done to my broken body. All because I didn’t stay home tonight to work on my paper for Mrs. Gregory’s fourth-period U.S. History class (topic: the temperance movement in antebellum Civil War America, two thousand words, double-spaced, due Monday), like I was supposed to.

The music changes. I hear Lila squeal, “Where are you going?”

Oh God. He’s coming.

And he wants me to know that he’s coming. He’s playing with me now … just like his father played with Mom, before he … well, did what he did to her.

Then I hear a strange sound—a sort of whoosh—followed by another “Dammit!”

What is happening?

“Sebastian.” Lila’s voice sounds bemused. “Someone is shooting ketchup at you!”

What? Did she just say … ketchup?

And then, as I carefully turn to try to get a look past the pillar to see what Lila is talking about, I see him.

Not Sebastian. His shooter.

And I can hardly believe my eyes.

What’s he doing here?

Adam

IT’S ALL TED’S FAULT. He’s the one who said we should follow them on their date.

I was like, “Why?”

“‘Cause the dude’s trouble, man,” Ted said.

Except there’s no way Ted could have known that. Drake had basically turned up from out of nowhere outside Lila’s Park Avenue apartment building just the night before. Ted had never even met him. How could he know anything about the guy? Anything at all?

But when I mentioned this, Ted said, “Dude, have you looked at him?”

I have to admit, the T Man has a point. I mean, the guy looks like he walked straight out of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog or something. You can’t trust a guy who’s that, well, perfect.

Still, I’m not down with following other guys around. It’s not cool. Even if, like Ted said, it was just to make sure Lila didn’t get into trouble. I know Lila is Ted’s lady—ex-lady now, thanks to Drake.

And okay, she’s never been the shiniest fork in the drawer.

But following her on this date with the dude she’s hooked up with? That just seemed like a bigger waste of time than—well, that two thousand-word, double-spaced essay I’ve got due in Mrs. Gregory’s U.S. History class on Monday.

Then Ted had to go and suggest I bring the Beretta 9mm.

The thing is, even though it’s just a water pistol, toy guns that look as real as that are illegal in Manhattan.

So I haven’t really had an opportunity to use mine much. Which Ted knows.

And is probably why he kept going on about how freaking hilarious it would be if we soaked the guy. Because he knew I wouldn’t be able to resist.

The ketchup was my idea.

And, yeah, it is pretty juvenile.

But what the hell else am I going to do on a Friday night? It beats a U.S. History paper.

Anyway, I told the T Man I guessed I’d be down with his plan. So long as I was the one who got to do the shooting. Which was fine with Ted.

“I just gotta know, man,” he’d said, shaking his head.

“Know what?”

“What this Sebastian dude’s got,” he said, “that I don’t.”

I could’ve told him, of course. I mean, it’s pretty obvious to anyone who freaking looks at Drake what he’s got that Ted doesn’t. Ted’s a decent-looking guy and all, but Abercrombie material he is not.

Still, I didn’t say anything. Because the T Man was really hurtin’ over this one. And I could sort of understand why. Lila’s just one of those girls, you know? All big brown eyes and big, well, other parts, too.

But I won’t go there on account of my sister, Veronica, who says I need to stop thinking of women as sex objects and start thinking of them as future partners in the inevitable struggle to survive in postapocalyptic America (which Veronica’s writing her senior thesis on because she feels the apocalypse is going to occur sometime in the next decade, due to the country’s current state of religious fanaticism and environmental recklessness, both of which were present at the fall of Rome and various other societies that no longer exist).

So that’s how me and the T Man ended up at Swig—fortunately, Ted’s uncle Vinnie is their liquor distributor, which is how we got in, and without having to go through the metal detector like everybody else—shooting ketchup at Sebastian Drake with my Beretta 9mm water pistol. I know I was supposed to be home doing that paper for Mrs. Gregory, but a guy’s got to have some fun, right?

And it was fun to see those red stains spurting all over the guy’s chest. The T Man was actually laughing for the first time since Lila sent him that text message during lunch, telling him that he was on his own for the prom, because she was going with Drake.

Everything was going great … until I saw Drake staring at that pillar over to one side of the dance floor. Which didn’t make any sense. You’d have thought he’d have been looking over at us, in our VIP booth (thanks, Uncle Vinnie), considering that’s the direction the ketchup assault was coming from.

That’s when I noticed there was somebody hiding behind it. The pillar, I mean.

Not just any somebody, either, but Mary, that new girl from my U.S. History class, the one who never talks to anybody but Lila.

And she was holding a crossbow.

A crossbow.

How the hell did she get a crossbow through the metal detector? No way does she know Ted’s uncle Vinnie.

Not that it matters. All that matters is that Drake’s staring at the pillar Mary’s crouched behind like he can see straight through it. There’s something about the way he’s looking over at her that makes me … well, all I know is that is not where I want that guy looking.

“Moron,” I mutter. Mostly about Drake. But also about myself, a little. And then I aim and shoot once more.

“Oh, snap,” Ted yells happily. “Did you see that? Right in the ass!”

That gets Drake’s attention, all right. He turns …

… and suddenly, I get what they mean about blazing eyes. You know, in Stephen King books, or whatever? I never thought I’d actually see a pair.

But that’s exactly what Drake’s got, as he stares at us. Eyes that are most definitely blazing.

Come on, I find myself thinking in Drake’s direction. That’s right. Come on over here, Drake. You wanna fight? I’ve got a lot more than just ketchup, dude.

Which isn’t exactly true. But it doesn’t end up mattering, because Drake doesn’t come over anyway.

Instead, he disappears.

I don’t mean that he turns around and leaves the club.

I mean that one minute he’s standing there, and the next he’s … well, he’s just gone. For a second the fog from the dry ice seems to get thicker—and when it clears, Lila is dancing by herself.

“Here,” I say, thrusting the Beretta into Ted’s hand.

“What the—” Ted scans the dance floor. “Where’d he go?”

But I’ve already taken off.

“Grab Lila,” I yell back at Ted. “And meet me out front.”

Ted utters some pretty choice expletives after that, but no one even notices. The music’s too loud, and everyone’s having too good a time. I mean, if they didn’t notice us shooting at some dude with a ketchup-filled water gun—or a few seconds later, that dude literally vanishing into thin air—they’re hardly likely to notice Ted shouting the F word.

I reach the pillar and look down.

She’s there, panting as if she’s just run a marathon or something. She’s got the crossbow clutched to her chest like a kid’s security blanket. Her face is as white as notebook paper.

“Hey,” I say to her, gently. I don’t want to startle her.

But I do anyway. She practically jumps out of her skin at the sound of my voice and turns wide, frightened eyes up at me.

“Hey, take it easy,” I say. “He’s gone. Okay?”

“He’s gone?” Her eyes—green as the Great Lawn in Central Park in May—stare up at me. And there’s no missing the terror in them. “How—what?”

“He just vanished,” I say with a shrug. “I saw him looking at you. So I shot him.”

“You what?”

I can see that the terror has disappeared as suddenly as Drake did. But unlike with Drake, there’s something in its place: anger. Mary is mad.

“Oh my God, Adam,” she says. “Have you lost your mind? Do you have any idea who that guy even is?”

“Yeah,” I say. The truth is, Mary’s pretty cute when she’s mad. I can’t believe I never noticed before. Well, I guess I’ve never seen her get mad. There’s not a lot to get all heated up about in Mrs. Gregory’s class. “Lila’s new man. That guy’s such a loser. Did you get a look at his pants?”

Mary just shakes her head.

“What are you doing here?” she asks me in a slightly stunned voice.

“Same thing as you, apparently,” I say, eyeing the crossbow. “Only you’ve got way more firepower. Where’d you get that? Are those even legal in Manhattan?”

“You’re one to talk,” she says, meaning the Beretta.

I hold up both hands in an I-surrender sort of way. “Hey, it was just ketchup. But that’s definitely not a suction cup I see on the end of that thing. You could do some major damage—”

“That’s the idea,” Mary says.

And there’s so much animosity—Mom keeps encouraging Veronica and me to instead use descriptive language to express ourselves—in her voice, that I know. I just know.

Drake’s her ex.

I have to admit, I feel sort of weird when I realize this. I mean, I like Mary. You can tell she’s pretty smart—she’s always done the reading when Mrs. Gregory calls on her—and the truth is, the fact that she hangs around Lila, dim as she is, proves at least she’s not a snob, since most of the girls at Saint Eligius won’t give Lila the time of day … ever since that cell-phone photo went all around school of exactly what she and Ted were doing in the bathroom at that loft party downtown.

Not that there’s anything wrong with what they were doing, if you ask me.

Still. I’m kind of disappointed. I’d have thought a girl like Mary would have better taste than to go out with a guy like Sebastian Drake.

Which I guess goes to prove that what Veronica’s always saying about me is right: What I don’t know about girls could fill the East River.