Free Dangerous Dream by Kami García, Margaret Stohl Page A

dead.
Long story.
But our friends John Breed and Liv Durand were there to report the whole thing to him—what little of it, that is, that Boo Radley couldn’t report himself, from where he sat on the grass near the stage, wagging his tail in time with the band.
    John waved from the crowd when he saw me, even though Liv elbowed him. I didn’t wave back.
    Could this go on any longer?
Lena Kelted to me, sounding as grouchy as I was, even in my mind. There were some drawbacks to having a Caster girlfriend, like a nasty curse and an even nastier mother (
now in the Otherworld, another long story
), but there were benefits, too. She had lots of unique abilities—including allowing us to hear each other’s thoughts.
    I craned my neck to see her, down in the front row with the A’s through the D’s. Duchannes, Lena, was seated perilously close to Asher, Emily.
    I smiled.
I’m just trying not to pass out, L.
    Five more minutes of this and I’ll join you, Ethan.
    A louder thought shoved past the others.
You think we can hide beneath the bleachers without anyone noticin’?
Which would be Link, my best friend and former Mortal, now one-quarter Incubus. Lena and I always managed to forget that he could Kelt, too, ever since he Turned. As a result, he found a way to pop in at the most awkward times.
    Get out of my head, butt wipe
, I Kelted back.
    Down on the bleacher in front of me, he shook his head.
Hey, don’t lose it on me. Tell your girlfriend there to squeeze out a little rain. I’m not wearin’ anythin’ under this gown, and my cheeks are sweatin’ so hard it looks like I peed my pants.
    I burst out laughing. Savannah Snow glared at me.
    Shut up, both of you. They’re starting. We may actually get home before midnight.
    The head of the school board had begun to read the names. “Emily Asher.”
    Mrs. Asher led a round of hysterical applause, mostly featuring every Asher within ninety miles of Gatlin. A few Snows chimed in for good measure, but considering it was the Ashers, there were about as many folks
not
clapping.
    Emily marched up to the podium to the tune of “Pomp and Circumstance.” Her shoes were like two skyscrapers strapped to her feet. Even her hair was taller than I’d ever seen it, as if she’d been electrocuted. Black eye goop was sweating down her face, drowning raccoon-style. She had definitely pulled out all the stops.
    It was hard to look at her, even from back here in the W’s.
    No sooner had Emily taken her diploma and smiled for the camera—Ozzy Phelps, from Gatlin’s only paper,
The Stars and Stripes
, moonlighted as the school photographer—when the diploma turned into a snake.
    Hissing and rattling, it wrapped itself around her wrist like a fancy pharaoh’s bracelet.
    Emily screamed, and then the crowd screamed—because the basket of diplomas next to the podium had become a crawling, slithering, writhing bundle of snakes.
    Rattlers, from the look of it. A whole mess of them.
    Then the usual stuff happened. Lots of screaming. Lots of chaos. Everyone running, except Miss Spider’s ensemble, who started playing “My Heart Will Go On” in all the confusion.
    Within minutes, graduation was a wrap. Everyone had cleared the field.
    Everyone, that is, except Lena’s family, who sat in a row looking like the only people at a funeral. The sea of empty chairs surrounding them made you wonder if the crowd wasn’t looking for any excuse to clear out of there.
    My dad went to find Mrs. English in the parking lot, and I was actually relieved. I didn’t want to have to explain this new situation to him. I’d spent the last few years explaining plenty of stuff already.
    When Lena and I climbed down from the bleachers, we made a beeline for the one person who had it coming.
    Also the one person who couldn’t have cared less.
    “Ridley, I swear!” Aunt Del had beaten Lena to the punch, which was what she looked like she wanted to do to her daughter—Lena’s infamous Siren cousin, and my