Undead Girl Gang(41)

“What do we need from here?” Riley asks as we climb out of the car.

“Candy!” Dayton says, bouncing around to the front of the car. “And more Gatorade.”

“A cow’s heart,” I say. “And some charcoal.”

“Then can we draw the rot out of Caleb’s heart?” June asks, folding her arms over her chest. Of the three girls, she’s the only one who seems determined to turn her limited wardrobe into multiple outfits. Today, she’s wearing her black leggings with the mustard cardigan she was buried in. It’s cute and effortless in a way that makes me think about strangling her before I remember that Caleb Treadwell already did.

The grimoire is pretty vague about what drawing the rot out of a person actually does. Personally, I hope that it’ll take the shitty murderous part and leave behind the sliver of good in Caleb. That way he can march down to the police station and turn himself in. Otherwise, we’ll have to move on to phase two of the plan: luring him into the basement and force-feeding him the truth spell that, for some reason, is made mostly of acorns.

“Yes,” I say to her, leading the way through the parking lot. “We can draw the rot out of his heart when we have a heart to start with.”

“Magic is so stupidly literal sometimes,” Riley says.

We pass through the automatic sliding doors. Inside, hospital-bright lights hover over our heads, and the sound system blares as Selena sings “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom.” Unlike the grocery stores in Cross Creek, everything smells delicious, thanks to the taquería housed at the other side of the building.

“You guys can look around, if you want,” I say to Dayton, June, and Riley. “I have to go to the meat counter. There’s a bakery against the back wall if you want to grab anything to take back to the house.”

Dayton’s face lights up. I can almost see the cookies dancing in her eyes. She immediately darts toward the bakery.

“Try to stay within a hundred steps!” I call after her.

“I’ll go track down the charcoal,” Riley says. “And maybe some matches? The spell will move faster if we have more than one way to light shit on fire.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I say.

I look at June, waiting for her to come up with her own reason to wander freely, but she sticks by my side. Lucky me.

The meat counter wraps around most of the right wall of the store. Beef takes up most of the middle of the counter. Ground, steak, sides, flanks, tongues, all marked with small yellow signs. I read Spanish much better than I speak it, although the mercado’s signage is all in Spanish and English, so it’s not really a true test of my skills.

“?Cómo puedo ayudarle?” asks the man behind the counter.

I swallow. I get so nervous speaking Spanish to non–family members. I only ever really use it to talk to my grandparents or eavesdrop on my parents’ phone calls.

“Un corazón de res, por favor,” I say, quiet and uncertain.

The man nods, not showing any sign that he thinks the order is weird or that my conversational skills are about as refined as a three-year-old native speaker’s. I wipe my sweating palms on my hips.

The man behind the counter peels what is unmistakably a heart out of the display case and slaps it onto the scale. June and I both flinch.

“Was Caleb wearing my necklace today?” June asks.

I nod. “It was tucked into his shirt, but I could make out the outline of the lock.”

It’s pretty ballsy—if actively psychotic—to wear a token of the girl you murdered to school. But seeing the heart-shaped lump under the collar of Caleb’s shirt made me more resolved to cast today’s spell.

The man behind the counter hands me the heart neatly wrapped in brown paper and asks if I need anything else. I shake my head.

“?Muchas gracias por su ayuda!” June says to him brightly. I must look shocked, because she rolls her eyes at me and says, “I’m in AP Spanish.”

Of course she is. Was. Whatever. Even racist white girls speak Spanish more naturally than I do.

“Any news on you and Xander?” June asks as we walk past the fish counter. Even the dead cod packed in ice look more comfortable than I feel right now.

“There is no me and Xander,” I say.

“Why not?” She blinks at me like this is a rational question. “I’m dead. There’s nothing standing in your way now.”

“Gee, thanks,” I say. “Except he’s still Xander and I’m still me.”

I don’t tell her that he sent me a text message after the Celebration of Life on Monday to see if I was feeling better. You know, since I almost puked on him. It was the sweetest thing that has ever embarrassed me to my very core. I told him that I must have been poisoned by a Dayton Nesseth Memorial Tree Fund cookie.

“Look, Mila,” June says with an obnoxiously forced maturity. “You’re not doing yourself any favors by secretly pining. You can either want people who want you, too, or you can move on. You’re wasting your life with all this unrequited love. Why would you like someone who doesn’t like you back?”

“That’s not how crushes work,” I snap. I’m holding the heart package too tightly. The paper crinkles loudly. I loosen my grip so that I don’t damage the meat. “It’s all hormones and feelings and illogical shit. I can’t stop liking Xander because he doesn’t like me.”