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I’ll get you something.”
    I nodded. I didn’t want to talk about what had just happened. I wanted to forget it entirely, except my lip was throbbing hard enough to make that pretty much impossible. Kiki dashed into the house and ran out a moment later with a handful of tissues. I pressed them to my mouth despite the pain.
    “Thanks for everything, Kate. I’m so glad you were here.” She squeezed my arm. “Get home safe and get some well-deserved rest, okay?”
    “But …”
    I couldn’t come up with a rational reason to stay. Besides, I couldn’t stop shaking, and I really wanted to go home. I had the intense urge to brush my teeth for the next half hour or so and maybe follow that up with a nice carbonic acid gargle.
    I’d just have to text Rocky. Maybe she could come over and take care of me while I had a complete meltdown.
    I walked out to the car, looking over my shoulder about every five seconds. The driveway was almost empty already. Jonah sat in the passenger seat, obsessively scrubbing his hands with an antibac wipe.
    “So …,” he said while I dug my phone out of my pocket and started tapping away at the keys. “That party sucked.”

vaulted out of the car the second we pulled into our driveway. I had to brush my teeth or I’d vomit. I used about half a tube of toothpaste, and it made my mouth sting like mad, but it made me feel a little better anyway.
    I stared at myself in the bathroom mirror. “Oh my god.” A chunk was missing from my lower lip. And it was oozing.
    “You got a tetanus shot last summer,” I told myself. “You’re going to be fine.” A lovely black scab was starting to form, so I wouldn’t need stitches. But I could feel a wave of hysteria threatening to wash over me.
    I needed Rocky.
    She still hadn’t texted me back, so I called her. Rocky liked to save her minutes, because she’d been racking up overage chargeslike crazy ever since her boyfriend had left for basic training. Her parents made her pay them, so she was trying not to use the phone too much. But this was a special situation.
    It went straight to voice mail. I waited for the beep. “Call me, damn it!”
    Being gnawed on had pushed me over the edge. Mike had always been a tool, but not the kind of tool who bit people when he had the munchies. I couldn’t imagine a steroid that turned people into cannibals, although I vaguely remembered reading about a boxer who bit some guy’s ear off, so maybe it was possible. Or maybe it was totally unrelated.
    I tried Rocky again. She still didn’t answer. I knew she wouldn’t leave me hanging like this unless something was wrong. I couldn’t believe I’d left her at Kiki’s house with a semidead, steroid-addled lip muncher. If Mike was gnawing on my best friend, he was going to be in a world of hurt.
    I ran back down the stairs, leapt the banister in a fit of adrenaline-induced athleticism, and scared the heck out of Jonah. He was trying to stuff the chicken suit into the hall closet. When I charged past him, he squawked indignantly. I wasn’t slowing down. My friend might be in trouble. Vague, unexplained trouble, but trouble nonetheless.
    I jumped back into the car and drove toward Rocky’s house. Her battery was probably low. Or maybe her phone was charging. “She’s probably at home right now, asleep already,” I told myself, clutching the wheel. “That’s why she hasn’t called me back.” I knewthat was the most logical explanation. But I still couldn’t stop shaking. There was something seriously wrong with Mike. He looked wrong. He smelled wrong.
    He
tasted
wrong.
    When I turned onto her street, I was going maybe a little faster than I should have been. I saw the bright lights of an SUV coming straight toward me from the opposite direction. They practically lased out my eyeballs. I squinted, trying to find the street despite driving blind. There was a mailbox outside my window, close enough to touch.
    My wimpy little puke-scented sedan was no