Evelyn arched the sort of eyebrow men in the 1600s spent decades in conservatories learning to sculpt as the drink appeared in Chad’s hand. She couldn’t remember him having any sort of telekinesis, although there were plenty of amazing gifts in the world not borne of that meteor. She took it gingerly with a coquettish grin and sipped at it. It was as saccharine and unfulfilling as the recesses of Becky’s concave mind.

“This is fine,” Evelyn said, “Perfect to start with.” Evelyn for a moment started to say how she liked strawberry lemonade best, too, but as she watched Jaime fist-pound Chad (“if only you could, mon cheri”) Evelyn felt an odd jolt. It was like déjà vu, in a sense, a sudden realignment. I hate strawberry lemonade, Evelyn thought. The blue one’s the best. 

Chad turned back to her and Evelyn sipped from her drink, the fizz more evanescent and the glass polished and clear as her lips touched the rim. She noticed Jaime stand up a touch straighter, and the tight jeans he wore were bluer than she remembered. “Nonsense,” Evelyn replied, “Any house with this much booze is the nicest in town.” The house was nice, she thought, the layout modern but not gauche. Cutting-edge, really. Had she disliked it before? The thought seemed quite silly, now.

Jaime made some inane half-fucked attempt at seducing Chad involving something about their calculus teacher, and the mention of something as useless as mathematics made Evelyn zone out for a moment. What a hideous centerpiece, she thought, glancing at the furniture. As she did, the Mayday Parade girl materialized from thin air. The boys around her started, and it made Evelyn smirk. What a useful talent, to be invisible. Evelyn couldn’t relate, although she did wish she had that gift, at times. She could feel it, almost, the sort of psychic pressure of eyes watching your every move. There were no camera flashes or paparazzi, sure, but she knew there were hushed whispers when she left the room, or discussion of what she’d done or said or worn on car rides home. People tried to hide it, but Evelyn was better at watching than they were at lying. That was something she’d learned early, the first time she’d worn a low-cut shirt in middle school and heard snickering in gym. There was always someone watching in Leesburgh. You couldn’t ever drop the act.

Evelyn’s side lit up with pain as someone bumped into her, but her fangs stayed in immaculate order. The invisible girl was talking to Titus, one of the few people who Evelyn did not feel entirely confident she could dominate sexually. For fuck’s sake, he nearly skull-fucked that rock thing. She didn’t let her eyes linger. Elle, she was sure, had no great love for Evelyn, but the feeling was not mutual. She found skater girl interesting, like a rare animal at the zoo. There were few people even in the city of freaks who dared to swim against the current. Evelyn had not yet deduced whether she did it merely to have her own little group of outsiders, or if she truly didn’t care. 

Regardless, she was less appetizing than the host himself. “So Chad,” she said, overriding whatever Jaime had been saying about parabolas or something. “What’s in store for tonight?” As she spoke, she could feel the springtime surge start to jitter up her spine. The dull throbbing of the bandaged wound faded, and Evelyn felt her powers light up. It was not often she really flexed her radioactive muscles. Frankly, she seldom needed to. As she took her next sip, the music came through crisper and cleaner, the smell of sweat and liquor grew more tolerable, and the boy gripping the sides of Chad’s toilet in the bathroom down the hall found his stomach steadied. Upstairs, a particularly foolish pair of freshmen had their biological rhythms yanked into peak fertility at what would not only the most inopportune time possible for them, but also the set of triplets the girl would birth in nine months’ time. These, however, were distant concerns. Let’s give the butterflies in his stomach something to dance to. He certainly looked good, Evelyn thought, not remembering a time Chad had looked so nice. He wasn’t like Titus that she could remember – he must’ve worked for his body. “This is an awfully big party. Anything after beer pong?” She let her eyes and teeth glitter.

Chad started to reply, but paused as a theater kid on the other side of the living room started to sing along to the iPod on shuffle. He was hit with an aural wave of “shut the fuck up”’s and booos that briefly drowned out every other sound in the house. Evelyn took the moment to scan the room. It was second nature. 

At the beer pong table, the lizard looked rattled for a moment. Interesting, Evelyn thought. Henry was in some ways inscrutable: scales were harder to read than skin, after all. Even so, the sag of shoulders, the hurried move to take a drink, the glance. He was a little cold-blooded island for that moment. Evelyn followed his slit-eyed gaze to the couch. Ah. The giant spoke to the invisible girl, and the couch visibly shifted as he sat down. Evelyn briefly attempted to remember if any of her father’s associates had ever dealt with any home issues. She quietly hoped the foundations of Chad’s McMansion were made of something sturdier than his mother’s décor tastes. 

Evelyn blinked at that. The thought felt weird, foreign, like a sudden cold spot in the ocean on a warm day. She liked the style, she thought. The music swept over her again and she wondered if even she could put out enough springtime to make Jersey All Over get into Goliath’s kilt. And as soon as she’d wondered, Elle went up to go play beer pong. Very interesting, Evelyn mused, taking another sip. She normally didn’t drink this quickly.

The Firestarter boy: Chad’s house is truly fucked now. He didn’t show up often, which made Evelyn wonder what prompted this arrival. He was near Letitia Greene. Evelyn’s façade broke for a moment with visible surprise. Jesus, it’s like a Hufflepuff orgy tonight. He looked stiff as stone. Evelyn considered it odd how he could kill them all with a sneeze, and yet looked so scared of a little music. 
Evelyn had never felt particularly insecure about not having been born with the world-breaking strength or outright destructive powers of some of Leesburgh’s other denizens. Chris Chandler there was proof enough none of that mattered. An odd duck indeed.

From the kitchen, she heard laughter. Behind Chad, she watched Titus snap at a girl. For a brief moment, Evelyn saw the stone face in front of her, jaw agape, and her side and her knuckles didn’t feel throbbing pain, they just felt cold, so fucking cold the springtime shine around her sputtered for a moment and unaltered reality crashed back around them until she blinked and brought it back.
Evelyn stepped closer to Chad. “You’re so sweet to organize all this,” she said, shifting to put him between her and the flesh golem.