B.C. Johnson

DEADGIRL

For my parents, Mike and Robin, for telling me it can be done,

For my brothers, Bill and Tom, for reminding me why,

And for my love, Gina, for, well, everything.

Prologue

Dead

My pulse pounded in my head, and I ran like my legs would fall off. The throbbing sound of the blood in my ears drowned out everything else, including the high, trapped animal screams I only vaguely recognized as my own. It blotted out the heavy footsteps of the man behind me, chasing me, catching me.

I wasn’t going to outrun him—I knew that before I even took my first step. But I could fight him less than I could flee, and my body said to bail. I listened.

The wind whipped at my hair. Long strings of sweat-soaked black hit me in my eyes, my gasping mouth. I wished I’d put the whole damn mess up in a ponytail, but then again, I’d been trying to look cute, and ponytails weren’t cute. If you were at the gym, or bouncing on top of a cheerleader pyramid, maybe. Going out with your dream guy on your very first date? Hair down. Its pedestrian straightness curled into spiraling locks that fell to my shoulders, my lashes so long you could land planes on them, my wide eyes—my best asset—emphasized by exotic… expensive… eyeliner. Cute top, cute jacket, cute skirt. Boots, because he loves them. I know, I asked his friend. Well, my friend. Our friend.

The boots helped, I realized, as my legs pumped fire. Sneakers would have been better, but in what universe was I out on a date wearing sneakers? No universe I wanted to live in.

I sucked in a breath. Not funny.

But the boots beat sandals or strappy heels or something equally less-supportive. Not that my dad would have let me out of the house with strappy heels. Still, that hadn’t stopped me from tucking them in my backpack and trading out my Nikes on numerous occasions.

Why couldn’t my head shut up? I shushed the voices telling me about shoe-choice and focused in.

I ran through a dark parking lot next to a closed-down office building, crunching asphalt under my Maddens. The chill wind tore at my jacket. I would have abandoned it if I’d had the chance—I felt like I was wearing a parachute. Not good for wind resistance. It only reminded me how stupid Batman had to be streaking into battle with a blanket tacked to his shoulders.

Shut up!

I shook my head, trying to clear the crap that kept threatening to break my attention. Why now, in my final moments, couldn’t I stop thinking about junk? Why couldn’t I just focus, once, on what mattered?

I’d run the wrong way, I knew that already. When the guy and his buddies had accosted me, I just ran away from them. It was my natural instinct. Forget that the Set and the rest of civilization were on the other side of those jerks, forget that running away meant running into dead parking lots. My brain had screamed for me to book it, and I’d booked it like a champ. In the wrong effing direction.

Why couldn’t I say the f-word, even in my brain? Another problem to sort out.

When my hands slapped into chain link fence, I knew I was toast. I wasn’t paying attention and the alley behind the office building only lead to the freeway.

A few cars passed as I stared out into the blackness. The urban-ocean sound of the freeway lulled me into a weird stupor. I touched my head to the chain link fence and felt the cool diamond-shaped wire pressing into my overheated skin.

My pulse slowed, and I heard footsteps.

I was trapped.

To hell with it.

I spun around, my fists balled white. The fastest one, the tall skinny one with the spiked hair, had caught up to me. It was cold, but he had the white tank-top and loose jeans you’d expect someone in his profession to wear. He took a few more steps toward me and stopped. His muscles stood out, tense against his skin—he was ready to spring if I tried to run past him. Not that I would.

His buddies were catching up—three of them were visible, chugging along to get to us. I took a perverse glee in seeing that the big fat one, the one that had called me a hoochie wasn’t even in sight.

“What’s a matter?” the spiky haired guy asked. I smiled grimly when I heard how out-of-breath he was.

“Give you a chase?” I asked. I didn’t feel witty or vivacious. I felt helpless and terrified. Something in my tone must have fooled him, though, because he stood up straight in alarm and took a step back.

I don’t think I was playing by the script anymore.

To hell with the script. I wasn’t going to die like a chump, especially not while looking cute. I took a step forward, and he stepped back again. I gave him a triumphant smile. It didn’t last long. His friends arrived and made a line to block me in.

One of the guys, short, bald, and sporting a shark’s smile, took a step into the yellow pool of a dimming parking lot light.

“Hey, baby,” he said. I wondered if there was a creep phrasebook or something. “Why you trying to run?”

“Not trying,” I said, but it didn’t stop me from taking a step back. I was shaking now, “Doing.”

“Got nowhere to run now, hmm?”

I didn’t. I said nothing, my lips tight.

“We just wanted to talk.”

I spat at him. It didn’t go the distance.

“Just looking for a date,” one of the guys said quietly in the background. Real tough-guy type I guessed.

I tried not to shake, tried not to show anything but what I hoped was grim determination. I didn’t even have a purse to swing at them—I had only a rarely-attended one-month women’s empowerment self-defense course to fall back on. My dad’s idea. I’d rolled my eyes and called him paranoid. I’m an idiot.

Still, I’d need a couple more black belts in a few more martial arts—and a baseball bat—to fight four guys. Five. No good. I could see fatty chugging up behind them now. It looked like he was about to die from exhaustion, so I guess that’s an upside.

They said some more things, none of them pleasant. They closed in on me, and I backed up against the fence. I swore to God, right then and there, that those guys were going home a few valuable pounds lighter. I balled my fists even tighter—I dropped into the only fighting stance I could remember. It was half self-defense course, half-Pink Ranger, but it was all I had.

Then the bald guy pulled something shiny and silver from his jacket, and my heart stopped.

I’d seen them enough on TV, and I’d taken my dad’s to the gun range before. It was a revolver, a snub-nosed little thing that despite its pathetic look…oh no.

My eyes flooded with tears and my gut sank. I couldn’t help myself. I didn’t feel strong anymore, I didn’t feel anything. My hands trembled.

“Just stay cool, and don’t scream, okay?”

The little bald guy sounded really reasonable now. Like a doctor saying that the stitches won’t hurt. I wanted to tear his little face off. He took another step forward, then another. Some of the guys behind him looked eager—some looked queasy.

“Nobody’s gonna die, okay?”

He took another step forward and grabbed at my jacket. I pulled away, slapping at his hand.

“Hey!” He held the gun up and wiggled it in the yellow light. “Hey, now.”

When he stepped close enough for me to taste his breath, I snapped. My body moved without my brain—I grabbed the wrist with the gun and swung it away from me.

My other hand hit him in the throat while my knee came up between his legs with a dull thud. I moved like a machine—my eyes shot wide open as Baldy fell to the ground.

The arm with the gun swung around—I grabbed it again with both hands as Baldy sank to his knees.

We struggled.

An explosion blossomed out from the gun, deafening me, making my eyes water. I tasted smoke.

Baldy’s creep friends ran forward, horror in their eyes as they dragged him away. Their bravado evaporated, and they were screaming. Baldy shrieked in confusion and what I hoped was pain as they carried him away.

Good…little punks.

But I felt so weird all of a sudden. My thoughts couldn’t focus. My eyes began to blur. I sat down on the asphalt. Baldy had dropped the gun, I realized. Dropped it after it had gone off. It glittered, a cold yellow crescent of metal against the black ground.

I touched my stomach. My hands felt warm then, too warm, even as a chill ran through me.

What was…?

I stared up at the sky then, without warning, looking at the lack of stars, staring into the hazy gray expanse of a light-polluted night in the city. The yellow sun of the parking lot light was the only point in the smoke-colored sky.

My eyes didn’t close, not like I thought they would. Everything just turned grey, as if a slow fog had swept over the parking lot of Brookes National Bank and Trust. As if the nothing-grey of the corrupted sky had swollen and blotted out the whole of existence.

And as it did, I knew what was happening. Right then, I finally understood.

But I was so happy…

It wasn’t fair…

…what did I do wrong?

…nothing. I did nothing wrong…

No…

NO!

…this isn’t happening.

Chapter One

Two Days ’til

The sound of the bell ringing was audible candy. It was an ear massage. No—noise-joy. It made every muscle in my body go slack. My brain went first—it actually seemed to sigh as it let go of the math problem it had been grappling with. Goodbye, my friend. Adieu, fair Geometry. Peace out, punk.

I hopped out of my chair, one-shouldered my backpack, and jetted for the door. There wasn’t anyone I particularly liked in sixth period anyway. It was math—somewhere I slacked too far behind for my smart friends and excelled just too much for my… less smart friends.

In regards to math, I am the missing link of geometry. Euclid’s Sasquatch, they should call me. They don’t, though, because that’s a terrible nickname, and I wouldn’t answer to it.

As soon as I shot out of the door, the sun slapped me in the face. It was like emerging from a cave, in more ways than one. My skin yearned for the sunlight, sucked it up as it banished the clinging boredom. I felt everything one should feel when escaping math.

Then I felt someone crashing into me and hurling me to the ground.

I hit the concrete hard on my side, and pain shot through my hip and elbow. It took me a second to get my bearings. I was rarely tackled, and even less so outside of Geometry.

I looked up from the ground to see what I wish I hadn’t expected. Wanda, lying beside me, in a pile of goldenrod fliers. They fluttered around her in the gentle breeze, like tiny yellow birds trying to take flight. I clambered to my knees and helped her gather them up.

“I’m so—” Wanda said, but stopped when she turned to look at me, “Lu! Oh, I’m so sorry. I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to. I wasn’t even looking.”

She shook her head, sending her short spray of strawberry blonde hair dancing around her face. Wanda wasn’t pretty. She could be cute, with a makeover, maybe. Her face was too long, her hair too short, her body too skinny. Maybe it was her way of being that ruined everything—always cringing, always apologizing.

Still, she’d been at least a third-tier friend since both of us could read, and we’d been through a lot together. She wasn’t my coolest friend, but glass houses, you know?

“Wanda, calm down,” I said. “I’m fine.”

“You sure?”

I raised an eyebrow. “I’ll make it.”

We went to work scooping up the explosion of fliers. When we’d shuffled them into two neat stacks, I handed my stack to her and re-shouldered my backpack. Wanda looked even more nervous than usual, I noticed. Better try to trick her into telling me. She wasn’t famous for divulging.

I pointed at the stack of fliers in her hands.

“Winter Formal?”

The flier advertised Winter Formal in a fruity, almost gothic font. Two tiny clip-art dancers wheeled underneath the text. After the dancers, standing out in quotes, were the words, “Under the Stars.”

“Yeah,” Wanda said. She tucked a crescent of hair behind her ear, which immediately fell back out of place, “It’s coming up, you know.”

“I wouldn’t know,” I said. “There isn’t a date on the flier, honey.”

Wanda deflated. I felt like a rat for pointing it out, but it was better than being embarrassed later. Wanda needed group humiliation like I needed five pages of grammar homework.

“Oh crap,” Wanda said. “Oh crap!”

“I’m sorry.”

“Crap, Lu, I’m such a freak. I forgot the date.”

“Can’t you just go back and redo it?”

“Not today,” she said, “The ASB room is closed already. I was supposed to get these up yesterday, but I just spaced. I’m such a freak.”

Wanda looked at the stack of fliers like they’d betrayed her.

“What about Kinkos or something?”

“I don’t have the file. And I’m outta cash.”

“Let me see one?” I asked.

Wanda muttered something and handed me one of them.

“Hey, you know,” I said. “There’s kind of a space under the dancers but before the theme. If we space it out right on my printer at home, we can just open a new document, put the date in the right spot on an empty document, and use the fliers you already have as paper.”

Wanda brightened up, and she smiled up at me through her hang-dog expression. I remembered why I liked Wanda. She could be a sourpuss sometimes, but her joy was clean and contagious. I grinned back at her.

“You think it’ll work, Luce?”

“I really do,” I said. “Just come over anytime tonight.”

“You’re not on…a date or anything?”

Wanda always assumed I was some kind of social goddess, just by contrast with her own life. Though flattering sometimes, mostly it annoyed the crap out of me because it wasn’t even close to true. I thought of Zack, then I made a point not to.

“No,” I said. I don’t think I hid the annoyance in my voice very well. “Just come over whenever, okay?”

“Sure, sure,” Wanda said. She wasn’t pushing it, which told me she’d noticed my tone.

I wanted to apologize, but I was thinking of Zack now, which is my anti-purpose.

“Okay, see you later.”

I turned and walked away. What a bitch I am.

It was turning cold, something I relished. Atlanta High, typical of Southern California high schools, was an open-air campus, with only the occasional awning acting as a hallway between classrooms. Some people hated it—they’d seen too many high school movies with rows of lockers filling a crowded hallway. We didn’t even have lockers. I guess having a locker meant every kid would keep grenades in there or something.

That’s fine, I thought, tugging my backpack up higher. I’ll just charge my back problems to the State of California.

I walked across the little blacktop courtyard in the middle of the math wing and headed towards the parking lot. A gate near the gym emptied out into the massive parking lot. I joined the flood of humanity eking through a break in the chain link fence. I didn’t see anyone I knew—just a few school faces. People I’d been familiar with for years, but never actually spoken to. I’m sure they felt the same way about me.

My mom’s car, an electric green Honda hatchback I affectionately referred to as the Goblin mobile, wasn’t parked far away. I walked up to the passenger side and rapped my fist on the window. I couldn’t see her face from my angle, but she waved a hand at me. She knew the drill.

I set my backpack on the roof and leaned against the door. My hands slid into the pockets of my jeans. The cold was wonderful, but the wind still froze my hands into icicles. I wondered what it must be like to live in a place that snowed—I loved the cold, but if a California winter made me chill, I imagine I’m too big of a wuss to live anywhere else.

“Hey, Luce!”

I snapped my head around. Morgan appeared from the human exhaust valve that was the gym gate—I still had trouble swallowing the clump of hatred that popped up whenever I first saw her. I think I’m cute—not to blow my own horn. I have exotic-looking eyes, a good face, and an average body. But I’m arguably pretty, and certainly not what anyone would call hot.

Morgan was gorgeous. Long blonde hair, of course, fell in perfect waves around her chiseled face. Wide green eyes didn’t beat mine for more interesting, but definitely seemed to bring in the boys better. High cheek-bones, pouty lips.

Body like a twenty-three-year-old Hollywood actress playing a sixteen-year-old high school student, and the clothes to accentuate it. Tall.

I wanted to put my fist through her face sometimes. It didn’t help that as she appeared from the gate, she had a guy on each side of her laughing at something that probably wasn’t funny. Uck. They both had that puppy-dog look on their face.

They peeled off of her as she approached my mom’s car—no one wanted to be seen near the Goblin mobile. Morgan smiled and tossed her messenger-bag on top of the car’s roof. Even her backpack was cooler than mine.

“How’s it going?” Voice like honey. Why did I hang out with her? Was I masochist or something?

“Oh, you know, post-mathematic stress disorder,” I said.

“I hear they have a clinic for that,” Morgan said, and leaned against the car next to me.

“Disneyland?”

“Isn’t Knott’s cooler now?”

I shrugged, “Haven’t taken a poll in a while. Isn’t Knott’s just filled with freshmen boys trying to make out with junior high girls?”

“Point,” Morgan said, playing with her bottom lip, staring out into the rapidly filling parking lot. “I don’t think I can do Disneyland for a while.”

My heart sank. Getting high on twelve pounds of sugar and riding Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride was my favorite therapeutic outing. What could possibly keep her home? I thought of her deaf cousin Lance who visited sometimes, but usually he loved Disneyland just as much as we did.

“Why not?”

“Grounded.”

“Why? Since when?”

Morgan shrugged. “My mom found out about my detention yesterday. She grounded me via text message.”

“That’s just impersonal.”

Morgan had a detention for being late for the fourth time to Chemistry—she’d played off the detention to her mom by saying that she was staying after school to tutor a friend. Apparently the great parental phone chain had let Morgan down—it was a rookie mistake. She should have asked me to stay after school, too, thus corroborating her story. Morgan wasn’t stupid, despite what her appearance might suggest—but when it came to trouble, she was far too naïve. I think she thought, even subconsciously, that her looks would get her out of trouble. Granted, they usually did, but not where her parents were concerned.

When it came to mischief, she was the Watson to my Holmes.

“Describe this grounding to me. No going out tonight or no going out this week?”

“The second one.”

“What?” I nearly shouted. Morgan’s eyes went wide. “Sorry. I just mean, for one detention?”

Morgan sighed. “Mom is trying to crack down. She gave me the ole ‘if your father were here’ routine.”

Ouch. I didn’t like to think about Morgan’s dad—I couldn’t even imagine what it was like to have my dad run out to get groceries. In Alabama. Forever.

“That’s low,” I said.

“Yeah, whatever, I just want to get home,” Morgan said, grabbing her bag and reaching for the door. “Just don’t say anything to anyone.”

I nodded and grabbed my bag. I slid into the passenger side as Morgan got into the back. We closed the doors at the same time.

Mom sat behind the wheel, grooving along to a Beatles song. “Help,” I think. I didn’t share my mom’s love of the oldies—I liked them, but I think it was a nostalgia thing from my childhood. Mom and Dad used to blast oldies songs while they ate dinner, or cleaned, or…well, anything that didn’t require sound, really.

Mom had her Mom hair up into a tiny ponytail. She had the same nearly-black, straight as an arrow hair that I did, but she tended to keep it in a short bob. Her ponytail did little to hold up her hair—most of it still fell into her face. She was cute, and had only a little weight on me. Our major difference in appearance was relegated to height, mostly—I was a good four inches taller than her. From my super-tall dad, I imagine.

“Hey, Mom,” I said. “How’s it going?”

Mom turned the Beatles down, reluctantly, and shrugged. She put the car in reverse and glanced over her shoulder as she backed up.

“Oh, you know. I didn’t get off my shift until about an hour ago.”

“Wow,” Morgan said. “You look great for pulling a twelve hour shift without sleep.”

My mom smiled, “From you, that means almost nothing, dear. Thanks, though.”

Morgan blushed. She knew how pretty she was, but had somehow managed to avoid a good chunk of the arrogance usually implied by that. I imagine it’s because her transformation was recent—in junior high she’d been tall and skinny and unmistakably mannish. The un-clever nickname MorMAN had been stapled to her at that age. No one called her that anymore that I knew. Most of the bullies were too busy hitting on her now.

“What about you gals?” Mom asked.

“Okay,” Morgan began. “We vegged during volleyball. Coach Lark had cramps or something.”

Volleyball may have been part of her appeal, I thought. Boys loved a hot girl in tiny shorts. I rolled my eyes and leaned back in my chair. I would have slipped my ear buds on and drifted away to MP3 land, but my mom hated them and was just as likely to slap them out of my ears than ask me to take them off.

“Are you team captain yet, Morgan?” Mom asked.

“I’m only a sophomore, Mrs. D.,” Morgan laughed.

“Right, right,” Mom said. “I always forget that you’re the same age as my Lucy. You look so grown up.”

I longed for ear buds. Or a sharp hammer-blow to the temple.

“What about you, Luce?” Mom asked. “Your day?”

“Okay,” I said. “Do you mind if Wanda comes over later?”

Mom shrugged. Wanda was so vanilla-plain and unobjectionable that my requests to hang out with her were rarely denied, if even questioned. It was a fact I had yet to take advantage of, but something I’d long ago filed away for future use. I offered information anyway—it built good credit for the times I didn’t.

“Wanda needs to fix a bunch of fliers,” I said.

Mom nodded. Morgan leaned forward from the backseat.

“Mind if I come over, Mrs. D.?”

I shot Morgan a surprised look. Her eyes widened and snapped back to normal, and I took the hint. I sat back in my seat and pretended everything was cool.

“Sure thing, honey,” Mom said. “I guess we’re having a little party tonight.”

“Thanks, Mrs. D.,” Morgan said.

I didn’t turn around to look at her. I had no idea what she was up to, or why, but I decided to ride it out anyway. After a moment, Morgan spoke up again.

“I still need to swing by my place first, if that’s okay?”

Mom made a mmm-hmm noise, cranked up the Beatles, and pulled into the long line of traffic trying to escape Atlanta High. The Beatles told us that yesterday all our troubles seemed so far away. I didn’t bother asking another question.

We swung by Morgan’s mom’s mildly-crappy apartment—ever since her dad had left, she and her mom had been living pretty tight. Morgan was back to the car in minutes with a wide smile and an overnight bag—she must have begged or pleaded or thrown herself at her mother’s mercy something fierce.

Our house sat in an okay neighborhood—next to Morgan’s place, it felt positively palatial. Morgan had never made me feel guilty. In fact, when I brought my feelings up, she laughed them off. If jealousy ran through her brain very often, she didn’t show it. Which made me feel twice the rat for being so envious of her.

Mom pulled into the driveway, and Morgan and I jumped out of the car. She grabbed my hand and yanked so hard that I nearly forgot my backpack. Morgan ran me at the house like she was charging a castle—I only just got my keys out before she whipped me towards the door.

When we got inside, Morgan raced up the hallway stairs two at a time. Her energy was contagious, I couldn’t help myself. I darted up the stairs after her.

“Slow down or you’re gonna break your…”

My dad’s shout didn’t make it out of his office intact.

Morgan was already lying sideways across my bed when I got there. I closed the door behind me and leaned against it. I crossed my arms and let a suspicious look radiate off of me for a while. She gave me a smug smile, but I wasn’t breaking first. I busied myself by letting my eyes drift around my room.

A year ago, the room would have made me shudder. Candy-pink wallpaper hugging every wall. The huge cartoonish flowers on the print leaning drunkenly at me from every direction. Horrifying. It reminded me of Alice in Wonderland, and not in the good way. My mom and dad had decided to infect my room when I’d gone away to Outdoor Ed, and I’d returned to find my lovely room defiled. It had taken me three years to get them to recant.

I’d succeeded last year with the I’m in high school now argument. Even to them, pink and flowery was too much for any teenager to have to bear. Me, Morgan, Sara, and Daphne had raided the Home Depot for paint and equipment on Dad’s dime and made a weekend of redecorating.

Now the walls were a warm amber color that filled me with calm rather than pink terror. We’d even got my dad to sand my old white dresser and paint it black. Most of my furniture was black now, I noticed. Not emo black—classy black.

No posters of shirtless teenage heart throbs—that was Morgan’s room, no paintings—Wanda’s room, just pictures. My walls were coated with picture frames, and they spilled out onto my dresser, my desk, my bookshelf. My friends, most engaged in either ridiculous pose or ridiculous dress, looked out at me from every direction.

I sat down at my little corner desk to check my email when Morgan cleared her throat.

I rotated my office chair slowly, my fingers steepled in my lap. I did my best super-villain impression. Morgan tossed her bright pink cell phone to me. I caught it by virtue of luck.

“Read,” she said.

The phone displayed a text message, from…

Zack. My heart flip-flopped. My mouth went dry. I looked up at Morgan, who was still smiling.

“Read it!”

I glanced down again, but had trouble making out the small glowing letters. They were blurry, insubstantial. I shook my head and tried to focus. I glanced at the time—she’d received the text minutes ago. Maybe right when we climbed into Mom’s car.

Hey M. Going 2 the Set tomorrow night. You and friend should come. Bring Luce too. You down?

My heart didn’t flip-flop this time—it stopped. I sucked air that wasn’t nourishing enough, and what had to be a Helm’s Deep of butterflies raged in my stomach. Morgan was next to me all of a sudden, pulling me out of the chair.

“What does that mean, huh?” Morgan asked.

“I… I don’t know,” I said. My lips felt numb. “He wants a friend to come, too. Maybe it’s just a triple date or something.”

Morgan made a ‘that’s right, dumbass’ face.

“Oh. Oh! Do you think?”

She nodded.

“Doesn’t that seem kinda…forward? We barely talk to each other.”

“Maybe he’s nervous,” Morgan said. “He is somewhat unpredictable.”

“True,” I said. It’s one of the reasons for my quasi-obsession. “But we tried this last year.”

“Just flirting,” Morgan said. “That’s not anything.”

“Yeah, but we flirted like crazy,” I said. “And he never once asked me out.”

“Did he ask anyone else out?”

I frowned. I didn’t need her pity-logic.

“No, but that doesn’t mean anything.”

“It means everything,” Morgan said. “Maybe he’s not allowed to date or something.”

I bit my lip. It could be right—it certainly explained his reluctance.

“Maybe he’s allowed to date now that he’s a sophomore,” Morgan said.

“Maybe,” I said. “But he’s been a sophomore for a month and a half.”

“Give the guy a little time to work up some nerve,” Morgan said, turned, and shoved me at the bed.

I fell in a heap and threw my arms over my face. I wanted to agree with her—but agreeing with her meant surrendering my shields. It meant putting aside my cynicism and allowing hope in. But hope had fangs, something I’d figured out last year. Hope was great until it was ripped away, leaving a wound much deeper than loneliness could.

I looked up at Morgan, who stood triumphantly with her arms crossed over her chest. I wanted to hug her and punch her all at once.

“You’re grounded,” I said. “And whatever mind trick you pulled on your mom isn’t going to work for going to the Set.”

Morgan collapsed into my office chair and bit her lip. She made a hmmm sound, deep in her chest.

“What did you say to your mom, anyway?”

Morgan smiled, though her face still looked thoughtful and far-away.

“Just told her that you and me and Wanda were having a study party here,” she said. “And I told her I’d call her every hour from your house phone to check in.”

“Wow,” I said. “That’s not actually far from the truth. Still, how are you going to manage that miraculous feat tomorrow?”

“So you’re going?”

I dropped my arms back over my face. I wanted to vomit. Like, the actual urge to vomit gripped me. I took a deep breath, and Morgan squealed.

“If you can figure out your grounding, I’m in,” I said. Vomit. Here comes vomit.

Morgan tapped her chin, “I’m working on it.”

We burned a few minutes scheming, but gave up, temporarily, in frustration.

We watched old sitcom reruns in silence for a while, but I couldn’t focus. My mind wouldn’t settle on one topic—it jumped violently between possibilities that seemed both in reach and totally impossible.

I thought of Zack’s face, too. Well, the lip part of that face, specifically.

Wanda broke us out of our stupors with eyes full of tears. She burst into my room like a hurricane and slammed the door behind her. Morgan and I both sat up. Wanda collapsed to her knees, her arms tucked tightly against her chest.

Morgan and I exchanged glances, both paralyzed by the hysterics.

“Oh no…” Wanda moaned, her chin tucked against her chest.

I jumped off the bed and slid to her side. Dread twisted my stomach into a long chain of knots. When I put my hand on her shoulder, she jerked like I’d shocked her. She turned her long tear-streaked face up to mine.

“What’s wrong?”

Wanda shook her head and shot her eyes back to her navel.

“Wanda!” Morgan shouted.

Morgan jumped off the bed and knelt in front of her. She didn’t look sympathetic—she looked angry. I leaned back a little.

“Wanda, what is it?” Morgan demanded.

Wanda caught her tone, too, and looked up sheepishly.

“I’m s-sorry,” she said. “I know this is stupid. I feel so stupid for acting this way.”

“Don’t feel stupid,” Morgan said. “Just let us help.”

We sat in silence for a while, waiting for her to work up the courage. Finally, she sucked in a deep shuddering breath and turned her face up.

“It’s Tyler,” Wanda said.

I tried to hold my tongue, but the words came out before my brain could okay them.

“Tyler? Wanda! He’s a scum bag.”

Wanda’s lip trembled and her body threatened to shake apart. I felt awful—that was the second time that day I’d lashed out at her without thinking. Sometimes I wondered if I kept her around to beat up on. I’m an awful human.

Still, Tyler was a scum bag. Just a loser who Wanda was hung up on, primarily because he gave her the male attention no one else did. She wanted them to be dating, and maybe some twisted part of her thought they were—Tyler was content to ignore her in public and make out with her in private. Luckily, Wanda was either too smart or too shy to let him get away with anything more.

I did sympathize, somewhat. If Zack were meaner and showing interest in me, I couldn’t say I’d act any differently. Girls suck. Well, guys suck too, I guess.

Wow. Fifteen-years-old and already bitter. Time to sign up for the Cat-A-Month Club and buy blocky black shoes.

“You don’t know,” Wanda said. “He’s n-nice, when it’s just us.”

I rolled my eyes, and luckily Wanda wasn’t looking. Morgan punched me in the arm anyway. She hit hard, too—all that volleyball spiking made her arms into little skinny pistons.

“What did he do?” Morgan asked. Her anger was returning. Her voice shook with it.

This wasn’t the usual protective-friend-shtick. I gave her a questioning look, but her blank face betrayed nothing. Wanda stared at Morgan like she was the bad cop and Wanda had indeed killed her own husband with an icepick.

“N-nothing. Nothing like you’re thinking,” Wanda said. “He called me after school and told me that…I asked him if we were going to the Winter Formal or not. I didn’t think he’d want to, of course. I just wanted to know for sure, and I kind of hoped…”

Her chin went back to her chest like she had a magnet in her face and a steel ribcage. Which, is an odd simile, I admit. Morgan’s anger didn’t relent at the sight, but mine did. I felt only pity.

“Well, he said no. He pretended like we were nothing. He said he’s going with Lisa Barnes. Stupid, skanky Lisa Barnes.”

Wanda growled and slammed her shoulders against the door behind her. It cheered me up a little, I realized. I’m no psychiatrist, I thought, but her anger seemed good. Right. Plus, Lisa Barnes was a skank.

“I’m sorry, hon,” Morgan said. She leaned down and pulled Wanda into her arms. Wanda sank into them like she had no bones.

“You’re better off,” I said. “Plus, I’m sure I’ll be flying solo for the dance. Why don’t you go with me?”

Wanda peeked out from Morgan’s curtain of spun-gold hair and offered a smile that was in critical condition at best. I gave her a lop-sided grin.

“What do ya say? This is an exploding offer, honey-child,” I said, throwing on an awful attempt at a Southern drawl. “I can’t wait all day. So many offers, so many suitors. Enough to give a girl an awful case of the vapors.”

I fluttered one hand at my face and laid the other across my forehead. My inevitable collapse onto the plush carpet felt authentic, I thought.

“Oh, shut up,” Wanda said, her voice breaking. “Of course I’ll go. Just stop being Southern.”

When she calmed down, she disappeared into the bathroom for a good half-an-hour to regain her composure and reapply. Mom looked to be cooking up some delivery, so we helped her sort through the drawer of menus and traded them between each other like baseball cards.

While we waited for our delivery smorgasbord, Wanda and I fiddled with printer settings and page spacing while Morgan rifled through my bookshelf. Wanda and I only ruined two of the fliers before we got the printer worked out. It chugged away, making robot sounds as I went to help Morgan with her selection. As I reached for Garth Nix’s Sabriel, Morgan’s phone let out one high-pitched beep.

We gave each other very serious looks before we both leaned over the phone to see the message.

So u coming or not? Tell Lucy popcorn on me. If it helps. Bring Daph or Sara 2.

Morgan raised an eyebrow and brought up a reply box to send back. She stared at me with her victorious grin. It tugged my face into a big stupid smile before too long.

“What is it?” Wanda asked, turning on my big office chair.

Morgan cocked her head to the side. I nodded.

“Hey, Wanda,” Morgan said, looking over my shoulder. “What are you doing tomorrow night?”

“Um. Well, I planned on doing my laundry. I’m really behind and my mom stopped doing it for me last year because she says it builds character. I also have this Spanish project and—”

“We think Zack and a couple of his friends want me, you, and Luce to triple date at the Set tomorrow. Possibly.”

I glanced at Morgan—playing poker with her in Vegas was out.

Wanda’s eyes rounded.

“Oh, I don’t think I can go,” she said.

“Why not?” I asked.

“I still have to figure out me and Tyler and what—”

Morgan snapped, “Wanda. Where is Tyler right now?”

Wanda sighed, “He said he’s at the movies.”

“With who?” I asked.

“I’m not really sure—”

“Who is he at the movies with, Wanda?” Morgan asked.

“I mean I could guess—”

“Wanda,” I said. “Is Tyler at the movies with skanky Lisa Barnes?”

She paused a beat.

“Yeah.”

Morgan nodded and crossed her arms over her chest, “And where will you be tomorrow night?”

Wanda sighed, “At the Set, with Zack’s friend.”

Morgan beamed and threw her hands skyward. I gave a huge grin and jumped onto my bed. There it was, I realized. Hope. Hope was now officially curled around my heart, warming it with unimaginable heat even as it got ready to incinerate it completely.

I gave in. I threw my own arms up and let out a strangled cry of glee.

“Someone’s in love,” Morgan said.

“Oh, shush,” I said. “I think this is my first date.”

“First of many,” Morgan corrected. “You’ve got at least another ten years of dating in you, I imagine. Fifteen if you make it to thirty without snagging a rich investment banker.”

I gave her a face, “Don’t be a cliché. Plus, I have the rest of my life to worry about investment bankers.”

Chapter Two

One Day ’til

The next day at school I was on a mission.

Over dinner we’d planned strategy. Dad ate in his office—apparently too busy to join us. My mom listened to our war plans with a combination of amusement and genuine attention. She threw in a few ideas, and we incorporated almost all of them. Mom knew her stuff, I’ll give her that—she was the retired General to my up-and-coming Captain. Morgan was my Sergeant—in the trenches, ready to fight, determined to push us onward. Wanda hadn’t even made it out of boot camp.

And now I was heading for the front lines.

Mom dropped me off in front of Atlanta—not my usual insertion point. Normally I landed in the parking lot near the band room. My first period class was Journalism, in the Art quad. Still, the front wasn’t far, and it gave me valuable positioning. First, recon—the true sabotage wouldn’t begin until lunch, if all went well.

Morgan and I got out of my mom’s car and separated—we didn’t even give each other a parting look. She wasn’t a Drama-geek, but she had more than a few friends who were, and she made a beeline for the steps up to the auditorium. Benny, best friends with Zack, was her first target. Benny was president of the drama club, and even now sat on the steps of the auditorium, holding court in a circle of fellow thespians. Dark featured, black hair framing his face, Benny had a certain attractive quality. Still, his personality drove the point home better than his rail-thin body—Benny had charisma. He’d be a great lawyer, a better salesman, and the world’s worst spy. You couldn’t not notice Benny in the room. He made sure of it, in fact.

But I wasn’t heading that way. My vector angled for the primary target.

Zack.

I took a deep breath, cinched my backpack up, and sallied forth.

Teenagers flooded into the school like shambling zombies into a mall. I drifted through the sea with practiced ease—dodging other people being the native art form of the average high school student. Through the front gate, past the office, toward the library. I knew where Zack would be—anyone who’d met him knew where he’d be.

I thought about the odd, unbreakable predictability high school forces you into. Something about the immutable routine of classes and bells encourages you to hang out with the same people in the same spot every morning before class, every lunch, and after school. Shifting from one bench to another during lunch would cause bedlam—you’d invade other territories, reshuffle boundaries. Contradict the norm. Mass hysteria, in other words.

I had my school ID out before I even went inside the library—I flashed it to the assistant, who waved me through the turnstile. I took a moment to lament the picture on my sophomore ID—I looked like a cross between a slut and a maniac. Too-low shirt, rat’s-nest hair, abominable make-up, worse lighting. The fact that it had only been two months ago made it all the more depressing. And I had no explanation for the picture, either. It was just a really bad day to take a picture.

Most of the time, the library featured only one or two students wandering quietly through the stacks.

Now, before school, the library bulged with bodies. Students who didn’t do their homework, didn’t do the reading, or never even picked up their needed book in the first place spent their last few desperate minutes before the bell rang buzzing through the library. A press of students milled or sat around, searching or praying or working or all three.

I fit in just fine. I rushed to the periodical section and tugged a few magazines from the rack. It didn’t take long for the fishy to bite, and that fact alone nearly completed the first leg of the mission. When his hand touched my shoulder I almost jumped out of my sneakers.

“Sorry,” Zack said as I turned toward him, “didn’t mean to spook you.”

Zack looked down at me with azure eyes. His face was handsome, almost boyish, but his bright blue eyes drew my attention every time. They didn’t seem to fit his look—they were too intense for his friendly face, too bright for his tan skin. They begged to be stared at, to be swum in. I obliged without hesitation.

His hair, messy-spiked in the current fashion and deep brown, made him look even taller than he was, I realized. He stood above me by a solid six inches, which was inherently ridiculous—I wasn’t even remotely short.

He wore a solid white short-sleeved button down shirt and jeans. Nothing fancy, but the white shirt made his skin look even darker. His tan couldn’t have been sun-based, I realized—he spent more time indoors than I did. I wondered what ethnicity he was. Then I wondered how long I’d been gawking at him while he asked me the same question over and over.

“Are you okay, Luce?” He asked me, again.

“Fine, fine, sorry,” I said. “You just scared the heck out of me.”

“Heck?” Zack asked, half-smiling.

I frowned, “Being a sailor isn’t cool. I am a lady.”

Zack’s half-smile ripened into a full one. His lop-sided grin made my stomach start doing gymnastics. Stupid girl. Clamp down.

“Not wrong there,” Zack said. “Whatcha looking for?”

He gestured to the stack of magazines in my hand. I flipped through them and shrugged.

“Forgot my Journalism assignment,” I said. I hadn’t, of course. “Needed an article to comment on.”

“Ah,” Zack said, and held up a newspaper, “There’s a good one in here about gangs.”

I made a face. “Seriously? Is that still a thing?”

Zack shrugged. “I guess no one’s told them how unfashionable gangs are.”

He wasn’t joking. He actually looked a little annoyed.

“Oh come on,” I said. “It was a joke. I’m just saying you don’t hear about gangs very much anymore.”

Zack nodded. My insides did a triple somersault. A 9.5, I imagine.

“So, uh, what brings you to the ole libraria?” I said in my best Spanish accent, which is also my worst Spanish accent.

I knew the reason he was in the library, but it didn’t hurt to reaffirm. Or to drive over a couple small-talk speed bumps before hitting the scary-talk freeway going eighty.

“Biblioteque,” Zack corrected, still smiling. “Just like to catch up on the paper before class.”

He waggled the newspaper in his hand again.

“You know,” I said, “I don’t know anyone our age that reads the newspaper.”

“Besides me?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yes, besides you.”

Zack smirked. “Well, I’m special.”

I agreed, but I wasn’t exactly going to admit it then and there. Maybe it was a little old-school, but I preferred to be the chased, not the chaser. Still, it was hard with him looking into my eyes like that not to just blurt out “I love you,” sling my arms around him, and tear his lips off with mine.

I took a deep breath. Whoa, girl.

“Does your mom tell you you’re special?”

“Constantly,” Zack said. “So, worst-segue-ever, by the way, are you going to the movies tonight? With us, I mean.”

My well-arranged cocky/flirty smile disintegrated. I was ready to play cat and mouse, and he was playing, well, dog. Straight to the point. I gathered myself together as fast as I could and gave a non-committal shrug. I’d been ready to play out his intentions, to see if he really wanted me to go or just wanted someone to go. The eager look on his face blew my spy attempts out of the water.

Raw excitement shot through my body like an electrical current. Calm down, Lucy. Play it coolish.

“Well, I want to,” I said. “But Morgan is technically grounded. We’re still scheming a way out of it.”

Zack frowned, “She’s grounded? Wasn’t she at your house last night?”

Warning, warning. Why the hell did I bring up Morgan? When trying to flirt with dream guy, mentioning goddess-like, super-hot, best friend is off-limits. Now he was thinking of her. Hell, I was thinking of her. Brilliant.

“Well, yeah,” I said. “But she was studying. She had to call her mom from my house phone every hour.”

“Every hour?” Zack whistled. “Did she hit a nun with a shovel or something?”

I explained her situation. He nodded along and finally gave that long low whistle again.

“Well, that’s not so tough,” Zack said. “If you have a crazy friend.”

I had Daphne. No one crazier.

“Okay,” Zack said, and glanced around. “Sit with me and I’ll tell you my idea.”

My heart did a drum roll on my ribcage. But right as I opened my mouth to accept his invitation with whole-hearted glee, the loud electronic wail of the bell blasted through the library, through the school. Turned my excitement into ash.

“Crap,” Zack said. “What about lunch? Meet me at lunch?”

I swooned. I didn’t even know I was capable of swooning. In fact, my grasp of swooning mechanics might be described as loose. Still, I felt something that seemed to fit into that category pretty well. Wow. Just since yesterday I’d gone from cynical teenage girl-about-town to dumb-struck, marble-mouthed puppy dog. I hate hormones.

I nodded my affirmation, mostly because I didn’t come close to trusting my mouth. It might have spazzed and said “your eyes are like blue fire,” or “do you mind if I nibble your earlobe?” and then I would have to kill myself.

“Okay,” Zack said. “You still sit by the statue?”

I nodded again. It was too early in the day for making a fool of myself.

“All right, peace.”

Zack turned and bolted through the turnstile and out of the library. The Devil would show up for Sunday mass before Zack would be late to class. I realized by all technical definitions Zack was either a nerd or a goody-goody, but his casual confidence, not to mention boyish good looks, seemed to make him label-proof. I couldn’t call him a geek and make it stick anymore then I could call him a saucepan or a lima bean.

I went to Journalism with a spring in my step and my books clenched tight to my chest. I know I looked like an idiot, but no power I possessed could scrape the atomic grin from my lips. I think it was visible from space.

I didn’t have any article in Journalism to comment on—in fact, I’d already finished both of my articles for the school paper that month. As was usually the case, the fast writers finished up within days and sat around playing Text Twist or surfing the internet while the slower or lazier writers stared at their monitors in either terror or apathy.

I spent most of the period thinking about either Zack, the movies, or Zack at the movies. In other words, I was disgusting.

I went through second period World History with a slightly more active mindset. I enjoyed history because it was real life without all the boring parts. Edited for maximum excitement.

I left the class feeling even springier.

I met Morgan on the way to English. She swept up next to me on one side while Wanda angled in from the other. We joined together like any veteran flock of birds.

“So?” Morgan asked. Her eyes were wide in excitement.

“Well…” I said, enjoying the moment. “Let’s just say it was not a blanket invitation.”

“You think he digs you?” Wanda asked.

“Outlook is good,” I said.

My grin split even wider. I felt like the top of my head was going to hinge off of that smile and I’d be looking upside-down behind me.

I have weird thoughts.

Ms. Fleece was already scribbling on the whiteboard when the three of us swept into English as nearly one entity.

“What about Benny?” I asked. “Any info there?”

“Mostly confirmation,” Morgan said. “Zack seems to have gotten over The Weirdness last year.”

The Weirdness was our codename for the awkward, hot-and-cold, non-relationship Zack and I had last year. It was everything bad about a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship with none of the good. Mostly just idiosyncratic jealousy, territoriality, and longing glances. No one asked anyone out—we never really held hands or touched each other. We weren’t technically anything. Blah. The Weirdness haunted my dreams.

Still, if The Weirdness really had ended…

Daphne and Sara were in their usual seats, just beside ours. Sara—black, pretty, perfect-skinned—possessed the sort of annoying physique that went with being an avid softball player. Daphne was wearing a floral-print dress that complimented her olive skin and a pair of black combat boots that did not. She must have been mid-rant when we entered—a circle of students were turned to face her, but she shooed them off and looked up at me. A smile transformed her face into something heart-shaped and vaguely adorable.

“Did I hear Zack?” Daphne said, and I groaned.

Sara sat up, “Can we talk about Zack again?”

“No,” I said.

“Yes,” Morgan said, and I made a real concerted effort not to strangle her. Judas.

Morgan filled them in on the details about the sudden and inexplicable intrusion of Zack back into my life. As soon as they heard about The Plan, they clamored for a resolution.

“Well,” Morgan said, “Benny caught on pretty quickly to my intentions. He said Zack loves when your hair is down and also when you wear boots.”

“Thanks, but I don’t take fashion advice from Benny,” I said. “He wears all black and skinny jeans.”

“Technically it’s fashion advice from Zack,” Wanda corrected.

I flashed her a betrayed look.

“Skinny jeans are in, you know—” Sarah began.

“No,” Daphne snapped. “They make your feet huge and your butt enormous.”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” I said.

“Swell,” Ms. Fleece said.

When I looked up, I realized Ms. Fleece had been standing in front of Daphne’s desk for some time, listening in. I clamped my mouth closed and felt my face go bright red.

“Sorry, Ms. Fleece,” Morgan whispered.

Ms. Fleece stared down at Daphne, who flashed her thousand-watt smile.

“Cute,” Ms. Fleece said. “Get your book out, Ms. Karras. You do remember books, right? English?”

I laughed, but Ms. Fleece turned her glare on me and I pulled out Lord of the Flies like I was a gunslinger at high noon.

“Good, good,” Ms. Fleece said, “Page fifty-six. Ms. Karras and Ms. Day can trade reading out loud for the rest of the class.”

I groaned and slumped in my chair. This was going to be a long fifty-five minutes.

Fourth period Art went more smoothly than English, but it was just me and Wanda and I can’t imagine I was great company. My brain vibrated in my skull, half-formed thoughts and hopes zinging through it. The static made thinking impossible—thirty minutes into the class my sketch of a fruit bowl consisted of a half-circle and a straight line. My pencil ticked back and forth in my hand, in time with the clicking of the broken cog in my mind that turned all of my engines back toward Zack. I knew how repulsive I was being, but I couldn’t help it.

I hadn’t thought of Zack in so long, the breaking of my Zack-embargo was like driving a metal spike through a dam. All the built up water exploded through the tiny crack and drowned me in a river of stupid.

The lunch bell bleated too quickly. I looked up, stunned, sporting what had to be cow-face. Wanda transmitted quiet annoyance on all channels.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Don’t apologize so much,” Wanda said, mimicking my own words to her. It wasn’t terribly funny.

“Cute,” I said. “Walk me to lunch and tell me something inflammatory. I mean really piss me off.”

“Why?”

“You know, like, an emotional slap in the face. To wake me.”

“Can’t I just…really slap you?”

I gave her a sideways glance, “We’ll see how bad it gets.”

“Okay,” Wanda said, and her tone made me wonder whether she was joking or not.

As we left the class, Wanda turned toward me, her face blank.

“The sweater I borrowed from you last week got stained with spaghetti sauce.”

I sucked in a tight, high breath. Wanda grabbed my arm and led me out of the door.

The lunch crowd was assembled in the quad in their usual spots.

We lunched on a low wall in the shade of blocky juniper bushes, next to the central statue of Johnny Rebel, our anachronistic, out of place, but much beloved mascot. The "we" never changed—Daphne, Sara, Morgan, Jamie, and Will. They were in their usual configuration. I thought again about the odd mechanical sameness of high school.

Wanda broke off from me and skirted toward our group. Her speed and strange backward glance made me halt. It was the same look the guy in the toll booth gave Sonny Corleone before hitting the deck.

“Wow,” a voice said behind me, making me jump. “I didn’t suddenly turn into the Hulk did I?”

I turned around. Zack stood just behind me, his hands in his pockets. I gave him a wide, if admittedly brainless, smile. He returned it with his patented half-smirk.

“Why? Why do you ask?”

“Wanda ran away like I was going to grind her bones to make bread.”

“Are you?”

Zack shrugged, “I prefer tortillas. Mind if I take a seat?”

“With,” I said, but choked it off. My voice was abnormally high, and so I dropped it back down again, “With the guys?”

I waved over my shoulder toward the girls.

“Sure,” Zack said.

I hated him for a second right then—Zack never seemed nervous. If he didn’t like me, then he didn’t mind putting me in an awkward situation. If he did like me, then he had the poker face of a world champ. Ugh.

I led Zack over to the group, trying not to look freaked out and thus broadcasting my freak-out on all channels. Morgan and Wanda picked up on it—they flashed me tiny sympathetic smiles. Daphne had her hands over her head and her voice raised in anger, talking to Jamie and Will. She wouldn’t have noticed a cow bell around my neck. Sara seemed as enthralled with her fervent speech as the boys were.

“Hey, guys,” I said. “Zack has a proposal.”

I gestured to him like Vanna White and stepped aside. He gave me an unreadable look and took a step forward. Daphne stopped mid speech and turned. Sara and the boys followed suit.

“Well,” Zack said. “I heard the plight of fair Morgan.”

He pointed an open hand at her, and I felt blood pulse behind my eyes.

“And I have a fairly unorthodox but unquestionably exciting plan. Who’s in?”

Daphne’s hand shot up toward the sky. Sara gave Zack an incredulous look, and Morgan raised her hand with marked reluctance. Neither Jamie nor Will looked excited by another male stalking up to their pack.

“I need at least three,” Zack said, turning to me. “For a consensus.”

I raised my hand at the wrist—my arm didn’t leave my side.

“All right,” Zack said. “Daphne, how well can you climb a trellis?”

Daphne flashed a wide smile and sat up.

“I already love this plan,” she said. “I’m for it. I’m totally for it.”

I shook my head, and we all crowded around Zack to hear his scheme. Zack tucked in close to me as he talked, his right side pressed up against me. My fears for the plan vanished. Then again, I didn’t hear most of it either, and my excitement probably wasn’t related to Zack’s strategic mastery, but I didn’t care. I listened to his voice, stared at the ground, and focused as hard as I could on the closeness of his body.

I knew right then, that tonight would be the happiest night of my life. The irony is that it was.

Chapter Three

Waking Up Is Hard to Do

The preparations for the night went in a blur. Hair, makeup. The skirt Benny talked about, the boots. I didn’t care about the source of the fashion advice anymore. I didn’t care about anything. I was the center of the universe—I was a flaring star in the night, burning brighter as I neared the explosive finale I had no comprehension of.

Morgan and Wanda were at my house after school. We all dressed and glammed up together, giggling, and laughing in fits of nervous energy. Daphne showed up before long, her route slightly alternative—she climbed through my second-story window with aplomb. Give it to Daphne for commitment. Black combat boots, black fatigue pants, a tight black tank top, and a long black coat with the hood tugged up around her  pixie face. A small black backpack completed the outfit.

“You’re so dead, Lucy,” Daphne said.

“What?” I said to her.

“In trouble, silly.”

“What?”

“Oh forget it.”

I only gave her a few seconds of stare, to her credit. It wasn’t the strangest Daphne-occurrence, not by a mile. I shook it off and thought about the plan.

The plan enlisted Daphne as the phone-ninja—Zack’s phrase—and it was her job to connect a three-way-call from my house. Daphne would sacrifice her night and stay hidden in my bedroom, so my parents wouldn’t catch wise. She would then call Morgan on my house phone and then make a three-way call with Morgan’s mom. In theory, the plan was solid.

“And if there are any complications, I’ll text you on my new…phone, oooooh!”

Daphne produced the thing, a shiny silver touch-screen phone. I rolled my eyes at her.

Benny, on account of his junior-ness, picked us up in his mom’s minivan. Not the coolest ride, but spacious and certainly more effective than the Shoelace Express. Morgan had her permit, but that wasn’t terribly helpful in any situation that didn’t involve driving her mom to the grocery store.

The front seat was empty—it looked like our fates were predetermined. Zack sat alone on the bench behind Benny, and their friend Marco sat alone behind Zack. When the sliding door rolled open, Benny’s voice ratcheted up to its usual explosive volume.

“Morgan! How do you feel about shotgun?”

I glanced at Morgan, and she hid her surprise well. Benny and Morgan had been friends for years, and he’d never shown any signs of interest. Well, any abnormal signs of interest. Where Morgan and her Aphrodite looks were concerned, the distinction was necessary.

“Sure,” she said, and slid into the front seat.

I hopped in next to Zack. It was an impulse—most of me wanted to stand there until he invited me up, but something in me, the part that yearned for caution, had broken. I clicked the seat belt in place and gave him a sideways glance.

His brow was crinkled and his tan skin sported a light sheen. Everything else about him was normal, but the look on his face was only shocking because of its uniqueness—Zack was nervous. Part of me thrilled at the thought of seeing behind his calm façade—part of me quailed in terror. To know that maybe it wasn’t all in my head. The thought was crazy, but I’d wanted Zack for so long that I think I was afraid of what would happen if I actually got him.

Wanda slid timidly into the seat next to Marco. Neither of them looked ready to be on a triple date, and shared identical looks of tension.

“Get the door, Luce?”

I reached out and trundled the big sliding door closed. Right as it whumped shut, I felt Zack’s fingers slide over mine against the seat cushion. My breath caught with a jagged gurgle. Wait.

The feeling of his hand on mine—

Wait.

When I turned to look at him, I felt the hot explosion in my stomach, a would-be-rapist’s bullet slinging through my body—

Wait.

Zack smiled at me. I touched my stomach, where hot blood oozed through the ragged hole in my shirt and welled up through my fingers. Zack’s smile didn’t falter as I raised my red fingers to the sickly yellow light streaming down from the streetlight overhead.

No. I shook my head. I was in a van, not an alley. On my way to the movies.

The light streaming through the windows gave the blood a maroon tint. It all seemed so unreal—

It is unreal, Lucy.

—that I felt a strange urge to smell it, or taste it. The pain in my chest quadrupled, and Zack’s face began to sag. Finally he noticed the blood, and he cocked his head to the side.

“Luce?”

“I’m… fine.”

“I think you’ve been shot, Luce,” Zack said to me, his eyes glancing toward the ground. “I think you’re dead, Luce.”

“No,” I said. I tried to wipe the blood on the front of my skirt, “No.”

“It didn’t happen like this, did it?” Zack asked me, the sad puppy-dog tone breaking my heart.

“No,” I said, and I felt my traitor’s voice breaking. “You held my hand last time. We watched some dumb action movie. You kissed me inside the theater in front of everyone. You told everyone we should date.”

I laughed, despite the catch in my throat, “You polled the audience.”

“What did they say?”

“Most people said we looked cute together,” I said. “One guy called you gay.”

“What did you say?”

“You know what I said,” I said. “I kissed you back.”

Zack smiled. “Yeah. I thought so. That’s much better. Better than this.”

I nodded and felt tears spill over and slide down my cheek.

Benny turned around, and Morgan too, but both of them faded into encroaching darkness. Morgan’s mouth was open—she tried to talk before the shadows stole her away. I heard Wanda make a little squeak behind me, and when I turned around, she was gone, too.

“Why are they leaving?”

Zack smiled again. A melancholy smile. An angel’s smile, I realized—beautiful, wise, but infinitely sad. Like he knew the course of the universe and wept at its passing.

“We’re all leaving,” Zack said, and leaned forward.

When his lips touched my forehead, I knew. They weren’t warm, they weren’t solid. It felt like wind brushing the hair out of my eyes. It felt nothing like the kiss in the movie theater. It felt nothing like the heady rush, the warmth of his lips, the taste of his sweat.

“I’m dying?”

The rest of the van faded away into darkness, until Zack and I sat on a disembodied bench seat in the abyss. My feet dangled over nothing. Maybe everything. I took a deep, rattling breath, waiting for his answer.

“Yes.”

“I love you,” I said.

“I know,” he said, and kissed my forehead again. Nothing this time. Not even the gentle breeze. “Stand up, Luce.”

I did. My feet touched asphalt this time. The abyss was gone—we floated in a pool of yellow light, in an alley behind a dead office building. He held me to him, like dancing, and then he dipped me. We stayed there for a long time, him holding me just above the ground, looking down at me.

Then it wasn’t Zack anymore. Just a black shadow in the shape of Zack. The shape I loved so much. He let me down the last foot to the asphalt, slowly, gently, cradling my broken body draining rapidly of strength. When he set me down and stood up straight, I could barely even feel the jagged rock beneath me. I felt nothing, in fact.

“Buh…”

I couldn’t even form the word before the shadow winked out of existence.

I had no more tears to cry, I realized. Nothing but the slow pulse of my blood leaking out onto a dirty parking space. Then I went cold. Then I died.

Light. Welling. Heat.

Fire.

Hell?

No.

Warm.

Content?

Drained away.

Drained away like a gas tank, like a pile of firewood.

A hungry flame took everything in its greedy mouth and swallowed it whole.

My eyes fluttered open again.

“What?” I whispered.

Overhead, the baleful yellow light glared down at me. I felt my fingers curl against the asphalt, raking my fingertips with jagged lines of pain. My butt felt flattened and sore—my spine felt like it had been stretched over a pile of broken glass. The back of my head, resting against the ground, felt raw and sensitive, and every tiny motion of my body sent an ache through my skull.

Blue above me. Daytime blue. The golden light wasn’t the streetlight—it was too warm now, amber instead of perverse yellow. A cloud floated in the bright blue sky just above me, in the shape of a rabbit, or maybe one of those fat little pug dogs. I blinked. I raised my hands to rub my eyes against the glaring light.

I sucked in a breath and touched my stomach. I sat up, ignoring a racking stiff pain in my back, and looked down.

My shirt was still torn and stained with blood. I grabbed the edges of the hole and tore. The fabric ripped easily, revealing my bare stomach. Brown, dried blood flaked off of my stomach with the movement, but most of it clung tightly to my skin. I shuddered and probed at my abdomen with trembling fingers. I felt no sudden stab of pain, no aching sickness.

I touched where the hole that took my life should be. Smooth skin, beneath the blood. No scar, no puckered skin, no gaping maw. Just nothing. Just me.

Alive?

My eyes began to adjust to the day, and I turned my head to either side of me. Just parking lot, the office building with its empty, dark windows. In the distance, over the hedges that lined the parking lot, I could see chunks of the Set’s landscape against the sky.

I sat up, slowly at first, expecting some rush of agony or wave of dizziness, but I felt nothing. Nothing beyond the norm, anyway. I touched my stomach again, ran my fingers harder across the skin. Trying to find the pain. Some part of me wanted it to be there. Some sign, other than the blood, that it all wasn’t some dream.

But I felt nothing, other than my fingers and the crusted blood and a nagging terror that I was about to wake up.

I checked my pockets—I had my phone, my wallet, my keys. If I’d been robbed, someone had done a pretty crappy job. I turned my phone over and pressed the menu button. The screen didn’t light up. Dead. I made a sound in the back of my throat that I only just recognized as a stifled laugh.

Without it, I didn’t even know the time. I stared up at the sky, trying to read it like I knew what I was doing. I guessed noon by the height of the sun, but I’d never even been a Brownie as a little girl. I liked camping and the outdoors, but a wild trailblazer I was not. I insisted on an inflatable mattress every time, in fact.

I stood, again expecting the wash of dizziness. Nothing. As I cleared the hedges blocking my view, I could see the gigantic parking lot encircling the Set was only mildly full. Saturday morning wasn’t the busiest time—it certainly wasn’t the chaotic swarm of a Friday night.

Something glittered on the asphalt when I moved my head. I looked down. A small revolver sat on the ground, looking pathetic and cast-off. It didn’t even frighten me, I realized—in fact, I smirked. So much for the dream theory.

I knelt, and my bare knee scraped the asphalt. I barely noticed. Against the advice of every TV cop show I’d ever seen, I picked up the little gun and turned it in my hand.

It looked old, out-of-repair. It looked like a dad’s gun, absconded by a punk kid. My old shooting range sessions with my dad, another self-defense insistence, came back to me without too much trouble. I slid the small metal catch toward the grip, and the cylinder popped open.

I pushed the ejection rod, and the bullets all clattered onto the asphalt. Except one. One made a bright, hollow tinging sound before it came to rest. Five little cartridges stood out against the blacktop—the sixth was empty. Sans-bullet.

I touched my stomach again. I pinched the empty cartridge between two fingers and held it up to my eyes. Small, brass, insignificant. It didn’t even smell like powder anymore. I dropped it into my coat pocket, scattered the rest of the bullets with my foot, and kicked the revolver toward the hedges. It didn’t make it, but I didn’t care. The urge to hide my own murder wasn’t particularly strong.

I started walking. I knew I should stop, reflect, think. Check myself again, check more thoroughly. I heard about shock—I knew some people could keep fighting with their guts hanging out or whatever, but this didn’t seem to fit. I didn’t think shock made you hallucinate that you’d healed completely and survived both a gunshot wound and an entire night of unsupervised blood loss.

I kept my eyes forward, and my mind empty.

I left the office grounds and crossed the huge parking lot in a pleasant daze.

When I stepped up onto the sidewalk around the mall, after a Moses-like exile in the parking desert, I realized people were staring at me. The first couple I’d ignored—I had other things on my mind. It wasn’t until the third person passed by, staring at what looked like my chest in naked shock, that I put their confusion together.

I glanced down. My shirt was torn open into a pop star-like midriff-exposing masterpiece. The only thing ruining the image was the smear of dried blood streaking my belly. My eyes popped open, and I tugged my coat closed and buttoned it up to my chest. I groaned—further proof that no dream had taken place, and that no insanity spared my brain from some trauma. Other people were starting to notice it too—a special brand of crazy, if there was one.

I wondered briefly about hallucinating that people were staring at me, but that road lead to darkness. If my brain could dream up the people around me, then I was so deep into schizophrenia that I didn’t have to worry about it. Once you become so crazy, I guessed, everything becomes real. No use in nit-picking.

My eyes drifted across the small groups of people wandering through the brightly-decorated alleyways and streets of the Set, an outdoor mall designed as one-part maze, one-part Disneyland, and too-many-parts high school. Most people, this early on Saturday, looked to be married couples angling to beat the crowds. Only a few teenagers wandered the sidewalk, and most of them looked confused and kind of sad, like the zombies in Dawn of the Dead.

My second zombie reference in as many days. Both teenage references too. I wondered if I had something going there.

I watched them all with a distant kind of haze creeping through my body—I felt oddly warm, and yet my mouth felt cold, like before a really good regurgitation. My fingertips tingled, and I felt an ice water trickle dripping down my back. The skin of my arms and chest and face radiated heat. When I touched my fingers to my cheek, it felt like I was storing hot coals in my mouth. I pinched my tongue with two fingers, a rather strange inspection, I admit, and it burned, too.

What the hell?

The symptoms began to creep into my body not long after I entered the mall and the further I walked, the deeper into the mall, my feverish heat only escalated. I wasn’t sweating, but I should have been—it felt like the middle of summer had risen from the grave to throw its angry radiance on me and me alone. Some of the people around me were wearing jackets.

I wanted to climb out of my coat, but that wasn’t gonna happen, not with the I-killed-a-hobo blood streaking my body. That and the shirt that I’d torn open was whorish and tacky. A minor concern, I realized, but it didn’t change my mind at all.

The ice water sluicing down my back became colder as my skin began to blaze. I thought about hot flashes, and I snorted. I was a little young for menopause, magic bullet be damned.

My fingers touched the cold brass casing in the pocket of my coat. I felt a very real, very normal chill. I pulled my hand out of my pocket like I’d discovered a snake in my coat.

Before I could ponder my symptoms any longer, a hand seized my wrist and tugged me out of my musings.

“Wuh—?”

My eyes snapped first to the wrist of my assailant, and then to his face. Before the flight or fight instinct could even begin to take hold, the fires of defiance died. Smothered, in fact, by a shiny nickel badge pinned to a dark blue shirt.

“Excuse me, miss,” the cop said. “Can I see your ID?”

He released my wrist almost instantly—I think he counted on his badge to do the rest of the work.

“S-sure,” I said.

I dug through the pockets of my coat, and my mind did cartwheels when I felt the bullet casing. I didn’t think it was illegal to carry an empty shell around, but my hammering heart wasn’t sure.

I fished my California ID, another insistence of my over-protective father, out of my black-and-rhinestone wallet and handed it to the cop. He took it in one hand. His eyes were unreadable under black glass, and his face was stone.

“Lucy Day?”

I nodded.

“Would you mind coming with me?”

“N-no,” I said. The heat inside me blossomed, like I’d just chugged a pot of scalding coffee and jumped into a lobster pot. I bit my lip and tried to imagine what a tub full of ice cubes would feel like.

I followed him through the Set, failing miserably to ignore the stares of a hundred looky-loos. A cop in the mall wasn’t a fascinating concept. A cop dragging an errant, bedraggled-looking teenager to a cop car was always good for a rubberneck.

His car hugged the front curb, and he gestured for me to lean against it.

I did. He looked me up and down, consulted something in his leather-bound notepad, and then handed me a slip of paper.

It was a printout, on normal computer paper. A picture of me and Zack and Morgan all striking ridiculous poses. Morgan’s fingers mimicked snail antenna behind her head, Zack had a growly look on his face, and I was cross-eyed. Benny had taken that picture on his cell phone the night before. Of course. Of course that’s the picture they gave to the police. I looked like an idiot.

“This is you?” he asked me.

I glanced up at him to see if he was joking. I was wearing the exact same clothes in the picture, and my hair hadn’t changed a bit. I nodded.

“Yes,” I said, with a reluctant sigh.

“Your parents and friends have been searching for you since dawn—they were worried about finding your body in a gutter.”

I nodded, numb. I hadn’t thought about that. The thought of Zack and the others—what they must have thought when I disappeared. They’d all gone into some stupid sign shop, and I’d gone to the bathroom across the way. When I’d run into the Idiots-Five, I’d been alone. None of my friends had any idea what had happened to me.

And Mom and Dad. I felt my face go white.

“You look afraid,” the cop said. I looked up at his badge—Sykes. Of course. Such a cop name.

“I am,” I said.

“Good,” Sykes said. His granite face hadn’t changed, but the tone in his voice was disgust.

“I didn’t run off,” I said. Despite the worry for my friends and family, I felt a bright red point of anger in my chest. “I wasn’t off with some boy or something. I was attacked. Thank you for your concern.”

Sykes straightened immediately—the casual, teacher-like posture of his body sprang into a soldier’s pose. Still, his movements were measured, without haste, as he opened up his leather notepad again and snapped a pen from his shirt.

“Your name?”

“What?”

“Name?”

I sighed, “Lucy Abigail Day.”

“Age?”

“Don’t you know this?”

“Age?”

“Fifteen.”

It went on until he’d acquired all of my apparently relevant data. Then he picked up his radio, something I thought he should have done a while ago, and spat a series of codes, the fact that he’d found me, and his current location. I sat against the cop car while he sent a request to terminate the amber alert. I recognized that, at least. It meant a kid had gone missing or been abducted. I sighed. My parents were thinking the worst.

But what had happened? Hadn’t the worst happened?

Had I just…recovered?

“Who attacked you?” he asked.

“Aren’t you calling my parents?”

“It’s already been done. I told them I’m on my way with you.”

“What about my friends?”

“I imagine your parents will call them,” Sykes said. “Who attacked you?”

I sighed and painted a loose, watercolor version of the truth. Five guys—I gave him good descriptions of only the guy who caught up with me first, the bald guy, and Fatty. None of the rest of them had stood out, beyond being total creepers. I explained I’d been a little too freaked out to whip out my camera phone, which didn’t exactly quell Sykes’ pissed-off tone. I told him about the gun, and from there I veered into true pants-on-fire territory.

“I don’t think he wanted to shoot me,” I said. “We struggled, and then. He hit me. On the head.”

“Where?”

Panic. I took a deep breath.

“The back of my head.”

Sykes gestured for me to turn around.

“Could you hold your hair out of the way, ma’am?”

I felt for the raw patch, rubbed red by the asphalt, and prayed to Oprah that it would fool him. I split the hair around the back of my skull to give him a better look.

“Hmm.”

“What?”

“And then what happened?”

I shrugged, “I woke up in the parking lot.”

“What parking lot?”

I told him the name of the office building. His pencil scribbled long graceful A-plus penmanship lines into his pad.

“Were you sexually assaulted?”

My breath caught in my throat.

“Wuh…”

The officer’s face softened. He tugged off his glasses and slipped them into the pocket of his shirt.

“Sorry,” he said, pale blue eyes staring into mine. “Were your clothes in disarray, any pain or discomfort?”

“No, no,” I said, and that was true. Not from lack of trying—those bastards probably thought I was too dead to party with. They were like real knights in that way. “I think…I think they freaked out. Thought I was dead, I don’t know. They didn’t seem like experts. Or human. Or subhuman—”

“Anything stolen?”

“No,” I said.

“How does your head feel?”

“Fuzzy,” I said. “But it doesn’t hurt very much.”

He nodded, his pencil flying.

“I think it’s time to take you home, let you rest,” Sykes said. He reached over to pop the back door open. I climbed into it.

He moved around the car and slid into the driver’s seat. I noticed his ink-black glasses were already back on his face, and his nothing expression had returned.

“I don’t need to go to the station, or the hospital, or—?”

“Do you feel like you need to go to the hospital?”

“Not really.”

“And I’ve got the information I need. We’ll be calling you with more information or questions.”

Sykes keyed in his car radio and spat out the short version of my story, and the location of the parking lot where I’d been attacked. Another patrolman squawked back that he’d check it out. My chest boomed like a cannon. They’d find the gun in seconds, find it open. Find a bullet missing.

Sykes put the car in drive and pulled away from the curb.

There’d be no bullet casing. I knew they could tell when a gun had been fired, but without the casing they’d have no evidence of anything. And without a bullet, wherever the hell that had gone, they’d just guess the gun had been emptied. At the very least, the story I’d told the cop didn’t seem to break with reality on any major parts. The gun would confuse them, but that’s it.

They’d get my fingerprints off the gun—but that fit my story about the struggle. They’d get Baldy’s fingerprints, too, and maybe they’d catch him. As the police car turned onto the freeway, my mind wandered further.

I felt a cold lake sloshing in my belly. A million doubts, a million worries. What if I did go to the hospital? What if they x-rayed me and found a little lump of lead in my stomach, with no bullet hole or trail? What then?

The strange heat had died, I realized. It had faded to just a point of warmth in my chest as soon as the car had pulled away from the mall. I wasn’t awash in flames anymore, and I even had a hard time recalling the sensation. It had been like being immersed in warm honey.

The car pulled up to the curb in front of my house. My belly wasn’t going to expel the thick knot of terror any time soon, I realized. Neither of them were outside, but that didn’t mean anything; they were probably inside, making calls, making assurances. Trying to bring my friends back, maybe, tell them I was safe. When the car creaked to a stop, Sykes half-turned in his seat.

“Need me to come up with you?”

I frowned.

“No,” I said. “Do you have to?”

“It’s not protocol,” he said. “You’re healthy, you’re safe. We’ll call you if we need anything else.”

“Thanks,” I said, and reached for the door handle. After a second of groping, I sighed.

“I have to let you out.”

“Ah.”

I climbed out of the car with Sykes’ help and stepped out onto the grass.

“Thanks for the ride,” I said.

“Thanks for not being dead.”

I snapped around toward him, to catch the look on his face, but he’d already turned his back to me. He popped open the driver’s side door and slid into it without another word. Before the car pulled away, he gave me the granite stare I’d come to know well in my brief hour in his care. He cruised down the street at the same even pace he moved at—like he had no hurry in the world, but at the same time, like he might spring into furious motion. Call me wacko, but I think I liked him.

I turned and walked up the driveway. I didn’t make it to the second porch step before the screen door flew open and banged against the wall. My mother, her face red, blasted out through the dark hole into the house and wrapped her arms around me.

The heat inside of me flared to life again, burning through my core. I sucked in a breath and felt an icy sting on my tongue. It rushed down my windpipe, into my lungs, my belly, throwing a spray of fine white ice on the erupting flame. My skin cooled almost instantly.

Something leaked into me, flooded my senses—a fumbling primal grasping in the dark…tears being kissed away…oh God our little Lucy…

Aftershave, stinging and musky and pleasant. The little tug of his lips…oh. Of Dad’s lips. On my Mom’s neck. Oh. Oh! Blargh! Yuck, ack!

The little brain-movie faded, and I staggered under a rush of vertigo. What the hell? How did I…what was I seeing? Whatever it was, it combined terror and heartbreak and comfort—for them, at least. I kinda longed for a lobotomy to scrape that image out.

What had I just seen? And more importantly, why was I seeing it?

Mom held me at arm’s length, her eyes flashing across my body, looking for drug marks, cuts, bullet holes, who knows. The dark silhouette shape of my father crowded the doorway into the house. “Lucy,” Dad said, his voice low. “Are you hurt?”

I looked up at him—my mother turned, her arms still grabbing at me, to look back at him, too.

“A little,” I said.

The sound of the gunshot—Baldy’s hands, the leer in all of their eyes. The terror. The helpless stand in the alleyway where they could do anything they wanted. The…

…black…

…long wide ribbons of light, snaking through the dust-motes. Noon no longer—evening leaned into the living room in long dusty strokes of amber and red. The over-stuffed sofa beneath me, cradling me on a cloud of upholstery and fluffy pillows. My head had been used to pound in nails. The hand and knee on my right side ached. The TV was dark.

I lolled my head, trying to find the source of a cold something dripping down the back of my neck. I saw the corner of something white. My groping hand found the ice pack, tugged it off my head, and flipped it over. It was wrapped in paper-towels stained the light pink of diluted blood. I touched a tender spot on the right side of my head, not too far east of the asphalt-raw lump in the back.

The floor behind me creaked. I rolled to look over the back of the couch.

Mom perched on an ottoman next to the couch and laid the back of her hand across my cheek. She smiled and handed me a glass of water.

“You passed out, baby,” she said. “You must have had a long night. I can’t even imagine.”

“What?” I rubbed the spot on my head. The pain in my wrist and the sting in my knee concurred with Mom’s objective assessment. “I just…keeled over?”

“Pretty much,” Mom said. “Scared the hell out of your dad and me. I think he was ready to launch into a tirade before you bowed out.”

“What about now?”

“Actually, he’s still ready. He’s on the phone with the police. He had some questions I guess.”

“All reasonable and un-angry like?”

Mom laughed.

“Of course,” Mom said. “Nothing about legal action, incompetence, or gross negligence.”

“Zack called,” Mom said as she stood up.

I sat up again, and she made a face.

“He knows you’re fine, they all do.”

I hadn’t thought about Zack. Not since the dream or whatever it was. My first date with him, with anyone, had ended in an all-night search party. I covered my eyes and threw myself back on the couch with a groan, hoping to turn invisible or explode, anything to stop the gushing embarrassment. I heard Mom shift on the ottoman.

“You really like him?”

I nodded, my eyes still shaded in shame and something like self-loathing.

“Did the boys in the alley—?”

“No,” I said, firmly. “They ran away.”

“And they didn’t steal anything?”

I sighed. I wished Sykes had come up with me to explain everything.

I fed her my questionable story. She looked worried, but I don’t think she had a predetermined parent-protocol for this particular situation. She put her hand over mine and offered me the glass of water again.

“Drink. You’re not hungry, baby? It’s probably been a whole day since you ate.”

My stomach, still and quiet, asked for nothing. I hadn’t thought about it, but she was right. I took a sip of water and wondered if shock or terror stole your appetite.

“Officer Sykes took me through a McDonalds,” I lied. “I was starving.”

She nodded, satisfied. I didn’t think a cop would take you through the drive-thru, but then again, Sykes wasn’t the average cop. Not as far as I had encountered, anyway.

Thanks for not being dead, his voice echoed.

I frowned. I told my Mom I was tired, and she let me be. I took another gulp of water, set it on the coffee table, and lay back down. Sleep felt far away, a distant dream, an abstract concept like time travel. Behold my surprise when it grabbed me in seconds and pulled me back down into the dark.

I woke up at the beach.

Chapter Four

Welcome to the Meadows

The sweet and sour smell of the ocean flooded my senses. The taste of wood smoke, the salty air cutting my skin like an icy blade. Summer days with my parents, splashing through the shallows, daring myself to go out further. To jump the waves and go further still. To go until the big one hit me and rolled me and dumped me out on the beach with about three gallons of saltwater down my throat. Then, of course, to start all over again.

Summer nights, beach parties, lit by the murderous orange glow of an obscenely-sized bonfire. Bundled in sweatshirts, watching the boys in the group wrestle in the sand or toss a football, making fun of them or taking bets.

My eyes flicked open. Grey. Lightless yet oddly lit grey. A haze without an end.

I held my hands in front of my eyes. Not blind. Charcoal grey sand, wet and clumpy, stuck to my fingers. I sat up in surprise.

I wasn’t dreaming. I knew that right away.

The dark grey sand unraveled up and down a long, featureless coastline. The surging grey soup of the ocean beat against the shore, cresting and falling in meager impressions of waves. The sea stretched on forever, with only the distant glimmer and the far-off ringing of what had to be a long line of abandoned, rusting buoys. A sky the color of ash, devoid entirely of clouds, empty of the warmth of any visible sun, cast a weird indirect glow on everything. Nothing bright, nothing dark. Just a miserable granite color in all directions.

I turned around, away from the featureless ocean. The charcoal sand crested into a ridge that blocked anything in that direction from sight. Sand, in undulating dunes, stretched out to the left and right of me, paralleling the shape of the coastline.

“Hello!”

My voice didn’t echo. It stopped where it left my mouth, as if it died the moment it hit oxygen.

“HELLO!”

The same effect, only louder. I winced.

Time to assess the situation, Luce. You’re on an alien planet? No. Dead? Maybe. Dreaming?

I looked around again, trying to soak in the strange environment. It was cold—wherever I was, I was still wearing the skirt, boots, torn shirt, coat combo I’d had on for far too long. It wasn’t Alaska cold, just beach-cold, but it was enough. I thought about the bonfires we’d had freshman year and longed. I tucked my coat around my body and buttoned it up to my neck.

My legs were damp and my skirt felt soaked-through. It clung to me like a second skin, no flex, no slink, all friction. It was the feeling of wet socks all over, and I resisted a disgusted shudder.

No, I wasn’t dreaming. I’d never felt anything so vivid in a dream. Besides, in dreams, didn’t things…happen? Friends, loved ones, horror-movie slashers. Something. Not featureless grey and disquiet.

I stood up and nearly snapped my ankle. If I thought running in boots sucked, standing in wet sand was murder. My high-heeled boots may have looked sexy-tough, but at that moment I wanted nothing to do with them. I reached down, navigated the long and gruesome task of unlacing them around my calves, and tugged them off. I tied them together, wrapped the laces around one finger, and tossed them over my shoulder. I stripped off my black socks with one hand, doing the one-foot-dance all the while, and tucked them into the boots.

My bare feet sank into the moist sand with a squelch. I wriggled my toes and felt a violent chill spike through them.

“Time to get movin’, Luce,” I said to no one. “Because this is pretty damn weird.”

I marched up the hill, away from the ocean. My toes fought for purchase in the silt. Jaunty steps mirrored my light heart—my light heart, unfortunately, mirrored nothing. The emotion was difficult to pinpoint. It reminded me of the way sunlight made me feel—inexplicably nourished, even if it did eventually burn my skin to lobster-like shades. I really do wish I had the capacity to tan.

Come on, girl. Focus. Focus and walk.

Trudging through wet sand was better than a Stairmaster. On the other side of the ridge, a long grey river of highway blacktop paralleled the ridge for a mile or two before swinging away from the coast into oblivion.

The sand hill became a slide of gravel, all the way down to the guard rails of a freeway.

Beyond the six lanes of the empty highway the countryside, a mixture of chaparral and ash, rolled on out of sight. Distant mountain shapes broke the sky into ragged lines.

The highway angled toward a distant glowing dome of indistinct light. A city, I guessed, though it easily could have been a football stadium or God or a big fat nightlight.

Just B-movie post-apocalypse fare and a crap-ton of grey lifeless countryside.

I knew the response I’d get before I even bothered.

“HELLO!”

My voice stopped at the edge of my lips. Again. I sighed and tucked my free hand into my pocket, a ward against the cold if nothing else. The empty bullet casing touched my fingertips.

I rolled the shell-casing around in my fingers. It felt even colder than usual, like a cylinder of ice. I pressed my skin against the sharp edge of the hole where the bullet used to be.

“HELLO!”

The ground rumbled underneath me. I sucked in a gasp and tried not to tumble down the slope. It shook again, and the sand rolled under my bare feet. I looked around, trying to find the source of the sound, but it came from every direction, every pore in the sand.

I turned.

A dot on the horizon. A ball of white on the ocean. Bigger. Growing larger.

I pivoted and booked down toward the highway. I came down the slope too fast, track star that I am, and my ankle twisted and shot hot sparks of pain up my leg. I vaulted the low guardrail with one hand and landed on the blacktop with a crunch, one that unfortunately took place in my ankle. I tumbled to the ground, my ankle dunked in molten lava.

Son of a bitch that hurt, Lucy. But don’t stop running.

The ground bucked again but with less power—more like an impact than an earthquake. A deep-seated fear welled up within me, uncontrollable, unexplainable. I hobbled across the three empty lanes, crawled over the center divider, and dropped to my hands and knees. The highway shook, and a bright light lanced over the divider, illuminating the grey countryside with unnatural glow. My heart raced, my lungs billowed, and my ankle shouted obscenities at me. I was shaking all over, like I’d just been pulled out of a frozen lake.

I couldn’t hear anything—whatever thing that had come from the ocean, whatever thing that now stabbed the area with a bright white searchlight, was as silent as the grave. Not a footstep, nothing.

Another flash of light—the shadow of the center divider stood out sharply against the blacktop for a moment. Two white circles of light stood out in the shadow, and I turned my head to see the two holes bored through the cement on either side. Ignoring a shrill, naggy caution-voice in my head that sounded more like me than I cared for, I crawled to the closest hole. I took a deep, slow breath, trying to clear my gut of the rampaging butterflies, and peeked through the hole.

Light burned my eyes—it was impossible to make out any of the thing’s features. He looked to be made of light—just sunshine sculpted with arms and legs. His head seemed to be turned away from me, but it was impossible to tell. It wasn’t until a searing beam of light erupted from his face and swept the highway to the left of me that I was sure.

It flashed toward me, and I threw myself away from the hole. I looked behind me—the same clear-cut shadow of the center divider, with two perfectly circular holes. I let out another whoosh of breath and tried not to move. Unless the thing had Superman eyes, I might be safe.

When the light moved on, I took another peek to make sure. It hadn’t seen me. It swept the highway to my right with slow, even strokes.

After what felt like an eternity, the white-thing turned and disappeared over the sand ridge.

I counted to one-hundred, and then I stood up.

Empty again. Just a dead highway snaking through a grey wasteland.

I crossed the center divider and ran across the blacktop. I had to know if it was gone. I jumped over the guard rail and ran full tilt up the gravel and sand slope, ignoring the glass-grinding scream in my ankle.

A boom. The ground jerked beneath me and threw me onto my butt.

“What the hell?” I said.

Again, the not-an-echo. Just muffled silence.

I half-ran half-slid down the rest of the sandy hill until I found my bare feet slapping the wet charcoal-colored sand. I stopped at the edge, the first tickle of frigid water kissing my toes. I bent over and stretched my fingers toward the tide.

The ocean pulled away from me, as if taking a breath. A wave gathered along the breakers and swung toward the shore. It peaked long before reaching me, spilling out across the beach and pushing a foot of water towards my legs. It touched my hand first, then sluiced over my battered ankle and up to my knees.

It could have been acid.

The wave of searing agony, so powerful and unexpected, imparted by the water’s touch, locked my entire body. Paralyzed me, freezing me helpless and screaming as the angry tide slid up to my waist, then to my neck. My muscles wouldn’t respond, and I realized with deep horror that my legs couldn’t withstand the assault. My knees buckled, plunging my face into the scalding liquid. It flooded up my nostrils, rushed into my shrieking mouth… oh God… oh God…

The world went black.

Chapter Five

Welcome Back

The sound cut out. The hollow hiss of an open microphone with no one behind it.

Lights flickered. My eyes didn’t have to open—they already were. But they sort of turned on again. The blackness disappeared like I’d flipped a switch.

An acoustic ceiling above me.The flash of TV-light.

Then touch—A hard floor beneath me. Moisture.

Sound—A bad sitcom, an aghast 20-something rambling.The gentle click of my mother’s grandfather clock. The rattle-clank noise of pots and pans.

Smell—Garlic. Baked chicken, a single open beer, roasted tomatoes. More than I should smell, I realized. The reality ship had thrown me overboard, and dragged me back onto the deck with equal violence. I gasped for breath, my tongue still wet with salt water.

I looked down. My clothes were soaked through, and the barely-decent date attire was now entirely not-decent. Scandalous, even. Though my wet-rat look was less noticeable than the fact that I was drenched in sea water. A small pool of it collected on the floor beneath me. The idea of it all being a dream died in a briny grave.

“Shit,” I whispered. I didn’t have a better word. I was becoming quite the little sailor.

“Luce?”

Mom. I rolled to my knees to look over the couch. I wasn’t unaware of how similar my all-fours, soggy, terror-filled position was from just moments ago on the cold empty highway, hiding from the White-Thing. I didn’t enjoy the reminder.

“Nothing,” I said. “I’m gonna go change. And shower.”

“Good idea,” Mom said, her voice drifting in from the kitchen. “Dinner’s in thirty.”

“Gotcha,” I said, hoping to disguise my panic. “Won’t take long.”

I glanced around, then back down at the spreading pool of saltwater on the living room floor. I felt a strange sense of vertigo—the room stretched out like taffy. The Persian-looking gold and red throw rug swirled in strange patterns. I closed my eyes and waited for the dizziness to pass. I half-expected the water to be gone when my eyes popped open again.

No such luck. The pool, spreading across the hard-wood floor, began to kiss the tassels of the rug. I turned around, searching for something, anything. My grandma’s hand-sewn gold afghan stretched across the back of the couch. Sorry, Grandma. I tugged it off the couch and tried to soak up the pool as best I could. It wasn’t terribly absorbent, but after enough tries it did the job.

The floor still shined, but the majority of the water clung to the blanket. I spun the afghan into a ball, clutched it tight to me to minimize dripping, and shuffled down the hall. My weakened ankle almost gave out as I ran up the stairs, but I threw myself up the final steps to the top landing. I half-crawled, half-scrambled to my room, ripped open the door, and slammed it behind me.

I took a huge breath. My lungs stretched and creaked and it felt like my ribs would pop.

In my bathroom, I tossed the afghan in the sink and pushed it down until it was mostly wrung-out. The grey, briny water smelled just like the ocean in the Not-A-Dream.

I stripped out of the soaking, torn clothes I had been wearing for nearly twenty-four hours. I’d been chased, shot, lost, and drowned in them, but I still couldn’t bring myself to toss them in the trash.

I wrung everything out, soaked it in lilac moisturizing body wash, and scrubbed the bejeezus out of it. The beach stink was strong, but a few soaks and scrubs later and it was barely noticeable. I hung the outfit and the blanket from the hooks on my door and took a shower.

I’d never taken a better shower. When I came out of it, my cherry-red skin felt amazing, and my muscles were warm putty. I dried off, blow-dried my hair, and wrapped myself in my fluffy orange bathrobe. I walked into my fluffy orange sandals and dived across my bed.

Twenty-minutes later, drifting at the edge of consciousness, wrapped in the warm cocoon of my bathrobe and my covers, I heard my door rattle in its frame. I perked up, and my eyes began to focus.

“Luce?”

“Come in.”

Mom slid the door open, wearing a small, understanding smile.

“Feel better?”

“Loads,” I said. “Dinner?”

“Yup.”

She didn’t move though, and her hand still gripped my door handle with white-knuckled strength. I cocked my head and sat up slowly. I wanted to ask her if everything was okay, but her face answered the question for me.

Her eyes turned down, but I could see the crystal sheen of tears there. She took a breath that sounded like canvas ripping. The door slammed into the wall as she released it without thinking, and she flashed across the room. Her arms wrapped around me, and she tugged me to my feet.

“Oh God, Lucy,” she sobbed, her voice broken. “Oh God, I thought… We all thought… Oh God.”

My arms hung at my sides, even as she pythoned me and drew me in. She smelled like a mixture of strawberries and smoke—not the smoke of the beach fires, the smoke of cigarettes. Mom hadn’t smoked in ten years, and Dad had never smoked. Her head trembled against my chest, and her body convulsed with sobs.

That’s when I knew something was wrong. Right then, I knew something inside of me had broken. I’d never seen my mom this emotional—it should have torn me apart, I realized. I could picture me, just as I was, a bright orange-terry cloth dolly weeping in her arms, overcome just like she was. Scooped up in the wave of relief beside her. And part of me felt relief, and part of me felt tearful. But nothing came. Not even numbness—the sense of pain behind a wall. There was no wall, and the pain wasn’t real. Wasn’t pain.

She looked up at me.

“I can’t believe you’re safe.”

I offered only a weak smile. I didn’t disagree.

Her tears spilled over onto her cheeks, little streaks illuminated by the crystal blue of her eyes. My mom was prettier than me—not cuter, but prettier. More delicate. I didn’t realize how delicate until now. I’d always seen her as being so strong, as knowing everything and having every answer. Learning she was human after all didn’t give me any sense of comfort or enlightenment. It made me feel…empty. Lonely.

I opened my mouth and sucked in a harsh breath. A thin, almost invisible stream of white smoke whirled out from between my mother’s pursed lips and sucked up my mouth and nostrils. A surge of electricity hit me and threw my head back. My heartbeat doubled, and I felt my muscles tense and release. Not a spasm, but sudden energy.

Like biting down on aluminum foil soaked in caffeine.

A jumble of images hit me, things I’d never experienced—the dial pad on a phone, shaking and blurry, through a curtain of tears. A hunger, like I’d forgotten to eat in the shuffle of Lucy’s disappearance. No, not “I.” She. Mom. I tried to pull myself out of the vision, to distinguish my memories from hers, but the tide was too strong. A green plastic basket full of red, the only thing I didn’t have to cook.

I snapped my mouth closed, but the taste of strawberries still burned on my tongue. Fresh strawberries, too, like I’d just eaten a whole basket. But I, me, Lucy, hadn’t eaten anything. The sensation of having just popped a strawberry into my mouth was overwhelming.

I opened my eyes and looked back down. My mom’s eyes were closed, like she was sleeping, but she still sat stock-straight, and her face was white. Her lip twitched, and tiny muscle spasms shook her shoulders in little jerks.

I grabbed her hands and tugged at her arms.

“Mom! Mom!”

I squeezed as hard as I could and jerked like I’d pull her shoulders out. She didn’t move—she didn’t open her eyes.

“Mom!”

I reeled back and slapped her.

Her eyes popped open. My hand glowed with pain.

“Luce?”

She reached up, rubbing the red mark spreading across her cheek.

“Mom, you…you drifted out,” I said. “I thought something had happened.”

“No…” she said. “I didn’t, did I?”

I nodded too fast. I was just glad to see her awake and aware.

“Yeah.” I tried to laugh. “Maybe Mommy needs a nap, too.”

Mom looked down at herself, confusion fighting shock. She shook her head and quirked a tiny smile.

“I didn’t sleep very much.”

I believed her. The dark circles under her eyes would have looked at home on a runaway heroin addict. I squeezed her shoulder, feeling a buildup of that manic energy I’d stolen from her. Stolen? Eaten? I closed my eyes and pinched those thoughts off. I hadn’t stolen anything. I was tired. She was tired. I’d spent a long dream—You. Weren’t. Dreaming—in a far off, very boring land severely lacking in color palette. And now I was hallucinating.

Considering the day I’d had, I’d be surprised if I wasn’t hallucinating.

“Dinner?” I asked.

“Dinner,” Mom echoed, and untangled herself from me. She composed herself quickly. “Get dressed like a human, Lucy.”

I smiled wide and tugged at the flat, sloping lapels of my orange fuzzy robe.

“Humans wear bathrobes.”

She flashed me a sour look and left my room. I was bopping, and I felt light, almost bouncy as I danced around my room. I could have leaped on my bed and sang into my hairbrush with that energy, but then I’d have to kick my own ass. Hey, third curse word.

I raced down the hallway, and the only thing stopping me was my violent collision with Dad’s chest.

“Hey, Dad.”

My dad wasn’t a little guy, and the sharp set of his lantern jaw would’ve normally made me curl up if I wasn’t jiving off the odd bubble of energy.

“Lucy,” Dad said. “What’s going on?”

I frowned, “What?”

“Don’t ‘what’ me,” he said, and I stood up straighter. “You’ve slept the whole day away. You’re acting strangely. Your friends spent all night out looking for you, and so have I. Have you called anyone? Have you thanked anyone? Do you even care?”

“What?”

“Are you hearing okay, Lucy? And let’s not forget that I know you helped Morgan sneak out, and that I know you conned Daphne into sneaking into your room and hiding out. What were you thinking, Lucy?”

“What was I thinking?” I repeated.

No hug, no kiss, no ‘everything is okay, baby?’ I drew myself up.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” I said. “Did my near-death experience inconvenience you?”

He drew up even taller, and his shoulders squared off. Here we go, dummy. Enjoy.

“Lucy,” he said. “This isn’t about what…happened. This is about—”

“What did happen, Dad?” I said. Shut up, stupid. Shut up. “Please tell me. Tell me what happened, and how I should feel.”

“Lucy!”

“No, I’d love to hear it,” I said. My traitor’s tongue was having a fine night. “What are you worried about, Dad? Don’t believe me? Think Daddy’s Little Girl was out for kicks? Yeah, maybe I asked a group of guys to whip out a gun and—”

“LUCY!” He shouted. His voice actually made me stumble.

“Shut your mouth and go to your room. Now.”

Something like electricity crackled along my fingers, and bright spots of white wheeled behind my eyes. Anger pressed down on my chest, but my genuine fear of my enraged father buttoned my lips up. Finally.

“Can I have dinner?”

The words snapped like dry branches. His nostrils flared, and he sucked in air in such big gulps I could only imagine he was storing oxygen for the winter.

“I’ll have your mother bring it up,” he said. “You can stay there for the rest of the night, please.”

“Can I call—?”

“You can be quiet. Go to your room.”

I made a growling-squeak sound in my throat, turned, and went in my room. The slamming of the door in his face completed the painfully cliché moment. My hand tightened into a fist, and I hammer-punched the top of my desk. My monitor and the little metal tin of pencils bounced and jangled. Not good enough.

I grabbed my desk chair and flipped it across the room. It smashed the wall with a healthy thunk. Better.

I slumped down on the ground next to my bed and tucked my knees up against my chest. My arms slid under my knees, and I sat there for a long time. I thought about Zack and Morgan, Daphne and Wanda, Benny and everyone all out scouring the Set for me. I thought of my dad, terrified, filled with unusable protective fury. Of my Mom, doing her best to hold him together.

I thought of the barrel of a little silver revolver. I thought about the gunpowder taste. The powerless violation of being shot to death in an alley for no reason. For being left alone, bloody, and confused. Thrown away like trash.

I cried until I feel asleep, curled against the side of my bed, squeezing my knees into my chest and rocking like a child.

I found myself huddled on a cold grey beach. I wished I could feel some ache of surprise, but I had expected it. I tucked my face between my knees, listening to the surf, tasting the salt-spray, convincing myself that I was dreaming. I sat there for hours, my cheeks still wet with tears, tugging my bright orange bathrobe against my body. I let my mind wander. I willed the time to pass, willed the sense of foreboding terror out of my mind. After a time, light welled onto the sand between my knees, where my eyes were turned. Dawn. When I looked up at the faded sherbet-orange sun, peeking out from the charcoal sea, I woke up.

My bed was immaculate—I’d spent the night tucked into a ball next to the bed.

You spent the night on a beach.

“No, I didn’t.”

Cramped into a ball, I should have felt sore. I should have been tired, twisted up into that pretzel of flesh. Instead, I felt refreshed, comfortably cool. The manic energy of the night before had dimmed somewhat, but I still felt like at least one cup of coffee burned through my veins.

I showered and make-upped. Got dressed in something simple—a scoop-neck black shirt sporting a band I barely remember and a pair of jeans. My white-and-baby-blue sneakers. A black belt with studs and little rhinestones lined up boy-girl down the leather. I twisted my long black hair up into a high pony-tail and gave myself another once-over in my bathroom mirror.

Pretty, but I could lose weight. I pinched the skin just above my hips—nothing noticeable, and if I even called myself fat I knew much heavier girls had a right to beat me with a pipe. Still. Mom called it baby-fat, but that didn’t make it better. I turned sideways. Blegh. I turned back.

Big butt, some tummy. Good boobs for fifteen, but not spectacular. Blegh. I needed to stop hanging out with Morgan. Not that that was going to happen, ever.

I ran a hand across my stomach and felt a stab of pain. I yanked up the edge of my shirt and slid my fingers across my pale skin. No pain. No scar. No hole. The hysteria receded as quickly as it had come.

I tugged my shirt back in place and ran downstairs. Dad wasn’t around, and Mom tried more than a few times to hear about our fight. Deflecting her questions wasn’t easy, but I was stubborn, and after a while she dropped it. I wasn’t hungry, despite my lack of dinner, but I wolfed down three eggs, two pieces of toast, and four pieces of bacon before calling it quits. When I was finished, I felt only a warmth in my belly that should have been gut-stretching pain. It didn’t take much brainpower to ignore the feeling—it was the least of the strange things I had experienced thus far.

“You’re dressed up for Sunday breakfast,” Mom said as she scooped up our plates.

“Not really.”

“Ha. Most Sundays you never leave that filthy bathrobe.”

“It’s not filthy,” I said, scooping the utensils off the table. “You’re filthy.”

“Good one. Going somewhere?”

“Depends. Mind if I borrow your old bike?”

“No,” Mom said. The sound of plates moving stopped. “Why?”

“I just want to go for a ride,” I said. “Want me to pick up anything at the store?”

Mom turned and leaned against the counter. Her face spoke volumes.

“Mom, I’m fine,” I said. “I just need some air.”

“How’s your head?”

It took me a second to catch up with her. The phony head wound, the one I’d told the cop about. “It’s all right,” I said. “I’ll take it easy, I promise.”

Mom nodded.

“Fine. I’m taking you up on your offer though.”

“What?”

She smiled. “I want the newest Cosmo, if it’s there. And a box of Shake ’N Bake.”

I nodded and put my hand out, palm up, with the sweetest smile ever conjured curving my lips. The classic teenager money-palm. She snorted and shook her head. I didn’t think it was going to be that easy.

“What about change from the other night?”

I sighed. I actually had a substantial chunk left from the date, but I’d been hoping to squirrel it away for future expenses. No such luck, apparently.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll get your stupid magazine.”

“Don’t forget the stupid Shake ’N Bake.”

I flashed her a ha-ha-you’re-so-hilarious look and headed for the back door.

The screen door smacked shut behind me. I crossed the back porch, the ill-kept backyard lawn, and made a beeline for the old wooden shed. My bike, a sickeningly pink Schwinn, had disintegrated into a pile of rust flakes about two years ago. My mom’s bike was virtually dustless, its gears still slick with black oil. She liked to hit the local trails, and Dad kept it in good working order for her. Dad enjoyed the dreadmill himself, however, and didn’t ride with her.

His bike had suffered the same fate as mine. We’d all gotten bicycles for Christmas my fifth-grade year, a plan to get us all in shape with family fun rides. We’d ridden together only once, on New Year’s Day, as part of a resolution to do more activities together. I’d fallen off my bike, bloodied my nose, and shredded my shins, and Dad’s gears had devoured his favorite pair of sneakers. Only my Mom had come out of the ride with a positive experience.

I leaned, one foot on the lawn, the other tucked into the spiky foot of the pedals. At that moment, I wondered just where the hell the urge to go riding had come from. Fresh air sounded great, but adrenaline sounded better. Slinging down the dock ramps behind the Ralphs’ at blasphemous speeds made my hair stand on end just thinking about it. Part of me just wanted to go—not be at home, not be at school. Maybe in alien solitude I could find some answers.

Probably not, but worth a shot.

I took off down the driveway and out into the street.

The winding roads out of my neighborhood passed by in a blur. I focused on the spring of the handlebars, the rasping-groan of the tires against the asphalt, the rattling clink of the gear chain slipping between cogs. I breathed in the smell of eucalyptus trees and wet, freshly cut grass. I listened to the suburban melody of Sunday morning lawn mowers, dogs barking, and cars roaring to life.

I hadn’t been on a bicycle in almost a year, but it was doing its magic just minutes into my ride. I weaved between the street and the sidewalk, flying up driveways, and hopping off curbs. I played Ride-The-Gutter, I played Eyes-Closed. I didn’t make it past three seconds with my eyes shut, but I came out of each attempt with my heart hammering in my chest. My cheeks hurt from smiling by the time I skidded out in front of the grocery store.

I locked the bike up out front and shuffled inside.

Stabbing florescent lights, the cold white opposite of the dreary gray outside, slapped me awake and out of my musings. What the hell was I here for? I snapped my fingers a few times like a beatnik poet to get my bearings. Shake ‘N Bake. And a Cosmo. If it’s new.

I never understood my mom’s love of Cosmo—I was only fifteen, as inexperienced as that age only sometimes alluded to—but I couldn’t imagine that the subject of the tips inside really warranted “50 New Ways to Rock His World” every month. A bit of quick math told me that if Cosmo had been running for at least ten years, it had given six-thousand new ideas to Knock His Socks Off. Call me crazy, but I don’t think even brain surgery was that complex.

As I wandered through the aisles, looking for the Shake ’N Bake, a voice drifted over my musings. Finally, an arm tugged my shoulder and turned me around. A mangled scream choked out of my throat, but I was too terrified to do anything.

“Lucy!”

Morgan, standing in front of me, holding my upper arm with one hand, threw the carton of eggs she was holding. It arced behind her and exploded on the tile, sending runs of yellow and clear goo streaking in a starburst around the broken Styrofoam.

I held my hand over my heart, the universal sign of you just scared the hell out of me.

“Holy crap! I’m sorry, I just…I saw you and I didn’t think. Of how. Of what you’re… I mean…”

I raised an eyebrow. Her skin was flushed a bright scarlet. Her usually gorgeous curtain of blonde hair was half mangled into a ponytail—with wide unintentionally loose crescents of hair dangling at strange angles around her head. She wasn’t wearing any make-up, and her skin looked sallow and greasy.

“Are you okay?” I asked her. I only got to the you part before she hugged-tackled me into the Hamburger Helper shelf.

I sucked in a deep breath through my nose, inhaling a strange scent. She smelled like old fear. I pictured her in the cute dress she’d been wearing for the date night, but an unfamiliar bulky denim jacket covered her top half. Her bare calves sported long lines of dull red scratches, and her sandals and feet were caked in dirt. She wandered through a long stretch of green shrubs next to a chain-link fence, clutching a cheap blue plastic flashlight in one hand and her cellphone in the other. Her face was cast in stone, but her eyes, wide like a doll’s, gave everything away. Only the passing strobe of the cars on the freeway lit her trembling body.

The image cracked and fell apart. I was staring at Morgan now, who was holding me at arm’s length and staring at me. I covered my mouth, a thrill of fear poisoning my stomach. What was I seeing?

“Sorry,” I said, and went right to my go-to excuse. “I’m still… My head.”

I touched the back of my head, and this time I felt a sharp stab of pain. I winced, the only real one so far, and probed the tender flesh again. Something crunched under my fingers, and I knew it was blood drying on a long gash on my head. A goose-egg the size of a plum rose from the center of the dried-up cut. I sucked in another breath.

The back of my head had only been scraped, nothing more. Not cut, not swollen. My hand fell loosely from the back of my head. Morgan caught the horrified look on my face.

“Luce, what’s going on? Your mom told me what happened, but I didn’t know if… I didn’t know if you told them the whole story.”

Anger. A bright red cherry of it, burning the back of my eyes. The next person to ask me in gentle baby tones if I had been raped was going to get a fist in the mouth. Still, the rational part of me, somewhere napping in the back of my head, knew I was being a child. Everyone just wanted to make sure the worst hadn’t happened.

Of course, it had, but not in the way they imagined.

“I told her the whole story,” I said. “I’m okay. Just a little shell-shocked I guess.”

Morgan nodded, but the look of gentle probing pity didn’t recede. It was a mask I was seeing on every face all of a sudden. “Okay.”

She didn’t believe me.

“Morgan, it was scary and awful and a nightmare,” I said. “But that’s all. I didn’t even get robbed.”

That didn’t help my case, I realized. It made the whole thing hinge on implausibility. What band of thugs knocks out girls for kicks and makes a run for it? None, that’s who. It sounded like a lie because it was one, I reminded myself. People around me were smart, and I was pissed off because of it.

“Okay,” Morgan said again. It was the “okay” that I hated so much. It was a crazy person’s okay. If I had told her that a tribe of pygmies had saved me from my attackers, she would have given me the same okay. There wouldn’t even be a change in inflection.

Of everyone in the world who would believe me unconditionally, I thought it would be her.

“Okay,” I said. My voice dripped icicles. “Well, it’s good to see you.”

Again, Morgan wasn’t stupid. I didn’t get anything past her. She leaned forward and grabbed my wrist again. The mask of pity was replaced with something resembling confusion. Better, I supposed.

“I’m sorry, Luce,” she said. “I just… We all searched for you, you know? We all thought… You aren’t exactly the run-away type. Not in the middle of a date. I’m just… I don’t know how to deal with this.”

I nodded, but I couldn’t get rid of my disapproving frown and the cold set of my features. It was stupid and stubborn, but I don’t care. I’d believe her in a heartbeat. I wouldn’t vomit pity on her like she was insane.

“I have to go,” I said. A pair of stock boys had already spotted Morgan’s egg carton mess and were moving in with mops and buckets.

“Wait,” she said. “Can I call you tonight?”

I paused, looking down at the hand on my wrist. “I just need some alone time.”

She nodded and let go of my hand with a sudden crispness.

“Okay,” she said. That damn okay.

As I scooped up my box of Shake ’N Bake from the shelf and made for the check-out aisle, Morgan spoke up. I only half-turned toward her when she did.

“I’ll see you Monday?”

I nodded. “Still want a ride?”

She frowned. “Yeah.”

She said it like she’d taken a swig of bad milk.

“See you Monday.”

I paid for the Shake ’N Bake and headed out the door. I welcomed the gray dimness of the overcast sky, and it reminded me more than a little of the beach and the highway and the foggy nothingness of my dreams. I’d been a regular bitch to Morgan, for no reason. Plus I’d terrified everyone, gotten Morgan and probably Daphne in deep trouble with their parents. All for what?A stupid date?

When I got to my bike, and I was holding the bike lock in one hand, a sudden spike of panic shot through my body. Run. Run run run run run. Run or die. Run or die.

Sweat slicked my skin, and I stumbled under the incredible weight of the terror spreading through every pore in my body. I dropped the bike lock with a dull rattle and ran. A pair of soda machines stood against the side of the building not far away, and I jumped into the nook between them and pressed myself as hard as I could against the white brick wall.

My heart hammered and my lungs bellowed. I knew I was hyperventilating, pulling in tiny shocks of air and gushing them out just as quickly. But I couldn’t calm down. My mind wouldn’t even form rational thoughts. Despite the warm sweat glistening on my skin, my core felt cold. Like I’d swallowed an icicle the size of a baseball bat.

It smelled like urine between the soda machines, but only a distant part of me recognized it. My ears were turned up to their maximum gain. Every rattle in the soda machines, the shriek of every grease-starved shopping cart wheel. The dull whoosh of the sliding doors of the store not twenty feet from where I cowered. The sound of cars starting up and dying off. The creak of car suspension and the groan of tires.

One car was moving fast. Its rush swept from my right, but it was coming quick. I tucked my face against the soda machine and pulled my elbow up to cover my head. Through a tiny crack in my defenses, I saw the car fly past the soda machines. In that split second, I saw a long white boxy car with green-tinted windows, and the outline of the driver’s head. The supernova of terror exploded inside my chest, a crescendo of horror. My breath stuck in my throat, and I tried to burrow into the brick wall, anything to get away from that terrible source…

The car whipped a right turn back into the bulk of the parking lot, zipped through one lane, and turned another right to skirt the furthest edge of the parking lot. Without fanfare it pulled out onto Lincoln Street and disappeared down the road.

The panic disappeared. My hands trembled, and I could feel the hiccup of my shaking breath. The sweat on my skin had turned into ice-water, and I knew I was trembling from more than just adrenaline. I was freezing.

I crept out from between the soda machines and went to unlock my bike. I tucked the bag with the Shake ’N Bake into my backpack, mounted the bike, and stood for a long moment trying to quiet the quakes rocking my body. Were they in that car? The boys who had… Baldy, with that sick smile and that silver revolver. Could I sense them?

Through the windows of the supermarket, I saw Morgan in the check-out line. She couldn’t see me. Not still here. Not like this. I jumped onto the pedals and raced off across the parking lot.

I didn’t see the white car again for another three days.

Chapter Six

Freeze

I spent the rest of Sunday at home, alone. My phone buzzed with calls and text messages, but my only response was a mass text I sent to everyone telling them I was okay, and that I’d be at school on Monday. Six missed calls from Zack. My chest tightened, but I didn’t relent. My mom gave me crap for forgetting her Cosmo, my dad burned every excuse he had to avoid me, and I spent more than a little time listening to my MP3 player and lying in bed. A little emo, certainly, but I think I earned it.

I didn’t eat anymore the rest of the day—I wasn’t hungry. I wasn’t unaware that that put me at two full days with nothing more in my system than three eggs and four pieces of bacon. And even that had been less hunger and more habit. I marked the breakfast on my wall calendar out of morbid curiosity.

The night brought me to the grey beach, somewhere I was beginning to fear less and less. I spent the night walking up and down the shore, picking up little grey rocks and little grey shells and hurling them into the waves. My fear of the man-thing made of light floated somewhere in the back of my mind, but it hadn’t been that hard to avoid the first time, and it had made a terrible racket when it arrived. I didn’t think it could sneak up on me any more than a train could. I left the beach every night with the rise of the sun since the first night, but my first excursion told me that leaping into the water would wake me up right away. It was an emergency exit.

When the sun came, I woke up and got ready for school. My first instinct was to dress down, to try to blend in and deflect what attention I could. But then I thought of the questions and the pitiful stares and the spinning gauntlet I was about to enter and decided I’d need all the self-esteem I could muster. I spent most of the morning curling my hair into a mane of black tresses, and I spent the rest of it digging through my clothes for my long black skirt and my witchy-poo boots. I completed the look with an eye-scorching pink top and a black cardigan. I made my eyes as startling and green as I could with my best eye-liner tricks, scooped up my backpack, and bounced downstairs.

“Luce! Luce, you missed breakfast.” My mom said from the kitchen.

“It’s okay,” I said, grabbing the books I needed and stuffing them into my pack. “I’ll eat a big lunch.”

I wanted to say “it’s cool, I’m a freak,” or “all the cool kids are anorexic now,” but I managed to spin the words before they came out. When she came out of the kitchen, her eyes bugged out. She scanned my appearance with more than a little disapproval.

“I see why you missed breakfast,” she said in a tiny, tight voice. “Is this really appropriate, Luce?”

I frowned and indicated my clothes with a sweep of my hand.

“I’m not dressed slutty.”

“I—” she said and stopped, clearly exasperated at my candor. “That’s not what I meant.”

I felt that stupid defensive pride grab the wheel again.

“What did you mean, Mom?” I asked. “Big puffy sweatshirt, ponytail?”

“Well,” she said, and her face twisted into one that probably mirrored mine more than a little. “What’s wrong with that? There’s nothing wrong with healing, Luce.”

“Healing from what, Mom?”

Her anger deflated immediately. Mine didn’t.

“I just meant if you want to lay low I understand—”

“Can we go?” I asked. My tone could slice steel.

She sighed, seeming to shrink a foot in height, and nodded. She grabbed her purse and blew past me out of the door. I followed her with tight-lipped crispness. I made sure to slam the heels of my witchy boots into the concrete as hard as I could. I sounded like a pissed-off woodpecker.

The ride went in the kind of awkward silence that deserved to be filmed. We picked up Morgan, who was dressed in typical Morgan fare and looking much more put together than at the grocery store. She caught the syrup-thick tension in the air immediately and said nothing more than a muted “Hey, Luce,” that faded away just after the “Lu.”

Mom told us the usual time she’d pick us up, a somewhat obvious piece of information, but I’m sure she was just trying to say something before we left. I grunted something that sounded like an affirmation and she drove off with a little chirp of the tires.

The school parking lot was already beginning to fill, and students flowed past us with increasing density. Morgan turned toward me, and she looked to be attempting diplomacy.

“You look great, Lucy. Really great, actually.”

I smiled and let out a sigh of relief, “You sure know how to say sorry.”

Morgan grinned and threw her arm over my shoulder, “What are friends for? How do I look?”

“Awful,” I said, shaking my mane of black curls. “Just awful.”

Morgan stuck her tongue out at me, and we walked off through the parking lot with the renewed vigor that can only follow intense weirdness. We didn’t talk about The Night, thankfully, on the way to class. She walked me right up to Journalism class and reached out to squeeze my hand. I tightened up.

“Morgan.”

“I know,” Morgan said, and smiled. “I’m really glad that I have you.”

I couldn’t stand up to that. I pulled her into a tight hug.

“Me, too.”

She didn’t say anything else, mercifully, before squeezing my hand again and walking off. I only just managed to get myself under control and not burst into big girly tears before heading into class. I floated to my computer, ignoring the looks I had been expecting. Twenty minutes into class, and thus, twenty minutes into a particularly frustrating game of Text Twist, Will slid into the chair of the empty computer next to mine.

I tried to hide my deep breath and turned to face him. I offered a pleasant smile.

“Hey, Will.”

“Hey, Luce,” Will said. He was a freshman to the bone. Nervous voice, rail-thin boyish body, the red skin tone of pre-acne. He sat at lunch with us, and Daphne had taken him in as some kind of apprentice/squire. Daphne used him as a valet, essentially.

I waited the appropriate five seconds before speaking again.

“What’s up?” I asked him.

He shook his head and laughed. “I’m sorry. Sorry. I just wanted to say hey.”

Sure. Liar.

“Hey,” I said, and turned back to my computer.

After I shifted the words around in Text Twist a few times and still wasn’t able to come up with anything coherent, I turned back to him. He hadn’t budged.

“Can I…I mean, you look really good,” he said. His face went bone-white.

My eyebrow arched, “Uh, thanks?”

“I just meant. I’m glad you’re okay.”

Well, he wasn’t wearing the pity mask, I’ll give him that. His eyes were eager, and he was smiling. He meant it—he wasn’t fishing for anything. I let out a long breath and nodded.

“Thanks, Will.”

“You’re uh, you’re welcome. Luce.”

“Well, I should…” I indicated my game.

“T-totally. You, uh, you Twist yourself silly. I’m gonna…I have that article.”

I nodded, my lips tight, trying to suppress genuine laughter. The poor guy looked like he might explode, or melt into the floor. He jumped out of his chair and bounced off back to his computer.

I dived into 2nd period World History with vigor. No one bothered me, no one stared at me, and the subject was pretty cool. After the lecture, I finished the worksheet Mr. Stater gave us, and thus my homework, and bounced out of the classroom with a good mood on the horizon.

Just like last week, Morgan and Wanda sideswiped me as soon as I hit the hallway. I smiled at Morgan and turned to Wanda. She looked like she had a big secret, had to go to the bathroom, or was about to sneeze. I raised an eyebrow at her.

“Hey, Wanda. Cold out today, huh?”

She nodded, trying to look casual. She even stuffed her hands into the pockets of her jeans and nodded again.

I sighed.

“Get it out.”

“LUCY!”

She mauled me, not unlike the last few people to see me alive. Well. Alive. When she released me, I nodded, trying to act understanding. I’d be freaking out, too. It was impossible to ask everyone to ignore what happened.

She told me how glad she was to see me, how worried she was. I nodded and smiled and told the same story I’d told a hundred times. The back of my head ached halfway through—I touched the contusion again with a mixture of wonder and certainty. I shook my head. Of course it hurt—I’d been pistol-whipped in the back of the head.

Liar.

I nodded through the rest of Wanda’s sentiments on the way to English. I knew it was only going to get worse. I was headed into the meat grinder—all of the girls had English with me.

I didn’t take a step into Ms. Fleece’s class before Sara and Daphne both hit me with a group bear hug. I sighed at Morgan, who was now laughing both hysterically and silently. She shook with the force of it. Wanda just looked confused, and Sara and Daphne lifted me off my feet.

“She lives,” Daphne said, in her megaphone voice. “My girl lives!”

“Stupid chick,” Sara said. “I should knock your block off.”

I smiled sheepishly. The whole class was watching the show now.

“All right, all right,” I said, and together they let me back down. “I’m fine. And I’m not telling the story again.”

Daphne shrugged, “Morgan already told us all.”

Morgan’s silent laughter renewed itself. I flashed her a threatening glare, which only made her shake harder.

“Well, swell,” I said, and dumped my backpack next to my desk. “Let’s get a-learnin’.”

The girls slid into the chairs next to me. Ms. Fleece looked to be oblivious at the board again, scribbling out instructions, but that had fooled us once before. Daphne didn’t allow even a minute of silence before she leaned back and threw her arms up theatrically.

“So how did the date go?”

She and the other girls burst into screaming fits of laugher. I sighed, ducked my head, and inscribed death threats into the margins of my notes. Ms. Fleece eventually reined in control of the class and got us back to Lord of the Flies.

Sara was reading that day, the part just after the wild blood-orgy that culminated in little Simon’s death, when a student messenger walked into the class. Sara stopped reading, but Ms. Fleece gestured for her to continue as she intercepted the messenger. I watched Ms. Fleece read the note—I saw her face crumple in something like annoyance.

Sara kept reading, telling us about Simon’s body floating away on tides of silver I drifted in and out as Ms. Fleece nodded and shooed the messenger away.

“One second, Ms. James,” Ms. Fleece said to Sara, and Sara stopped reading.

Ms. Fleece moved down the aisle and handed me the small pink slip of paper. It told me in scrawled blue ink to report to the principal’s office. I glanced up at her, the paper rustling in my shaking hand.

“Right now?”

She nodded. I gave my head a numb shake, scooped up my backpack, and headed for the door. Right as I crossed the threshold, I heard Daphne’s voice rise above the silence.

“Ooooo, you’re in trouble.”

I smiled, despite myself, as I left the class.

I crossed the gigantic quad and walked to the principal’s office. I’d never been sent to the principal’s office in my whole life. I’d received a few detentions in my time, but I’d never racked up the kind of points it takes to get a ticket to the Head Screw’s office. I wondered where I had acquired my prison lingo as I walked into the main office. I showed my slip to the plump secretary at the first desk—she waved me past her and pointed toward the right office. The door was open. Principal Ortiz sat in a typical educator’s brown suit behind his desk, and two people sat in the chairs opposite him. There wasn’t any room for me to sit.

Principal Ortiz gestured for me to enter—he looked as nervous as I felt. I folded my hands behind my back and glanced around nervously. Nowhere to sit. Awesome. I half-expected the people in the office to start making bids or something.

I recognized one of the people, I realized. Officer Sykes, his shades tucked into his shirt pocket, gave me the granite non-expression I’d come to know so well.

The other person I’d seen around campus. She was a round lady with a cute face and what looked to be an impeccable black suit with an A-line skirt. Her very curly brown hair was half-up and half-down, the top part held up by an intricate silver comb. When she turned to me, she offered me a huge smile and got out of her chair. She held out a hand, and I gave it an awkward shake. Her firm grip crushed mine, and when I leaned back against the wall, I massaged my fingers back to life.

“I’m Marian Crane,” she said, returning to her seat.

“Uh, hello.”

“You’re Lucy Day?” She said, and though her tone remained light, she looked me up and down like she’d expected me to be taller or something.

“That’s me.”

Principal Ortiz spoke up finally.

“Sorry to pull you out of your class, Lucy, but we heard about Friday night and we just have a couple of hoops to jump through.”

I smiled at that. He seemed to pick up on it, and he went on with a light tone.

“How are you feeling?”

I shrugged, “Fine. My head’s a little sore. But I’m okay, if that’s what you mean.”

He nodded and leaned back in his chair.

“That’s great, Lucy. Well, we’re all happy to hear that you’re safe and well. Officer Sykes is here to have you fill out a full police report, if you don’t mind.”

“Nope,” I said, and that wasn’t a lie. Though I hadn’t thought about it much, I did wish those guys would get caught. The only part of me that didn’t was the part that still knew the truth. It was shrinking by the minute it seemed. “Don’t mind.”

“Good, good,” Principal Ortiz said. “And Ms. Crane is one of our guidance counselors.”

And there we are. I nodded and tried to teleport to another country. No luck.

“It’s part of our policy to counsel any of our students who have been assaulted, involved in, or witnessed crime, or violence,” Ms. Crane said, her crisp voice belying little emotion. “You’ll be seeing me for the next couple weeks. Just to be safe, of course.”

I nodded again. My lips tightened. They phrased it like policy and if you don’t mind and all that, but I knew that none of this was voluntary. When I expressed doubts about missing English so often, they assured me that my daily trips to the counseling office would fall on a different class period every day. Every. Day. How nice of them. As they talked, I inspected the floor for escape hatches.

“I know this may seem silly,” Principal Ortiz said. “But I think it’s best to make sure everything is fine. Just a check under the hood is all.”

Officer Sykes took me into a conference room and laid out the police report papers in a perfect little arc in front of me. He explained every line, every box, and what was required of me to fill them out. He didn’t look at me until I’d finished.

I filled out the reports in my neatest handwriting, which is sort of like a wolverine doing his best knitting. In that particular aspect, I was more Dad than Mom—typical, almost mannish serial killer loops with a maniacal slant. I was a talker, not a scribbler. At least, that’s how I explained eleven years’ worth of miserable penmanship grades.

My story hadn’t changed, and I wrote it down the same. When I handed it back to him, he shuffled the papers together and slipped them into a notebook tucked under his arm, all business. That’s why when he reached out and squeezed my shoulder, I nearly jumped out of my boots.

“Lucy?”

“Yeah?”

His face changed—it became briefly human. Here comes the pity.

“I’m not supposed to tell you this,” Sykes said. “But we found the gun.”

Sinking. Blackness swam at the edge of my eyes, and for one horrific moment I was sure I was going to faint. Not good. Not good. I took a few long, deep, hopefully clandestine breaths to steady myself.

“You did?”

Sykes nodded, “It wasn’t far from where you reported waking up. You didn’t see it?”

“I…I didn’t really look for it,” I said. “I felt pretty weird when I woke up.”

“I believe it,” he said, and took his hand off my shoulder. He even managed a tiny, efficient Sykes-like smile, “Have a good one, Lucy Day.”

“I’ll see you around, Sykes.”

“I hope not,” Sykes said.

I laughed and scooted out into the reception area. Right as I crossed the threshold I noticed plump little Ms. Crane sitting on one of the chairs just outside the conference room. My shoulders slumped.

“We start today, don’t we?” I breathed.

Ms. Crane smiled and stood up. I followed her to her office with all the Sykes-inspired goodwill leaking out of me. By the time I sat down in her oddly colorless office, it had hemorrhaged completely. She shuffled through a stack of papers on her desk before standing up, shutting her office door, and dropping back into her cushy-looking leather chair.

She gave me a tight little smile.

“Tell me about yourself, Lucy.”

I slumped in my chair and started in.

I’d been all crossed-arms and pinched face when she started, like I was waiting for a wave to crash me into. For the hammer to fall. Crane kept it light, though. Asked about my parents, what they did, how often I saw them. Was she trying to pin it on them? Runaway, product of a broken home? She was too damn pleasant and mild and unassuming to be mad at, though. It was like being interviewed by Mundane-Crap Magazine.

The session passed faster than I thought it would. The intro with the principal and the time with Sykes had taken a chunk already, and I just began describing my home situation when the bell rang. She shook my hand and wished me a good day. I left the office in a slightly better mood—I hadn’t expected everyone to be so nice. Going to the principal’s office rarely foreshadowed a good day. I mean, so I’d read in books.

I didn’t think of myself as a goody two-shoes—I’d managed plenty of mischief in my day. I guess the only difference between me and the problem kids was that I knew how to avoid getting caught.

Art passed by in a blur—both Wanda and I were way too behind in our fruit bowl projects to be distracted by any talk. I was grateful, honestly—I wanted, more than anything, for everything to go back to normal. I was tired of being congratulated or pitied or fawned over or hugged.

Wanda and I headed toward our lunch spot after class, chatting about our art projects and the weather. I spotted Zack sitting on a stone table at the edge of the quad, surrounded by his usual friends. His hair wasn’t done, I realized—his deep chestnut hair, normally bed-head mussed, lay rounded and out-of-the-shower frizzy across his skull. He wore a brown t-shirt and a pair of washed out jeans. He wasn’t participating in whatever group conversation was making Benny rave.

His eyes were locked on the table in front of him—he fiddled with a bag of Cheetos without opening them.

I touched Wanda’s elbow and nodded toward Zack. She gave me a knowing look and veered off toward our usual group. I sucked in a deep breath. Why was I so nervous about seeing him again after our amazing-turned-catastrophic-turned-manhunt date?

As soon as I was in earshot, Zack’s entire table dropped into unrelenting silence. Another deep breath. Calm down, Lucy.

Zack looked up at me last. When he did, I gestured toward the ring of grass just outside the quad. He gave me his Zack poker face and stepped over the low stone wall.

I slid over the tiny wall after him, making sure to put my back to his friends—I didn’t need the worry of having to read his friends’ expressions, too. Zack looked down at me with those intense blue eyes.

“Zack,” I said. “I don’t know what to say.”

Zack stuck his hands into his pockets, “You didn’t answer my calls.”

My heart leaped into my throat. He was angry. The set of his shoulders, his tensed arms. He stood evenly between both feet, motionless. A statue.

I recoiled. Of everything, I hadn’t expected anger.

“I’m sorry,” I said again. “I didn’t really talk to anyone.”

“Mmmhmm,” Zack said.

“What?”

“You didn’t talk to Morgan? Wanda?”

“No,” I said.

“Why?”

“I just… I didn’t.” I shrugged. “I didn’t know what to say. I texted you.”

Zack blew out a stream of air. “You sent everyone that text.”

I bounced a tight fist in my other hand. I followed every movement, every tremor, and turn of Zack’s body. He kept turning away from me, I noticed, offering me only one side of him.

“What is it?”

“I…we looked everywhere for you.”

“I know,” I said. My cheeks burned. “I’m sorry. I mean, thank you. I don’t know. This is new for me.”

“Me too,” Zack said. He crossed his arms over his chest, “I just… Why didn’t you call me?”

“I didn’t call any—”

“Forget it,” Zack said, trying to offer a wan smile. It was fake, grotesque even.

“Stop it,” I said. “I’m sorry, okay. This is new for me. Being on Unsolved Mysteries isn’t my idea of a great weekend.”

Zack offered a genuine smile this time, even if it just barely escaped his lips.

“Can we start over?”

My heart sank when he said it. What did that mean? All over? My eyes burned, and I growled silently in the dark reaches of my mind—I couldn’t cry. Stop it. Just stop it, you stupid girl. My fists balled into little white fists, but my voice stumbled over the hitch in my breath. Please stop. Just don’t cry.

“O-okay,” I said, and nodded. When I dipped my head down on the nod, I made sure my curly mane of black hair curtained around my face. Hiding it as best as I could, hunkering back into it like a hood, “Just. Okay. All right.”

I knew I shouldn’t have let Zack back into my thoughts. Shouldn’t have hoped that the smartest, cutest, most perfect guy would want someone like me. I was the weird girl who disappears during a date and shows up on a milk carton. I was Lucy Day, Damsel-in-Distress. Victim. Loser.

My shoulders bowed, and I nodded at a question unasked. I turned to go.

“W-wait!” He said, and grabbed my shoulder. I snapped back toward him.

“Zack…”

“I meant another date. Start over another date.”

My ears went deaf. The hollow rush of blood wooshed through my head. My lips felt numb. It sounded like I said “What?” but I couldn’t be sure behind the mile of cotton jammed so suddenly into my head.

“Another date?” he asked. “One preferably without a rescue team.”

Somehow, my lips remembered how to smile. I’d gone drunk at the wheel, but someone on board still had a hand on the rudder.

“U-unless that’s what you’re into,” Zack said. “Because I have a cousin who’s a lifeguard. We can go to the beach, pick fights with sharks, slap around the whales. It might be fun.”

I laughed, and the grin he flashed made my brain melt. I found myself dangerously close to a swoon again—I couldn’t believe it. Two swoons within the same week. One more and I had to pack it in and become a full-time romance novel cliché.

“Well?”

“Yes!” I said. “I mean. Well, uh. Sure. That’s cool.”

I went to stick my hands nonchalantly in my pockets before I realized I was wearing a skirt. I went for the cardigan, but it was too high up, and I ended up look like an old man trying to pull up his incredibly high pants. Zack laughed.

“Did I mention how good you look today?”

I beamed. I couldn’t help it.

“Nope,” I said. “I don’t remember anything like that.”

“I’ll tell you in Spanish, then,” Zack said.

“Cool,” I said, and backed away slowly. “Start working on a date idea.”

He frowned, “What about the shark thing?”

“Shark date is the third date,” I said. “I’m waiting.”

Zack nodded and his mouth turned into his crooked grin. I turned and fled back to my group with as little speed as I could manage. I didn’t quite get the lazy stroll I was gunning for, but I accomplished something slightly under power-walk.

When I get back to the group, the girls were filled with dynamite. All of them bounced on their seats, pained faces screaming for details. I told them what happened, and they erupted in an atom bomb of girlish glee. Frankly, I found the whole thing disgusting. Or, I would have, if I hadn’t been jumping up and down like an idiot along with them.

After pocketing the cash my mom loaned me for lunch, only marginally aware that not eating for three days was a strange thing, I headed to Spanish. I was packed with tightened springs—I was made of light. I thought of Zack, who liked me. No maybes, no faint hopes. No dreaded freshman Weirdness. He liked me. He didn’t want to be with Morgan, he didn’t want to go on a date with a cheerleader, or even Becca Darling, the brainy-but-sexy phenomenon in all of Zack’s honors classes.

Me. My heart felt like a hot coal in my chest.

Not everywhere else though, I noted as I made my way to Spanish. I hadn’t noticed it until then, but I was freezing. My legs felt like they had been dunked in ice. I blamed it on the skirt—I’d worn it as a universal go-to-hell to my own fear, but it was thin and the air was turning chilly. This wasn’t even California cold, the wussy cold that gripped me often. I felt like I’d eaten a bucket of ice cream and been dumped into a meat locker with the Abominable Snowman.

I pulled my cardigan around me, which did next to nothing against the chill.

The incredible fluffy lightness caused by thoughts of Zack made Spanish zip by. He sat behind me, as usual, but today we didn’t sit and pretend like the other didn’t exist. We’d taken Spanish One together freshman year, and had spent most of those days flirting, passing notes, and engaged in the standard Weirdness sports. This year had been awful. Awful until today, anyway.

We spoke quietly to each other during lulls in the class. Mr. Halloway—Seńor Halloway, as he insisted we call him—even yelled at me at one point to quiet down. Both of us disappeared back into our verb conjugation worksheet, and I didn’t look up until a tiny square of ripped-off notebook paper floated onto my desk. I turned it over to see the small neat blue handwriting I knew to be Zack’s.

You look really great today.

Where is your cauldron and broom?

I spun around, trying to decide between playful annoyance and joy. He locked me with a wily half-smirk and bent back to his worksheet. I flipped the paper over and scrawled a message on it. I watched him read it with a faux-shocked expression. He wrote beneath my message and slipped it back to me.

I was late this morning and didn’t have time to do my hair.

Well, either that or I’m victim to some kind of witch’s curse.

Weird, huh?

I smirked at him, but when I turned back to write my own note back I gave a quick up-and-down of my outfit. It was a little proto-Goth I supposed, but the glaring pink top had to count for something, right? Stupid boys. I scrawled something equally inflammatory back to him on the already-crowded slip of paper. He handed it back to me, and my breath caught.

Benny is having a party at his place Friday.

You should come with me.

A party? I loved parties. And going with Zack would make it one of the better ones in recent memory. I wasn’t sure about the specifics, and I certainly couldn’t guarantee that as soon as my parents got over the we were so worried period and entered the how could you zone they wouldn’t ground me until next Christmas. It didn’t matter. I’d figure out the groveling later. I wrote an all-caps YES on the paper and settled into my worksheet with renewed, non-academically-inspired glee.

The glee disappeared with Geometry class. I sat, trying to endure the combination of soul-sucking boredom and bone-shattering cold. I flirted with the guy who sat next to me until he let me borrow the huge life vest-like parka he was wearing. It helped a little, and I even managed to ignore the fact that I looked like a bright red marshmallow in the comically sized jacket. Well, that, and the knowledge that I had just set the women’s rights movement back a good three months with a few well-timed fake laughs and arm-touches. I was ashamed, but I was warmer, so I clung to that.

When school ended the guy whose jacket I conned from him followed me half-way to my car before giving up. He started asking about my Winter Formal plans when I shoved the jacket into his hands, thanked him as sweetly as I could, and bolted to Mom’s car. I felt awful. Girls are evil. I admit it readily.

I slid into my mom’s car and jammed on the heater before I even looked around. Morgan was already in the car—Jacket-Guy had kept me later than I had guessed. I explained the situation to Morgan and Mom, who laughed and scolded me, respectively. I kicked the heater up to max, unsatisfied with its agonizing slowness.

“Hang on, Lulu,” Mom said, spouting a child nickname I didn’t particularly enjoy. “Relax! It’s not that cold.”

“Pssh,” I said. My teeth were rattling.

“I told you to wear something else.”

“Mom!”

We drove in relative, comfortable silence while Mom sang along to Elton John songs. We dropped off Morgan in front of her apartment/parental dungeon with a sad, reluctant wave. Mom parked, and as we climbed out of the car and scooted towards the front door of my house, trying to put as little distance between two heater-equipped areas as I could, the raw naked fear from the super-market hit me again.

I choked off a pained breath, grabbed Mom by the shoulders, and threw her down behind the hood of our car. She was fumbling with her keys when I grabbed her, and she fell to her knees with a pained yelp and flung them into the rose bushes.

Through the tiny space beneath my mom’s Green Goblin mobile, I saw the black tires of a white Lincoln turn onto our street. It rolled past my house without seeming to slow and swung left onto the street perpendicular to mine. When it was gone I jumped to my feet and ripped Mom back up to her feet.

“What the…Lucy!”

My eyes were locked in wide-eyed hysteria on the corner the Lincoln turned away on. I was frozen, and yet I couldn’t stop picturing the white Lincoln rolling backwards through the intersection. The street was empty, but my heart still raced like the devil.

“LUCY!”

I turned toward the screaming voice. The simple gesture broke the spell, and my lungs began to suck air again. Mom was the color of a freshly boiled lobster, and she cradled her badly scraped hand close to her stomach.

“Mom?”

“What the hell was that, Lucy? You almost broke my hand.”

She shoved her hand in front of my eyes. It didn’t look anywhere near broken, not even bruised, but it did have a nasty scrape creeping from knuckle to wrist.

“I’m…I’m sorry Mom. I just—”

I stopped. What had just happened? I didn’t exactly have a ready explanation.

“Sorry? Lucy, you just…you attacked me.”

“No, I was trying to hide you,” I said, and my voice sounded calmer than it should. I sounded crazy, even I knew that.

She puffed her cheeks and slammed her hands to her hips. “Hide me from what?”

“I thought—I thought I saw the car those guys had. The guys at the Set.”

Lying. Liar. I had no idea if the guys who attacked me even had a car. But it just popped into my head—it was the only thing I had that might not make me look like a total raving psycho. But what if it was them? What if my…condition allowed me to sense my killers? Were they after me? Did they know?

“What? They had a car?”

“Uh—when they started to chase me. One ran to a car…but I think he changed his mind.”

“Lucy, are you okay?”

“Can we go inside?”

Mom frowned, clearly trying to fight between concern, anger, and worry that her daughter was a complete nutter-butter. Something won out, because she grabbed me by the elbow and rushed me into the house. It might have been none of those things, to be fair—it might have been the fear of a scene. Either way, when she shut the front door she spun the deadbolt closed without hesitation.

“Sit down, honey,” she said. “I’m gonna get you some water.”

I snatched the blanket from the couch and wrapped it around me tighter than a burial shroud.

“Mom,” I shouted. “Can you turn up the heater?”

“Sure, baby,” she said, though her voice sounded funny. Preoccupied.

In a couple minutes she brought me a glass of water, a cup of hot chocolate, and one diagonal of a turkey sandwich. She sat next to me on the couch with the other half of the sandwich on her plate and set it on the coffee table. I didn’t feel thirsty, but I quaffed the water to appease Mom. I clung to the burning mug of hot chocolate like the last train out of Hell. Though Hell was warm…

Hmm. Something to ponder.

Mom didn’t say anything for most of the night. She treated the scrape on her hand, ate her sandwich, and stared at me out of the corner of her eye. I wanted to be mad at her, but my brain was shutting down. I could feel it. The cold was pouring into every molecule of my body, and I couldn’t think beyond cold…cold…cold.

I skipped dinner, told my Mom I felt sick, and ran up to my room sometime before 7:30. A hot shower helped, but the chill of the water afterward shook my entire body with wracking muscle spasms. I put on two sets of long underwear, one of which I’d gotten last year from my uncle for a ski-trip to Big Bear. They were supposed to be rated for high-altitude mountain climbers. I threw my hugest pair of jeans over the long-johns, tugged on the big stupid furry boots that had been in fashion a year ago—but that I now despised—and pulled on a t-shirt, a flannel, a sweatshirt, and my giant purple parka. I even tightened the hood around my face when I jumped into bed. Sheet. Blanket. Comforter. Grandma’s quilt.

It took me half-an-hour to realize that I wasn’t warming up. I kept trying to deny it, trying to push away the ridiculous information. I knew that when you start cold and wrap yourself up it takes some time to get warm again, and so I tried to be patient and let it happen. It wasn’t happening. I waited another hour, curling my toes, rubbing my arms. I wasn’t too proud to get up, dig through my hope chest, and tug on a giant pair of mittens I’d had since I was nine-years-old.

An hour later, I took another hot shower. When I crawled back into bed, fully swathed in my layers of clothing, I was even colder.

Two hours later, I was on the edge of hysteria.

I couldn’t feel my feet anymore. I’d grown deaf to the non-stop rattling of my teeth in my head. My hands, tucked between my frozen knees, creaked with agony. Stinging needles of pain streaked through my nose and my ears. My cheeks felt like they’d been burned.

I knew I should tell my mom. I knew I should go to the hospital. This wasn’t cold anymore—this was lethal. I knew if I did nothing I would die, and I knew that without the barest hint of hesitation.

But why didn’t I go downstairs and tell her? Why didn’t I scream for Dad?

I knew the answer, but I didn’t want to say it. I didn’t even want to think it.

My phone buzzed on my nightstand. It took more effort than I would have guessed to palm the tiny phone with my mittened hands. I started laughing at the absurdity of it, but the ragged edge in my laughter made me clamp my mouth shut almost immediately. Get a grip, Luce. You’re losing it.

I turned the phone toward me—a text message from a number I didn’t recognize.

I frowned. I opened the message.

You’re Not Wrong, Luce.

I Hear the Beach is Nice This Time of Year.

And here we are. You have now reached cruising altitude and may unbuckle your seat belts and move around the cabin. Please remember that there is no in-flight movie, and there’s a good chance the pilot took the only parachute with him on his way out the hatch.

I dropped the phone on the bed.

When I breathed out, a white plume of frost twisted out of my mouth and floated away on unseen breezes.

“Fine,” I said, and lay back on the pillow.

The second I shut my eyes to try to sleep, I heard the waves.

No pop. No snap. No dramatic fade-up. Just nothing, and then waves. Like someone had changed channels.

I opened my eyes.

I noticed two things immediately. One, I wasn’t cold anymore. I wasn’t warm, either, but the icy ache began to slide out of my muscles the moment I opened my eyes. The second thing I noticed was that I wasn’t alone anymore.

Chapter Seven

One-Sided Conversations

I tried to scream, but he didn’t let me.

His hand, burning with feverish heat, clamped over my mouth and cut off the tiny squeak I’d managed to conjure. He pushed me down into the sand, shoved his face into mine, and used his other hand to make the universal shush gesture with his index finger.

I hadn’t had much time to get a good look at him. When I’d opened my eyes, he’d been a shadow crouched against the grey horizon, a black hulk of lanky limbs. He’d sprung at me with blinding speed, and the strength in those long skinny arms was incredible. I wasn’t weak, but he pinned me with one hand without effort.

Still, as I looked up at him and his shush finger, pressed tightly against his lips, I could see the planes of his face, even in the dim of the grey sky. They weren’t twisted in some trollish look of rage or slicked into the lines of a hungry predator. In fact, he looked determined more than anything, or cautious even. It was hard to tell his age in the dark, but the gray of his shaggy hair told me he wasn’t young. His eyes shot away from my face, looking over me, toward where I knew the hill to be.

I stopped struggling. It could have been a ruse, but he didn’t look like he was attacking me. I think he just wanted me to shut the hell up. So I did. I waited, watching his eyes scan the horizon. Finally, he leaned back, looked me up and down, and pulled his hand away from my mouth.

I opened my mouth, slowly, and pointed one finger toward my face. He nodded, but held his hand out and made a gesture. He pinched an inch of air between his index finger and his thumb. I nodded at that.

“Hey,” I said. “How’s it going?”

He laughed—I guess I caught him off-guard. His body shook with laughter, and his face contorted into a big friendly grin, but he made no noise. When his mirth had stilled, he made the see-saw doing okay motion.

“What—?” I said, and looked behind me, where he had been looking. Just a hill. Now, anyway.

When I looked back, he’d moved a few feet away from me, and I got a better look at him. His face reminded me of my Grandpa, long and narrow and creased with wrinkles, but he had round boyish eyes. His hair, shaggy for an old guy, hung around his ears. It didn’t look unhealthy—in fact, except for a slight thinness, he wasn’t balding at all. He looked a well-kept sixty-or-seventy years old, but he moved like a little boy.

An old-style brown tweed suit clung to him, and it looked well-tailored if a little worn. Instead of a tie, a bright red scarf wrapped his neck and hung lazily across one shoulder. He didn’t stand up, but remained in what almost looked like a football-hike crouch. Three of his fingers even touched the sand just in front of him.

“What was there?” I asked.

The old man made a pondering face. He leaned back on his haunches, freed up his hands, and opened and closed them in a slow rhythmic pulsing. It didn’t look that different from a hula dancer’s gestures. I shook my head.

“Can you talk?”

The old man shook with another silent chuckle and waved his hand in the that’s ridiculous gesture, like he was swatting invisible flies. I frowned, but then shrugged.

“Am I dead?”

It just popped in my head—the question that broke every unwritten rule I’d built since the attack. Suddenly I didn’t care about stupid rules. I hadn’t talked to anyone about it, and I could feel a torrent of word-vomit climbing up my throat.

I watched the old man’s features. He was extremely expressive, and went from thoughtful to concerned to inspired to defeated in less than ten seconds. In the end, he just raised his hand and made that see-saw gesture again.

“What? No, not kinda. That’s not an answer.”

He made the see-saw gesture again and shrugged. I sighed, reached up, and unloosened the hood that was still clinging tightly to my face like I was some kind of Thanksgiving pilgrim woman. I shook my hair out, rubbed my cheeks, and tried again.

“Are we in danger here?”

See-saw. I growled in frustration, but he just shrugged again.

“Is there somewhere safer?”

He  nodded his head yes. Then shook it no. He sighed and shook his head with his hands out in front of him. It looked like an apology. I felt bad harassing him about it. I ran through my brain, trying to find some common ground or question I thought he might be able to answer.

Got one.

“Did you send the text message?”

That one was met with the most perplexed look I’d ever seen. It made me grin. I apologized and went on. If this guy had ever even touched a cell-phone, I’d eat my giant purple jacket.

“Are you dead?”

I got the gesture I thought I would. He looked hesitant to even make the gesture, but I waved it away.

“It’s not your fault,” I said. “I’m sorry. Is there a way out of here?”

He made the of course face.

“Not…back home. I mean, like. Is this beach and that highway all there is?”

A scoff. I nodded. Okay, little people, big world, I get it.

“Oh, I got it. Can you write?”

The old man offered only a pitied grin—it was the look you gave a toddler trying his very best to reach that infernal cookie jar. Oh, look, he’s up on his tip toes. I flashed a glare.

“What? Can you write or not?”

He nodded, but that grin didn’t go away.

“Write in the sand, like, with your finger. What’s your name?”

His smile widened.

“Ugh.”

I crouched in front of him, trying to suppress a flash of anger. I held one finger up, and like I was demonstrating to a particularly stupid child, began drawing huge letters in the sand.

“My. Name. Is. L-U-C-Y…wait.”

My finger cut long furrows in the sand, but none of the letters made any sense. They were twisted snakes of meaningless marks, strung together like a potful of spaghetti dumped on the ground. I looked up at him in shock.

His grin widened. He sighed, waved his hand at the twisting ideograms, and threw his hands up to the sky. What can you do, his gesture said.

“You can’t write here?”

He shook his head.

“Or read?”

Nope, his face said.

“Like a dream?”

Yup.

“Is this a dream?”

Nope.

“Dammit.”

I propped myself back on my arms and let out a deep, chestful sigh. The old man copied my pose and did the same. I laughed—he didn’t seem to be mocking me, just playful. Or bored. That made another question pop into my head.

“Can you go back—back home? To the real world, I guess?”

He nodded, but his eyes never left the sky. They searched the grey blanket of clouds, and his face smoothed out.

“Do you?”

Yes.

He didn’t look happy when he indicated that. He also made a point not to look at me while he nodded. I stood up, finally, and took another look around the surroundings. I’d been here every night, but most of them I’d spent either in one exact spot or not terribly far from that exact spot. I’d visited the road only once—the first time, when the glowing thing had chased me.

“Oh,” I said, turning toward him. “Was it the man? The man made of light? Is he here?”

The old man sat up. He nodded furiously, and his wide eyes showed nothing but fear. Old fear, caution-fear, but fear nonetheless.

“Has he left yet? Has he…sonic boomed out of here?”

The old man frowned at the phrasing, obviously trying to parse the term. After a moment, he shook his head. No then. The thing was still here.

“Close?”

He didn’t look certain, but after a moment he said no. Well, indicated no. I brushed my sandy hands on my jacket until they were clean, and I held my hand out. The old man took it, and I helped him to his feet. He looked a little curious, but otherwise game.

“Mind walking with me? I haven’t been…coming here very often.”

Obviously, his face said.

I gave him a flat stare, and he chuckled again.

“Know any good restaurants around here?”

Another chuckle.

I began hiking up the sandy hill, and he slogged just to my left. He didn’t look to be having any trouble—in fact, he looked to be working a lot less than me. When I crested the hill, I noticed something strange—the countryside had changed. Or rather, the landmarks had drifted or multiplied. The highway curved at a slightly different angle than I remembered, swinging much further east.

The dull glow of a distant city still burned off down the highway to the northeast, but now another dull glow sprang up down the highway to the south.

The road wasn’t clear this time. It was littered with rusted out cars, motorcycles, even a big-rig a little down the road. The highway wasn’t crowded with them—it wasn’t an L.A. traffic crunch—but there was more than a few. Some of the more tightly packed areas had cars every dozen feet—other areas didn’t have any within a hundred feet of each other. None of them were moving, running, or housing people.

“What’s this?”

The old man made the wheel gesture and then the honk-honk gesture.

I glared at him. “I know what a car is.”

He offered his impish ear-to-ear grin. I was inspired, and I hoped he wouldn’t mind.

“Since I don’t know your name, would you mind terribly if I made one up for you?”

His eyes narrowed, at first, but he rubbed his chin and seemed to think it out. He shrugged and made the left-hand right-hand scale gesture, like he was weighing two sacks of gold.

“So it depends on the name?”

He nodded.

“What about Puck?”

The widest grin yet nearly ripped his face in two. He nodded furiously and made a little clap-clap with his hands. He surprised me with his enthusiasm, but hell, maybe he was a Shakespeare man. By the look of him, I could see English teacher or college professor.

“All right, Puck,” I said, and he tried to suppress a goofy grin. “What are these cars from? Can we use them?”

He gave a who knows shrug, paused, and made the scales gesture again.

“So it depends. Never tried?”

His quick hands mimed a wrench turning a bolt, and then he threw the invisible wrench over his shoulder in mock-frustration. Definitely English teacher. Not that I could blame him—I knew how to put gas in my car, how to change a tire, and how to plug in my phone-charger. The buck stuttered to a stop there.

“All right, Mr. P,” I said. “Which way to go?”

I didn’t even know what I was doing, to be honest. I only knew that as far as I was concerned, if I headed back home right now, I’d be lying in bed, freezing to death. The only plan I could think of was to wait for sunrise, go back home, and hope the morning would sort out the problem.

Puck looked around. After a moment, he pointed south and then made the shame-shame finger wag. He didn’t want to go that way, and the look on his face told me that the light-thing, or something equally horrific, had gone that way.

“What’s this way? A city? Are there others?”

He nodded.

“Like us?”

Yes.

“Are there others not like us?”

Yes, his face said with more than a little fear.

A weird jag popped in my head. I had to ask.

“Are we in heaven?”

The face he made left no room for argument.

“We’re not in…”

No, he indicated firmly. Definitely not.

“Sorry,” I said. “I just had to know.”

I headed down the sloping gravel hill to the highway and hopped the guard rail. Puck came bouncing down next to me, and the two of us set off down the southbound lane, going north. Somehow I didn’t think we were going to get a ticket. Though I really didn’t want to meet the highway patrol in Limbo, or wherever the heck we were.

We walked for what had to be a few hours. I talked a little, wondering if he found my chatter offensive. If I lost my ability to talk, I wouldn’t exactly be patient with someone who wouldn’t stop vomiting their advantage all over me. It would be like losing the ability to eat dessert one day, and then finding nothing but cheesecakes every time you opened your glove box or reached into your cabinet for a towel.

The ground bucked underneath our feet. It trembled again and then tore sideways, forcing both of us to stumble to catch our balance.

Puck caught me around the wrist and dragged me toward a huge truck. He danced up the step, popped open the door, and pumped his arm toward the cab. I flew up with his help and fell into the cab. He shoved me the rest of the way in and slid into the driver’s seat. The old man ducked down as far as he could, pretzeling his long slender legs beneath the steering wheel and slumping down as far as he could manage. Though tall for a girl, I wasn’t anywhere approaching Puck’s height. I dropped into the leg-space on the passenger side and tucked my knees up against my chest. It was tight, but I could fit entirely in the little cubbyhole.

The truck rocked, but the tires and the old creaky suspension cushioned some of the impact. A keening noise, like the distant shrieking of tortured metal or a broken fire alarm rent the air. I slapped my hands to my ears and ground my teeth together to keep the noise out.

“Is it him?”

Puck twisted his head toward me and nodded. Now that the thing was close, he didn’t seem as afraid. I liked him even more in that moment—his eyes were calculating, cautious, perhaps, but clear. He didn’t shake, he didn’t even breathe fast.

“How far?”

His steady look told me close. He made the shush sign again, the one that had introduced me to him. But I couldn’t help myself. I cranked my voice down as low as I could and breathed my words out.

“Can he hurt us?”

Absolutely.

“Kill us?”

Yes.

My eyes widened—I could feel them stretching my cheeks. Some part of me had known that, but to see Puck’s merry face confirm it only lent more horror. I sucked in a breath and sank even deeper into the space under the dashboard.

The ground stopped shaking. A flash of light swept the cab—dim, at first, but pulsing bright. My heart caught the tempo and followed along. Puck shook his head and made the throat-cutting gesture. I raised my eyebrows.

“What?”

The pulsing light strobed the cabin, throwing a white glow against the seats. It painted the shadows-line of the dashboard on the vinyl bench. I’d seen pictures of atomic blasts that had burned the silhouettes of people permanently onto walls, caught in their horrible final moments. The white light reminded me of that.

Puck snapped his fingers. I shot back to him. He made the break motion, like he was snapping a twig in his hands. I shook my head again. The light intensified, and the shadow line of the dashboard began to sink. Like a rising sun, the shadows were growing shorter.

Oh no. The Light-Thing was climbing the hood. I was positive. The front of the truck rattled. Puck sucked in a breath. I couldn’t breathe. My chest was locked up…I couldn’t think. I couldn’t move. I felt my muscles paralyzing in fear.

Puck slapped the seat with a hand to get my attention. His fingers were inches from the receding shadow line. The hood of the truck creaked again. Closer. Something thumped. The last of the dashboard shadow ended just above Puck’s shaggy gray hair.

“Puck. Puck. Please. What do we do?”

Something thunked into glass, just above my head. I ducked, further down. A muscle in my back twisted.

“Puck!”

A noise like nails on a chalkboard but fifty times louder tore through the cab. I screamed, feeling it stab into my ears. My vision swam, and the tiny cab began to spin. Black dots. Everything tunneled. I could see Puck’s face, twisted not in fear, but in worry.

Glass cracked above my head, and I screamed again. The noise doubled and then popped, and I felt something wet and warm slide down my neck, just below my ears. The world became muffled, wrapped in cotton.

The truck jumped, and my head slammed into the dashboard. A bright lance of pain. My vision darkened, flickered, and came back. Old mummified papers and refuse flew out of the glove box and rained down onto me. Another crack as something rammed the window. I couldn’t see. The blinding light in the cabin flashed with every movement.

And then, Puck went to sleep. My mouth dropped open. He even put his head on his folded hands, the international pillow pantomime. His eyes flashed open, and I understood. Not run. Leave. Shift over. Go home.

I’d never done it without either the sea or the rising sun. If anytime was a good time to try, this was it.

“Puck! I’ll die. I know I’ll die.”

Puck’s eyes shot wide open.

“I’m so cold…I don’t know what to do.”

Puck made a hamburger gesture and bit into it. Then he mimed a deep breath.

“What—?”

The window exploded. Shards of glass buried into the seat, bounced off the back wall. A bright line of fire tore across my cheek.

A white shaft of brilliant light lanced above me and hit the seat. No. An arm. It reached for Puck.

“No!”

Puck closed his eyes and was gone. Just gone.

The arm grabbed the steering wheel and ripped it out of the column. A cry of rage, dampened by the cotton in my ears, tore through the cabin. Then the hand reached for me.

I closed my eyes.

The noise stopped. The sound of tearing metal stopped.

I opened my eyes in the intersection of Gilbert and Broadway. An icy spear of cold ripped through my body, stole my breath and my strength.

Two headlights streaked towards me. I couldn’t get up. I didn’t even have time to untangle my legs when the car hit me.

Chapter Eight

Payments

I could make out the Buick logo on the hood of the car as it hit me.

I felt no pain. I appreciated that. I knew when I opened my eyes I wouldn’t be on the grey shore. And I wouldn’t be in the intersection anymore either. I’d be somewhere white, I hoped, or even somewhere black if it was peace—

A squeal, then a sickening crunch. Metal twisting, being torn apart.

I’d come back to the truck. No!

I snapped my eyes open, but I hadn’t left the intersection at all. Broadway stretched out away from me, empty in the late hours. The glow of orange streetlights in the gloom. A distant traffic signal in another intersection sliding from green to yellow to red. Two red dots—brake lights, a mile away.

The crunch was behind me. I looked down at myself. Nothing. Well, nothing but two black streaks of newly burnt rubber perfectly framing my legs on either side. I didn’t go under that car. It should have hit me.

I spun on my knees. The Buick was wrapped around a telephone pole. I rolled to my feet, but my muscles didn’t cramp, not like before. I’d never been so cold in my entire life—it sucked at me, pressing greedy lips to my neck, taking my life. My fingers felt only a dull ache. My legs were numb, my nose, my ears.

It didn’t matter. I ran toward the car with the knowledge that I’d likely gotten some poor man killed. I ran to the door and looked in the window. I pictured infants, nuns, grandmas. But just one man in his late-thirties, slumped over the steering wheel. A limp airbag draped the wheel like a tired ghost. The man’s back moved. He was breathing.

I grabbed the door handle—

No. The door didn’t open.

“What…?” I mumbled, and looked down.

I grabbed for the handle. My hand went right through the handle, the door, and swung out in a lazy arc. I tried again, grabbing straight out, but my hand disappeared in the door. I felt nothing.

“No!”

My hand slipped through the door like it was smoke three more times before I fell to my knees.

“No…”

The man groaned. Just a rasp.

“I’m sorry.”

The man looked up, one eye lolling, the other covered with blood. A gash in his forehead leaked a long streak of red across his face. I felt tears slide down my cheek, turning to ice halfway down. He looked okay, I realized. He wasn’t going to die.

“…where…”

He mumbled more, but I couldn’t make it out. But when he spoke, I felt something. Heat, just a trickle at first. I pushed my face closer to the window, watching him move, my eyes wide. What? I could smell him, but more importantly, I could feel him. He felt like a guttering campfire, or a fireplace in another room. Just the barest hint of it made my skin tingle. For just a moment, I felt the very tips of my fingers…my legs. Just a ghost.

I tried to open the door, stabbing the air with useless hands. They swept through the door, stirring nothing.

“Come on! Come on!”

Something warm and energetic cracked through my body like a lightning bolt. The rush of power flew out of me just as quickly.

The door flew open, slicing right through me with no effect. It cracked against the fender of the car and stayed open, twisted on its hinges. At the same time, an icy wind whipped at me, plunged me into numbness. I looked down.

I could see the road through my legs now. Transparent.

So cold.

I moved closer to the groaning man, and the heat baking from his body made me shiver. He had a wife named Maria. She wasn’t beautiful, not on the outside, but she glowed inside. She was a perfect mother, but bad with money. I knew she hated peas but loved liver. He…Kent made fun of her for it.

No, not that.

I touched his hand, really touched it. I didn’t pass through him, but settled my icy fingers on his skin. He jerked under my touch, and his skin burned against mine.

I thought of Puck.

Kent had a little brother once. A little brother who had died in a flood. So long ago.

No. I can’t.

Do it.

I clamped my fingers around Kent’s wrist and took a deep breath. His heat flowed up my arm, blasting away the cold, warming everything with a honeyed thickness. Up my shoulder, across my chest, down my legs. My feet, my legs, my nose and my ears and my cheeks. My tongue. I took another deep breath, and the curtain of heat drew itself around me. I was submerged in it, drowning.

Kent screamed.

I ripped my hand away from his wrist and fell backward. I landed hard on my butt, and a lance of pain rocketed up my tailbone. I was solid. And…oww, solid hurts.

Kent slumped back, his mouth open, his eyes wide. A band of black encircled his wrist, and the skin halfway up his arm was blue.

“Kent! Sir!”

I leaped to my feet and ran to him. Warmth filled every inch of me. My head swam like I’d drunk a pot of coffee. I shook him, and he moaned. Oh thank God.

I dug through his pockets and pulled out a tiny black cell phone. I went into his contacts and hit “M.” Maria’s name popped up. I hit the button and pressed the phone to my ear.

A voice picked up. Groggy, muffled, but aware.

“Maria, Kent has been in a car accident. I’m so sorry. I—I’m so sorry.”

“What? What are you saying? Who is this?”

Her voice rose hysterically. She was awake now.

“Corner of Broadway and Gilbert. Call the police.”

“Who is this?”

“I’m sorry. Call an ambulance. I’m so sorry.”

I shut the phone and tucked it into his hand. I waited with him, trying not to touch him. What had I done to him? Whose life had I ruined? Did I kill him? Could I?

When I heard sirens, I ran faster than I’d ever run my whole life. The warmth coated every muscle.

I closed my mind as I ran. I didn’t think of how I got to the intersection. I didn’t think of the cold, I didn’t think of my hand sliding through a car door. I didn’t think of my transparent legs. I didn’t think of Kent’s little brother. I didn’t think of Maria, digging through her clothes, putting on mismatched shoes, anything she could find. Digging through her desk for keys, groggy, flying out of her house in the middle of the night. Worried that her love was dead.

If he was, I killed him.

I didn’t think of any of those things.

My house wasn’t far, but Morgan’s was closer. I was miles from my place, but she lived just around the corner. I reached her apartment, threw open the gate to the complex, and sprinted up the stairs.

My fist paused just inches from the door.

What do I say? What could I possibly say to Morgan and her mom, Cheryl?

I was coming apart. I put my hands, nearly glowing with heat, against my eyes. Deep breaths.

I had no excuses, no explanations.

I pounded on Morgan’s door. After the third time, the door flew open.

Cheryl stood in the doorway, wearing only a flimsy nightgown she might have been too embarrassed to come to the door with if she hadn’t seen me through the peephole. She had that aging beauty-queen look to her, like Morgan after twenty-five more years and a thousand cigarettes. Her face broadcasted both confusion and fear.

“Lucy…what…”

“I need a ride home. I know…actually I don’t know what this looks like. And I…have no explanation. I just need. I want to go home. Can you give me a ride home?”

Only when she reached out to wrap me in a hug did I realize I was shaking. My sobs racked my whole body, but I didn’t notice it until I crushed myself against her steady shoulder. My face was soaked with tears. She whispered motherly nothings into my ear, promising that everything would be okay, that everything was okay. Her breath smelled like smoke, but it was wonderful. Her nightgown smelled like lilacs.

I took in a deep breath, and a trickle of warmth slid into my lungs. I saw her next to her boyfriend, Andy, in her bed. Just sleeping, pulled against each other in the night. Another wave of heat drifted through me.

“No!” I choked, throwing myself away from her.

“Lucy?”

I held up my arms in defense, trying to keep her away.

“Stay back…I don’t want to hurt anyone,” my voice broke. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

Cheryl’s skin stretched against her thin bones. In the late hours, she looked even more fragile.

“I don’t understand. Lucy, it’s okay. Nobody is going to hurt you.”

I snorted, a mixture of a laugh and a sob. I felt snot, I felt tears. I was sobbing uncontrollably now. My legs gave out. I sank against the wall, falling to my knees. I heard noises, and when I looked up Andy and Morgan both stood in the doorway. Morgan pushed past them both and crouched next to me. She pulled me against her, and I let go.

“I’m so sorry…”

She held me against her, kissing my head, dragging her fingers through my hair. Morgan was insanely warm—I could picture her in those wool pajamas, wrapped under her electric blanket. I looked up at her, still hiccupping, still shaking. She’d just woken up, her hair stuck out at odd angles, and her eyes were puffy and dark.

She still looked gorgeous. I sighed, trying to calm myself. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Cheryl and her boyfriend make a quick but awkward exit. They exchanged a look before turning and disappearing into the shadows of the darkened apartment.

“What’s going on, Luce?” Morgan asked me. She was calmer than I would have expected. I loved her right then.

“I don’t know.”

When she saw that I had no more to say just yet, she coaxed me to my feet and led me into the house. She sat with me, holding me, letting me cry my guts out. When the final few shudders stopped, a good ten minutes later, we talked.

It took a little convincing to stave off the obligatory parent phone call, but I explained that they had no idea I was gone, would have no idea I was gone, and likely were deep asleep. I won the argument by having Morgan pull out her phone, which hadn’t missed a single call. If I disappeared and my parents knew it, they’d call her first.

“You couldn’t go one week without becoming another Unsolved Mystery?”

She was only half joking. Her lips were smiling, but her puffy eyes were small and flat. The kind of tired that had nothing to do with the hour. Speaking of which.

“What time is it?”

I rubbed my eyes and scanned the living room for a clock. Almost everything had been shut down, and no little green lights told me what time it was.

“Two-thirty, I think,” she said.

“I’m really sorry,” I said. “I didn’t plan this.”

“Didn’t plan what, Luce? What’s going on?”

I didn’t know where to start. If I should start. What could I say to her that wouldn’t make me look insane? Then again, when had I ever kept anything from Morgan? She’s my girl, my BFF. The only time I’d kept anything from her was the time I’d gotten so sick in the fifth grade that I hadn’t been able to make it to the bathroom at school. When she asked why I’d been taken home by my mom halfway through the day, I said I’d blown chunks on the bathroom sink. Trust me, it was worse than that.

“Lucy?”

I looked up at her, my eyes wide. I’d begun to spiral into my own head, where the nonsense lived. Something had to be wrong with me, I decided. I’d been thinking about Batman and shoe shopping when I had died, and minutes after I almost killed a man I couldn’t stop thinking about the fifth grade incident. I clutched my hands to my face, digging my fingertips into my cheeks. I knew I was on the edge of hysteria, but the manic energy crackled through my arms and scored my spine. It made me jittery, terrified, and oddly light.

“Lucy,” Morgan said. She took my wrists and pulled my hands away from my face. I didn’t fight her. “My mom is going to take you home, okay?”

“She’ll tell…”

Morgan smiled and kissed my forehead again. I collapsed into her, and she held me until I stopped quaking.

“I don’t know how, but I won’t let her,” Morgan said. “I’ll just owe her for the rest of my life, I guess.”

My lips became something like a smile.

“I owe you,” I said.

“Count on it. But you can pay me off easy, Luce.”

“What?”

“Not now, but…you have to tell me what’s going on,” she said. “You have to let me help.”

I took a deep breath and tried to smooth it out, tried to suck the air over the gasping hitch in my voice.

“I’ll tell you,” I said, and my stomach lurched. “Just…just not tonight.”

Morgan nodded. “Okay. Deal?”

I nodded. I didn’t have the strength to say anything. My legs felt watery, and my stomach roiled. I’d just agreed to tell my best friend that I was insane. The worst part? I’m not even sure if I was wrong to do it. I knew there would be no lie I could put together that would, or could, explain all the myriad weirdness that had kicked down the door of my boring but happy life. Telling her what I thought I knew would be the only way.

Ugh. I leaned over and breathed evenly and steadily until my stomach quieted.

“Gonna vomit?”

I shook my head, pulling long tugs of air deep into my chest.

“Yes you are.”

I nodded.

She grabbed me by the shoulders and ran me to the bathroom. She even held up my hair when I threw up. By the time I cleaned up, which she thankfully didn’t help me out with, Morgan and her mom, Cheryl, were already standing in the kitchen. Cheryl wore a long coat over her nightgown, and her keys dangled from one hand.

“Lucy,” she said. “I don’t like this.”

“Mom,” Morgan said. Clearly her mom was breaking some agreement.

“I’m sorry, baby, but…” Cheryl turned to me. “I don’t like this.”

“I’m sorry, Ms. Veers,” I said. “It’s not fair to ask you not to tell them. It’s just…I need some time, that’s all. Just time to figure this out.”

She sported the look that I’d begun to despise, a look I had no defense against. A look of pity mixed with a look of…what? Fear, maybe? Or relief? The knowledge that someone you know has gone crazy, and the secret underlying relief that it isn’t you.

But I had no defense, because I’d earned it. Ten times over I’d earned that look.

“Lucy Day,” Cheryl said. “If the cops find you in a ditch or in some rusted out car…tell me how that won’t be my fault?”

I felt the tears again. Stop it. Stop it, you stupid girl. I sighed to steady myself, squared my shoulders, and looked her in the eye.

“I don’t have…it’s not like that. I don’t have a death wish or whatever you’re thinking.”

This time Morgan spoke. I don’t think she could help herself.

“Then what is it?”

Funny story, actually, Ms. Veers. When I sleep, I get beamed like Captain Kirk to a spooky beach with monsters and nice old mute men—oh, and this is weird—how far I travel in this imaginary place corresponds to how far I travel in real life. Also I’m dead and I partially ate a car crash victim.

“I don’t know.”

Another lie. An understandable one, I think, but another lie. You’re getting better at least, Lucy.

I felt the warmth in my eyes, the wet feeling of a puddle of tears clinging to my eyes, getting ready to rain. No. Stop.

I sneaked through the back door of my house—it was always open, because Mom was a ditz. I expected Mom and Dad to be sitting in the arm chairs in the living room, with the lights off, getting ready to bust me and ground me forever. It didn’t happen. They were asleep.

God bless Morgan’s cool mom for the benefit of the doubt.

I went up to my bedroom and tore off the clothes that were making it feel like a sauna. I laughed at myself as I jumped into bed. I kicked off the huge quilt, pulled the thin sheet over my bare legs, and sat back against my headboard. Just hours ago, in that bed, I’d been praying for just a hint of warmth. Now I found myself half-naked and still sweating like a…well, like me in a Calculus class.

The sheet began to cling muy grossly to my sweat-soaked legs, so I kicked it off in a fit of extreme tantrum.

I didn’t feel tired. In fact, I felt more awake then I had been in a while. Well, that and sleeping meant being taken to the beach, where a monster wanted to eat me. I’ll pass thanks.

I thought of Puck, that weird, oddly playful, old mute. I knew he was fine—he’d seemed a hundred times more capable than me. But what about the man in the car? Had the paramedics arrived in time? I felt like I was bashing my head against a wall for answers. I closed my eyes and tried to calm down.

I grabbed the book from my nightstand—Sabriel—and dug into it for at least the third time.

I read until morning.

The next three days went by in a blur. School was beginning to feel normal again—people were beginning to feel normal again. Fewer looks of confusion and worry, less hugging. Just normal Lucy, back to normal school, doing normal stuff. The morning of the first day, Morgan had flashed me a look she had earned—a look that said, “Okay, Luce, take your time, but I’m not forgetting.” I nodded at her, and that was it.

I did my schoolwork, I did my homework—well, at least in their normal percentages. Zack stayed mostly at his group during lunches, but every once in a while he’d float over and say hi. The flirting in Spanish had ratcheted up a few blissful notches, and we were getting in trouble daily with Mr. Halloway.

My only reminder of my incident was one Ms. Marian Crane. Old Nosy. She scooped me out of one of my classes daily and took me back to her office for counseling. She asked me run of the mill, getting-to-know-you questions. She asked about my parents, my family, my classes. What I wanted to be when I got out of college. What I wanted to study in college. My favorite part about high school, my least favorite. If I showed interest in boys—or girls, which I’m pretty sure she only said to show how hip she was—did I hear voices, you know, the usual. While I knew her intentions, I was having a hard time relaxing in her office. I just kept wondering when she was going to lay me out—when the dreaded questions were going to hit. Questions I didn’t want to answer. Questions I couldn’t answer. But she never asked. I left her sessions feeling gradually more relieved. Maybe she just wanted to check to see if I wasn’t on drugs or joining a cult or something.

I still hadn’t eaten—my calendar marked off more days than I liked. Still, I wasn’t hungry, and I had a morbid urge to see how far it could go. Not an anorexic urge—as far as I could tell, I wasn’t losing an ounce of weight. I checked on my scale a few times, and I hadn’t changed a bit. Too bad, really.

I spent the nights reading or surfing the internet or playing solitaire or watching old TV shows. Sometimes all of those things, sometimes none. But I never slept, and I never allowed my eyes to close for too long. The grey beach had been a strange place at first, but after the second appearance of the light-thing, it was off-limits. I had no desire to see it ever again.

On the third night, I felt the cold returning.

The scorching heat had been fading steadily, something I’d written off as acclimation. Thursday, just after school, it disappeared completely. I pulled my jacket around myself, but I felt no warmth.

Morgan asked me to come over to her house after school—the only place she was allowed to be outside of class. I wanted to go with her, but I canceled last minute. I thought of Kent, and I thought of the black ring around his wrist and the things I’d taken.

After school Thursday I ran up to my room. I pulled up Google and typed in a name I had no business knowing—Kent Isaac Miller, Anaheim, CA.

The first page that came up was a class reunion website, and then a recent article in the Register. I went to the OC Register site first. It was a tiny piece, just a blurb near the back of the paper that had been faithfully reprinted in the Local News section. Still, the headline caught my eye—CAR ACCIDENT TURNS MEDICAL MYSTERY.

I took a deep breath and began to read:

ANAHEIM—A local high school History teacher who crashed into a telephone pole early Tuesday morning also suffered from frostbite, doctors at St. Elias Hospital say.

In the early hours of Tuesday morning KENT MILLER, 33, who teaches History at Kennedy High School, allegedly lost control of his vehicle and collided with a telephone pole on the corner of Broadway and Gilbert in West Anaheim. An unknown bystander—

I stopped reading. I took a long breath. I blew out frost. Not good.

An unknown bystander made a call to Miller’s wife, MARIA MILLER, 34, who called 911 with the location of the accident. Emergency services arrived to aid the wounded man and brought him to St. Elias Hospital’s emergency room.

“It was a girl,” Maria Miller said. “A girl called me and said my husband was hurt. I didn’t get her name. I don’t understand why she didn’t just call 911, or how she knew which number was mine.”

How had I not looked this up before, I wondered? Had I just been ignoring it? Had I just hoped something as weird as that accident wouldn’t attract some sort of attention? I could feel my heart slamming in my chest and my pulse throbbing in my ears.

After being treated for minor lacerations and a sprained shoulder, doctors found what looked to be frostbite on his wrist. Frostbite, or congelatio, is damage to the skin and nerves caused by extreme cold. No such condition could have existed either during the accident or during the car ride, police say, and upon questioning, Miller had no idea where it came from.

Doctors are keeping Miller at St. Elias, Chief of Medicine, Arnold Tierez, explained, while they run tests and try to discover the source of the strange injury.

Miller is in stable condition.

I glanced up at the date on the article. The Wednesday morning paper. Kent Miller might still be at St. Elias. It wasn’t that far—if I grabbed my mom’s bike it would probably only take me an hour to get there. But an hour there, an hour back…what explanation did I have for a two-hour bike ride?

Why did I want to go see him? To make sure he was okay? To ask him—to see if he remembered me? I didn’t have a good reason, but I felt like I had to do something. Bring him flowers, or apologize. Then again, anyone at the hospital, including his wife, would guess immediately that I was the person who phoned in his location. And he seemed okay. Stable. Just a minor case of ghost-induced frostbite.

“I’m not a ghost,” I whispered. I slammed my quite-solid fist on the table and rattled my keyboard.

“See,” I said to my room with a puff of white breath.

It was the first time I’d said the word. The first time I’d allowed myself to think about it. Was I a ghost? Did I even want to start thinking down that road? Stop being a wuss, Lucy. Nothing wrong with objective assessment.

I didn’t fit any of the usual ghost symptoms. Not that I was an expert or anything. I couldn’t float, I was quite solid, most of the time anyway, and I had no binding reason to stay if I had died. I’d read enough ghost stories to know that ghosts had a reason for living. Or, unliving. Insurance policy information, unrequited love, buried treasure, unfinished book, sole knowledge-possessor of some terrible secret.

I had none of those things.

I’m just a 15-year-old high school student, I thought to myself.

I wasn’t class president. I wasn’t even in choir or band or sports. Nothing. I had a crush on Zack, but I didn’t fool myself into thinking we were one for the ages. We weren’t Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester, or even Bridget Jones and Mark Darcy. Hell, Ron and Hermione had one up on us.

So maybe I wasn’t a ghost.

Beyond that, I didn’t have many ideas. Vampires drank blood, plus I had no problems with daylight. Zombies ate brains. And not to toot my own horn, but I was at least thirty-times better looking than any zombie I had ever seen.

My toes were frozen. I wiggled them in their slippers, letting my thoughts drift away. Maybe I wasn’t anything. Maybe something strange had happened. Just a hiccup in the system. God made mistakes, right? Or rather, God’s system? There had to be a bureaucracy in there somewhere. A heavenly DMV if you will. Maybe someone just didn’t sign the right form someplace and I was just a goof up. A misplaced comma, a one not carried.

I sighed and shivered.

It was getting bad again, that I was sure of. I couldn’t fool myself into thinking it was going to go away this time. I’d had to take it before. I’d had to rip warmth out of someone. Could I do it again?

I thought about the strange daydream I’d been having since that Monday. Just a picture at first, then a stuttering grainy video of a little boy running through corn fields. Wearing a pair of overalls and tiny dirty sneakers. Laughing wildly but still running, sucking in huge gulps of air between his giggles. I couldn’t place the image—it looked like something out of a movie, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

When I tried to summon the image that time, it flickered and went white. Nothing.

I rubbed my temples. I stood up. I went downstairs. I could feel that edge of madness again, the hysteria I’d felt in Morgan’s apartment. It made me want to laugh or cry or jump up and down. I suppressed it. I tucked it away. I swallowed it and shut my mouth.

I clicked on the TV and paced in the living room.

“Lucy?”

“Hey, Mom,” I said, biting my lip. “How’s it going?”

Mom walked into the room, paging through a newspaper. She sat down on the couch and glanced up at me. She hid her look of concern poorly.

“Is everything okay, hon?”

I had to look crazy. Pacing, the nervous look I could feel on my face. The short, quick breaths. I just hoped she didn’t notice the frost. I glanced at the thermostat on the wall and wasn’t surprised to see a “78” in the tiny window.

“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “Just nervous.”

“What about?”

I twisted my lip. Wow, honesty. Where did that come from?

“About…Friday,” I said. “I wanted to ask you about Friday.”

Mom sat up. “What happened Friday, hon? Is there more—”

“No,” I said, then shook my head. “Sorry, sorry. I actually meant, this Friday. Not last Friday.”

“Oh,” she said. “I just thought—”

“Yeah, no, not that. I kind of wanted to ask you if I could go to a birthday party. Friday.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Oh, well yeah, I guess tomorrow.”

I was so glad that my mouth was faster than my brain. Not only had my mouth managed to deflect my mom’s current questions, but it actually got the party-permission thing out of the way. Zack had mentioned Benny’s party every day since he had invited me, and I’d told him I’d find out every day. After last Friday, I didn’t know how lenient my parents might be. It could go either way, I knew. The grounded forever protective route or the go out and be normal, we’re totally cool route.

The look on my mom’s face told me she hadn’t decided which way yet, either.

“I’ll have to talk with your dad,” she said. “But for now it’s a tentative maybe.”

I nodded, but my heart sank. Dad was more liable to throw up the shields and lock me in my room forever to keep me safe.

“Do you mind if I go for a bike ride while you deliberate?”

Mom twisted in her seat. She glanced at the clock.

“Luce, it’s after seven,” she said. “I don’t know.”

It was dark outside. Really dark. Stupid daylight savings time, ruining my strange, illogical plans. Would I really go to the hospital? I wasn’t even sure I wanted to. And then there was the cold to consider.

“I just want to get some exercise,” I said.

“What about dinner?”

I frowned. What about dinner?

“I ate a huge lunch—”

“Lucy,” Mom said, and to my surprise, stood up. She walked over to where I was pacing and put her hands on my shoulders.

“I know what’s going on, Lucy.”

My heart stopped. Packed its things. Ran away. I felt a lump of lead in my mouth and a cold chill down my spine.

“What?”

“Lucy,” Mom said. She turned to be side-by-side with me and slipped her arm around my shoulders. “You can’t do this to yourself.”

“Do…do what to myself?”

“You aren’t fat, Lucy,” Mom said, and looked me up and down. “You look fine, honey. There’s no reason to starve yourself or start turning into a bike nut.”

I laughed. It just burst out of me before I could slap my mouth closed. Of everything I had expected to come out of her mouth, that hadn’t been it. I popped my fingers over my mouth and tugged my lips together. I tried to calm my eyes, bring them under control.

“What?” Mom said, leaning back, a little annoyed. “What’s so funny?”

“N-nothing, Mom,” I said. I turned and hugged her. “I just… It’s hard for me to be comfortable with my…fatness. You just made me feel a whole lot better is all.”

“Oh,” Mom said.

She drew up, and I could see the pride welling up. She’d been the perfect mom, and she’d solved the problem. She practically glowed with satisfaction. My lips quivered, and I remembered how much I loved my mom. I hugged her again and let her go.

“What was that one for?” she asked.

“Just for being you, Mom,” I said.

She looked confused yet pleased, so I left it at that.

“Make a plate for me,” I said. “I promise to eat the whole thing. I just need to get some fresh air, if that’s okay.”

She nodded. “Okay, hon. Nothing wrong with being healthy just…just don’t overdo it, okay?”

“I promise to stay off of Oprah, Mom. You have my word.”

I waved my hand at her and bounced out the back door.

I raced down the street, pumping as fast as I could.

The harder I rode, the faster the cold set into me. But I didn’t stop. The wind against my face couldn’t compete with the icy chill spreading through my muscles. My bones. Every part of me felt sluggish. Frost poured out of my labored lungs.

The only upside was that I had yet to sweat a drop. Hurray for hypothermia.

The road flew past me. I zipped through the yellow pools of the streetlights, flying up to the curb whenever I feared smashing into a parked car. I was getting weaker—the pumping of my pedals came slower and slower, and the crisp wind in my face was dying. I was coasting more than I was riding, and it took all of my strength just to balance on both wheels.

The bike creaked to a stop, and I fell over.

Everything became dark, and I could feel the sharp wet crystals in the wind. Just like snow.

No. I stood up. I thought of the little boy running through the cornfield, but nothing came. I tried to picture him as hard as I could, and for a moment the wind stopped. A fluttering of something warm blossomed in my chest and then was gone. Whatever it was, I’d used it up. I tried to picture the little boy, but this time there was nothing.

My tank was empty. But I had a little strength left.

I looked up from the ground and laughed. Of course. I’d fallen over in the parking lot of St. Elias. I picked up my mom’s bike and shoved it into a long stretch of bushes. I ran through the parked cars without a look back.

The hospital wasn’t very big.

I pushed through the swinging glass doors out front and entered what looked like every hospital I’d ever been in. Short, hard gray carpet where there wasn’t blinding white tile. Taupe walls. Long corridors of doors with tiny placards. Disinfectant stink. Fake plants in little wicker pots. A small round nurse or secretary at a half-circle desk.

I walked up to her and tried not to sound out of breath.

“H-hello,” I said, and my teeth chattered. A swirl of frost accompanied the words. “I’d like to know which room Kent Miller is in?”

She glanced up at me from behind half-lidded eyes and fiddled with the keyboard at her desk.

“Family?”

Oh crap. I’ve seen enough hospital shows—that really shouldn’t have caught me off-guard. Luckily my quick mouth saved my idiot-brain once again.

“No, I’m actually in his History class. I’m one of his students.”

Wow. Good work, mouth. You get a raise or something. Maybe I’ll up the cheesecake ration or something.

“Oh,” the little nurse/secretary said, perking up considerably. “That’s so sweet of you. Yeah, let me look it up. If I could just get you to sign in here…”

She pointed at a clipboard, and I scooped it up and scribbled Allison Belle on the visitor sign in portion. The signature was shaky in my frozen hand, but readable. Ally Belle was my alter-ego as a little girl. Sometimes she was a superhero, sometimes a princess, but it was the name I always ran with. Nowadays I mostly used it as my junk email name.

“Looks like Room A6. Just down this hall,” she said, pointing to my right. “And on the left. I think his wife is there right now, just so you know.”

I glanced down at the sheet. Just over my name, written in a measured, steady hand was the name Maria Miller. The sign in time was two hours ago, and there hadn’t been a sign out time. I glanced up the visitor roster to see she’d signed in and out at least five times throughout the day.

“Thanks,” I said. She handed me a visitor’s badge, and I clipped it to my shirt.

Needless to say, my steps down the hallway were measured. What should I do? The wife might have a hard time believing my high school student story, especially if Kent was awake to ruin my identity. Then again, if Kent was awake and he recognized me from the crash, it would be even worse.

Why did I come here?

As I reached for the door, the naked, blinding urge to run hit me. It was pure panic, flushing me with adrenaline and telling me to run or die. Run or die.

My eyes shot around the hallway, but I saw nothing. No one but the secretary at the little half-circle desk. For the first time that night, sweat began pouring through my skin despite the icy freeze. I watched my arm in fascination as a drop of sweat crawled halfway down my elbow and then turned to ice.

I was breathing too hard. My nostrils flared, and the urge to run hit me again. Despite my better judgment, I threw open the door and leaped into Kent Miller’s room.

Inside the room there were three people. Kent Miller sat up in the hospital bed, looking groggy but awake. Maria Miller, a thin but very ugly woman, sat at the little chair by his side. A man in white I first mistook for a doctor stood in the corner of the room.

He was tall and thin with a gaunt, stretched out face. He didn’t look over thirty, and yet he surely wasn’t under forty. His smooth face belied his age, and his eyes were so dark they looked black. A white lab coat hung from his frame, and underneath it, a white t-shirt and a pair of white Dickies slacks. It didn’t surprise me to see a pair of white sneakers capping off his legs.

When I looked into his eyes, I felt my blood drain.

The primal, gut-wrenching fear had a source. It was staring me in the eyes, and I knew if I didn’t run I was going to die.

Chapter Nine

Fear the Reaper

My foot pivoted—that’s as far as I got. I grabbed the door and tugged as hard as I could. It didn’t budge.

I spun back toward the man-in-white, who stared at me with those coal-black eyes. He didn’t look happy—I half-expected a maniacal grin to spread across his face. Perhaps a soul-sucking evil laugh. He didn’t move though, except to pull his hands from the pockets of his lab coat. They were long and slender and fine—the hands of a piano player or a surgeon. He folded them together and let them fall to his belt-buckle.

“Good evening, little miss,” he said, in a voice like dark chocolate. “Please, sit.”

I looked around the room, adrenaline scouring my veins. I tugged at the door again, but if anything it was stuck harder. I turned back to him, my hand still gripping the door handle with white-knuckled strength.

I looked at Kent Miller and his wife, Maria. Both of them seemed awake, but neither was talking. Or moving. Their eyes drifted lazily across the room, like they were following the path of an errant butterfly.

“Hello,” I said to them. “Please help! Help!”

They didn’t hear me. They kept following that invisible butterfly with marked disinterest.

I turned back to the man-in-white. “What did you do?”

The man-in-white unfolded from his corner. He took a step forward, and I slid my back against the wall, toward Kent. The man-in-white stopped, an apologetic look on his face.

“Please, please, calm down,” he said in the velvet voice. It was hard not to obey. “There is no need for this.”

The fear, both natural and supernatural, was building, despite his words. He’d hurt Kent and Maria, because of me, and he was going to hurt me, too. He’d been following me in that ugly white car of his with the green tinted windows. I knew it without a shred of doubt. I should have checked the parking lot.

“What did you do?” I screamed at him. I couldn’t help it.

“Nothing,” he said, with what sounded like an embarrassed laugh hiding in his words. “I just fascinated them. It doesn’t hurt.”

Fascinated. I didn’t like the way he said that. Like it was…magical. He said it too casually, too business-like. None of this was new to him. It sounded almost mundane.

“Why…why are you following me?”

I glanced around the room. The door was locked. The windows were a possibility, but they were on the other side of Kent’s bed from me. And I’d have to pass within arm’s reach of the man-in-white. I tucked tighter into the corner, my hands digging around me for something to grab. Something harder than my hand, anyway.

The man-in-white took a step forward.

“I knew you’d come here, eventually,” he said.

“Oh, yeah?” I said, eyes scrambling for an escape route. “Why’s that?”

He shrugged, “They always come back. To finish their victims, I mean. Though I don’t really understand why you didn’t just do it during the car crash.”

My body went numb. Whether it was the insidious cold or his words, I wasn’t sure.

“He’s not…he’s not my victim. I didn’t—”

“No, you did,” the man-in-white said. “You did. You took from him those things most precious, and you were going to take more tonight.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. That wasn’t the reason I’d come. I’m not a killer. I’m not a monster, I just—I just wanted to go…

For no reason. No reason at all.

“Yes,” he said, but his eyes looked pained. “You came to take away his essence. His memories, his soul. You are a monster, little miss.”

“No, I’m not.”

I backed even tighter into the corner. I felt my legs buckling, their strength leeched away by the frost. The unending frost that told me to eat. To warm myself. To steal life. To take what wasn’t mine.

He was right.

“Please,” I said. “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”

“I know,” the man-in-white said. “I know, little miss. But I can make it go away, do you understand? I can make it all better.”

The room began to brighten. I looked up to the ceiling, but the long florescent tubes hadn’t changed at all. If anything, they dimmed against the brightness. It took me a moment, but I realized it was him. The man-in-white. A glaring radiance, the white light welling up like water through the holes in his clothes. Through his arms, out from his neck, down in little circles around his shoes.

He smiled, and he was a kind of beautiful. His eyes burned brighter.

“You can go home now, little miss,” he said.

A pulse of light rippled from him, hitting me in the chest. Heat flooded through me and receded just as quickly, a kind of warmth I’d never known. The feeling I’d stolen from Kent was a pale shade of the light burning out of the man-in-white. The shudder of warmth slid across my skin, up my spine, across my face.

Then the ice returned. Colder. Abyssal. The black freeze of nothingness. I heard a long loud tone…then a beep.

Incredibly, my phone was ringing. It was so absurd in the face of the man-in-white’s nova.

I tugged my phone out of my pocket and flipped it over. A text message from an unknown number.

Snap the hell out of it.

You aren’t going to Heaven.

Run your little behind off.

I clutched the phone so tight I thought it would explode into parts. I stared into the screen, and another white pulse washed over me. The death-rime etched lines of agony across my bones. There was no warmth in that light. It was a trick.

I looked up at the man-in-white, squinting to see through the blinding glare. His eyes were two black pits. I reached toward the little bedside table, hoping to use it as a club to bash him. Anything to break his concentration, maybe, or to confuse him—

My hand passed right through the table. An icy wind slid up my hand with the motion. I turned back toward him and a grin spread across my face.

“Sorry, Charlie,” I said, and I saw his face fall in the white light. “I’m not going anywhere.”

I held my breath, closed my eyes, turned around, and jumped toward the wall next to Kent.

If I break my nose trying to run through a wall, I thought suddenly, I am going to be so pissed.

I leaped and landed on my feet. I opened my eyes. The wan moonlight streaked through the window of a darkened hospital room. A door stood half-open on my right, leading back into the hallway. I’d run through the wall. I turned around and saw nothing but a mint-colored wall and a poster about abdominal pain.

Joy reared its stupid head, and I pumped one fist into the air.

On the other side of the wall, a terrifying roar ripped the air. It sounded like death, like a dragon, like the biggest lion ever dreamed of. The wall rippled, and the man-in-white, beaming out that pulsing white light, began to walk through the wall. He didn’t slip through it like it was smoke, like I must have. His passage caused the wall to ripple and buck like it was made of water. No, something thicker, some viscous substance that didn’t want him to pass. Like tar, or super glue. He yanked at it, trying to wade through the ugly, mint-green wall. Black smoke curled out of his eyes, which were yanked wide and glowing with rage.

“Come here, little miss,” he roared. “Come here!”

I could do that. Or I could try to French kiss a wood chipper. I turned and ran before his leg could clear.

I threw my arms in front of my face and jumped toward the next wall. I didn’t close my eyes, and I watched the wall fly toward me. I saw the inside, the dry wall, the insulation, the two-by-fours, the electrical conduits. It zipped past me in reverse order as I flew out the other side. I landed on my feet in another empty room and kept running. Whoa, capital W. I wasn’t getting used to that anytime soon. Plus, if I only had the ability to run through objects when I was close to fading away, then I didn’t intend to get used to it. Super-powers aren’t so great when they require imminent death. No thanks. Being solid is five-by-five.

Another roar exploded from the room next door, reminding me about the whole run for your life, stupid thing, and I bent my head and ran.

I didn’t even jump through the next wall. I just flat booked through it, through the next room, and the next. This entire side of the Intensive Care ward looked either empty or semi-permanently shut down. Some of the equipment was covered, and a few of the rooms were completely empty.

And it was getting colder. When I looked down, my legs were almost entirely see-through. I held my hands out in front of me. They were beginning to disappear. I could see the tile right through them.

“Oh God,” I said.

I turned in time to see the wall behind me ripple. A shaft of light blasted through the wall and hit me in the side. It seared into my body, and I screamed as it lifted me and threw me across the room. I went through the wall and crashed to the ground in the hallway. The landing didn’t hurt—it was like crashing onto pillows or a mattress, even though I landed on pure tile over concrete.

I shook my head, jumped to my feet, and ran toward the end of the hallway.

I flew through it, ran through a row of hedges, and came out in the parking lot.

When I looked down, my feet were gone. My legs faded into nothingness right around my calves. I still felt them, though only as good as I could feel anything in the cold. I was going to disappear soon. I knew that without any mysterious phone calls or helpful/murderous men-in-white.

It made me think of the text message as I booked it across the parking lot. “You aren’t going to Heaven.” Was that true? Was there no white light for me?

I felt terror I’d never known before. An immortal terror, a permanent horror.

I wouldn’t let him catch me. I wouldn’t let him take me.

I wasn’t going to just fade away, dammit.

I ran towards the Emergency Room. I didn’t have a good idea, but I had an idea. Which would be a fitting quote on my tombstone. I ran through another row of hedges and right through a concrete wall.

I came out in a brightly lit hallway filled with doors. I looked at my hands. Gone, faded away at the elbows. I looked away, trying to quell an animal panic. No no no. Stop. Stop.

I had to get warm. Right away. The man-in-white wouldn’t have to do his job if I did it for him.

The hallway was empty, and so I jogged down it. I didn’t notice as a door opened right in front of me. I turned in time to scream and throw my hands up. But I ran right through it and skidded to a stop. I looked for somewhere to hide, but it was too late. When I turned, I saw that the door was being pushed open by an older blond doctor who was staring right at me.

I stood up straight, trying to think of some excuse for not having a lower body. He saw me pass right through the gurney, right through the door.

A black, middle-aged doctor came out of the door behind the blond one and shook his head.

“I’m sorry” he said.

“Yeah,” the blond guy said, looking back into the room.

They weren’t looking at me. His eyes passed right over me. I was almost too terrified to look down, but when I did, my breath caught. I was completely gone. The sense of looking down at the nothing where my body used to be gave me a tilting sense of vertigo. The urge to vomit bubbled up inside of me. Vomit what? From where?

I wasn’t anything anymore. When I looked up again, color dripped down the walls, fading, dying. The taupe walls turned grey, the doctor’s straw-colored hair bleached out, and the other doctor’s skin turned the color of ash.

They both glowed with warmth. I had to take them. I had to live.

I ran toward the blond doctor, but just a foot from him, I skidded to stop.

Heat blasted out of the room they had just exited, a blistering furnace-full. I walked into the room. An old man, frail, broken, lay on the hospital bed. Specks of blood spattered his lips, and his eyes were wide open.

He was dead. I’d never been so sure of anything my whole life. And his soul was gone. I knew the body to be just a husk, just a casing. But the room baked. Warmth bounced off the walls, and here the color hadn’t faded from the world yet.

I wasn’t sure how to do it.

I took a deep breath, and the heat hit my lungs like a gunshot. It blasted through my body, filling me with images and feelings and words I couldn’t decipher. The heat melted every last shard of ice and poured strength back into me. I stumbled back, managing to catch myself on a handicap-assist bar on the wall.

The bar was cold. The bar was solid.

“Oh God,” I whispered. “I’m alive.”

I closed my eyes, basking in the glow. It wasn’t until I opened them again that my smile faded. The dead man stared up at the ceiling he would never see again. I walked toward him, hesitantly at first, but the closer I got the more familiar he seemed. I felt like I knew him, like I knew everything about him. I just couldn’t decipher any of his memories, I couldn’t separate the images.

I touched my fingertips to the back of his hand.

“Thank you,” I said, and my voice broke. “Thank you so much.”

I reached up and closed his eyes.

With the ice banished, I felt whole in more ways than one. I felt alive—I felt like a person again.

The two doctors were nowhere in sight, and the hallway was empty. I slid down the hallway in the opposite direction from where I’d entered.

None of the man-in-white’s fear washed over me, which I took as a good sign. Somehow I was able to sense his presence, that primal fear I’d felt from that creepy white car and now in Kent Miller’s room, and I felt none of it at that moment. Still, he’d been further away in the parking lot at the grocery store when I felt the fear, and much closer back in the hospital room. Could he dim himself, when he needed to? He could still be standing outside, watching everything from the parking lot. And maybe he could sniff me out like I could sniff him out.

Could I dim myself in response?

Stop second guessing. I passed through the foyer, and the nurse at the desk, who didn’t look very different from the nurse at the other desk, gave me the hairy eyeball but said nothing. I looked down at my badge, flicked it, and snickered softly.

The nurse gave me another eye. What the hell. I turned and stuck my tongue out at her as I backed through the front doors into the cool night.

My bravado evaporated. As soon as I passed the doors I hunkered down next to a line of hedges and stared across the parking lot. Just little spots of yellow light and old cars.

I checked my gut. Nothing. No animal-panic, no sense of urgency. I stayed low, trying to work my way over to where I thought I’d stashed my bike. I stayed behind hedges, next to cars. If I had a machine gun and a whole lot of camo, I could have passed for Special Forces. You know, in the Barbie Dream Army.

I was still wearing pink sneakers. I wanted to laugh at the absurdity.

Behind one hedge, I tugged out my phone and set it to vibrate. There was no way in heck some random phone call by Morgan or Daphne was going to be responsible for my ultimate doom. I’d seen too many horror movies, or maybe just enough, because there was no way I was being so lame. I would have turned the phone off completely, but the last two text messages had saved my life, and I didn’t want to cut off the pipeline to my mysterious stranger/savior just yet.

I saw the handlebars to my bike sticking out of a hedge, next to a Ford Ranger just across the way. I’d have to pass over a large open patch of ground to get it, though.

Ah hell with it.

I flew across the blacktop on my pink sneakers, abandoning all attempts at stealth. There were only two noises as I sprinted with everything I had—my shoes scraping asphalt, and my breath coming fast and sharp.

Halfway across the stretch, another sound joined it. An engine roaring to life. The engine of a white Lincoln Town Car with green tinted windows, as a matter of fact. It pulled out of a parking spot at the end of the row and whipped toward me. The headlights came to life, bathing me in their yellowed glow. I didn’t deer-it—I never stopped running.

I leaped across the last hedge, tripped, and rolled across the asphalt on the other side. I felt my hand, my back, and my shoulder scrape hard against the ground. My hand shot into the bushes and I yanked the bike out as hard as I could. Twigs snapped, and I had to throw my whole body weight to pull the rest of it out. I collapsed back on the ground again, but got the bike up within seconds.

The Lincoln squealed and long peels of smoke scooted out from its tires. The fear hit me, filled my mouth with saliva and bubbles and screams, but I jumped onto the bike and raced across the parking lot. I pulled myself up and rode between a little blue sedan and a black van just as the Lincoln roared past behind me. I heard its brakes shriek, but by then I was on the other side of the lane.

I shot between two more cars into another lane, then another, cutting across the parking lot in a way no car could compete with. I could hear the Lincoln far behind me on the other side of the lot, trying to navigate the twisting lanes at speed while at the same time trying to figure out which lane I was in.

I cut across the rest of the parking lot and rode down the driveway. The handlebars jumped in my hand as I came off the curb, and the front wheel tried to twist and buck me. I yanked one way, then the other, just barely maintaining my balance and only just preserving my skull from a high-speed fracture.

Hey, Ma, look at me. Regular BMX superstar.

I cut across every lane of traffic and flew up the driveway of a closed-down strip mall. The street was only lightly busy—a car every ten to twenty seconds, and I didn’t need any hair-raising, death defying stunts to get across. Which I was glad for, because any stunts of mine on a bike would only shortly thereafter be followed by epic failure and death.

I raced around the strip mall through back alleys and other places way too small for any car, much less a Lincoln. Had my would-be-murderer been rolling in a Smart Car, I might have had some work on my hands.

The man-in-white’s face floated through my mind, twisted and screaming and pouring smoke out of his eye, while I stashed the bike away in my dad’s shed and marched up the steps of the back door. I was hot, sweaty, and my hair probably looked equal-parts wind-blown and greasy. I went to the kitchen sink first to wash my hands and splash some water on my face.

When I turned around, Dad was walking into the kitchen. I glanced up at the clock—9:30. Oh crap.

“Lucy,” Dad said, and leaned against the wall. His white dress shirt was half-in half-out of his slacks, and he looked exhausted.

“Hey, Dad,” I said, trying to sound perky. It wasn’t hard with the adrenaline cranking my heart up to a thousand beats a minute. “Rough day?”

Dad smirked. “Why, thank you. You look pretty put-together yourself.”

I curtsied.

“Yeah,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. He was small-talking, it was obvious. He’d work his way somewhere soon though, I knew. “Just really behind. Damn internet shouldn’t even be connected to my work computer.”

“I dig that,” I said. “My Journalism class is the same way.”

Dad nodded. He’d been working from home for a good ten years now, and he knew the dangers inherent with it very well. Not being at work, having access to the fridge, the internet, video games, DVDs, books, and movies made actually working painfully difficult. Still, he provided for most of the income with his essays and his articles, so it was hard to be mad at him.

The other danger from working at home was more insidious, we’d all come to realize. When you liked your job, it was hard to keep the line between work time and home time less-than-blurry. Sometimes Dad would work late into the night because he enjoyed it, but that left us without what you might call quality time.

And he looked like he’d been working overtime.

“You missed dinner again.”

He didn’t look happy to bring it up. My dad could be a hard ass, but if he was exhausted, getting mad was too much of an effort.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I just had a great ride.”

“Dinner?” he asked.

I sighed.

“Sorry, Dad.”

He made a face. “No, I meant, want to get dinner? I missed it, too.”

A wide grin spread across my face—I couldn’t help it.

“Is that why you’re being so lenient? Cause Mom busted you?”

“Your mother and I are a unit,” he said. “We come to agreements as one entity, and aren’t subject to petty squabbles.”

“You must really be in trouble,” I said and set my hands on my hips.

Dad’s lips twisted, and he nodded. He ran both hands through his ruffled hair in a failed attempt to smooth it back into its Ronald Reagan shape. He glanced at the hallway mirror, sighed, and yanked the bottom of his shirt completely out of his pants. It made him look less dressed up, but it also made him less disheveled. It…sheveled him? Hmm. Something to think about.

“Chinese?”

Dad nodded. “Perfect.”

I ran to my bedroom while Dad went to start the car. We were just heading out to grab a quick bite, but I had to do something about my appearance. Rat’s nest hair, beet-red face, hands shaking from extreme adrenalin poisoning. I looked like the bride of Dracula.

My sweatshirt came off right away—I was burning. I dabbed my face with a towel, trying to take off some of the sheen both my bike ride and the warmth had caused. If ladies don’t sweat, then I was doing a pretty damn good impression of whatever did.

I tried to run a brush through my hair, which ended in tugging painfully at a number of thick snarls until my eyes watered. I growled, grabbed an old blue baseball cap, and shoved it over my head. I pulled the rest of my hair through the hole in the back of the hat, trying to look intentionally sporty. It wasn’t half-bad.

I glanced in the mirror on my way out of my room. I didn’t look like hell anymore, but I didn’t look great. I’d fit alongside my exhausted dad. Besides, anyone who looks great at a take-out Chinese food joint at ten o’clock at night isn’t a good person anyway.

My dad’s car idled in the driveway—I ran across the grass and hopped into the open door. I slammed it shut behind me, snapped the belt buckle, and slumped in the seat. Only when I got outside, into the cold night, did I think of the man-in-white again. That ugly Lincoln of his was probably still prowling the streets, looking for me. I slid even further toward the floor.

Apparently Dad noticed.

“Too embarrassed to be seen with Daddy?”

I glared up at him from underneath the brim of my baseball cap. He flashed a roguish grin, turned the car around, and pulled out of our street. Stupid fathers. One minute you wanted to strangle them for being a suffocating jerk, and the next minute you wanted to strangle them for being an insufferable…boy.

I breathed a little easier when we pulled into the brightly lit parking lot of the Ralphs. We crossed the parking lot, and I tried my best not to look over my shoulder every three to five seconds.

We made it to the Chinese food place unmolested, and I was surprised when, after my dad ordered my usual, and he ordered his food and told the lady at the counter that it was, “For here, thanks.” He handed me my little plate of food on a bright red plastic tray, took one just like it, and lead me to one of the booths up against the wall.

I glanced around now—I hadn’t really processed the place when we’d walked in. To be honest, I had kinda zombied-out. Now that we were staying, I took a second to look. Only two other people—an older couple, around forty, sitting in one of the tables close to the window.

I set my tray down and slid into the booth. Dad slid across from me.

“For here?”

Dad shrugged. “I guess I fear the wrath of Mom. You know how she is about my salt intake.”

I rolled my eyes. “Mom left us to fend for ourselves. We can eat what we want.”

“Hear hear,” he said, clinked his plastic cup of Pepsi against mine, and took a swig. I joined him.

We ate in silence for a while, trying to avoid any dangerous small talk. Dad had to go on and ruin it anyway.

“Since when do you bike-ride, Luce Armstrong?”

I shrugged. “Just…I just wanted to get out. Get breathing. Get thinking, I guess, too.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Dad said, unhelpfully. The look on his face made promises of probing questions to come.

“Mom already gave me the anorexia talk,” I said, and poked a finger into my stomach. I wasn’t anything like fat, but I wasn’t anything like skinny either. “Trust me, I’m okay.”

Dad laughed. I made a face—his laughter made me suspicious of its source.

“What?”

“Please,” Dad said. “My daughter loves food way too much to be anorexic.”

“Hey!”

He waved a pacifying hand, “Relax. I’m not calling you anything, I’m just saying. Check out your plate. Check out mine.”

I glanced down. My plate was practically clean, and his was still half-piled with food. I blushed and made the keep going spinning finger gesture. He flashed me a sympathetic smile and went on.

“I just…I know you don’t want to talk about it, Lucy, but maybe…maybe you should.”

“Dad—”

“Not me,” Dad said, and held his hands out. “But maybe…somebody.”

“Like Mom?”

“Do you want to talk to Mom about it?”

I shook my head vigorously. I really frapped my brain a little.

“I didn’t think so,” Dad said. “But if you want, we can arrange something with a shrink.”

“Dad!”

Dad held his hands up and nodded slowly.

“Just if you change your mind—”

“D-A-D.”

“Okay, okay.”

I held onto my withering stare for as long as I could, but he returned nothing that even approached anger or offense. After a long moment I reached over and began forking chunks of his orange chicken onto my plate.

“Hey.”

I pointed my fork at him and growled. Thankfully, he didn’t laugh too hard.

We finished our food in very relieved silence and headed for the door.

The couple sitting near the door were engaged in a near-silent fight. They were casting stony looks at each other and whispering in short, harsh bursts. When we passed them, the lady looked up at me and gave me the everything is totally fine here look, which is only necessary when everything isn’t. I grabbed the handle and yanked the door open.

“Luce—” Dad said, panic in his voice.

I glanced back at him, “What’s—”

Something grabbed my shoulder from the front and vised the opposite arm. I yelped and spun around, my entire body spiking with fear and adrenaline. I gargled something unintelligible at the long, thin face in front of me. It was a mixture of surprise, fear, and recognition. Luckily my dad only caught on to the first two. He grabbed my assailant by his wrists, pried his hands off of me, and shoved him back. My dad outweighed the guy by at least fifty pounds, and most of it looked to be solid muscle.

The man staggered, and when I caught a better glimpse of him, I yelped again.

Tall and thin, wearing an old brown suit with a bright red scarf dangling around his neck. He hadn’t fallen, merely stumbled after my dad’s shove, but when he turned his face up I knew. Long, thin, full of wrinkles but with eyes like two little jewels. They seemed to catch and hold the light rather than bouncing it away. His shaggy gray hair stuck up at angles.

Puck.

“Get out of here,” Dad said, stepping between me and Puck. When I was behind Dad, I mouthed, “I’m sorry” to Puck. He caught the expression, but pretended like he wasn’t looking at me. Probably didn’t want to set my dad off too much.

Puck held up his hands—the I’m sorry gesture. He took another step back, his face in a hang-dog expression.

“Get the fuck back,” my dad said, louder. “Go!”

Puck recoiled and nodded furiously. A blanket of shame smothered me. Puck had saved my life and made me feel like I wasn’t completely out of mind. Seeing him here, now, made everything seem all the more real, and yet at the same time more dreamlike. Did he live here? Had he been looking for me, or did he just happen to run into me? Even without my dad here, it would have been difficult to get those answers from him.

Dammit.

“Come on, Dad,” I said, and grabbed his upper arm. “I think we just scared him. Let’s go. Come on.”

I tugged at him, but my dad was a brick.

“Dad, please,” I said. “He just looks freaked out.”

That looked like the truth, at least, and my dad must have recognized that.

Puck’s droopy-dog expression vanished the instant my dad turned around. He flashed me first an apologetic smile, then a grin, then a look of relief. I held up a hand to give him a covert wave, but my dad caught me and tugged me back around.

“Don’t provoke him, Lucy,” Dad said. “Just some crazy old guy.”

Dad made a point of opening the passenger door for me and tucking me in. He even guided the back of my head like a cop tossing a perp into the back of his car. The door slammed shut next to me. He slid into his seat, gunned the engine, and squealed out of the parking lot.

Puck’s eyes followed us the rest of the way, his face blank, but his eyes wide. He needed something. Or I needed something.

We disappeared around the corner. I couldn’t sneak out again, I knew—my parents were on high alert already, and I didn’t need to be sent to boarding school or something. My dad’s talk of a shrink, no matter how jovial in appearance, was dead serious. They had a problem daughter and something had to be done.

I lay in bed that night, all night, with my eyes closed, pretending to sleep.

I thought of Puck, out in the cold, that man-in-white still on the loose.

I’d figure out something, I told myself. Or Puck would find me.

Chapter Ten

Girl Problems, and Other Complications

When I felt suitably slept, which is to say that I’d finished reading Sabriel and then surfed the internet for a couple of hours, I went downstairs. One nice thing about a total inability to sleep—I’d never had more free time in my entire life. I thought summer vacation was bad—without sleep, I had more hours than I knew what to do with. The thought of learning piano or biology or becoming Batgirl all flitted through my mind, but I had a feeling it would just end up with me being ridiculously well-read.

How would it end up? I tried not to think about it.

Dad was at the breakfast table, reading the paper. Mom stood behind him, forking sausages from a pan onto his plate. It was the image of everything suburban. I made a face at my Mom, and God bless her, she recognized the absurdity.

“I know, June Cleaver, party of two.”

Dad smirked, just at the corners of his mouth, but said nothing. I assumed he knew better.

“I don’t suppose there are some sausages for a hungry daughter in there, too, eh?”

She smiled and gestured to the stove. Sausages. Scrambled eggs. Pancakes—wow. I wasn’t hungry, but after eating the Chinese food last night, and feeling half-normal just by doing it, I thought breakfast wouldn’t hurt. Plus it would go a long way to allaying Mom’s fears of anorexia.

When I finally scooted my chair back across the floor to go get ready, my mom cleared her throat. I glanced up to see her looking pointedly at Dad. I sat back down.

Here we go.

“Lucy, honey,” Mom began. “Whose birthday party is it?”

My head reeled. Whatever drug talk I’d been expecting, this wasn’t it. In fact, I’d let thoughts of Benny’s party and thus, Zack, run completely out of my head. I thought about lying, going with girl instead of guy, but I shrugged and told her.

“Benny,” I said. “Zack’s friend.”

“Uh-huh,” Dad said, not looking up.

“What?” I asked him, staring at his down-turned forehead.

“Babe,” Mom said. “Be reasonable.”

“I’m not reasonable,” Dad said. “I’m suspicious.”

I sat back in the chair, “Of what?”

“Boys,” he said, leveling his gaze at me without turning his head up.

“Oh come on,” I said. “It’s just a birthday party. It’s not a…bacchanalia.”

My mom’s face twisted in confusion, but my dad’s left eyebrow flicked slightly. Ha. I’d impressed him.

“The first bacchanalia were all female,” Dad countered.

“Bah,” I said. “Seriously?”

“He has a point, Lucy,” Mom said. “A stupid point, about an ancient Roman cult.”

Dad’s victorious expression soured somewhat at that comment. I enjoyed it, I’m gonna be honest.

“I just want to go and be…normal.”

Both Mom and Dad squirmed at that one. It was a cheap shot, invoking my disappearance. It had only been a week ago to the day, and I can’t imagine they’d gotten over it. I had, or at least I felt like I had. Maybe the pressure of my immediate, freaky concerns had shunted thoughts of my attack out of my mind. I couldn’t be sure.

Dad sat up and pointed an accusatory finger at me.

“Parents?”

“I think so—”

“Know so. Alcohol?”

“Well, I imagine one without the other—” I tried.

They didn’t look amused at my joke. I continued on.

“No.”

“Sex?”

“Dad!”

“Sex?”

“No!”

“Smoking?”

“Of course not.”

“Home by ten?”

“That is unfair,” I said. “It’s a party on a Friday night.”

Dad shrugged, “Could be nine.”

“Whoa,” Mom said. “How about eleven?”

I scrunched my fists together. “I’m fifteen now—”

“Exactly,” Dad said. “You’re only fifteen. You don’t even have a car.”

Well, that backfired.

“That means I can’t drink and drive. Eh? Eh?”

This time my mom’s face cracked a little. She tried to hide her smile, with only moderate success.

“Here’s the deal, Lucy,” Dad said. “It has been a week since—”

“Dad.”

“It. Has. Been. A. Week. You don’t know what your disappearance did to us, young lady. I am sitting here, terrified, every ounce of me screaming the word no. By all rights you should be grounded for a year and a half.”

I couldn’t hide the red glow of anger on my face, but at the same time, I could hear Dad’s voice straining. This wasn’t bluster anymore. He really was scared. For a brief moment, I caught a glimpse of what it must be like on his side.

“10:30,” I said, finally, after a long pause. “And I’ll call home every half an hour.”

Dad sighed, deeply, and he looked exhausted. Mom traded glances between him and me, and I couldn’t tell who she was more concerned for.

“Fine,” Dad said. “But I want to talk to you after school, before you go. Do you understand?”

Daddy-anger welled up in me, but I fought the urge to shriek like a harpy at him. 10:30 wasn’t bad. I’d had to come home much earlier on other Friday nights, and none of those outings had been preceded by my near-death experience. Post-death experience.

“Okay,” I said. “Fine.”

“Go get ready, honey,” Mom said. “You’re gonna be late.”

School went by in a blur. Once the anger at my dad faded, and I told the chicks about me going to the party, the day brightened considerably. Wanda and Sara and Daphne had similar curfews and regulations, and Morgan wasn’t allowed to go at all.

The best part of my day was lunch—Zack grabbed me just outside of Art and tugged me to the side. Bless Wanda, she didn’t even blink or cast me a sidelong look. She walked on without me. The perfect wing-girl. She was starting to give Morgan a run for her money. Not that Morgan was a particularly useful wing-girl—she attracted far too much attention for such a position.

Anyway. I shook Morgan out of my thoughts and stared up into Zack’s eyes. I told my muscles to relax. I sent orders to the sweat-glands to stand down, and tried my best to smooth my hair through sheer willpower alone. My eyes drifted from his and slid down to his lips—I thought of the kiss in the movie theater. Our first fleeting moment together—and so far the only one.

“Lucy?”

Crap. I’d been drifting.

“Of course,” I said. “Well, today. On the weekends it’s Sasha Fierce.”

Zack laughed. His skin wrinkled around his nose, and he stared down at me with those intense sapphire eyes.

“Nice,” he said. “I meant have you heard anything yet?”

I nodded, my eyes wide, wondering about the question I must have missed. No way to play it cool without making the situation worse. Stupid truth.

“I’m sorry,” I said, shaking my head. “I’d like to buy a vowel?”

“What?”

“I totally spaced,” I said, sheepishly. “What did you want?”

I watched his face twitch—he didn’t think my attempt to pass it off was very funny. He looked offended, actually. I felt my heart sink down somewhere around my shoes. I took a deep breath, but he cut me off before I could launch into an apology.

“Can you go to Benny’s party tonight?”

I smiled huge. Gigantic. My face was gonna hurt the next day from cheek-trauma.

“No,” I said, shaking my head.

Zack blinked at me. If we’d been in a cartoon, I would have heard the dink-dink noise.

“I’m kidding,” I said. “Just gotta be home by—”

Ten-thirty. Ten-thirty. Ten-thirty. It flashed in my brain like a neon sign.

“Eleven-thirty,” I said.

“Really?” Zack said. His shoulders squared off, and I watched relief wash over him, “Wow. That’s great. That’s amazing. You have the coolest parents.”

And they had the dumbest daughter. I shrugged off the sense of worry twisting my belly like bad Chinese food—I didn’t have to stay out until eleven-thirty just because my rebellious mouth said so. Maybe I’d be home at ten-thirty, or even ten. Yeah, and maybe Zack would propose to me tomorrow and fly me to Italy on his private flying reindeer-driven sled.

“Cool,” Zack said. “Mind if Benny and me come pick you and the girls up first? So he doesn’t have to go out again.”

First? It was tragically uncool to be the first people at a party.

“Benny doesn’t have to pick up anyone else?”

Zack shifted uncomfortably.

“What?”

“You and Sara, Wanda and Daphne are the only…non-wheeled. Sophomores, I mean.”

My mouth dropped open.

“You’re a sophomore, too.”

Zack grinned, “But Benny is my best friend.”

“So it’s just juniors and seniors? I don’t believe it,” I said. “Upperclassmen not trying to take advantage of helpless frosh girls?”

Zack shrugged. Again, not terribly amused. His sense of humor was so hot and cold. I had trouble getting a bead on what made him laugh and what offended him. It had to be all those newspapers he read. Gave him an over-developed sense of umbrage. Dad was the same way.

“It’s a damn shame Morgan can’t come.”

I made a face. I couldn’t help myself.

“For Benny,” he quickly corrected. “The poor guy is heartbroken about it.”

“He’ll be fine,” I said. “Though I feel pretty terrible for her.”

Zack nodded. I could tell what he was thinking—his first thought was to sneak her out, and his second was a memory of what kind of trouble that had caused last time. He’d heard through the grapevine, namely me, that when Morgan’s mom found out that Benny was her date the night of Morgan’s escape and my disappearance, she’d forbidden Morgan from talking, calling, or seeing him.

“So…you’ll pick me up?”

“At seven,” he said. “Give or take.”

“Just come to my house,” I said. “I’ll just gather the chicas there first.”

“Bueno,” Zack said.

He walked me to the circle of girls. We brushed elbows a couple times, each contact sparking little thrills of excitement. When he left to rejoin Benny’s crowd, the girls pounced.

Daphne: “When are you just going to tear his shirt off already?”

Wanda: “That’s great, Luce.”

Sara: “How are we getting to your house?”

Morgan: “Benny was heartbroken?”

I calmed them down and answered their questions and concerns one at time, press conference style.

“Because I’m not an animal; thanks, Wanda; your parents or your Huffys, and yes.”

Daphne looked disappointed, Wanda pleased, Sara unhappy, and Morgan besotted. We launched into more detailed plans almost immediately. Daphne had a new hat she wanted to give a spin, and Sara had a brand new dress. It looked like me and Wanda were just going to have to mix and match something from the collection. Granted, that meant Wanda was going to have to mix and match something from my collection, because her clothes, in general, were sad. They made me sad.

Morgan sat through our excitement as best as she could. I wanted to shut up, watching her smile and nod gracefully. Her grounding had been finalized because of the attempted sneak out—when I asked her about her prison sentence, she had laughed and considered it more likely that she’d be crushed by a spaceship than set free. Her mother had explained, in no uncertain terms, that she better get used to the couch, the fridge, and the vast lands between.

“What are you gonna do?” I asked her.

“Nothing,” Morgan said, the smile she flashed me was devoid of amusement. “I think that’s the point.”

I groaned, slipped my chin into my hands, and lost myself in the Daphne/Sara chatter. Wanda, strangely quiet, twirled her hair, listening to me and Morgan verbally spar. I did battle with Morgan’s self-pity—but no matter what I said, every attempt ended the same way:

“Morgan,” I’d say. “Your parents won’t ground you forever,” or

“Morgan, your mom is just freaked out,” or

“Maybe you can talk to her and change her mind.”

It didn’t matter. She had her stock response, and she wasn’t diverting.

“I’m screwed, Lucy. I’m screwed.”

Eventually I gave up and lapsed into furtive silence, punctuated only by little comments to Sara and Daphne about their hair-do plans or their worries about the party.

I was looking forward to Spanish, namely the Spanish-time with Zack, but it just wasn’t going to happen. When I walked into class one of Ms. Crane’s messengers was already in my class. It looked like Seńor Halloway was giving the messenger guff about my frequent absences. It made me smile, to be honest—Halloway may have harassed me and Zack daily, but he was a good teacher, and a nice guy.

When he looked up, his face crinkled. He gestured the messenger in my general direction and sat down with a loud huff behind his desk. I smiled and mouthed “thank you,” to him, but he just seemed confused. The messenger handed me my obligatory note, and I went to see Ms. Crane.

As usual, she was in her black leather chair, her right side facing the window, her eyes to the wall across from her, her hands tangled across her expansive lap. It would have been a nervous posture, save the look on her face—stony. Almost cold, but in a comforting, hard to explain way.

I sat down in my usual chair, trying to relax, preparing for questions about my first dog or my favorite teacher. She spoke in her fluid but all-business tone.

“Were you raped last week, Lucy?”

I didn’t even sit up. My muscles hardened, locking me in a lazy slouch—a slacker statue. Rodin’s Daydreamer. My jaw clicked as my mouth moved, but nothing resembling words squeaked out. I’d been asked the question, more or less, but not in those words. I struggled to find an answer.

“Don’t rush,” Ms. Crane said, still not looking at me. She looked the part of the daydreamer as well. “I just have a feeling no one has put that question to you so…nakedly.”

I shook my head. Apparently my muscle control was returning.

“I’ve been asked, yeah…”

Crane’s eyebrows arched slightly.

“By who?”

I cleared my throat, “Officer Sykes.”

Crane nodded again, and it came with a smug smile. As if I’d provided the answer she’d been looking for. After a moment, she turned toward me.

“So just a police officer…and your guidance counselor?”

I stiffened, and this time it wasn’t surprise. I felt a jet of anger—my fingers curled around the armrests of my chair. She noticed it all right, but she didn’t look particularly stunned. I knew her accusation already.

“My parents are—”

She cut me off. “You don’t understand—”

“No,” I said. I could feel the raw nerves making my voice shake—I wasn’t used to blowing up on adults, much less an adult/semi-teacher. “You don’t. My parents are good parents. My friends are great. Just because they don’t—”

“Wait,” she said, her face still a mask of calm. “Wait. That’s not what I’m saying.”

My breath came in gasps. Leaning forward in the chair, with my lips parted, I could taste her. I could smell her perfume, something light but flowery, but more importantly I could feel her. A dull warmth baking off her. I caught a glimpse of something—a young man, clean-shaven, handsome, his face edged in the dark orange glow of firelight. I took another deep breath, and the image became clearer. I saw what she must have seen—the blurry shape of a hand moving too fast, then a shock of white light.

I closed my lips and leaned back in horror. I tried to purge the stolen thoughts, tried to vomit them out. They wouldn’t go. I was her in the image, I realized. Being violated in first-person perspective. My skin crawled, and I felt the very real urge to lose my lunch.

She took the look of horror on my face the wrong way, I realized. Her face softened, and she leaned forward to put a hand on my wrist. I allowed it, only because I was too shocked to think.

“I’m just saying that you need to share, Ms. Day,” she said, and squeezed my hand. “You have to talk about it to get past it. To overcome it.”

I shook my head—my emotions were a tangled mess. She’d been attacked, sometime in college, I think. Her sense of panic, of stark terror and helplessness…I could think of nothing but the sickly yellow glow of the parking lot. The guys backing me into an alley, cornering me. Laughing. Making fun of me. I thought of the little bald one with his gun, so self-satisfied and yet nervous. A newborn monster, excited and scared and hungry all at once.

I stood up and yanked my hand away.

“Please… I…” I said, skirting towards the door. “I have to go.”

Her face changed—went from sympathetic to… what? Angry? It was a hard look to read. Almost offensive. She ran a hand over her cheek and finally nodded with a tired look.

“All right, Ms. Day,” she said. “But we’ll be here on Monday, you understand?”

I didn’t care. I just had to go. I grabbed the door handle like it was a life-preserver in a hurricane and yanked. Ms. Crane said one last thing, but I didn’t hear it before I slammed the door behind me. I tucked my arms tight to my body and almost ran through the counseling center. Outside, I sprinted for the parking lot at full speed.

I made it just to the gate near the gym when I heard footsteps pounding the grass behind me. Terror spiked my belly, and I picked up speed. The person was faster than me. Stronger too. My pursuer caught me in moments and scooped me up in powerful arms.

I kicked and struggled, but he turned me around like I didn’t weigh a thing. I looked into cool blue eyes. Zack looked down at me, his face a map of confusion and worry. I struggled to break out of his grip, but there was no use. I wasn’t small or short, but Zack was still positively huge in comparison.

He couldn’t see me like this, but he wouldn’t let me go.

“Let go,” I said, struggling against his chest. “Let go!”

He did. I reeled back and went to slap him, but he deflected the shot with a lightning-fast forearm. His face hadn’t changed—he didn’t look mad at the attack. He’d barely registered it—the block had been instinctual.

“What is it?” he asked. “What happened?”

I backed away from him. My back hit the chain link fence at the edge of the grass, and I saw the jaundiced parking lot again. I thought of being cornered, of being attacked. I sucked in huge gasps of air, but I couldn’t catch my breath. I knew I was losing it, but I didn’t know how to stop. My head felt light and my arms and legs oddly heavy. Zack blurred—the school behind him blurred. I couldn’t catch my breath, no matter how much air I swallowed. I couldn’t—

—grey…—

No. I opened my eyes. I was beginning to lose consciousness, something I didn’t know I could even do. If I didn’t get my breathing under control, I was going to be hurtling back toward the Grey Meadows. And if I did that in front of Zack…if I just disappeared…

Well it would be a whole lot worse than just the simple humiliation I was facing now.

I grabbed the chain fence behind me, trying to let it ground me, trying to let its cold aluminum sink into my hand. Breathe, Lucy. Slow down and breathe.

Zack took another step forward and grabbed one of my hands. His touch burned in mine. My heart fluttered in spite of everything—it felt like it was climbing up into my neck. My arms tingled, then my legs. My breath slowed but grew more ragged. He grabbed my other hand too, crushing it into his. I looked up at him.

"Shouldn’t you be in class?" I asked, my breath in tatters.

“I saw you bolt out of the counseling office. Seemed more important than the proper use of the formal usted. Señor Halloway’s working on his detention slip right now, I imagine."

"That’s not… very honors student of you," I said, but I sounded more hysterical than witty.

"Stop. What’s going on, Luce?” he asked me. “What can I do?”

I wanted to tell him a hundred things. He gripped my hands with a force that made me feel dizzy.

“Please kiss me,” I said, horrified the instant I said it but unwilling to take it back. “Don’t ask me anything. Just kiss me. Just—”

He did. His lips crushed mine, and the hands holding mine tugged me close to him. I had to crane my neck up to kiss him, and for just a brief second I wondered what an average height girl would have to go through to reach him. I used my toes to push myself into his lips, and I could taste his breath. Like spearmint, maybe Doublemint. I breathed it in. I could see myself, suddenly. I took another deep breath, and saw myself crushed into his arms, kissing him from the other side. Vertigo.

Zack’s hands let up, suddenly, their grip on my hands slacking. I opened my eyes, wondering what was wrong. Zack looked paler, and his hands were going limp. He swayed, his eyes still squeezed shut.

“No,” I said, and yanked myself away from him. I slapped a hand over my mouth.

Zack’s eyes shot open, and his skin darkened considerably. He stood up straight, but a look of dazed wonder painted his face red at the cheeks.

“What… are you okay?”

My hand still clamped my mouth shut. I couldn’t let it go, couldn’t let it hurt him. Couldn’t let me hurt him. I backed away, my other hand held out to him, pleading.

“Just… I’m sorry,” I said.

“Don’t be,” he whispered. He had the look of someone who had just walked clean and healthy out of a car crash. “That was…awesome.”

I felt the tears coming. No. Not now. I shook my head.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I have to go.”

I turned and fled across the grass. This time, he didn’t try to stop me.

Chapter Eleven

Party Hardly

“No Taser, no party.”

I stared at my dad in horror. He sat calmly—his arms folded across each other in a little lazy X on the kitchen table. The dying sunlight streamed in through the window above the sink, back-lighting him, throwing him in sharp silhouette. He didn’t look angry, but he wasn’t joking either. Dad radiated Zen as he pushed the little black plastic box toward me. It slid across the table, two metal fangs bared.

“Technically a stun gun, honey,” Mom said as she floated by, dangling an empty coffee cup from one finger. “The Taser fires the barbs.”

“Thank you, honey,” Dad said. “No stun gun, no party.”

“Dad! You’re a freak,” I said, and stood up from the table.

“Sit, young lady.”

I sat, but I wasn’t happy about it. I rattled the table with my knees as I crossed my legs. The little black stun gun jumped on the table as if to say look at me.

“You were nearly killed or worse—”

I tried not to smirk at the “or worse.” Typical fatherly priorities.

“—and I’m still letting you go to a party, because I’m a good guy. And this particular good deed is going unpunished, do you hear me, Lucy?”

I sighed.

“You are carrying the stun-gun from now on, everywhere except school.”

“Is this even legal?” I whined. I could hear the teenage-girl-scorned in my voice, but I had no desire to disguise it. “Can a minor even carry one of these?”

Dad shrugged. “I’d rather a cop give you trouble than a thug or a murderer.”

I rolled my eyes.

“This isn’t an argument,” Dad said.

“No stun-gun, no party, right?”

“Right.”

“Then no party. I won’t go.”

Dad laughed.

“All right, I didn’t expect that,” Dad said. “But you still have to carry the thing.”

I groaned. It was actually the answer I expected—I’d much rather go to the party anyway, even if I had to carry it. Mostly I was just calling his bluff.

“Then I’m going,” I said, quickly.

“I figured,” Dad said.

“But I’m not—”

“Take the damn stun gun, baby,” Mom said and sat down next to me. “Keep it in your purse, no one will see it. Just…stop arguing.”

I groaned and scooped up the stun gun. Before I could put it into my purse, Dad stopped me.

“Wait,” he said. “Push the trigger.”

“Dad—”

“I want to make sure you know how to use it,” Dad said. “Push the trigger.”

It wasn’t hard to find. The button nuzzled my index finger when I grabbed the stun gun. I touched it, and a little blue arc zapped between the metal fangs. It made a horrific clacking noise, and I nearly dropped it.

“Upper shoulder, under the ribs, or above the hip. Got it?”

I rolled my eyes again and dropped it into my purse.

“I gotta go shower,” I said. “The girls will be over soon.”

Dad nodded and waved me away. I ran up the stairs to get ready.

As I showered, I let my mind wander.

I’d left school early after my disastrous kiss with Zack—I didn’t even want to think what would have happened if I’d let the kiss go on any longer. Would it be possible to hold my breath? Was it even air I was breathing?

I wasn’t exactly able to go home without incurring parental wrath. I’d hung around the Orient Express take-out, because I was both hoping to run into Puck again and I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go. By the time school ended I trotted back over and intercepted Morgan.

I deflected most of her queries about my truancy, just explaining that Ms. Crane had asked a few questions I wasn’t happy with and I’d bailed. Morgan frowned at that—I had promised to explain to her the reason I’d fled to her house in the middle of the night, something I’d yet to do, and I think the continued secrecy was digging at her. Still, she listened, unhappily, when I told her to keep the information from my mom. As far as she was concerned, I was at school all day.

I’d gotten home and been ambushed by my father. He demanded phone numbers for Benny’s house, his parents, his neighbors, his distant relatives, his ancestors, his pool boy, etc. I’d provided them all, and after a short discussion with Benny’s parents—who were in actuality Benny himself and Daphne on a three-way-call—Dad agreed to let me go.

By the time I left the shower, Daphne, Sara, and Wanda were already lounging around my room. Daphne lay across my bed, her head hanging off of the side facing me, and she was staring at me upside-down with her purple-black hair streaking across it like surreal streamers. She stuck her tongue out when I walked out of the bathroom. Sara sat in the window sill, and Wanda held her cheeks in her hands at my desk, staring at the wall.

“Ladies,” I said, and began collecting garments.

“Hey, Lucy,” Daphne said, and rolled around right-side up. She made a face and clutched her forehead. “Whoa. Brain rush.”

“Don’t you need a brain—” Sara began.

“—for that to work. Ha-effing-ha,” Daphne interrupted. “Your jokes are pedestrian and cheap.”

“So—” Sara began.

“—is my mom,” Daphne laughed. “Try again.”

Sara flashed her teeth at Daphne, threw her arms across her chest, and stared out the window. Daphne flashed me a victorious look, hopped off the bed, and cleaved to my side.

“So…did your dad buy it?”

Daphne grinned and waggled her eyebrows at me and threw her hair up into a quick faux ponytail—I imagine it was her attempt at miming mom-hair.

“How did I do?” she asked, inexplicably, with a British accent.

“You…didn’t use the accent did you?”

Daphne’s sour look answered that question.

“Well, Dad believed you were Benny’s mom,” I said. I couldn’t disguise the lilt of shame in my voice. “So I guess it worked.”

Daphne was, as usual, more perceptive then I gave her credit for. “Unhappy, babe?”

“Just worried.”

Sara, from the windowsill, grunted.

“What?” I asked.

“I think you should be worried,” Sara said. “I think you’re taking advantage of your dad, who’s just scared and wanting to make you happy.”

“What?” I said again, because I agreed with her and wanted to hear her take on it.

“Morgan agrees with me,” Sara said. Both Wanda and Daphne flashed her dirty looks. “But that’s it. I agreed not to say anything else.”

Daphne let out a sigh that sounded like a zeppelin deflating. She hooked her arm in mine and led me over to the closet. Her quick hands swept through my hangers, dresses, and blouses with a keen eye and a familiarity of my wardrobe that I didn’t like. She removed a red pin-striped pencil skirt from the tangle and spun it on its hanger.

“No,” I said. Without comment she raised an eyebrow but slid it back into the closet. She began rummaging again.

“How do I look?” Sara asked, her parental tone either invisible or held well in check. She spun and popped a hand on her hip for good measure.

“Terrible,” Daphne said, with an annoyed tone and without looking. She remained shoulder-deep in my closet.

“You look great,” I said, but I wasn’t paying attention. It looked like a designer jeans, fluffy black top outfit of the style that Sara usually whipped out for special occasions. She pulled the look off well.

Daphne came out with a pink tulip skirt. I made the vomit face, and she tossed it back in.

Wanda slumped even further into whatever misery-induced coma she was gunning for. I wanted to ask her what was wrong, but with the animosity shooting in sparks between Daphne and Sara, it didn’t feel like the right environment. Wanda was fragile as it was—pushing it any further, in semi-public, might make her shatter.

Sara wouldn’t stop looking at me. She looked worried, pissed, and confused. The kind of combo you might imagine on a friend looking out for your safety and also hoping you don’t ruin their good time.

“I don’t think anything is gonna happen,” Daphne said, reading either Sara’s thoughts or my own.

Daphne emerged from the closet with a cute black A-line skirt with lace trim and a deep purple scoop-neck blouse hanging from separate hangers. I raised an eyebrow in surprise.

She turned a box over with her foot, and my smoke-gray wedges poured out and tumbled to the carpet. Sara laughed, a single bark that she couldn’t contain despite her tiff with Daphne, and Wanda said, “Wow.” I gave the suggested ensemble a once-over, nodded, and bowed deeply.

“Your ability to zero in on taste is second to none, Daph.”

Daphne grinned. “You’re welcome.”

When we were all dressed, ready, made-up, and sure that the twenty minutes Zack and Benny waited outside was sufficient, we all headed down in a gaggle. I noticed Wanda typing into her phone diligently for the better part of the prep-time, and she tucked it away with a sharp, annoyed gesture when we left my room.

I wasn’t surprised to see my dad waiting at the bottom of the stairs. The look he gave me could only be described as crestfallen. I flashed him a sympathetic smile and touched his arm as I passed. Much to my surprise, he locked his fingers around my wrist and stopped me dead in my tracks. I glanced up at Wanda, Daph, and Sara, and cocked my head toward the door.

“I’ll…be there in a sec,” I said, trying to keep my tone light.

“Okay,” Daphne said, too cheerfully. “We’re gone in five.”

I growled but said nothing.

“Luce?”

I glanced up at Dad.

“I thought it was—”

“It is,” Dad said, and took in a deep breath. “I want to meet Zack.”

Blood…draining from face.  Skin pale, breath sharp. Fast. Heart setting off firecrackers in my chest. Taste of batteries. Wet hands.

“Dad—”

“No, Luce,” he said. “This is my thing. Let me have it.”

“No.”

“I’m not asking,” Dad said. “Zack in this living room or your ass upstairs.”

He said it with that same pleasant, let’s-work-together tone. My fingers were sore from curling into fists. It felt like my hands were being stretched from the inside.

“Fine,” I said. “Three minutes, tops.”

He had something up his sleeve, and something I wasn’t going to be happy about. I took a deep breath, left the house, and jogged out to Benny’s minivan.

The girls were already inside, buckled in, and laughing to each other. Zack was in the passenger seat, and I rapped my knuckle on his window. I took three deep breaths, thinking of the parking lot today. Thinking of him kissing me. Then thinking of me running away like a drama-mama freak.

“Yes, Madame?” Zack asked, the top of the window whizzing past his face. He didn’t seem upset. Allow me to fix that.

“You have to come inside.”

I gave him a look. Zack didn’t even try to hide his smirk. He unfolded from the cramped seat, shoved the door open, and hopped down into the damp grass. Zack smoothed his clothes and hair, an unnecessary move—he looked great. White shirt, sleeves rolled up, faded-but-stylish blue jeans, and a pair of brown shoes.

I took a deep breath, desperate to negate a powerful need to up-chuck. Zack laid his hand across my back, his palm hot against the thin cloth of my shirt. I shivered.

He led me to the stoop like I didn’t know the way. I stared at him, but his sideways smirk didn’t shake. The door opened, and I nearly jumped out of my stylish yet comfortable wedges.

Dad leaned against the door frame, bouncing a stare down off of Zack’s implacable features.

Unfazed, Zack stuck his big hand out and flashed a dazzling smile.

“My name is Zack, Mr. Day,” he said. “It’s great to finally meet you.”

“You, too, Zack,” Dad said, and shook his hand. “Happy birthday by the way…”

My dad let the sentence fade and his last breath hang. It was a trick, and I sucked in a little tight breath. I tried to look at Zack without looking at Zack. Not easy, let me tell you.

“Oh no, sir,” Zack said. “It’s not my birthday.”

“Oh, right,” Dad said. “Benny’s?”

“Yup,” Zack said. “My best friend. He’s a good guy, Mr. Day.”

Zack was smoother than a gravy sandwich. The thought made my stomach jolt—just how many girls’ fathers had he schmoozed into complacence?

“I’m sure, but—”

Zack took a deep breath and held out one hand. I saw my dad inflate at the interruption, but Zack barreled through anyway. I had to say, I was impressed. Terrified, but impressed.

“Mr. Day,” Zack said. “I promise to take care of your daughter. Where she goes, I go. She doesn’t leave my sight unless she’s in the bathroom, and even then I’ll demand she never stop whistling. I searched for Lucy for six hours when she disappeared, and I would have looked for sixty. She might end up hating me, but she won’t be in danger. That I promise.”

I slipped my hand slowly over my mouth during his words, trying to fight an urge to either sob uncontrollably or leap at him and kiss him so hard his shoes would turn to dust.

Dad inflated even more—I half-expected his eyes to turn red—and took a step forward.

Zack and Dad stared at each other, and after a long beat, Dad nodded.

“Home at 10:30,” Dad said to me. “Got it?”

Zack flashed me a liar look and crossed his arms. I’d told him 11:30, and he didn’t look joyous about the deception.

“You bet,” I said, and smiled wide. “See ya, Daddy!”

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Day,” Zack said, and shook hands with my dad again.

Dad looked suspicious but oddly comforted. Zack touched his hand to my lower back again, a feeling I was definitely not getting tired of, and lead me back to Benny’s car.

The reception was inevitable. As soon as we both got in the car, a chorus of “oooooohs” and “oh yeahs” erupted through the little minivan. I slugged Sara in the arm as hard as I could, not that it mattered. She was solid muscle, and I think I bruised my knuckles.

Benny glanced back at us from the driver’s seat, and Daphne leaned forward to smash her hand against the back of his headrest.

“Hiyo, Silver, away!”

We pulled up to Benny’s and flooded out of the car. Benny and Zack had been engaged in a near-violent discussion of music choice, and as soon as Benny stopped the van in front his house the two of them threw their doors open and power-walked up the front steps, arms waving wildly. Benny was positive that only ’80s punk rock would do, while Zack argued for a more varied palette. The girls and I exchanged amused looks and followed them up.

The house was nice—I’d never been there before, but it was clear evidence of an upper-middle class upbringing. The stereo, currently eclipsed by Zack and Benny’s gesticulating forms, could have been in a professional nightclub. Speakers on stands were arranged at key locations around the living room. Lamps lit the spacious house at the moment, but I spotted a number of theatrical-looking lights scattered around, none of them on. Oh. A disco ball. I laughed and pointed it out to Daphne, Wanda, and Sara, who all groaned in unison. Benny let out a short, sharp bark at our reaction but otherwise kept to his music collection.

We all made sure to locate the bathroom, the door to the backyard—which, just from our quick scan, looked like the Secret Garden of Eden—and the kitchen. When we floated into the dining room, I heard Wanda gasp.

For good reason. The entire white-tile kitchen island bristled with bottles of booze. Not an ounce of spare counter-top shown between the Jack Daniels and the Malibu and a dozen more brands just like them. A stack of red cups I could have made into a second house stood proudly on the kitchen table, next to two-liter bottles of Coke, Sprite, Dr. Pepper, and a prolific plastic serving bowl overflowing with what looked like Cool Ranch Doritos.

“Holy crap,” Sara said.

“I’m home,” Daphne said, and had a red cup filled with Captain and Coke before anyone else even left the doorway.

Wanda grabbed me by the arm and tugged me toward a corner. Sara and Daphne didn’t seem to notice, and were perusing the selection of alcohol like old pros. I’d only ever drank once, at a party last year, and I’d only ended up getting really tired and falling asleep in Morgan’s bed fully clothed. Not terribly exciting, I admit.

“That’s alcohol,” Wanda hissed.

I couldn’t help myself. The shock turned her eyes into beach balls, and her voice even trembled. I flashed her a broad sympathetic grin.

“You don’t have to drink, Wanda,” I said, and squeezed her hand. “There’s plenty of soda.”

“Won’t…won’t people be mad?”

I’d be more amused by her innocence if I hadn’t worried about the same thing just a year ago.

“No,” I said. “That only happens in after school specials, babe.”

“I don’t know,” Wanda said, and turned away from me. Her eyes scanned the bottles of liquor like they were all little individual time bombs and someone had just handed her a pair of wire cutters. I put my hand on her shoulder and nudged her.

“Just walk around with a red cup filled with soda and act drunk,” I said.

She shook her head.

“Act like you’re kind of tired but everything is funny. And occasionally just sort of stare into space,” I said. “No one will suspect.”

Wanda twisted a lock of her hair so hard it made my scalp hurt.

“Luce…”

“I won’t tell anyone,” I said, and raised two fingers. “Strike me down with great vengeance and furious anger if I’m lyin’.”

Wanda nodded, but I wasn’t convinced. Not that I had to be—as bitchy as it sounds, she really had no alternatives. Her only other option was to ask to be taken home, which she wasn’t going to do, or have her parents come pick her up. Wanda was way too loyal to subject us all to parental doom, so that was out. I felt bad for her, and I was pretty nervous myself, but it was an adapt-or-die situation now. For both of us.

“You’ll be okay,” I said. “Promise.”

She nodded again, and it looked a little more confident. That’s something I suppose.

With Daphne’s urging, and hoping it would calm my nerves, I took one of her patented Captain and Coke’s and took a sip. It tasted like CAPTAIN and Coke, and when I made a pucker-face Daphne tossed another splash of rum in there for good measure. I want to stab her in the leg sometimes, I’m gonna be honest.

I floated back to the living room and sank into the thick plush cushions of the sofa. The drink had hit me hard, and I was in no mood to watch Daphne preen or Wanda cringe. My head felt heavy, and my eyes felt bigger than normal. I let out a deep whooshing breath and let my head cant sideways on the cushion behind me.

I sat on the couch alone for a time, with Wanda and Daph and Sara for a while, then with Benny as the guests filtered in. Benny and Zack had been worried at first—but the party-goers came in at a trickle, then a rush, and finally a biblical flood.

The living room, kitchen, and backyard swelled with kids. They seemed to breathe as one, causing the house to expand and creak at the joints. The music, a medley of ’90s songs, ’80s punk songs and top forty spoke to Zack’s influence on the soundtrack. I didn’t know why, but the thought of Zack winning the pointless soundtrack argument made me smile.

I stuck to my lone drink at first, nursing it for the better part of an hour, hoping no one would notice. The drink left me fuzzy but not much else—either I didn’t possess the gumption to throw myself completely over the deep end or some background track of my brain still kept a judo-grip on an endless strung-together litany of parental warnings and cautionary tales. Actually, the more I thought about it, the more I was sure it was the latter.

Sara disappeared completely—it didn’t surprise me. She wasn’t a huge fan of drinking but she’d smoke if there were smokers, and there were. I’d seen them gathered in a circle in the muggy darkness of Benny’s parent’s garden, barely illuminated by a single porch bulb burning behind thick amber glass. Daphne never stopped circling—she’d orbit a group of talkers, shoot in a few choice interjections, and move on. When she floated past me and I called her on her nomadic tendencies, she rebuffed me handily with a strangely appealing explanation.

“Luce,” Daphne said, and kissed me on the cheek. “I’m a shark. If I stop swimming, I die.”

Wanda mingled—much to my surprise, she wasn’t nearly the social caterpillar I had been expecting. She rotated through groups at a respectable pace, and I even saw her laughing a few times. Granted, her whole body threw off the no sudden movements vibe, and she looked ready to bolt most of the time, but she still hung in there. I had to give her credit.

I did okay—I talked to almost everyone, but I couldn’t repeat half of their names or three-quarters of their stories without a gun pressed firmly to my temple. Or my stomach. Ha, ha. Even my metaphors were Freudian.

Mostly I watched. I enjoy people-watching—I always have. But part of me was clenched, ready, waiting for the hammer to fall. I couldn’t explain the sensation—a kind of loose worry of an unnamed thing. Maybe it was the booze. Maybe it was the party. Maybe it was the fact that after an hour and a half, Zack hadn’t come looking for me once. Hadn’t even waved or checked up on me or—

I swallowed and shook my head.

I tried to pull myself into the now, a task not even remotely helped along by having to return to an agonizing conversation with a senior about his burnt orange 1965 Mustang Convertible. And the worst part? He wasn’t even hitting on me. It might have been an ego upswing if he was. Instead his eyes strayed not a centimeter from the eyes and overly exposed chest of one Emelia Beryl. A junior, cute, wearing too much eye make-up and not enough shirt. She didn’t fit the hot girl stereotype, and in fact looked a little too Goth-punk for my tastes, but this guy would not let up. I sighed and tried to find my place in the conversation.

I’d only even been involved in the conversation because I happened to be leaning against the same wall as Emelia, and I think Mustang guy was just trying to hit up as many targets as possible. Still, Emelia seemed to be the primary, and so after a few pleasant smiles and nods I managed to fade away.

Without even trying, and angry at myself for succeeding, I spotted Zack. Standing next to Benny, both of them gesturing in unison and telling a loud story. I couldn’t tell if they had practiced it or just told it too many times. Three girls hung off their words like the last helicopter out of Fallujah. Groan.

I was torn—break into the group and force my awesomeness on him, or bail and leave him high and dry. My phone buzzed in my purse instead. It was the first herald of a terrible night, and I wish I’d been lucky enough to suspect it. Instead, I flipped my phone and saw a name I didn’t expect—Morgan.

“Morgan?”

“What’s up?” she asked.

I frowned. Hadn’t she called me?

“Just…just the party.”

“Oh. Right,” she said. Even through the phone, her voice sounded clipped. Harsh. Uh-oh.

She tried again.

“How is it?”

I shrugged to no one. “It’s okay. Wanda seems to be in the lead for most-improved. I didn’t know that girl could schmooze.”

“She is on ASB,” Morgan said. Robotic.

“I guess,” I said. “Sorry you can’t-”

“Me too,” she spat, and I frowned. What the hell?

“Morgan what—?”

“Forget it, Lucy. Say hey to Benny for me, okay?”

Benny?

“Morgan, what’s up?”

“You don’t know?”

I thought my question had made that obvious. I took a deep breath.

“Know what, hon?”

“Just forget it. Have a great party.”

Cell phones don’t click, and thus, don’t dramatically hang-up very well. I took the long ache of profound silence as her disconnecting. I stared at my phone like the traitor it was and exiled it to the bottom of my purse.

Benny? I didn’t expect Morgan to be happy about being so thoroughly and inescapably grounded, but why had she bitten my head off? I looked around, anxious to spread my annoyance to someone else, but none of my friends were in sight. None except Zack, laughing with a trio of junior girls.

I turned toward the kitchen at speeds blurrable. I blasted through the swinging double-hinged door and went for the counter with my still-outstretched hand. My fingers clenched around glass, and I spun it in my fingers. Jack. Okay. In the cup.

I closed my eyes and grabbed again. Smirnoff? In the cup.

Grab. Margarita mix? In the cup.

Grab. Fumble. Break. Cringe.

Shrug. Grab. Orange Juice, Triple Sec, Grenadine. Cup-Cup-Cup.

Tequila. Bleh. Double-cup.

I swished the devil’s brew I’d concocted and stared down the business end of the red plastic cup. It looked…orange. It wasn’t brown or gray or green—none of the real evil colors. Okay. I plopped a handful of ice in and swished again. It didn’t seem to help the smell—a one-two combo of kerosene and Otter Pops.

“You’re not drinking that,” a voice said, stiffening my muscles in unnecessary alarm.

I didn’t turn once I’d recognized the voice. I wrapped both hands around the cup and touched the rim to my chin. I tried to hone in on the particular Otter Pop—it was a toss-up between Sir Isaac Lime and Little Orphan Orange. And kerosene.

“Daph, shush,” I said.

“What’s up?”

Her words were slurred, but genuine. I sighed and turned around. She was leaning in the door frame of the kitchen, the swinging door hanging behind her, held open only by her butt.

“Nothing, Daph,” I said. “Come drink with me.”

Daphne fluttered over, managing to control her gait with a determined nose-crinkle. I wasn’t positive, but I got the feeling she was overplaying her inebriation. Daphne and melodrama go hand-in-hand. Maybe mouth-and-mouth. Tongue-in-mouth.

I missed Zack.

Ugh.

I tipped the cup back and took a huge swig of the foul drink. I gagged and clapped a hand over my mouth, but somehow managed to keep it down. I petted my stomach, trying to reassure it about the poison rocketing its way. By its violent thrashing, I don’t think I fooled it.

Daphne made the gimme gesture, and when I handed her the cup, she took a swig herself. She made a wine-tasting face, swished it around, and swallowed. She handed the cup back to me and shrugged.

“Little Orphan Orange,” Daphne concluded.

“That’s what I thought.”

She didn’t miss a beat. Her bad news dovetailed nicely with the direction of my night. “Tyler is here. Just got here, actually.”

Tyler. Wanda’s obsession and her kryptonite. She wasn’t strong enough to tell that user to go away, and he wasn’t cool enough to move on from someone as confused and easily-taken-advantage-of as Wanda. She was a pathetic jerk’s dream—scared, submissive, and lonely. I loved Wanda to death, but she had a target painted on her back.

If Morgan was here, she would have risen up like a mama-bear and would be thrashing the guy’s skin off his bones already. Morgan. I thought of the weird phone call and rubbed my cheek.

“What do we do?” Daphne asked.

“Do?”

“About Tyler?”

“We ride,” I said, and pounded toward the living room.

“Oh shit,” Daphne said. She leaped off her counter stool and bolted after me.

I came through the door with my face put together—calm even. My scan for Tyler didn’t take long—I just had to look for Wanda.

She was leaning against a bookshelf next to the door, one of her hands gripping a shelf at shoulder level with the white-knuckled intensity that only the very angry or the very balance-challenged possess.

“How drunk is she?” I asked.

Daphne made a face I didn’t want to interpret.

“How?”

“Sorry,” she said.

“Daph!”

Daphne scoffed and said, “What? She needs to relax.”

“You’re really going to try to defend what you did, aren’t you?”

“I was but I wish I hadn’t.”

Should I even be surprised that Daphne mickied Wanda? I sighed and rubbed my forehead.

Tyler, wearing what looked like a basketball jersey—seriously?—stood in front of her, his right palm touching the book shelf behind her. Closing her in, blocking her. It looked like the only one who wasn’t thinking Wanda would try to make a break for it and run away from him was Wanda herself. She looked ecstatic—grateful. My stomach turned, and it wasn’t the booze.

“Double team?” Daphne asked from behind me, her voice electric with excitement.

I pushed through a small cluster of boys talking about girls and tapped Tyler lightly on the shoulder.

He turned. Not much taller than me—average-to-above-average guy height—but he looked down a crooked nose at me. It looked like it had been broken many times or just one really good time, and helped with the thuggish exterior he was projecting. Prominent brow, gaping mouth. The only thing that didn’t scream Neanderthal was his eyes. Sharp, alive, and aware. Smart eyes.

I reconsidered, but only for a second.

“Yes?”

“Hey, Luce, how’s it going…?” Wanda whispered, but no one reacted.

I crossed my arms over my chest.

“I don’t think you should be here,” I said, and I hated that my voice trembled. I suddenly had, at least a little, understanding for Wanda. Tyler scared me, too. He knew exactly why I was talking to him. His eyes were confrontational and smug. He wore a sneer to match.

“Oh?” he said, and turned back to Wanda.

“Hey,” I said. “I’m talking to you.”

Tyler sighed—his shoulders flexed with the over-exaggerated movement, and turned back to face me.

“Well,” he said. “You made a statement, and I turned around. You didn’t ask me a question.”

“Ha-you’re-an-idiot-ha,” Daphne said. “Wanda doesn’t like you.”

Tyler smirked. “I don’t know. I think you don’t like me. And believe me… I’m not interested in you. So win-win.”

I put my hand on Daphne’s shoulder. She took a step back, but the burning look in her eyes didn’t die.

“We’re done here, Tyler,” I said. “You got your warning.”

“Oooooh,” he said.

Child.

We both walked away from him through the thickening mass. We emptied out near the back door. I threw the sliding glass slab open and took a step into the orange glow of the back porch. The dark silhouettes of an urban-grown forest leaned toward us. Thankfully, the smokers had dispersed.

Daphne was shaking. She didn’t like to lose, or even stalemate, and our confrontation with Tyler had been at least one of those.

“It’s okay,” I said, and leaned against the stucco wall next to the door. “We’ll head back in when it loosens up a little and watch her. And him.”

“Yeah,” Daphne said, and sat down on a little green garden chair. “Blech. What a little punkass.”

I agreed, and we sat in silence for a while, stewing.

When Daphne went inside to pee, I cupped my cheeks with my hands and leaned forward in my chair, trying to summon my thoughts.

I heard something crunch in the backyard—it sounded like a twelve-foot kid eating a mouthful of giant cornflakes. My heart jumped, but either horror or curiosity made me hold my place and my tongue. The inky blackness of Benny’s backyard jungle stirred, and I saw something moving. My first thoughts ran to werewolf—weird, I know, but inexorable—and then to the man-in-white.

I thought of smoky-black eye-pits, of a face twisted like taffy. I slammed back against the sliding glass door with a whimper that I wasn’t too proud to take credit for, and my fingers dug for the stun gun in my purse.

“Luce?”

I froze…and a wide smile split my face in half when the figure came into the orange-amber light of the back porch.

“Morgan?”

I thought of her phone call. Was this about Benny? I remembered quickly that I was angry at her, even through the light haze of alcohol.

“What’s going on?”

Morgan shook her head. Her arms were tight to her sides, and her hands curled into balls at her hips. Her eyes darted from me to the door behind me.

“What is it? Is this about Benny or something?”

I took a step off the porch and reached for her hand.

“Morgan, what is it?”

“I’m so sorry, Luce,” she said, her blue eyes wide. “I didn’t know what to do.”

The hairs on my neck saluted.

She took a step back, and the leaves crackled beneath her. I took another step forward.

“Morgan,” I said. “What the hell is up?”

She bit her lip, her eyes darting again to the sliding glass door. I looked over my shoulder but saw nothing but oblivious party-goers. I turned back to her.

“He found me… he told me… actually I guess he showed me,” she shook her head. “He had to speak to you.”

The man-in-white. I stared into the black curtain behind her, trying to sort shapes out of the shadows. I had to help Morgan, somehow, but I couldn’t—

“Wait,” Morgan said. “He doesn’t seem dangerous. Just… kind of weird, actually.”

My hand froze. What?

The figure standing behind and to the side of her walked forward. Tall, lanky, old and sprightly. Identically dressed, as before, in his  worn tweed coat. He bowed deeply, and his rakish smile turned his wrinkles and dimples into canyons.

“Puck,” I breathed. “You’re alive!”

He held one hand up, sighed, and made a see-saw gesture.

Chapter Twelve

When It All Fell Apart

I leaped down from the back porch and tackled him. He caught me with surprising strength and squeezed me hard in his thin arms. When he set me back down again, he flashed Morgan an apologetic look. When I glanced at her, I watched her tense posture and terrified expression deflate into something more like weary confusion.

“Lucy,” Morgan said, and leaned back against a dead-looking tree. “You owe me a hell of a lot of explanation.”

“I know,” I said, and turned to Puck. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

And I was. Puck had saved me from the monster-in-white, and more importantly, he had convinced me I wasn’t alone and spiraling into madness. The grey beach was real, or realish, and my condition wasn’t…internal.

I looked up at his boyishly old face, but he gave me nothing but an understanding smile. Then I knew.

“You really can’t talk, can you? Not even here?”

Puck shook his head apologetically. I sighed and covered my face with my hands.

“What?” Morgan asked. “What does that mean, not even here?”

I glanced at her, then back at Puck.

“It means…it means we need to talk,” I said. My legs went rubbery. “But first just…listen.”

Morgan frowned.

“I need to ask Puck a few things and I’m gonna sound…well, like a nutjob.”

Puck pointed at me and nodded to Morgan. Her face cracked a smile.

I glanced at Puck and raised an eyebrow, “But, um, how do we do this, exactly?”

Morgan made a face at me, turned to Puck, and made a gesture with her hands. I didn’t catch the quick movement, but Puck did. He made something like a fist, his palm toward Morgan, and bobbed his knuckles.

“You know sign language?” I asked them both.

Puck bobbed his fist in time with Morgan’s grin.

"My cousin Lance?" Morgan said.

I bopped myself on the forehead. I’d completely forgotten that her cousin was deaf—still, she’d never mentioned the fact that she knew sign language. Figures. Tall, gorgeous, sporty philanthropist. And me, well I’m…not that. Moving on.

Puck smiled at me and touched my shoulder. He had an uncanny ability for setting me at ease.

“He isn’t deaf,” Morgan said. “He just can’t speak.”

A revelation popped in my head.

“Did you get Morgan because you knew she knew sign language?”

Puck laughed without sound and clapped his hands together once. He nodded furiously, and something akin to pride beamed from his face. Morgan, standing next to him, looked more freaked out than anything.

“How’d you know she knew?”

Puck took a deep breath, looked at Morgan, then began signing.

“He says… ‘I know more about you than you think, Lucy. I mean, in a not-creepy kind of way. We had an exchange…’”

Morgan couldn’t have looked more perplexed. She glanced back at Puck for confirmation. Puck smiled softly and re-signed the end of his sentence.

“…I think he said ‘we had an exchange in the Grey. You know about me, too, if you try hard enough.’”

Morgan looked at me sharply, “What the hell? An exchange?”

I held out a palm to her, effectively hushing her. I only had time for one ridiculous thing at a time, thank you very much.

“Just…wait. I know—”

Her mouth turned into a white line, and she flashed me a glare that could peel paint.

“I know I’m being an asshat,” I said. “But something…abnormal happened to me last Friday. And Puck knows more than I do.”

Morgan’s lip twisted, and after a beat, she nodded. She didn’t look happy about it, but she did turn to watch Puck’s hands.

“Oh…of course. What’s your name, Puck? Your real name.”

He made four sharp gestures. Morgan laughed.

“P-U-C-K,” Morgan said.

I glared at him.

“‘You knew my name the same way I knew your friend knew sign language,’” Morgan translated.

My eyes popped open. So I hadn’t made up the name—was that possible? I’d picked up on his thoughts without even trying? Or his memories, maybe?

“‘The things we do…are even easier with each other.’”

Morgan frowned, “Are you like…a superhero?”

Puck laughed silently again and shook his head. I rolled my eyes at Morgan.

“Well, I don’t know,” she said. “This sounds like two freak-show psychos to me. If I hadn’t known you since diapers, Lucy D., then I would have already fled for my life and called the cops.”

“Fair enough,” I said.

I thought of the one question that mattered, and the one I didn’t want to ask him. Especially not with Morgan there. I didn’t have a choice though, did I? I took a deep breath, trying to still the spiky nervous feeling pricking at my skin. Do it. Just do it, Lucy.

“Puck,” I said, trying not to look at Morgan. “Am I…did I die?”

“What?” Morgan said, and jerked toward me. “What does that mean? What happened to you?”

“I don’t know—”

Puck began signing, but neither of us were looking at him. After a beat he clapped his hands together, and Morgan and I swung our heads around toward him. He pointed behind us, turned, and bolted into the shadows.

“Puck!”

The sliding glass door trundled open. Morgan and I snapped around to see Sara standing in the doorway. Behind her, the press of people were frantic, moving as one toward either the front of the house or the living room.

“Luce?” Sara asked, tentatively, staring into the dark.

I jumped up onto the porch, and I heard Morgan crunching behind me.

“What?” I asked.

“Morgan?” Sara asked.

“What’s going on?” Morgan asked.

Sara looked confused by Morgan’s presence, but she shook it off and pointed over her shoulder.

“Everything. Benny and Tyler are fighting.”

Morgan and I exchanged glances and raced through the door. Sara grabbed my hand, and I grabbed Morgan’s, and the three of us plowed through the stumbling mass.

It was like charging into a cattle drive. The press of bodies ground together, threatening to throw me off my feet, bouncing me between the unintended shoulder-checks of a dozen strangers. From the front, Sara’s baseball-bat grip welded our hands together, but from behind I almost lost my grip on Morgan three times. She eventually grabbed my wrist with both of her hands.

Everyone shouted, blaring everything from words of encouragement to insults to well-meaning but ridiculous-sounding critiques.

“Fight, fight, fight!” A classic, and I allowed myself the indulgence of wondering who the first person ever to say it was. Probably a testosterone-drenched caveman, witnessing a brawl between two forehead-heavy fellows over who will rule the Clan of the Cave Bear.

“Queer! Fucking fight him! Punch him, come on!”

Sara yanked us out of the press of people, into the eye of the storm. Benny lay on the floor, holding both arms crossed over his face. Tyler, easily fifty-percent bigger then Benny, squatted on his chest, raining fists into Benny’s struggling defenses.

Sara ran forward, and I heard Morgan behind me. Sara made it two steps before another thug, dressed remarkably similar to Tyler stepped out from the crowd and shoved Sara with both hands. She stumbled and collided with an end-table, and the guy turned and grabbed both of my shoulders and pumped. Surprising strength took me back, throwing me into Morgan, knocking her into the crowd.

I grabbed the people around me, but their bouncing and jostling made it impossible to get back to my feet. A knee smacked me in the side of the head, and white star-bursts exploded in my eyes. I looked up in shock, trying to hold a hand feebly above my head, but I realized I wasn’t being attacked, just trampled.

I pushed up against the crowd, but it was like trying to shove a brick wall. I came down hard on my hands and knees, which protested with bright red stabs of pain. Something soft but unyielding cracked into my head, and my elbows buckled, forcing me into a bastard-version of the downward dog. I shoved and struggled, but the ocean of flesh tugged me down like the worst riptide. My left hand, its fingers splayed wide against Benny’s parents’ glossy hard-wood floor, didn’t last long. A brown-and-red sneaker came down like a piston on my fingers. I heard them break before I felt them. A dry machine-gun burst of cracks, four in total.

Agony. Bile rose in my throat, and a strangled animal-scream squeezed out of my mouth. The sneaker came up, and I yanked my mangled hand out and shoved it tight to my stomach to protect it. My fingers were engulfed in flame, throwing sickening pulses of pain up my entire arm. I wanted to look at it, but some well-equipped part of my mind told me that now wasn’t the time. I tried to curl up as best as I could, to resist the crushing machine of people.

Something grabbed the back of my shirt and twisted the fabric, tugging and pulling.

Then I was being lifted by the twisting hand, yanked back to my feet. A huge arm wrapped around my waist, holding me steady against the press.

I looked up at my savior. I wish I could have felt surprised.

Zack wasn’t looking at me. He held me to him against the battering sea of blood-thirsty teenagers, but he stared off toward the center of the circle, his eyes small and calculating. It had all the imagery of a romance novel, I realized. Dashing figure, whimpering maiden, eyes cast to the sea. I would have been disgusted if he hadn’t just saved my life.

Zack wasn’t small. With one hand around my waist, he plowed through the whirling teenager death machine and got us out of the crowd in seconds.

Sara tugged me out of Zack’s arms, and I didn’t even have enough presence of mind to resist. Zack didn’t either, because I realized Sara had seen what was in Zack’s eyes the moment he burst out of the crowd.

Benny had half-turned on the floor, and Tyler’s punches were knocking the side of Benny’s head into the hardwood floor with a sick cracking sound. No one was stopping him. Why wasn’t anyone stopping him?

Zack leaped at Tyler’s back, grabbed him by the shoulders, and spun him away from Benny. Tyler flew. He sailed into the coffee table, which despite what I’d seen in movies, didn’t immediately explode into splinters. Tyler just bounced off of it and rolled away. Zack was already moving, but so was Tyler’s black-haired friend.

Tyler’s friend snapped a forearm into the back of Zack’s head. Zack stumbled, turned, and threw a right cross that would have made Cassius Clay proud. It connected with a crunch, and Tyler’s friend stumbled back into the crowd.

Tyler was up, I realized, coming at Zack. Something small glittered in his hand—not a gun, I realized with an all-too-familiar jolt of fear. Just a pocket knife, the blade popped out. Zack was looking down at Benny. Tyler looked confused, and afraid, but he didn’t stop moving.

“Zack!”

Zack half-turned, and Tyler’s fear turned into panic. He jabbed the knife at Zack.

I could think of nothing but a pool of yellow arc-sodium light, the rough scrape of blacktop under my feet, and the yawning barrel of a revolver pointing into my gut. The gun and the animal behind it that had killed me.

“Stop!” I screamed.

He did. Tyler sailed backward across the room like he’d been punted. I didn’t see Zack move, but Tyler was lifted off his feet and tossed over the sofa. His legs caught the back of it, and he spun and landed in a heap behind it.

His pocket knife wobbled in the hardwood floor.

The crowd, finally, came alive. Tyler’s friend tried to sway back into the fray, looking dazed, bleeding from the lip, but a dozen hands grabbed each of the combatants and a dozen bodies flooded into the gaps between. I lost sight of Zack, Benny, Tyler, and Morgan.

“Luce…”

I followed the source of the sound to see Sara sitting on the arm of a chair, rubbing the side of her head. I jumped up to my tip-toes to try to see over the crowd, but I could only make out the top of Zack’s head.

“Luce…”

I glanced at her, trying to hide the impatient annoyance in my voice.

“What the hell happened? Why was Tyler beating the crap out of Benny?”

Sara shook her head and pointed at my stomach.

“What?”

I followed her gaze. I didn’t think anything had happened to my stomach—

My eyes rounded. Dizziness swept over me, my nerve endings tingling and my head was swimming. The first three fingers of my left hand were hopelessly mangled—a fleshy twisted claw, the fingers sticking out at unnatural angles with far too many knuckles. The skin, yellow and blue and black, promised agony.

I looked away, took a huge swallow of air, and covered the mess with my other hand.

It hurt, but in a distant way. More like a fresh memory of incredible pain. I knew enough to worry about shock—but I also knew I wasn’t as normal as I should be either.

“Lucy,” Sara said, the thin veil of concussion peeling away from her eyes. “You need to go to the hospital. Right now.”

I nodded. I didn’t want to—a little voice screamed that the tests would prove I was an alien or a vampire or a Scientologist or something. Maybe they wouldn’t test anything—my injury being pretty obvious. Did they always run tests? I wasn’t sure. Television hospital dramas hadn’t prepared me as much as I thought they might.

“Morgan…she’ll take me,” I said.

Why Morgan? She didn’t have a car, and it wouldn’t have been legal if she had.

Because she was going to know everything sooner than I’d like anyway. I didn’t need to spew my freakishness all over everyone. She’d be the easiest to convince that maybe I shouldn’t go to the hospital.

“Where did Morgan come from? I thought she was grounded?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Are you okay?”

Sara frowned at my evasiveness, but she still touched a spot above her ear and winced.

“I think so,” Sara said.

“Sorry, hon,” I said, checking her temple.

Sara snorted, “Your fingers are kindling, Luce. Get out of here, I’m fine.”

I nodded—when she mentioned my fingers, a dull ache of pain swirled up from my hand. I wanted to find Zack first, but I also knew that Zack was fine, and I wasn’t. Still, as I dug through the ridiculous mass to find Morgan, I couldn’t keep myself from swiveling over my shoulder every six seconds to pick Zack’s spiky hair out of the crowd. By the fourth look, he’d disappeared, no doubt to help Benny to his feet. Stupid good-looking hero idiot.

Daphne ran smack into me. My obsession with Zack was now officially messing with my equilibrium. I gave her a look up and down, but she seemed okay.

“You okay, Daph?”

She made a face and gestured toward my cradled hand. “Are you?”

“I’m…no, not really. Have you seen Morgan? Or Wanda?”

“Morgan is here?” Daphne asked, and seemed to immediately reconsider. “Forget it. Wanda needs you. Right now. Come on.”

I followed her upstairs, where Daphne stopped at a door at the end of the hall. The upstairs was dark, except for a gentle amber light welling out from the bottom of the door in front of us.

“What happened?”

Daphne shook her head. “Benny found them…”

I pushed past Daphne and went in the room. I heard the door click shut behind me.

Only a small desk lamp illuminated the room—judging from the twin bed, the movie posters, and the impressive-looking glowing computer tower on his desk, I knew I was in Benny’s room.

A tiny girl sat on the tiny bed, Wanda. She looked like she had shrunk, curled in on herself. Her hair, coiffed and delicate before, stuck out and hung in tangled lumps. Her shirt was ripped along the shoulder, and one of her shoes sat forlorn and cast off at the foot of Benny’s desk chair.

“Wanda?”

The girl on the bed made a mewling sound—half-sob, half-spoken word. It sounded like despair, and I felt my heart jump.

“Wanda? Are you okay, hon?”

She wasn’t—I knew that much.

Dull, ghostly images skimmed through my mind. Like old yellowed snapshots, I thought of Ms. Crane, my guidance counselor. The images I’d had taken from her by accident—and the feelings came with them. Faded, ancient, and over-used like the images themselves, but I got a hint of it. The violation. The shock.

I touched my cheek and felt my fingers shaking. Calm down, calm. I crossed to the bed and climbed onto it next to her. She still didn’t move or look at me.

“Wanda, hon?”

I touched her back, and she jerked under the motion. She mumbled something, and I leaned in closer.

“What is it?”

I didn’t even try this time. Just a little breath and I felt a live jolt of fear and anger splash into my lungs. Images of Tyler’s lean, ugly face. Twisted and angry. Wanda had said no, and Tyler hadn’t taken it like a gentleman. Grabbing, pawing hands. Wanda’s terror spilling into me, her outrage, even through the alcohol haze. Clothing tearing, just as the door flew open, filling with Benny’s slender silhouette. Benny moving like a flash, grabbing Tyler…

No wonder Tyler had been bouncing Benny’s head off the floor.

“Oh, Wanda…” I breathed, just above a whisper.

“Luce…just. No. Go, please. Just go.”

I frowned and squeezed her shoulder. “Wanda, you’re not okay—”

“Please. Just. Go.”

She didn’t sound angry. Her words warbled, caught in her throat. She sucked in a breath and looked at me through her curtain of hair. The smile she tried to pull off broke my heart.

“I’m okay,” she said. “Can I go home?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Of course. Yeah. Just let me…”

And I was still shaking. I felt weak, almost dizzy. I ignored the feeling.

“Is Benny okay?” she said, suddenly, her eyes lighting up. It looked like fear, or hysteria.

“I don’t know,” I said. “He got… let me just find someone who can give us a ride.”

Wanda retreated, her arms folding around herself, her eyes snapping out of view behind her hair. I didn’t know what to do. I clenched my hands into fists and left the room.

“She needs to go home,” I said to Daphne. “Know anyone with a car?”

Daphne nodded. “Mostly seniors here. I know a couple. I can…yeah. Do you need a ride, too?”

“No, just get her out of here and try to cover with her parents.”

“Yes, sir,” Daphne said, without a hint of sarcasm. I tried a smile, but she made a face and pulled me into a quick, tight hug. Pins and needles pricked at my broken hand.

Daphne ran downstairs. I searched the hallway for the bathroom and went inside. The bright compact-fluorescents stabbed my eyes when I flicked the switch.

I glanced into the mirror and immediately regretted it. My skin looked translucent—the kind of pale reserved for vampires and the Irish. I leaned in close to the mirror, my eyes wide, trying to remember if dilation was good or bad. I flicked the switch off. Waited. Flicked it on again.

My eyes didn’t change. When the lights turned on, my pupils were already two black dimes.

“Crap,” I said.

With more than a little reluctance, I pulled my twisted hand away from my stomach. A wave of dizziness crashed over me the second I jostled it, and I hurled lunch, dinner, and more than a few alcoholic libations into the toilet. When I recovered and cleaned up a little, I went back to examining the hand.

The fingers weren’t as twisted and awful as I remembered—maybe being trampled in a crowd had exaggerated my perceptions. Still, they were pretty gross. The index finger made a side-ways snake shape, the middle finger popped forward then back again, and the ring finger looked…mushy? The skin was torn on all three from the impact of the foot, and they were all red, purple, blue, and yellow. Some blood spattered my hand, but I didn’t think from any compound fractures. Mostly just the tearing.

I took another few moments to hurl. When I was finished I was shaking, and cold sweat ran in rivulets down my back. My forehead positively glistened. I took a deep breath, and the room began to spin. Not good. I cleaned up again, swirled enough Listerine to get me a little buzzed, and dug through the medicine cabinet and under the sink. Success! I tugged out the first aid kit, swallowed a handful of aspirin, and wrapped my Fangoria hand in a long roll of Ace bandages.

Wrapping the fingers was the worst part. Every tiny motion, every rasp of skin against bandage sent a wave of misery rolling up my entire body.

I went downstairs, not surprised to see the party clearing out. The crowd had thinned to mostly my friends and a few stragglers. Benny sat on the couch as Sara and Morgan attended to him. He looked thrashed—most of his face was swollen and badly cut up, and the hand cradling his ribs told me he’d probably taken a hard hit there as well. Zack stood above them all, his arms crossed, his eyes going between Benny, the door, and the ground.

Daphne stood in the corner with a catatonic-looking Wanda. Wanda had been wrapped in some guy’s huge puffy coat, and she hugged herself and stared off serenely at some phantom landscape. Daphne whispered in low tones to some senior guy I didn’t recognize, and he looked both annoyed and compliant. Daphne had that effect on people.

I didn’t make it three steps before Zack caught sight of me. He ran to meet me at the foot of the stairs, and despite everything, I smiled. Stupid hero idiot.

“Are you okay, Luce? Sara said—”

“I’m fine,” I said. “Just got a little crowd-stomped. It looked worse than it was.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sara look up in stark disbelief. I waved my bandaged hand at her and tried to ignore the searing flashes caused by the sudden movement. She frowned but went back to patching up Benny.

Zack didn’t look convinced either.

“Mind if I see it?”

I frowned. “Yes, I do. A lady has some secrets, you know.”

“Wounds are not secrets.”

“Well…mine are,” I said. “Take it or leave it.”

The witty banter was really pushing my concentration. Mostly I wanted to ralph again or lie down and pass out. The pain, much to my chagrin, was getting worse, and harder to think past. That and my knees shook with every step. How bad was shock? I couldn’t remember if shock could actually kill you. Then again, could I even be killed? I moaned to myself and pushed that entangling thought away.

“You don’t look—” he began.

“Zack. Watch it.”

“I mean, you look lovely. Just like a lovely person…who needs to go the hospital.”

I smirked. “Thanks?”

Zack sighed, and his forehead wrinkled up. I took the last few steps down the stairs, and I don’t know if it was the weird night, the shock, or the Listerine, but I folded myself into his arms and rested my head on his chest. For a terrifying moment he didn’t move, and I sucked in a slow shallow breath that just might precede shameful weeping. Not enough breath to do my mind-peeking trick, I noticed distantly. Before I could embarrass myself anymore, however, he slipped his arms across my back and pulled me in closer.

Heaven. No question. He smelled like…I don’t even know. But it was wonderful, masculine and natural. The warmth of his chest made me shiver. He dragged his fingers through my hair, and I let out the most contented sigh of my whole life.

I didn’t expect it to last long, and the universe made sure to grant my wish. He held me close to him as Daphne and her senior friend took Wanda away. I wanted to say something to her, but I didn’t think I had words for it. And I didn’t think she had ears for it. It looked like I could have told her she’d won the lottery and her face wouldn’t twitch. In that moment, I wanted to end Tyler’s life.

As time spun out like taffy in Zack’s arms, I drifted away—let myself wander.

Three light taps on the front door woke me up. I felt Zack tense against me.

“Did anyone call the cops?” I heard Benny mumble from the couch.

“I don’t think so,” Zack said.

Sara, closest to the door, moved cautiously to the peep hole. She put her face against it, pulled away, and then checked again. Three light taps rang out again.

“It’s some…weird looking guy.”

I let out the breath I didn’t know I was holding. Morgan glanced up at me from the couch, and we exchanged what could only be described as an oh crap look. We’d completely forgotten about Puck. Still, was I really ready to out myself in front of all of my friends?

No.

“Morgan…could you—”

“Yeah,” Morgan said, and stood up. “It’s just my…uncle. He gave me the ride. Luce, come say hi. He hasn’t seen you in forever.”

I raised my eyebrows. Morgan Veers—super-spy.

“Are you gonna leave?” Benny asked through swollen lips.

“No,” Morgan said, and flashed a dazzling smile. God she deserved an Oscar. “He’s probably just worried. I’ll explain the, uh, sudden exodus and be right back.”

Benny nodded and closed his eyes. Tyler had really painted a masterpiece on Benny’s face. I replayed the image of Zack throwing Tyler across the room with smug satisfaction. Then I remembered the second time Tyler had been thrown—the end of the fight. Had Zack thrown him that time? It didn’t look like it.

“Luce?”

I nodded to Morgan, and smiled up at Zack. He let me go with a reluctance I found, forgive me, delicious. I followed Morgan across the room and out the door. Sara’s skeptical look at my trailing, bandaged hand didn’t escape my notice.

When Morgan opened the door, I didn’t immediately see Puck. Still, I doubt he wanted to be spotted by the whole party. We walked outside and closed the door.

“Puck?” I whispered, eyes trying to pierce the gloom around the porch.

“Do you see him?” Morgan asked. I shook my head.

My phone buzzed in my purse. I reached down to get it.

Then it hit me. That sudden, all too familiar wave of incredible panic. Too close to stop, too close to react.

The man-in-white came around the side of the porch. His long white doctor’s coat hung from his shoulders, and the look on his sharp features was calm. Calculating, even. And struggling in his arms, the man-in-white’s elbow wrapped around his neck, was Puck.

My stomach sank. Morgan gasped—something I didn’t even have the breath for.

“It’s time,” the man said. He seemed to hold Puck effortlessly, despite his squirming. Puck’s eyes were wide, his face twisted in terror. It made the jovial old man look almost unrecognizable.

“Stop,” I said, and took a step down the porch. “Please, stop!”

The man nodded.

“You have to come with me, Lucy.”

“To hell with that,” Morgan said. She jumped down the porch steps and landed next to me. “Who the hell are you?”

He ignored Morgan. His eyes never left mine.

“It’s time to leave…all of this, Lucy.”

“Why?” I asked. My voice was breaking, I couldn’t help it. “Just leave me alone. Let me stay. I’m not a bad person.”

“You aren’t a person,” the man said. He sounded sad.

“Lucy—” Morgan began.

The man in white’s voice raised in what sounded like real anger. “You take what isn’t yours. The memories of real people…you’re taking their happiness, Lucy. Their pain, their sadness, their glee, their lust, and joy. You are the worst kind of thief, don’t you understand?”

Puck was moving, struggling against the man’s grip, but barely budging.

“Lucy—” Morgan tried again.

“Morgan, shut up,” I shouted, and turned to the man. “I haven’t hurt—”

“Yes, you have,” he said. “And you don’t even know it. But there is a worse price.”

I felt my body going numb, “What?”

“Oblivion,” he said.

“Stop it! Stop it! Who are you?”

Puck wasn’t moving, I realized. He was signing. A small smirk curled his lips, amazingly. I gawked at him.

Morgan watched his frantic eyes and made a little noise. “His name is A-Abraham.”

The man-in-white’s—Abraham’s—eyes widened. He looked down at Puck and tightened his grip on the old man’s body. Puck’s eyes flared in pain, but his smirk remained.

Morgan stepped forward and grabbed my shoulders, and I half turned to her, one eye still on Abraham and Puck. Morgan looked terrified but hard—filled with that Morgan-rage I knew so well. The same anger that had lit her eyes when Wanda was breaking down in my room, a week ago.

“Puck said Abraham can’t hurt him,” she whispered. I gave her a what-the-hell-does-that-mean look, and she shrugged and shook her head frantically.

“Enough,” Abraham said, and we both whipped around to look at him.

He was moving closer, and a dull pulse of white light began to well up from under his shirt. It streaked out of the sleeves of his doctor’s coat, and up through the neck of his  t-shirt. It flowed up his jaw, his face, casting him in the sinister light of the spooky storyteller around the fire.

“Lucy. Lucy!”

His voice doubled, like two people repeating the same word but down a hallway from each other. When he said my name, it crackled with authority.

“Come with me, Lucy. You’re tired, aren’t you? Cold? It’s time to go.”

I was cold, all of a sudden. Drained.

The warmth in his voice washed over me, and my muscles slacked. I felt the heat of his promise slide through me. The promise of a distant place—of somewhere peaceful. The memory of the party, the fight, Wanda—even Puck, began to drift away from me. I walked toward the man-in-white, slowly at first, with little baby steps.

“Lucy, no!”

Morgan grabbed at my arm, and a distant, quiet voice in my head murmured something about believing her, holding on to her. The little voice was no match for the throbbing call to leave, to move on. To follow Abraham into peace.

He began to glow brighter, white light spinning off of him in dazzling motes. Morgan pulled at me, but something stronger tugged me forward. Abraham raised one hand out to me, the other holding a twisting, frantic-looking Puck. I sighed as another nimbus of heat buffeted me. Little drops of sweat clung to my forehead, and his heat burned my skin.

I remembered the hospital, the glowing thing with the bright black eyes. And as I looked again, I saw Abraham’s eyes rolling over, becoming black pools of oil. I saw his jaw extending, his face changing, stretching, a mockery of human shape.

And I could do nothing. It was too late.

“Lucy!”

I wondered why Abraham was calling to me again. He had me…no. I knew that voice.

I turned my neck, slowly, and it felt like twisting a broken valve. I yanked, and pulled my eyes away from the glowing monster in front of me. It wasn’t easy to see past the haze of light but…I knew that shape. Standing around the side of the house, holding a white plastic trash bag half in and half out of a garbage can. Zack.

“No!”

I don’t even know who shouted it—it could have been me. But everything happened at once.

Zack ran at—

—tugged, screaming at me, falling over as she—

—grabbed Abraham’s wrist, and with a strength a thin old man shouldn’t have had—

—I fell back on top of Morgan as she—

—roared, jet eyes widening, becoming black holes of rage—

Then I did it. I felt Morgan and Zack pulling at me, could see Puck struggling, one thin tweed-covered arm up in the air, holding Abraham’s glowing limb by the elbow as he tried to crush the little old man into the dirt. I had to do something. Puck was going to die, and then Morgan. Then Zack.

I jerked toward Puck, fighting Morgan and Zack and pulling them both just a foot forward, making them stagger under the strain. My hand reached out. I felt a handful of tweed curl in my fingers and then… I… flipped.

The world collapsed around us, folding in on itself.

We all crash-landed in grey sand, the sound of the surf pounding in our ears.

Chapter Thirteen

On Vertigo

Screaming first, then light. My eyes opened, staring up into the roiling grey sky.

I sat up, my elbows digging into the wet grey sand. Puck stood, inches away from the light-silhouette that had to be Abraham. In the real world, Abraham looked like a man imitating light. In the grey, I saw a ray of brilliant light trying to mimic the shape of a man. Just a burning shadow, a shape, searing my eyes. Puck stood in front of him, his frayed red scarf snapping in the breeze, his thin frame defiant, his chin up. Zack lay on the ground next to Puck, vomiting. From the sound behind me, Morgan was doing the same thing.

Abraham juked toward Puck like a cresting wave, but bounced off of an invisible wall between them. The light-thing shrieked in fury, a sound like metal tearing and bees buzzing. I fell back a step at the noise. Puck didn’t.

Puck held up one hand and Abraham slid back three steps in the dirt. Like he’d been picked up and dragged by an unseen giant. My mouth fell open. The old man glanced over his shoulder at me, and his expression was unmistakable. I’d seen it in my dad’s face too many times to miss it. It said, simply, “Are you just gonna sit there and watch?”

“What?” I managed to choke out, past the lump of terror.

Puck, his whimsical face stolid, even angry, looked at Morgan on the ground. After a moment, Morgan stood up, her arms moving strangely. Mechanically. The look on her face was surprise—the words that came out of her mouth weren’t her own, I was sure.

“In the other world, we are the abominations. Here, he is the trespasser.”

I flashed Morgan a look of confusion. She returned it, but kept talking in that weird monotone.

“This is Puck, you silly girl. Help me!”

I turned back to Puck, who had switched his attention back to the beast he was keeping miraculously at bay.

“What?”

I knew there were others words I could have used in that moment. But nothing came to mind but that terrified, incredulous one-word question. Well, a few others, but most of them involved terrible strings of profanity that I didn’t think would help the situation.

“Help me! Now!”

Something in his…her tone defrosted the ice clinging to my limbs. I ran across the uneven, wet sand, trying not to break my ankle. On the shore, grey torrents of water crashed into grey sand. I jogged past Zack, who still clawed at the wet dirt with a look of torment that made my heart tighten. I ran to Puck’s side and held my arm out, mimicking his pose.

The light-monster cried that terrible shriek again. A spike of agony drove into my ear, and I cried and clapped my hands over my head. Just four feet from the thing, looking at the squirming patterns of light racing along his form, at the two flares of white that must have been his eyes, I felt my legs turning to Jell-O. My eyes began to water from the strain, and my blood went cold. What could I do against that thing?

Morgan’s flat, monotone voice spoke up from behind me. I didn’t turn to look. Not at her, anyway. When I looked at Puck, as Morgan spoke, I could see his forehead clench, his lips move in sync with hers. Freaky.

“You’ve already done it three times, to things you feared less. Push all of your fear and rage—”

Puck broke off as the Abraham-thing rushed him—rushed us—again. I took a step back out of instinct and emitted a shriek of horror. Abraham’s shape—taller, lankier, with long alien limbs—ran at Puck, seemingly free of its bonds. Puck dug his feet into the sand and pumped his open palm toward the thing again.

“Towards the ocean,” I shouted.

Puck didn’t need any clarification.

Abraham leaped at us. Puck and I—pushed. It didn’t bloom inside of me—I didn’t feel a wash of incredible power. Just a feeling of sudden exertion, like bursting into a run or doing a pull-up. Abraham didn’t lift this time—one second he was loping at us with those weird, long limbs—the next he was pulled sideways, dragged across the sand. A huge plume of grey shot up, but the surf doused the sound of his shrieks. We plunged his glowing body into the waves.

The ground shook, and a boom like thunder rolled across the beach.

Then there was nothing. I watched the churning tide, my eyes scanning the foaming peaks and valleys.

“H-how can we do…that?” I whispered.

Puck stood still beside me.

“Because we’re ghosts, right? That old…moving the table trick? Slamming the cupboards? Making Aunt Fanny’s tea jump out of her hand, right?”

Puck made the see-saw gesture again—ugh, I wanted to kill him. Again? God, I didn’t even know if he was dead. If I was—

It wasn’t until Morgan touched me on the shoulder that I turned away from the ocean.

“What…what—?”

Her face twisted in confusion, and her eyes rolled up white. She passed out and hit the sand with a wet whump.

Zack looked up from the mess he’d made in the sand, wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, and frowned. When he spoke, he sounded genuinely disappointed.

“Why didn’t I think of that?”

Zack didn’t say much while Puck and I tried to wake up Morgan. That was probably a good thing—I was kind of freaked out at the eerie look of calm on Zack’s face. One minute he’d been standing on the lawn of Benny’s house, watching us fight some crazy guy. A second later, he was on a beach, watching his crush—God, hopefully—being menaced by a nine-foot gangling light-monster. All in all, I think Morgan reacted with the most sanity by checking out.

I glanced at Zack, watching the smooth lines of his too-relaxed face as he scanned the sea of endless grey. Maybe he had checked out too.

“Lucy?” Zack said.

I nodded to Puck, who leaned over Morgan and did his best to wake her. I walked over to Zack and sat down. The sand was wet under my butt, and I was pretty sure my cute skirt was ruined, and worse, see-through. If it was, Zack didn’t seem to notice.

“Zack. I don’t know what to s—I didn’t mean this. To, to bring you guys here. Wherever here is. I—”

I stopped. My voice was breaking down, and so was I. I clamped a hand over my eyes, took a deep breath, and leaned forward across my knees, mimicking Zack’s pose. I could feel him breathing next to me, steadily. I could feel his warmth, just inches away.

“Lucy,” Zack said. “I’m sorry about the party.”

Whoa. Brake lights.

“W-what?”

I took a deep breath, trying to still the hysterical note in my voice.

“I just wish…I’m sorry about the fight. And about Wanda.”

I pulled my hands away from my eyes and looked up at him.

“Zack, I don’t think you’re okay.”

“Oh, I know I’m not okay,” Zack said, and presented the beach in front of him with a sweeping gesture. “I just hope Wanda is going to be okay.”

“Zack.”

“Lucy,” he said, and turned to me. “I’m glad I’m here with you. If it had to be anyone.”

I rubbed my face, trying to get feeling into my cold cheeks. He thought…well of course he did. God, what had I thought, the first time I’d woken up here? What did I think now? I looked at Puck, and he seemed to be listening to our conversation.

“Zack, I don’t think you’re dead.”

I looked at Puck while I said it, and he nodded. Oh thank God.

“But this—we were fighting that guy. Did he have a gun or something?”

I sighed, “Zack, you aren’t dead.”

At that moment, a huge wave crashed against the shore. It didn’t help make my point, I’ll be honest. I reached across the insurmountable gap, the one between two nervous teenagers, and grabbed his hand with mine. I almost yelped—his hand burned me, like it had just come out of an oven. Zack sucked in a breath.

“Jeez, Luce, you’re freezing.”

He threw an arm over my shoulder and pulled me in tight next to him. He rubbed my shoulder vigorously—I sighed and tucked in close to him. The heat baked me, and I shivered against the sudden influx of warmth.

“You are freakishly warm,” I said. I knew why, or at least I thought I did, but I didn’t want to think about it.

“Pretty good for a dead—”

“You aren’t dead.”

“How do you—?”

“Trust me,” I said.

“Luce. Where the hell are we?”

I laughed. Truth was, “Well—”

I flrrrppped my tongue in an epic raspberry and shrugged.

He smiled, said nothing, and leaned his head against mine.

We sat in blissful silence. Every part where we touched—shoulder, arm, hip, leg, calf, cheek—I tried to memorize. To note every detail, every curve, every twitch of muscle. To absorb his nearness, to keep it forever. I could have painted Zack’s body blindfolded.

A little something flashed in my mind—my phone had gone off, right before Abraham had showed up at Benny’s. I dug my phone out of my purse and brought up the message menu. Sure enough, a text message, from my mystery-texter.

Bad Bad Vibes, Luce.

I Think He Might Be Near.

I growled and turned my phone off. That was extremely helpful. No shit he was near. Still though—who could possibly be sending the messages? It wasn’t Puck, and it wasn’t Abraham. It couldn’t be Zack or Morgan. Who else could know what was going on? And why the sudden interest in my safety?

Morgan mumbled something, and I woke up and looked over my shoulder. She was sitting up, her blonde hair covered with wet grey sand. She stared up at the sky, then at the ocean. Then at me. I took a deep breath.

“What?” she asked. “Luce?”

I disentangled myself, reluctantly, from Zack’s embrace and skidded across the sand to her side. I wish I’d been surprised by the heat of her hand when I squeezed it with mine. She hissed reflexively the instant I touched her skin—just like ice, I’ll bet. The cold of the grave? Ugh. I needed clichés like a hole in the head. Or another hole in the stomach.

“Morgan—you aren’t dead. Okay? Nobody is d…”

I stopped and looked up at Puck, and bless him—he didn’t make that see-saw gesture.

“…dead. We’re just, a little lost, okay?”

Puck stood up, suddenly, jerking to his full height with a stiff sense of danger. He reminded me of a prairie dog, and I felt a bubble of panicked laughter rolling up from my stomach.

Puck’s eyes widened and he turned toward Morgan with an apologetic look on his face. I wondered why, but for only a split second.

“We have to go. Now,” Morgan said in that robotic voice, the Puck-voice. “More phantoms are coming. Hungry ones.”

I frowned, but began to stand. Even in their is-this-a-dream stupors, Morgan and Zack both hopped to their feet with twin looks of concern. Puck checked Morgan once more, slapped her shoulder, and re-wrapped his red scarf around his neck. He pointed toward the road.

“Was Abraham…is that what he was? What he’s called?”

Puck shook his head.

“That’s what we’re called,” Puck said, through Morgan, “and not all of us have retained…humanity. We have to go.”

Phantoms. I stopped, rooted to the ground. Phantom means ghost. And ghost means dead. I couldn’t catch my breath. I felt black dots swirl in my eyes and a sense of lightness flood through me. I think I was fainting.

“Get it together, Lucy,” Puck said. “Or Zack and Morgan won’t live another hour. We can get them out.”

I shook my head, took a deep breath, and tried to steady myself. Focus, Lucy. One thing at a time. No time for self-pity, self-reflection or—really anything with the word self in it. Thinking of Zack and Morgan being attacked was all I needed. All right then. Get them out. Easy, right?

“Can we just…shift?”

Puck shook his head, and oddly, Morgan’s head matched his gesture as she spoke for him. Poor Morgan.

“We can. For them it’s a one way trip. They have to return to their bodies. We don’t.”

That was more information than I could decode. I shook my head.

“In English.”

“They didn’t shift anywhere, not really. Their bodies are lying slumped on the lawn. If they don’t return to them the proper way, they don’t return at all.”

I shook my head. I did everything I could to not ask the obvious question—where’s my body?

Zack looked up and mumbled, “Benny must be freaked the hell out.”

“How do we do it? How do we get them back? What’s the right way?’” I asked.

Puck held up one finger.

“What does that mean?”

Puck smiled impishly, turned, and started jogging up the dune leading to the road.

“What does that mean?”

The three of us followed after him in silence.

We crested the hill together—why wasn’t I surprised to see a beat-up, rusted out convertible sitting on the cracked asphalt of the road beneath us? It didn’t look much different from the other wrecks of cars scattering the road, except for two key differences. One, its tires hadn’t worn away to long disconnected flaps of rubber, and two, the engine was running. In the cold air, long puffs of white rolled out of the exhaust. Puck was half-running half-sliding down the dune towards the road, his lanky body scrambling, limbs flying, as he ran.

Without thinking, I reached to the right and grabbed Zack’s hand. My other hand took Morgan’s, and I led them down the long slope.

“Hey,” Zack said, doing a double-take. “Is this a Falcon?”

Puck nodded.

Zack detached himself from my hand and slid around to the front of the car. I glanced at Morgan and rolled my eyes. She gave me a good-natured smile, but it looked like no small amount of normal was going to counter-act the weird. She looked preoccupied, not that I could blame her.

“Sixty-four?” Zack asked. “Right?”

Puck grinned, glanced at me, and flashed his eyebrows. The look was manic, cartoony, but unmistakable—I think Puck approved. Of Zack. I couldn’t believe it, but Puck’s approval mattered.

Puck slid into the driver’s seat, and Morgan, without saying anything, slid into shotgun. Part of me thrilled—me and Zack would be nestled together in the tiny backseat. At the same time, I felt horrible—Morgan had intentionally sat next to the weirdo stranger she didn’t know to avoid me. I shook my head and vaulted into the back seat. Zack climbed over the other side and plopped down next to me.

Well, I’d been right about one thing—the seat was tiny. Zack and I practically shared an ass. We both shifted, trying to get comfortable, and I laughed. Zack reached behind him, grabbed his seat belt, and pulled it across him. The old, frayed belt tore in half. I laughed even harder.

“The car’s pretty old,” Puck/Morgan said. Without seeing her lips, the effect was even creepier. “Just try not to fly out.”

“Try not to ram anything and kill us all, eh?” Zack said.

Puck gave us a thumbs up, re-wrapped the red scarf around his neck. The car lurched forward, and Puck began steering us around the rusted bulks of long dead cars. Going north, I noticed. Toward the dim glowing light.

When I was a kid, I could never stay awake during long car rides. Or short car rides. I could barely stand next to a car and stay conscious. The gentle hum of the engine transformed every surface into the hands of a gentle masseuse. As we drove down that long, lonely highway in the middle of a grey wasteland, I thought of those days.

I snuggled into the little nook formed by Zack’s shoulder and rested my head on his chest. I rolled the hood-tie of his sweatshirt around my finger, watching it twist, then unravel, then twist, then unravel. I inhaled Zack—a mixture of something wonderful and something less-so. The Zack-smell was nice, but it was the light odor of sea and sand and bad teenage piss-beer that stung my nose. I sighed, curled a handful of sweatshirt between my fingers, and closed my eyes.

“Lucy?” Zack whispered. Deathly quiet. I doubt the front seat could have heard it.

I mumbled a positive-sounding noise into his chest.

“I’ve been thinking…adding, I guess.”

I frowned, but the expression was a secret between me and his sweatshirt.

“Okay,” I whispered. My heart started to hammer, something I had no way of hiding as my ribcage was practically on top of his. “Adding what?”

“Thoughts,” Zack said, annoyingly cryptic.

“About—”

“About our date,” he said. “The first one. The Guess-Who’s-On-The-Milk-Carton date.”

I smiled and frowned almost simultaneously. I’m not quite sure how I pulled that off, actually.

“What about it?” I asked. I had some idea what he might be adding together. Whatever had happened to me, my being a weirdo-freak, and shunning people didn’t start until after our date.

“I was thinking—well, I have a question. It’s kinda stupid though.”

I nodded, barely. I blinked, trying to clear my eyes of tear-distortion.

“Was that your first kiss?”

I couldn’t help myself. The sudden release of tension made me snort in laughter. I slapped my hand over my mouth. It didn’t matter. Both Morgan and Puck looked over the back seat and give me nearly identical looks of bemusement. I waved my fingers in a sort of toodles gesture until they both turned away. I wasn’t surprised to see that Morgan turned away last.

“Jesus, Lucy, it wasn’t that funny,” Zack said.

There was no mistaking the tone of his voice. Hurt but trying to stay manly. Very cute, in other words. I realized what it must have looked like, him asking me if he was my first kiss and me guffawing my brains out. The laugh made me look like some kind of kiss-whore. Not exactly the most fetching attribute in a future girlfriend/date/whatever.

“I’m sorry, Zack,” I said. I turned up to look at him, and his jaw could have been carved from marble. Veins stood out in his neck.

“I didn’t mean—” I snorted, then took a breath. The look he gave me was not forgiving. “—to say. Or imply. That I was a lip-slut. I just…I guess I thought your question was going to be a little more…hard hitting.”

Zack didn’t seem happy with my explanation. If anything, he looked sourer.

“Uh-huh.”

“Really! I thought—quite naturally—that you might ask about the creepy realm of doom you’re driving through.”

I didn’t. But the real subject I feared, concerning my possible demise, was really only a hop skip and a jump from that lie so I blurted it out without too much guilt.

“I’ve only been kissed three times, Zack, okay?”

Zack twinged at the words, but after a moment, began to loosen. Someone seemed to have pulled the metal bolts out of his neck by the time I looked up again.

“What three?”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re being serious?”

Zack snorted. “If you don’t wanna answer. Then I’m joking. But if you’re going to answer, then I’m serious.”

“That’s not fair.”

Zack smiled sweetly. Well, evilly, but with a certain charming sweetness.

“Okay, Mama Theresa, are your lips virginal?” I asked.

Zack’s mocking smile faded. Good. I tried not to beam triumphantly—it was more of a triumphant flicker, or a victorious flash. Victorious Flash would be a great band name. Okay, Lucy Day, you need to chill out.

“Well?”

“Well,” Zack said. “I’ve kissed five girls.”

“Me too,” I said, and the look of shock he flashed me was priceless. Oh, had I a camera.

“You mean—”

“I’m kidding,” I said. “You’re cute though.”

“You don’t care?”

I rolled my eyes and snorted. “And why, exactly, would I care how many girls you kissed? You can kiss all the girls you want.”

Zack looked hurt again—for such a witty guy, he wasn’t up on his banter. Then again, I gave him a free pass—considering his surroundings.

“I just meant. I guess I thought that would bother you.”

I grinned. “And why is that?”

“Well,” Zack said, gently. “I thought it would bother you because of…our thing. The… The us thing.”

“We have a thing?” I asked.

“Don’t we?”

I cocked my head to the side. He imitated the gesture, and I snorted again.

“I thought. After the date, and the kiss…wow, the kiss. Especially the one outside of the counseling center. I mean, you freaked out and ran away after, so, certainly demerits on my end but… wow. You really knocked me out with that kiss.”

My sense of cat-and-mouse died. I had taken something from him when I kissed him that second time—something valuable. Something I couldn’t quantify. But after what Abraham had said, I knew I hadn’t stolen heat from people. I violated them. I robbed their memories.

I tucked my face into his chest.

“So I was a bad kisser…” Zack said, in mock melancholy. “I knew it. Was it fish lips? It was fish lips wasn’t it?”

I sobbed and clung to his chest, and I felt Zack’s body tighten. He tugged his arms around me and pulled me into him. After a few long moments, and after my sobs began to still, Zack leaned down and whispered into my ear.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

I looked up at him, cry-face be damned. He gave me a little sweet smile and kissed my cheek.

“What for?” I asked him.

“About the fish lips. I’ll try to practice and—”

I smacked him in the chest, hard, and he laughed softly into the top of my head.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I brought up something painful. I’m not sure what I did but I’m not dumb enough to think it wasn’t something I said.”

I shrugged. “Can we just sit?”

Zack nodded. “Yeah.”

I nuzzled back into his shoulder and let the hum of the engine radiate through my body.

I tried to enjoy the moment, so naturally, Morgan turned back to me and cleared her throat.

“So you’re dead then?”

The look on her face, the tone of her voice, and the content of the question didn’t come close to matching each other. The look, controlled anger. The tone, politely curious. The question—well, it’s the question, isn’t it now?

I turned to look at Zack’s face—still. Curious, but still. A hair shy of pensive. His beautiful eyes were sending me a message I wasn’t picking up on. The little twitches of his brow spoke volumes in a language I didn’t know.

I turned back to Morgan.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“When you disappeared, what happened?” Morgan said. That same combination of pissed-off and polite.

“I told you what happened,” I said.

I felt a twinge—something like guilt. Luckily, it wasn’t very strong—I’d more than half convinced myself that I had been accosted, hit on the head, and made to suffer merely a tremendous headache and an embarrassing cop-ride home. Only a fraction of me remembered the taste of gun smoke. And even less of that fraction recalled in perfect clarity the creeping cold of massive fatal blood loss.

“People don’t go…here for a bump on the head, Lucy,” Morgan said, and turned to Puck. “Right?”

Puck looked over his shoulder, and even in profile, looked grave. He shook his head.

“Thank you,” I said with a saccharin sweet smile. Puck turned away.

“Lucy. What happened to you?”

I took a breath.

Something let out an earth-shattering CLANG. The convertible jolted and rocked and Puck slammed both of his loafers down on the Falcon’s brake. We slid and fish-tailed, and Puck swung the Falcon’s wheel around in a desperate attempt to keep us under control. Gravel sprayed, metal twisted, and everyone in the car, save Puck, let out identical screams of terror.

Puck wrestled with the old Ford, trying to bring it down. He managed the feat, and when the Falcon crept to a—final—stop, I looked behind us. The debris in the road wasn’t hard to decipher.

The engine fell out of our car.

Zack turned and looked down the long road behind us. He seemed to be making mental calculations. After a few dozen heartbeats, he spoke.

“The engine fell out of the car,” he said.

I closed my eyes and let my head slide down into my lap. Zack put a hand on my back when he saw me shaking. He removed it when he heard my first guffaws of laughter. I didn’t blame him.

The hills had crept up around us as we drove, and now that we were stopped, I couldn’t see the countryside on either side. Large swells of grey earth put the road in a narrow valley—perfect for an ambush, was my first thought.

Zack and Puck spent little less than a minute coming to the conclusion that no amount of spit, elbow grease, or can-do attitude would put the Falcon back together again.

When their inspection was finished, we grabbed our stuff, and Puck knocked one frail, gnarled fist into the trunk. The trunk yawned open with a haunted-house creak.

There wasn’t much there—a few dusty sport coats and what looked like a well-traveled red tool box. Puck handed out the coats—I took a gray wool blazer, Morgan a black pinstripe, and Zack a deep red jacket that looked like something a used car-salesman might be buried in. Then he popped open the tool box and handed Zack a half-rusted tire-iron and Morgan a dull orange monkey wrench. Zack and Morgan exchanged looks and swapped weapons.

“What do I get?” I asked.

Puck smirked and waved his hand as if to say don’t worry about it.

“Figures,” Zack murmured. “I get a wrench and Lucy gets The Force.”

Morgan grinned and tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Will these even help?”

Puck gave her that maybe,-baby hand gesture I loved so dearly.

Morgan laughed at that and set the long black tire-iron on her shoulder. It gave her a jaunty, slightly bad ass look that I immediately envied.

“I pull it off though, don’t I?” Morgan asked. I didn’t think the line of questioning stopped by our car troubles was over—but I think she had decided to postpone it for a less dangerous time. Thank God for killer extra-dimensional monsters, eh?

“Hell yes,” I said, and buttoned up my gray coat. “Shall we?”

Morgan and Zack nodded. I glanced at Puck, who was already re-wrapping his battered red scarf.

“Where-to?”

Puck twisted his lips with one hand, then pointed down the road.

“Okay,” I said, then sighed. “How far?”

He shook his head. Not far then. All right.

“Are we in danger?”

Puck nodded.

“Mortal?” Zack asked.

Puck nodded.

“Seriously though, do I pull off the bad-ass crowbar thing or what?” Morgan asked.

Puck nodded, turned, and stalked off down the center of the road, examining the rusting hulks of cars as he passed. We all trudged after him.

“It’s a tire iron,” Zack said. “But, yes, well done.”

Our road-trip atmosphere didn’t last. Another mile down the road, the noises began.

Chapter Fourteen

Midnight Train

The sound of a rock sliding down a hill. Nothing much else, really.

We turned to examine the sound, only to see a tiny pebble skipping lazily down the side of a grey swell of dirt. I watched everyone’s hackles rise, their fists tighten. Everyone knew. No one joked. Or talked.

The sounds echoed around us, shuffling, snorting, feet breaking into frantic runs, and then stopping. None of us felt the need to communicate the truth—something tailed us, and it made no effort to hide its presence. Puck turned back down the road and began walking.

Zack turned around as we walked, shuffling backwards, his eyes on the road behind us. I touched his shoulder, but other than a barely noticeable tightening of his lips, he didn’t react.

The noises grew louder, shuffling, scraping. Puck bent forward, and began jogging. So did we. Zack stayed behind us—no doubt using Puck and himself to shield us helpless girls in the middle. The thought bugged me, but the chivalry was damn cute.

We shuffled past the rusted wrecks of a hundred cars, dodging around them, sliding over the naturally occurring blockades. I made a point not to look in the cars—while fairly certain there was nothing to be found, my brain kept conjuring the image of a hideously grinning bleached skull staring at me, its skinless fingers still clutching the steering wheel. I’d probably cribbed the image from some bad horror movie, but that knowledge didn’t soothe the nervous ache in my belly whenever we ran too close to a car window.

A deep ragged moan rose up over the sound of our feet hammering pavement. I couldn’t help myself—still jogging, I glanced over my shoulder toward the source of the sound. The hills hugged the battered highway, their dark forms barely perceivable from the roiling clouds in the endless grey sky. As my eyes pierced the gloom, trying to make some sense of the spine-scraping, hollow moan, I saw it. Low, slithering. A human-shape at the top of the hill, crawling on its belly, its elbows stuck out at angles as its palms pulled it forward across the dirt. It moved in sharp jerking motions, its head snapping up toward the sky, then back toward the ground. Long, dirt rags hung from its thin frame, cutting wide swaths in the dirt behind it.

Then, it looked at me. Two greenish-gold glints flashed in the deep hollow pits of its sunken eyes. Its jaw stretched beyond human boundaries, scraping the dirt beneath it. Its neck twisted, staring up at the sky again, and it moaned. The noise, filled with sorrow, rife with hunger, made my skin crawl.

The thing began sliding down the hill on its stomach, dragging the tattered remains of its legs behind it.

When I turned and sprinted, everyone joined me without a word.

The moans began to rise—a chorus of mournful howling. Puck shifted, angled for—it looked like a freeway off ramp, and we were almost on top of it. In another minute, we were there, sprinting off the highway at full speed. Morgan and Zack were sucking greedy mouthfuls of air. I felt tired, certainly, but Zack and Morgan’s faces were bright red, and the air they dragged in didn’t seem to sustain them.

In no way, on no world, was that normal. Morgan was an athlete in incredibly annoying shape, and Zack was Mr. Physical Activity. I should have been passed out on the ground miles before either of them felt winded.

In front of us, past the tiny skyline of broken automobiles, the street wound out into a grey suburban wasteland. The sound of the moaning faded as we left the ramp.

Small shops, tiny streets—detached single-family houses huddled together, their paint long since stripped by weather and rot. Grass, long dead, brown and grey. Minivans and SUVs pulled to the curb, caked in grey dust. We passed by what looked like a desiccated 7-Eleven, its huge yawning windows caked in inches of dirt. I half-expected crude signs carved in the dust—maybe “Jacki wuz here” or a startling, graphic depiction of genitals. But there was nothing—it was empty, like everything else. Devoid of life. It reminded me of Terminator or Resident Evil—a world post-apocalypse. That’s what this whole damn place reminded me of, come to think of it.

What had happened here? Had anything happened here? Was there even a here? I wanted to ask Puck, but I had an idea he didn’t have the answers either.

I couldn’t stop looking behind us as we walked—every time I turned my back to the distant moaning, I pictured that thing on the hill, crawling toward us. From there, my mind conjured a pack of them—wild, snarling, and hungry. With legs that worked and teeth that chewed hungrily, and eyes like bronze coins, shot through with patina-green veins. The fifth time I tried to look behind us, Zack grabbed me by the shoulders and spun me around.

“I’m watching,” he whispered. “Don’t turn around again. It won’t make you feel safer, trust me.”

I didn’t look behind me anymore.

We passed through three more intersections. I didn’t recognize any of the street names.

We passed the remains of a Taco Bell on the corner of Raymond and Willard. Zack looked up at its faded plastic sign and made a noise. He leaned in and whispered in my ear. I laughed.

“What’d he say?” Morgan asked.

I smiled at her. “‘Run for the Border.’”

Morgan’s lip twisted, and she let out a little snort.

I wasn’t sure, but it looked like we were moving into a rougher part of town. Distinguishing upper class from lower class in a rotting corpse of a suburb wasn’t an exact science. But the large rotting houses were making way for small rotting houses. We passed a high school with twelve-foot chain-link fences circling it on all sides. It reminded me of my school, actually, but with a rougher edge. E.J. Beryl High—I’d never heard of it.

“What is all this?” Morgan asked, echoing my thoughts.

When Morgan answered her own question in Puck’s voice, I felt a shiver ripple down my back.

“It’s just a dream,” Morgan said. “But not by the living.”

I frowned, but Zack asked the question for me.

“What does that mean?”

Puck’s shoulders popped up in a shrug. I stared at the back of his head, as if to draw answers from the tangled shock of gray hair.

“The Grey is where the dead dream,” Morgan/Puck said. “Or more accurately, it is the bed from which the dead dream of life.”

“Wait,” I said, and jogged up to him. “This is a dream?”

I could see, as I passed him, that Puck’s face was drawn. His mouth sketched a line on his face, and his eyes were narrow. He looked at me with sympathetic eyes. Over his shoulder, Morgan spoke for him.

“‘No. And yes,” Morgan/Puck sighed. “It is a dream from which there is no waking. As real as life, as inescapable as death. It is the home we chose.”

I grabbed the front of Puck’s shirt, and he stopped walking.

“I didn’t choose anything,” I said.

Puck shook his head, his sympathetic eyes unchanging.

“We all choose, Lucy,” he said, with Morgan’s voice. “We choose to accept, we choose to deny, or we choose to overcome.”

“Death?” I half-laughed it out, incredulous.

Puck and Morgan nodded. “There is always a choice.”

“Stop talking in fucking riddles.”

Puck stepped back, and the glint in his eyes changed. He drew up his thin frame and raised his chin. His long slender fingers re-wrapped the blood-red scarf around his slender throat. After a long beat, he pointed forward, over my shoulder. I didn’t bother turning to look.

“The longer we chat,” Morgan/Puck said in that monotone voice. “The more time the broken souls have to sniff out your friends. They’ll flock to us, and then they’ll take their memories, their lives, and their souls. They’ll devour them, for all eternity. And then they’ll feed on us, you and I, for the stolen essence. Do you understand that? Do you understand that if we don’t get out soon, we die? Forever?”

I backed up, my hands clutched together. My mouth went dry.

“Come on,” Morgan/Puck said, and brushed past me. “The train station isn’t far.”

I listened to the scrape of his shoes on the sidewalk for a few long moments, looking into the distance. Zack and Morgan, standing together, in the middle of a broken grey street. The remains of a grey abandoned suburb spiraling out behind and around them, framing them as solitary motes of color. I could feel them, I realized, as I took in slow breaths. The heat baking off of them, and the smell. Just breathing, softly, trying to calm the fear and the rage and the despair, I could taste them.

Like a pungent but delectable spice. Something I didn’t have a name for.

Morgan crossed the gap and wrapped me in her arms. She pressed me against her, and I relented. My face against her shoulder, rogue strands of golden hair tickling my ear. Her neck, just underneath my nose. Her skin burned, and as I breathed deep, I felt the cold trickle in my body ripple, like someone tossing a stone into a still pond.

I tasted the image of two little girls hugging in a sandbox surrounded by blacktop, one of them, the dark-haired one, cradling her hand. A splinter the size of a crochet needle, at least to a five-year-old, stuck out of her thumb. A little path of bright red blood streaking down her wrist, living little rubies in the tiny sand dunes. The blonde little girl shushed her, cradling her sobbing form.

I opened my eyes. I wasn’t surprised to feel tears on my cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

I felt Morgan tighten her grip around my back.

“What for?”

“Nothing,” I said, knowing I’d accidentally stolen that memory from her. Maybe forever. “Everything.”

“Let’s go, Luce,” she said, her fingers tangling in my hair. “We’ll get out of here and we’ll figure this all out.”

I smiled and wiped the tears self-consciously from my face. Zack, God bless him, looked far too interested in the dilapidated high school beyond. He only turned back to face us when I cleared my throat.

“So,” Zack said, his hands in his pocket. “Are we uh, going?”

“Yeah,” I said, and smiled at Morgan.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Morgan said, and marched after Puck. She raised her voice. “And no more talking through me unless you ask, got it?”

Puck flicked a hand over his shoulder. The gesture equivalent of whatever, I imagined.

We found the train tracks before long. They snaked off in opposite directions, long grey parallel lines against the grey earth. Most of the wooden ties looked intact, but more than a few had been crushed, cracked, or simply rotted through. On our right, the tracks streaked off, maybe forever. They became a dot in the distance, indecipherable from the landscape.

On the left, the tracks went maybe another half-mile before ending in what had to be a train station. A large, domed structure, squatting over the tracks. It looked to be in better shape than its surroundings—I could make out a mural on one of the high walls facing us. The colors hadn’t faded very much, but from that far away, the shapes were indistinguishable.

“I guess that’s the station,” Zack said, echoing my thoughts. “I don’t have any cash on me.”

“I don’t think it’s really a train station,” I said. “Right?”

Puck nodded and began walking left, down the tracks.

“I don’t like metaphors,” Morgan said, suddenly, rubbing her hands together.

We struck off down the tracks. The mural I’d seen from far away depicted a grotesque-looking pilgrim festival—the artist had painted terrible proportions, people with giant lips and skewed faces, like they’d been made of clay and squished between fingers. Like someone’s horrible dream of what people might look like. I decided I didn’t need that particular brand of nightmare fuel, and looked away. We crossed around the side of the station and almost walked straight into a train.

The tracks split as we rounded the corner. They diverged into three separate tracks, all with loading platforms beside them. One of the tracks was empty, and stretched off into the distance. The other two housed trains. A pair of locomotives stared us down with their yellowed eyes, dead and unused. Their slatted iron cowcatchers, just like out of an old cartoon—or a nightmare—gave the impression of toothy, frowning faces.

The number on the first locomotive was “0315-96.” The number on the second was “1128-95.”

I knew the first one right away. But I didn’t even get to share what I considered to be a startling revelation before Zack snorted derisively.

“That’s my birthday,” Zack said, pointing to the second one. “Holy shit.”

Morgan walked up to the front of her train—the first one—and put her hand on the wide iron bars of the cowcatcher. She ran her hand down one and whistled. When she turned back toward me, her face looked almost serene.

“Mine too. What is this?” she asked, her voice sort of…zonked out. Dreamy, almost.

Zack shook his head. He stood on the tracks in front of his train, his feet wide, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans. I wished, in that moment, I’d had a camera, or an easel and a talent for painting. I’d tack that shot up on my wall and call it Fate Train. The idea popped in my head, fully formed. I was almost overwhelmed by a giddy urge to share it.

Puck shook his head and walked up the steps to the platform next to Zack’s train. He waved a hand at all of us. We followed him, even Morgan, though she showed a marked reluctance as we went away from her train. I grabbed her wrist and led her up the steps to the platform.

Zack’s train wasn’t long—just two passenger cars bookended by engines. The coaches were the same old-west style as the engine. Yellow painted slats along the outside, a long black roof with black trim. Wide windows with narrow openings. I could make out the darkened shapes of the benches inside through the windows. A small step folded out from between each of the passenger cars, with a little hand rail.

We stared at it for a long while. Zack wrapped his hand around the rail of the fold-out steps. I watched him look up at the train, and I wondered what he could possibly be thinking. The smooth lines of his face gave nothing away, and he examined the train with the same single-minded concentration he used to peruse news articles in the library. He slid his hand across the railing and rapped it with his knuckles. The railing gave out a hollow, metallic whang.

“This is real,” Zack said. “This is me?”

Puck shook his head, and when Morgan spoke, I knew it was her, not Puck, talking.

“It’s not real,” Morgan said. “But yeah, that’s you all right.”

I turned to Morgan, to try to decipher this sudden burst of insight, but she still wore that slack, dreamy mask.

“How do you know that?”

Morgan looked me in the face and smiled. Her bright green eyes glittered like emeralds, unnaturally bright. Behind her, Puck fiddled with his scarf in a very un-Puck-like way—nervous, almost. I didn’t know where the two oddities fit together, and part of me didn’t want to. It left a hole in me that was filling with dread.

“I just know,” she said. “It looks like him.”

She walked to the edge of the platform and looked down at the gap between her and the train. She unfolded her hand toward the train and slapped it lightly with a wide-open palm. It reminded me of third grade, when we’d gone to the San Diego Zoo. Little eight-year-old Morgan in pig tails, staring up at Mogo the Elephant as he passed by. She had held her hand up, palm out, just like that. Like the world’s most bewildered crossing guard.

“Are you okay, Morg?” Zack asked, turning to look at her.

Morgan shook her head. “I doubt it.”

I laughed, despite the eerie scene. Morgan looked over her shoulder and grinned.

“I think it’s time to go,” I said. Her smile faded slightly, but she nodded.

“How do we…go?” Zack asked. He was looking down at the first step onto the train like it was covered with writhing cobras.

Puck pumped his arm in the toot-toot gesture.

“That’s it?” Zack asked. “I go inside and what…wake up in my body?”

“That’s it,” Morgan said. It still wasn’t Puck’s voice. I had become used to her being Puck’s mouthpiece—even if it was creepy. But Morgan providing all the answers herself freaked me out even more.

Zack stepped off the platform and turned around. He looked straight at me, and I clenched my fists. He flashed me that crooked smile.

“I’ll see you soon, Luce,” he said. I felt my stomach spasm in terror.

“I—” I said, and stopped. My heart danced like a jackhammer in my chest.

“Hmm?” Zack said, his eyebrow raised.

My skin tingled across my whole body, and I felt my cheeks flush despite the chill in the air. Looking Zack in the eye, I knew I could take on the world and yet have trouble tying my shoes. The contradictory sensation gave me vertigo.

“I think I l-love you,” I said. I couldn’t stop myself. This didn’t feel like an “I’ll-see-you-soon” moment. It felt like the part of the movie where the guy says, “I’ll be right back” and then dies in some tragic but undoubtedly noble way.

“I know,” Zack said, and winked. He stepped backward onto the train and turned to go inside.

I ran to the edge of the platform and slapped the side of the train with my hand. Zack turned, just before opening the door to the coach.

His lips turn into a crooked grin, his eyes on fire with mischievous light. Looking into mine, the playful light dimmed, becoming something simple and earnest and beautiful.

“I love you,” Zack said.

Just like that. My face stretched without my control into what had to be the goofiest smile ever recorded. Behind me, Morgan let out a long disgusted groan. I flipped her the bird over my shoulder.

“That’s my lady,” Zack said. “I’ll see you in a few seconds, okay?”

“Promise?”

“Promise,” Zack said, and walked into the train. He closed the door behind him. My smile disappeared, and along with it the brief bubble of ecstasy. That familiar old feeling of despair took its place.

I watched the train with my hands clenched together, tucked tight against my belt.

I don’t know what I had been expecting—a flash of light, a sudden explosion, the Back to the Future theme song. What I certainly wasn’t expecting is exactly what happened.

Nothing.

When the seconds stretched into an entire minute, I turned to Morgan. She shook her head, her brow knitted together. I glanced over to Puck. He sported a similar look of bewilderment.

Finally, the coach door opened again, and Zack leaned out. He blew out a long sigh.

“Yeah, so, we have a problem.”

A minute later, Zack was helping us board the train.

“Get ready for some weird,” he said.

The train car wasn’t as dark as I imagined it would be—the car glowed with a warm amber gleam. It reminded me of being home in a dream. Every bench and table looked brand new, polished, well kept, clean. But the strangely modern décor wasn’t what drew my eyes, not at first, anyway. The first things I really saw were the windows, and what was beyond them.

Cool florescent light streamed through the train windows, revealing blue/green stark walls and the giant, worried-looking faces of people I didn’t recognize. A hospital room, by the look of it, but super-sized. At first I recoiled, and from the sharp gasp behind me I guessed Morgan did the same. The giants, and their distant room, surrounded the train on all sides, at every window.

I looked at Zack, but he wore only an amused smirk.

I walked to one of the windows, watching the conversation two of the giants appeared to be having. I couldn’t hear what they were saying—just like a TV on mute. Wait. Huh.

I turned around, letting my eyes trail across every window. A hospital room…a doctor, walking out of the door. A middle-aged man and woman. The man had dark hair and a deep tan, and the woman, stork-thin but very pretty, had eyes the color of a storm at sea. I turned to Zack. From the look on his face, he’d seen me put it together.

“Your parents?” I asked.

He nodded.

Morgan glided to one of the windows and laid her hand on the glass.

“It’s warm,” she said. “This is you? Are we in you?”

Zack shrugged. “I think so.”

“You’re in the hospital,” I said.

He nodded.

“What do you expect?” Morgan asked. “Benny probably came outside and found me and you laying on the grass, totally passed out, horking drool out of our mouths. What would you have done?”

“I guess,” Zack said. “You think your train looks the same?”

Morgan nodded.

“With better decorations,” I said, and Morgan turned and flashed me a grin.

Puck, who had been waiting in the doorway, watching us, finally stepped into the train car. He moved around the windows, his finger’s trailing the glass like Morgan. He took his time, pausing at every window, turning his head this way, then that way. He looked just like an art aficionado at a gallery showing. We all watched him make the rounds in silence. Finally at the last window, he leaned forward and rapped it with one knobby fist. It made a hollow chunking sound.

Puck turned to Morgan. She crossed her arms.

“Sign it,” she said. “I don’t want to be your Kermit the Frog anymore.”

Puck rolled his eyes and flashed through a long string of gestures. Morgan sighed.

“What?” I asked.

“He called me a wuss,” Morgan said.

When I turned back to him, Puck’s face morphed into his Robin Goodfellow grin. He popped another, much longer, string of gestures in his hands and waved at Morgan, as if to say, you have the floor. He plopped down on one of the seats, crossed his legs, and folded his hands in his lap.

Zack and I turned to Morgan. She looked down at the floor thoughtfully, then back at us. She tucked the stray bits of her corn silk hair back into her ponytail and sat on the edge of one of the booth-like tables. She took a heavy breath.

“We are in comas,” Morgan said. “That’s why the train won’t go.”

I frowned and turned to Puck. He made the go on gesture to Morgan.

“Puck says we shouldn’t be in comas,” she said. “He doesn’t know why we are.”

I stood up then, feeling something itch in the back of my mind. This time I circled the room slowly, mimicking Puck, taking a good long look at every window. After a second pass, I shook my head.

“Can we go look at Morgan’s train?”

Everyone agreed. We left Zack’s train and crossed the tracks to Morgan’s. I laughed when we walked inside—her chairs were much nicer, and the carpet was a lush red color instead of the green-and-blue hotel pattern Zack had. Zack grumbled something about me being “super hilarious.”

Morgan’s windows were similar, but not identical. That she was in a hospital room was obvious, but it also appeared to be a different room. I recognized everyone. Morgan’s mom, Cheryl, her face thin and drawn. Her boyfriend, Andy, sat in a chair behind her, his face lit by the glow of his iPhone. Two other people were in the room, and either one of them would have made my heart stop.

My mom stood across from Cheryl, on the opposite side of Morgan’s bed. Mom looked terrible—the make-up around her eyes was smudged, and she talked into her own cell phone with quick, clipped words. Her other hand tangled itself in her hair.

I moved closer to the window, my throat catching. Morgan’s hand touched the small of my back, but I didn’t turn. I didn’t have the strength. If I turned around and saw the pity in her face, I don’t think I could keep it together.

“Your poor parents,” Zack said, softly. “They must be losing it.”

“Shut up, Zack,” I said, without turning around. My voice, watery and broken, didn’t hold the anger very well.

“I’m sorry,” Zack said. “I didn’t mean…I’m sorry.”

Guilt hit me instantly, but anger and shame kept me from apologizing. I stared at my mother, knowing my father would be combing the streets or riding with the police. I thought about Officer Sykes, boyish knight that he was. He’d probably be out there, too, or at least I imagined he was. All looking for little Lucy, the stupid girl who couldn’t stay out of trouble. Maybe dead in a ditch somewhere, eh? Maybe she ran off. Her second attempt, this one successful. Maybe she jumped off a bridge because she couldn’t handle the rat race anymore.

I touched my forehead against the window and sucked in a sharp breath, a little shocked by the warmth of the glass. I let myself stew in misery, if nothing else than to let it all out. No tears came, thankfully, but in retrospect I might have been in shock. After another few, long minutes, I composed myself.

That’s when I saw the second figure. The one I’d seen in Zack’s train but hadn’t recognized. The doctor, floating around the room, doing whatever it is doctors do. He had a thin face and long, black hair. A beakish nose poked out between those wide, expressive eyes.

Abraham.

I thunked my finger against the image of his face in the window.

“Oh my god,” Morgan said. “That’s him, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Zack said, his voice weak. “That’s the guy that attacked you, right?”

I nodded. My finger didn’t move from the center of his face.

Puck signed something so furiously into his own palm that it made a loud smacking noise. He even winced a little.

“What did he say?” I asked.

“‘Shit!’” Morgan quoted and plopped into one of her cushy train seats. Her fingers slid over her eyes.

“Oh,” I said, softly.

Abraham had recovered quickly after being shunted out of the Grey by me and Puck—he’d followed Benny to the hospital, disguised himself as a nurse or a doctor—the second time, I realized…he must have a thing for docs—and had used either his preternaturally persuasive voice or something more sinister to force a doctor to drug Morgan and Zack. I told them as much.

“How do you know all this?” Morgan asked.

“The first time I ran into him was at a hospital. He knew I’d visit…”

…the man I tried to kill? I took a breath.

“…someone I’d hurt,” I said. My throat clicked, but I fought it.

“He was waiting for you?” Morgan asked.

I nodded. “Dressed as a doctor.”

“Oh,” Morgan said. “You think he feels comfortable there, at the hospital?”

I shrugged.

“It’s the death,” Morgan said. “Hospitals are filled with death, and death is Abraham’s…workplace?”

Puck made the see-saw gesture I loved so much.

It wasn’t hard to figure out from there. I’d suspected as much, considering his dogged pursuit of me. Abraham wasn’t after me for fun or evil or anything like that—he seemed desperate. Like he had to catch me. Had to—well, had to do whatever it was he was planning on doing to me. Killing seemed like the wrong word. Devouring was almost correct, but too creepy. Removing, perhaps.

“‘Reaping’,” Morgan said, reading Puck’s hands. “He says the word you’re looking for is ‘reaping,’ Lucy.”

I rubbed my temples. Of course reaping. My own personal little Grim Death. The man whose job it was to kill me again.

“I don’t know that word,” Morgan said to Puck. “Spell it. Just spell it.”

I glanced over. Puck’s signing was clearly falling on deaf…eyes? He parsed through it slowly the third time, forming each of the letters with delicate care.

“‘Thanatus,’” Morgan said. “‘Abraham is your Mors.’”

“Sickle?” I asked.

Puck made the see-saw gesture.

“Greek,” Zack said. “Right? Thanatos…god of Death.”

Puck laughed soundlessly and nodded. He signed again.

“‘Thanatos is Greek, Thanatus is Latin,’” Morgan said these slowly, clearly having trouble following his thought process. “‘Mors is Roman.’”

“Does it matter?” I snapped.

Puck’s smile faded, and he shook his head. His outstretched hands offered an apology. I looked away, toward Zack. If I knew Zack, and I like to think I did, he was strategizing. The other stuff would come later. The words, and the implications. Questions, too. About me, about what had happened.

Zack made a hmmph sound and leaned back. Here we go.

“What?”

Zack turned to Puck, “This Abraham…why isn’t he after you?”

Puck looked at Morgan again, but she shook her head. Puck sighed and fired off a couple of staccato signs at her.

“‘I killed mine,’” Morgan said, and shook her head. “Wait, what?”

Puck sighed softly. He narrowed his eyes at Morgan. She growled and popped a fist into her open hand. The breath that puffed out of her reminded me of a balloon deflating. She dropped her head back against the glass, her face pointing up.

When she spoke, it came out in that flat monotone Puck voice.

“The Mors are the Yin to our Yang, the balance. We break nature, they preserve it. If they win, then we are consumed and they return to wherever it is they come from. If we destroy our Mors, then it’s over, too. There’s no second Mors, just as there’s no second soul to replace your first. Everything comes in pairs.”

“That’s great,” Zack said. “How did you kill it?”

Puck rubbed his chin and sighed.

“It took me a long time,” Puck sent. “And I was full of essence. More than I ever had been, or more then I will be ever again. And the price was steep.”

What did that mean? Part of me loved Puck for saving me, and part of me despised everything he was. Was he deliberately coy, trying to protect me again? Or was it a stupid old man wringing every last drop out of a good story?

“Then what are we supposed to do?” I asked, between my teeth.

Puck shook his head and cradled his cheeks with his long delicate fingers. An old man with scraggly hair and a wrinkled tweed jacket—part college professor, part hobo. My new mentor, source of as many questions as answers. Would I end up like him, someday—so entrenched in death and dreams I could no longer even relate to normal people?

There were a number of hurdles to clear before Morgan and Zack could return. Something was keeping them in comas—and somehow, Abraham knew how to do it. My Mors, my Thanatus, liked to play doctor. Had he been one in his previous life? I think so.

All of our parents were at that hospital, and the likelihood of police officers being there was also high. Considering my previous adventure on the milk carton, the cops would have my description.

And yet I couldn’t stay in the Grey to protect Morgan and Zack while Puck went ahead—I didn’t have the power or the control that he did. My abilities were underdeveloped.

“Ophelia,” Morgan said in her Puck’s voice.

“Huh?” Zack asked.

“‘Ophelia could help us,’” Morgan/Puck said. Puck turned to the windows of the train.

“Ophelia like…from Hamlet?” I asked.

“The crazy one,” Morgan said.

Puck nodded and turned around. He crossed his thin arms over his chest and nodded to Morgan.

“My granddaughter’s name is Ophelia,” Puck said through Morgan. “She’s a nurse.”

“A nurse…” Zack said. He thumped his fist on the window when he saw Abraham move through the room again.

“A nurse who knows something about induced comas?” I asked.

Puck nodded.

“Wait, induced?” Morgan asked. “Wouldn’t the doctors have caught that?”

I shook my head. It was a good point, one I had no answer to.

“Not if he’s pulling his whammy,” Zack said. He walked over to one of the windows of Morgan’s train and pointed at Abraham as he moved around the room. “Notice how he keeps moving between our two rooms? Maybe he has to keep doing the whammy.”

Morgan’s brow crinkled, “Stop saying that. What do you mean ‘the whammy?’”

“He’s…fascinating,” I said. “The first time I ran into him. He put it on two people so they couldn’t see me.

Puck nodded at me and Zack—clearly he approved of the theory.

“So what do we do now?” Morgan asked.

It didn’t take long to formulate a plan. Puck explained that his granddaughter, this Ophelia, wouldn’t need much convincing. He didn’t say why, and avoided the question on further pressing. Still, the plan was simple and to the point—I’d shift over by myself. From there, I’d talk to Ophelia, and she’d come with me to the hospital. We’d sneak in, and I’d lead Abraham off while Ophelia undid whatever Abraham had done. Sounded easy.

For James Bond. Or maybe Batman.

I had no real way of pulling it off—Puck told me I’d have to trust my instincts. He actually said that, like I was some monk apprentice from a bad Kung Fu movie. With much better hair. And ovaries. And dead. No, maybe not dead. Strike that.

I had no use for speculation. Not when confronted with the all too real, all too frightening journey in front of me. I didn’t want to think of what could happen if I failed, if I just wasn’t good enough. I’d be Reapered. Reaped? Anyway. Abraham would take me God knows where—I almost laughed at that, considering He probably did indeed know—and if my mysterious texter was to be believed, I wasn’t going where All Dogs Go.

Best not to think about that, though it was hard not to. Why wouldn’t I be able to hop the Pearly Gates? I knew I wasn’t religious, not in the Sunday-school way, but I had always thought that that stuff wasn’t all that counted. That God looked for a good person first. I’d been a good person. I am a good person, I thought.

Then again, could my texter be believed? I’d almost blamed it on Abraham, some crafty trick of his, before I realized that the texter had actually saved me from Abraham twice. But who could have sent me those messages? Everyone involved hip-deep in my fiasco would have told me. They would have copped to it. So who was my savior?

I massaged my temples. Too many things to consider.

One thing at a time, Lucy Day. Shift over. Find Ophelia—another piece of the puzzle that filled me with curiosity—and convince her to help. Go to the hospital. Play human-bait with Abraham. Save friends. Avoid being shunted off to Hell.

And maybe, just maybe, make it to Winter Formal with a head on my shoulders.

Here’s hoping.

“Lucy,” Morgan said.

I woke up from my musings.

“I’m ready,” I said. I tucked my purse against my side, stood up straight, and tucked a stray lock of hair behind my ear. “How do I look?”

“Terrified,” Morgan said. She ran forward and pulled me into her arms. For a long while, I wondered what it would be like to be crushed to death by a fifteen-year-old volleyball player. When she let go, I felt my lungs cry out in relief.

“Beautiful,” Zack said. I barely turned around before he pulled me into his arms.

“You honey-tongued devil,” I said, in my atrocious southern accent.

I could almost feel Morgan and Puck turning away to pretend other parts of the train were extremely fascinating. In another time and place, I might have been embarrassed. Right then, with horrible danger staring me in the face, I couldn’t give a damn.

Zack leaned down to kiss me. I put two fingers over his lips.

“Wait,” I whispered. “I could hurt you. I will hurt you.”

His speech was muffled by the fingers against his mouth. What should have been, “why would you hurt me?” came out as, “why wrrrd you hrrrmmeee?”

I grinned at that. Then I shook my head and dropped my fingers.

“I can’t help it. That high you felt the last time I kissed you wasn’t just my incredible technique. I could hurt…I could make you forget everything you’ve ever…just, no, okay? Not until I figure it out?”

He slid his arms around my waist, and I laid my head against his chest. My eyes closed, and I enjoyed the moment, listening to the rustling thump of his heartbeat through his shirt. After not-enough-time, I took a breath and stepped back.

“I really want to kiss you,” I said, blatantly, brazenly, ignoring the flush blazing across my cheeks like a wildfire.

“I know,” Zack said. I hit him hard enough to make him laugh.

It was Morgan who spoke up. Well, Morgan and Puck anyway.

“Hold your breath,” Morgan mimicked. “And think of nothing.”

I turned to him and covered my mouth. Could that work? After a moment of staring into my searching eyes, Puck nodded.

I turned to Zack.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“I do,” Zack said.

He looked at me with those eyes. Those cobalt blue eyes. He was cheating, and he knew it. The smirk on his stupid perfect lips told me so. I wanted to punch him on the mouth. I should have. I would have, but I didn’t want to damage that face. For selfish reasons. Naturally.

“I trust you, Luce,” Zack said. I believed him, too.

I closed my eyes and let my brain wander. The last week drifted through my mind, the horror and the chaos. The raucous blast of gunfire at close range, the ice-cold feeling of my blood trickling out of my body. Abraham’s monstrous face, the horrid thing on the slope of the Grey. Things I wanted to let go, and so I let them disappear into shadow. I let go of my worries, my fears, my thoughts.

I opened my eyes and saw Zack, and we were the only two things in the entire world. I moved forward to kiss him, but he was there first. I let my lungs still, and I held my breath as our lips crushed into each other. His fingers dug into my hair, pulling me tight to him, and I clutched at his back and tugged desperately at his lips with my own.

Then it was over. Ten seconds of all-too-brief eternity.

I wanted to linger more—some traitor’s whisper in my head wondered if it would be the last time I’d ever kiss him.

I touched Zack’s chest, nodded to Puck, and flipped.

Chapter Fifteen

The Fates

I dumped back into the real world in a bus station.

On the edge of a curb, actually, with one foot on the ground and one in open air. I tumbled and hit the ground with all the grace of a tranq-darted buffalo.

The very first thing I noticed, before I noticed the bus station, before I noticed the light pattering of rain, was the bright lance of pain shooting through my hand. I rolled over onto my back, the gravel digging its stubby spikes into my skin, and held my left arm up. My fingers were twisted and mangled, a purple and yellow bouquet of shattered digits. My gorge rose, and I snapped my eyes away and gagged and coughed up long strings of saliva.

I’d forgotten. My fingers had been stomped on during the fight at Benny’s party and had been shattered and twisted. A wave of nausea crested over me, and I gagged more bile. My fingers cycled between hot and cold, searing when the pain hit, frozen as it faded. I tucked my twisted hand under my shirt, to hide it from myself if nothing more, and tried to breathe. I sucked lungfuls of cold, wet-tasting air. The nausea made my head swim. Little dots of light swirled in my vision. Was I passing out? I might have been passing out.

As my breath began to slow, I began to think. The apparent injury hadn’t followed me into the Grey. Why? Puck said he and I, phantoms—God how I hated that word—didn’t have a body to go back to. We actually shifted between the Real and the Grey in our only body. And yet…

I looked down at my hand, just a misbegotten lump beneath the bottom of my blouse, and felt another sharp staccato blast of agony.

Was there a chance for me? Maybe I wasn’t what Puck thought I was. Maybe I just looked like something he knew—looked like himself. Was there room for something else?

I tried not to let the thought worm its way in, but it was a sneaky one, and a powerful one—maybe not just something else, but something alive?

I tried to regulate my breathing, and I had an interesting thought—I’d shifted from a train station to bus station. I didn’t for a second think it was a coincidence.

I may have been freaked out, in over my head, and possibly dead, but I’m still a quick learner.

I couldn’t see anyone—a small comfort, but the bus station looked to be in the middle of a large series of interconnected parking lots. Oh goody, nothing ever goes wrong for me in dark parking lots at night. I stood in a pool of harsh fluorescent light, and the darkness beyond shimmered and danced with a curtain of light rain.

I got to my feet slowly, trying not to jostle my demolished hand. It didn’t really matter- it was like trying to stay dry during a hurricane. My broken fingers still spun a tale of woe every time I breathed.

In the distance, I heard a train rattle down its tracks. It made me think of Zack. I touched my lips and breathed a stream of frost between my fingers. I’d never felt more lonely in my entire life.

And I was cold. Always cold. In the Grey, things seemed to even out—never warm, never cold. Here, it seemed to be one extreme or the other. The cold meant one thing—I’d have to take soon.

I waited for another ten minutes, wrapped in frost, trying to rub my arms to life on a bus-stop bench in the middle of the night. I tried to formulate a plan, but it wasn’t coming. I wasn’t exactly full-up on courage. In fact, the needle floated a breath above “E.”

The bus finally arrived. A middle-aged black woman sat in the driver’s seat. She was pretty but tired-looking—I could almost see the two-point-five children and the husband she couldn’t stand. Knowing what I did about myself, there was a good chance I actually was seeing her two children, her newborn—Kevin, or Kellin, something like that—and her husband, James.

As I walked up the steps, and I smelled something that could have been Britney Spear’s Curious, I was positive. It was Kellin, and her husband, James, was cheating on her. A little seed of panic popped inside of me, and I made a conscious effort to hold my breath. The weird ambient images disappeared.

“Bus pass, hon?” she asked me, in a surprisingly soothing voice. I wanted to be read-to in that voice. I would have listened to a speech in that voice.

I touched my pockets and shook my head—the international symbol for no dice. It took some doing, but I convinced her to take the tiny amount of cash I had on me. I found my seat and let the radio fill up my thoughts.

I listened to the end of Muse’s Starlight, and a voice hissed into being, swimming out of the static.

“The time is five-to-eleven, and it’s 75 degrees. The search for fifteen-year-old Lucy Day has yielded little results. As stated earlier, she disappeared last night at approximately nine-thirty, according to eyewitness reports—”

I reeled. Holy shit. We’d been gone over a day. Twenty-six hours, almost. I touched my lips. They felt like ice. My parents. My poor parents.

“—and the status of the two teenagers, names undisclosed, hasn’t improved. You’re listening to the World Famous—”

The bus driver clicked the radio off. Thankfully.

I cupped my hands over my mouth and leaned forward. The bus rumbled underneath me, and for a long while there was nothing. I tried not to think of my mom and dad. They would despise me for putting them in this situation. Again. My stomach dropped out from under me. My life was over. Even if I somehow got through all of this mayhem tonight, my life would never be the same. Would I transfer schools? Maybe even boarding school? I might never see Morgan again. Or Zack.

The bus rolled slowly to a stop. I looked around, surprised by the speed. We’d arrived at a little line of houses in the middle of a suburb. I checked the address—it wasn’t too far from where I was going.

The doors closed behind me, and the bus pulled away from the curb with a hiss of hydraulic breaks and the squealing-squeak of ancient machinery. I watched it go until it was nothing but a pair of tiny red dots in the distance. I thought I had felt alone at the bus stop.

Out of habit, I flipped my phone out my purse and checked the time. The screen was cold—was it dead, or just off? I didn’t care. If it had died, having the worried text messages and terrified voice mails at bay was a good thing.

The address took me to 516 Spruce Street. I looked up at the house as I approached, a little surprised. A smoke-gray little BMW coupe sat in the driveway, like it had just leaped out of a James Bond movie. I could imagine Daniel Craig in that thing, glaring into his rear view mirror while he bled from a gash over his eye. He was even making that little sexy pout in my daydream. I took a deep breath.

Down, girl. Really not the time. Anyway, Bond drove an Aston Martin.

I walked up to the doorway, under the eave, and rapped the wood with my knuckles. Three solid hits.

I felt nervous, and cold, don’t forget cold, but kind of light. Airy, almost. I think knowing that some of the Puck mystery was about to be revealed pumped a little helium into my balloon. I knocked again.

The door swung open, and I turned from my musings to say hello and to get my first glimpse of Puck’s granddaughter—down the gaping barrel of a giant black revolver.

“Whoa! Whoa!”

I held my hands up and staggered backward, tasting nothing but metal. I couldn’t make out the figure of the woman holding the gun, back-lit by the bright light in the doorway, but I could make out the gun just fine. And it brought to mind the little bald wannabe vato and his friends who had joked about raping me, and had settled on pumping a bullet into my stomach. The metal taste disappeared, replaced by the taste of bile and fear.

“Wait, please…”

“Stop moving, girl,” the voice said. It could have been a vulture with a bullhorn. That voice could cut glass.

The flood of memories made my legs tremble, but other than that I was a statue.

“There’s silver in here, girl, and I promise there’s enough.”

I didn’t miss it that time. She was putting on an act, I was sure of it. Granted, I had no idea what she was talking about with the silver, but her voice trembled. She might have been as afraid as I was. Maybe even more.

“I’m not here to hurt you. I just…I need your help.”

The expansive maw of the revolver barrel, floating a foot away from my forehead, dipped only slightly. It was enough.

A surge of uncontrollable anger blasted up from my stomach and into my chest, making my heart hammer and jive. My hand flicked, imperceptibly, just a little clench and unclench. The hot flood of energy burned through me, warming my skin, if only for a second before streaming out of me.

Something invisible and powerful ripped the revolver out of her hand. She barely had time to yelp before that same wave came back in and blasted her backward. Her butt landed on the entrance steps at the exact same moment that her revolver whumped softly into the grass behind me.

I could see her now, in the porch light. A frail-looking woman, somewhere in the vast gulf between fifty and sixty years old. Her huge eyes, wide in shock and terror, were crystal blue. Her graying, thinning hair was twisted up into a bun. A pair of sweatpants clung to her legs, and a simple white tank top hung from her thin shoulders.

The hot wave of anger, and energy, passed. I felt colder than ever.

“Not gonna hurt me, hmm?” The woman asked in her crone’s voice. It didn’t fit her. That voice would have been at home in some gnarled ninety-year-old. This woman might not have even qualified for a discount on her Grand Slam Breakfast yet.

“You had a gun on me.”

She shrugged.

“What did you mean about the silver?” I asked her. The idea made my mind itch. “I’m not exactly a werewolf.”

“You don’t know?”

I sighed. “If I knew I wouldn’t ask.”

She nodded at that, even smirked a little. “I suppose that’s true.”

“Well?”

“It’ll send your kind packing. At least for a little while. Force you into the Grey to rebuild. Well, as I understand it. I’ve never actually used it.”

There was enough in that sentence to keep me occupied for a while. Still, I didn’t have time for twenty questions. If she said silver could hurt me, I believed her. It could have been plausible—it hurt werewolves and vampires, right? Why not ghosts, too?

“I need to talk to your daughter, maybe granddaughter,” I said.

“Don’t have a granddaughter,” she said. “And Barbara isn’t in town. Sorry to disappoint.”

It didn’t take me long to put that one together. If this was Puck’s granddaughter…then Puck had to have a century or two under his belt. Wow, capital W.

“You’re Ophelia?” I asked, though I knew the answer easily enough.

“Yeah,” she said. Her face went from confused to angry in seconds. “Granpa sent you? Are you serious?”

I raised an eyebrow. She must know something all right. Either that or she thought having a living grandfather who might have fought in the Civil War was normal.

“Come inside,” she said, and sighed. “I guess we have talking to do. Mind picking up my gun on the way up?”

With that she disappeared inside the house. I grumbled, scooped the cold, heavy revolver out of the grass, and walked toward the house. As I did, I popped the chamber of the revolver open, thank you, Dad, and dumped the cartridges into my hand. One-two-three-four-five-six. I’d never seen a silver bullet before, but I’ll be damned if those weren’t them. The rounded tips gleamed with a sheen lead envied.

Unbelievable.

I followed her into the house and shut the door behind me.

The house was cozy, if a little cramped. Old-fashioned, elaborate ottomans and free-standing cabinets choked every hallway. I actually had to walk sideways into the living room to fit past all the shelves of knick-knacks. And though they were notable for their number, I couldn’t help but notice that almost all of them were coated with a blanket of dust. Many of them had been jostled out of their poses and left there—a few of the Hummels lay on their side, looking forlorn, or maybe just sleepy.

Ophelia stopped our little silent, awkward tour in the kitchen. She poured herself a cup of coffee with unsteady hands. She didn’t offer me any. In fact, she went about the task in silence. It wasn’t until she stared into the sink drain for about thirty seconds without moving that I cleared my throat.

No response. I dropped the empty revolver on a little table next to the toaster. It landed beside the cordless phone with a prolific wham-crack.

“Christ!” Ophelia said. Half of her coffee slopped into the sink. She looked over her shoulder at me, under her drooping eyelids. “Forgot you were…never mind. Coffee?”

I shook my head and raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Knowing Puck, and I liked to think I did, even if only a little, this is not what I had expected from his granddaughter. Not in the slightest. Puck was a college professor. Puck knew sign language. Puck could be a gentleman when he wasn’t being a crazed lunatic. He ghosted class with every movement. Playful, irreverent class, but class unmistakably.

Not much time.

I took a deep breath. Ah, to hell with it.

“Puck sent me because—”

“Robin.”

I looked up at her. I’d intended on running right through the speech I’d been rehearsing on the walk over. The air I’d saved up sort of just…leaked out of my body.

“What…Robin?”

“My grandfather’s name is Robin Woodrow Goodman. Doctor, in fact,” Ophelia said, her harsh vulture voice returning. “His name is not Puck.”

I tried to rub warmth into my face. And maybe even a little patience.

The thought of Morgan and Zack lying in hospital beds was beginning to plant seeds in my mind. In those distant train windows, that hospital had seemed dream-like, our problems interesting but hypothetical. But there, in the kitchen of Doctor—in fact—Robin Woodrow Goodman’s granddaughter, they began to feel real. And the knowledge that Abraham was all that stood between them and death did little to comfort me.

“Whatever,” I said. “He sent me here because I need your help.”

There it was. From the look on her face, that wasn’t surprising.

“Your somewhat…hands-on help.”

She shrugged and took a swig of coffee. The hand on her hip told me one thing—make it quick, sister.

“You don’t find it odd that you’re one-hundred-and-fifty year old dead grandfather has sent a fifteen-year-old girl—”

“Fifteen-year-old phantom—”

“Fifteen. Year. Old. Girl,” I said.

My nostrils flared. An upside-down teacup shivered on the counter next to her. She looked at the cup, then back up at me. Her smug look faded somewhat.

“He’s one-hundred-and-twenty-five, actually,” Ophelia said, quieter.

“Swell,” I said. “You don’t find any of this, I don’t know, weird?”

She downed her coffee. As she poured another one, she shrugged.

“Honey, I don’t mean to hurt your little ego,” she said. “But I’ve been dealing with dead Grampa Robin since before you were born.”

She turned.

“Lucy, is it?”

I raised an eyebrow.

“How—?”

“It’s a two-way street,” Ophelia said.

“Grampa used to pick up on our thoughts, dreams, particularly loud emotions—eventually it began to rub off on us. Not a whole lot—I only now and again pick up little inklings. Names more than anything, like neon signs sometimes.”

I nodded. She left the kitchen, and I followed. I knew I should hurry, and even though Ophelia had the warmth of a snow bank, I couldn’t just run off. I didn’t want to. So far, her answers were easy, off-hand. And those answers had become everything, hadn’t they? The things Puck couldn’t, or wouldn’t, say. To protect me.

Ophelia didn’t want to protect me. Hell, she probably wanted me to take a long walk off a short pier. She led me to a door at the end of a cluttered hallway and shouldered the door open.

“Story time,” Ophelia said, and walked into the room. I followed her inside.

I heard a click. A small green-glass shaded desk lamp burned to life. It illuminated a desk cluttered with leather-bound journals and ancient papers.

She sat down in the creaky leather chair behind the desk. “I don’t come here at night,” she said, and glanced around.

I followed her furtive gaze through the shadows, but I didn’t get a vibe from the room. Well, not a creepy one, anyway. I actually felt sort of comforted, safe. Maybe knowing Puck found some kind of refuge there in his living-life gave me solace. Or maybe I’m just a sentimental weirdo twit.

She hadn’t told me the room was Puck’s study, but she really didn’t have to. This was his real home, I knew. I could almost see it—Puck sitting at his desk, a calabash pipe clamped in his mouth, leaking tendrils of smoke from his lips like a sleeping dragon. Poring over volumes of old…history? Huh.

“Ophelia?” I said, and looked up at her.

She’d already cracked one of the leather journals on the desk, and was flipping absently through the pages.

“I brought you in here for a reason. Now, I don’t know why Grampa sent you—”

“My friends are in trouble—”

“Wait,” she said, and continued. “But there is something you have to understand first. Before anything else happens.”

My eyebrow came up. Couldn’t help myself.

“And you’re not going to want to hear it.”

Oh boy. I could feel her tone. It’s how I imagined a nun would speak to a pregnant teenager. Just a succotash of lost potential and guilt sliced thick. Add a pinch of sage wisdom and serve cold.

I actually…don’t know what succotash is.

“This…thing. This way you’ve chosen to live is a mistake.”

The anger showed up first. A hot swell of it boiled up into my face, and I half-stood from my chair.

“Lucy—”

“Stop. I didn’t choose anything,” I said. “And besides, you don’t know anything about my situation.”

She leaned back in the chair. The vulture voice returned, but icier.

“I know a few things, Ms. Lucy Day. You’re a runaway, right? Twice in as many weeks?”

“Shut up,” I said. The words barely fit through my teeth.

“You’re here tonight,” she said. “So my guess is you fell off the bandwagon of the living…what…last Friday?”

“Stop.”

“Can I take a wild guess? Maybe underage drinking and driving? Raped in an alleyway? Stop me when I get close—”

The base of her chair broke with a thunder-crack, dumping her onto the ground. She flapped her arms comically, but didn’t catch a hold of anything and ate it spectacularly. A live current of raw electricity sparked across the fingertips of my open right hand. I looked down at them, expecting to see lurid blue arcs, but saw nothing. I stood up.

“Feel good about that?” she asked, scowling.

“Yes.”

She made her best effort in collecting her dignity as she got to her feet. Frankly, the amount of guilt I felt about knocking her on her ass could fit underneath a door. Still, I couldn’t help but think I was proving her point. Just another out-of-control freak.

“Well,” she said, and glanced around the room. Finding nothing satisfactory, she scooped up one of the journals and sat on the edge of the desk, her legs dangling off the side. “How much time do we have?”

I raised an eyebrow. “You don’t want to know what it is you’re going to be doing for me?”

She shrugged. “In a few. How much time?”

“Not much,” I said.

I pictured Morgan and Zack lying in their hospital beds, bristling with tubes. Another vulture, Abraham, floating above them. No, not floating—circling. Then again, he was after me, wasn’t he? Puck said we were yin and yang, two parts of the same whole. He hadn’t even told me how to kill him, if it came down to it—told me I couldn’t. Told me I wouldn’t have to. Forewarned is forearmed, they say, which means I was going in with a rubber band gun.

“Then I’ll be as quick as I can, because the soul you save just might be your own,” she said, her face curling into a wry smirk. That line might have been funny from any other face.

“Hurry,” I said. “I don’t need a lesson. I need help.”

“Too-bad, so-sad,” Ophelia said. “You’re getting both.”

I sighed. I actually made a point of sighing. Not my most mature moment, I admit.

“This, as you might have guessed, is one of the diaries of one Robin Goodman. My grandfather, and your ‘Puck,’” she said. “And this particular volume is of unique interest.”

“Why’s that?” I asked, still all immature anger and snotty tone, I admit.

“Because it’s the only one that talks about his Mors. Drop the tone if you want my help.”

I snorted, crossed my arms, and nodded. Fact was, this was what I needed. What Puck wouldn’t tell me. How he did it. He wanted me to run tonight, to bait Abraham and get away. To hell with that. One of us wasn’t walking away tonight. I bit my lip, clenched my working fist, and tried to steady my jangling nerves.

Ophelia looked up at me, the diary cradled in her hands, her eyes showing something uncharacteristically like sympathy.

“Ready?” she asked.

“I doubt it.”

She cleared her throat and began to read.

Chapter Sixteen

Puck, Revisited

Robin Woodrow Goodman, born in Year-of-Our Lord Eighteen-Eighty-Four, came screaming to life in the back room of a saloon. His mother, Adeline Emelda Goodman, owned the establishment and hadn’t spent a day of her pregnancy in rest. When the time came, little Adeline, who had never tasted the air above Five-Feet-One-inch, put down her bar rag, blew out a long sigh, and motioned for Jamison Curdly, the piano player, to come over to the bar.

She whispered a few words in his ear, turned, and walked calmly into the saloon’s back room. Jamison Curdly swept off his hat, wiped his forehead, and called Doctor William Darwin over to the sideboard. Now, Doctor William Darwin was no doctor, but that wasn’t a secret. And he had no relation to the famed Evolutionary, I assure you. In fact, the only thing he did own was a mortuary and a quick tongue.

When Jamison Curdly whispered in his ear, Dr. William Darwin laughed and slapped his leg. Jamison shook his head. The Doctor explained that he wasn’t a doctor. Jamison said he wasn’t one either. They shook hands and went into the back room.

The procedure was messy, but successful. Luckily Adeline had done her share of research on the topic, and directed her two would-be pioneer gynecologists through every grisly step. She survived the encounter, against all the laws of God, Man, and Irony. Three powerful figures, with the last reigning over the first two. Then again, a baby and his mother dying in a messy birth didn’t even touch spheres with Irony. That was of Reality, an ugly Force of Nature that ought to be done away with.

And so I tried to live like I was born—foolishly, bravely, and with a hint of the absurd. It did me well, and to be sure, there are many worse ways to live.

I was raised in Arizona, the town of Strawberry, the son of a widowed bar owner. My mother, aforementioned Little Adeline, had owned the place ever since my father, her sweet Benny, died of illness. That illness being lead-poisoning—he’d been accidentally shot by a drunk with a penchant for waving his gun around. An ignoble death, indeed.

As I aged, I had two obsessions. One of them was my mother—I spent more time at the bar than any child had the right to claim. Strike that—than any adult even had the right to claim. This changed when I was of age to go to school, and even then I returned swiftly and with excitement to my mother’s side. Not the most healthy relationship, perhaps, but she was my everything, and she doted on me.

I played cards with the more trustworthy customers, decided by Mother, of course. I learned Poker and Faro and Black Jack before I knew how to read. Another lesson also found its way to me, at a much quicker pace than the most of man—I learned the effects of alcohol–sheer observation, of course–in all of its gory details. I watched more than a few men drinking themselves into death, and I witnessed the discharging of more bodily fluids than most doctors could credit. To wit, I have never been, nor will I ever be, I imagine, much of a drinker. The smell of a good whiskey, or hell, even a bad one, conjures pleasant memories, but the taste is not for me.

Dear Mother taught me many of the lessons I carry with me, in fact.

“Never match wits with wit of no match.”

Or…

“See a penny, pick it up. Money is its own reward.”

And…

“The percentage of Vermouth in a man’s martini is inversely proportional to his character.”

All truisms’ I have taken to heart.

I looked up at Ophelia and shook my head.

“This is fascinating,” I said, and I truly meant it. “And Puck is infuriatingly mysterious. But I have to know where this applies to me.”

I hadn’t forgotten Puck and Morgan and Zack, hiding in a train station, no doubt surrounded by a dozen of the dragging, moaning horrors that had chased us down the highway back in the Grey Meadows. The wraiths, I think Puck had called them. And I couldn’t forget Morgan and Zack in this world, sitting in hospital beds being doped by a monster whose sole purpose was to kill me. Re-kill me.

And while any other time, on any other day, I would have lost a finger to learn Puck’s story, I had to know something more—how could I stop Abraham? Puck told me I wouldn’t need to, that I wasn’t ready. I disagreed on both counts.

Ophelia raised an eyebrow and plucked her glasses from their delicate perch on her nose. She closed her eyes and rubbed the bridge of her nose before replacing the glasses.

“Okay,” she said, and glanced back down at the book.

“That’s it?” I asked.

“You want to know about his Mors, right? The thing that came for him?”

That’s exactly what I wanted to know. Puck wasn’t being hunted like a dog in the streets by some glowing white freak—I knew for a fact he’d shook his personal Grim Reaper off years ago. And I had to know how.

“I want to know how he killed it,” I said.

“Killed her,” she corrected. “Ms. Isabelle Cartwright.”

I took a huge breath, not ready for the information I was about to hear. I had developed a sixth sense for bad news.

“The Mors are people. I think,” Ophelia said. “Or Grampa thinks they were, anyway. Still interested in murdering one?”

I rubbed my temples. I thought of the night in the parking lot, staring down five drooling rapists. Would I have killed, if I could? If I’d been holding a gun, would I have used it to save my life? It wasn’t a hard decision.

I would have killed them all.

“Just skip ahead,” I said. “Tell me about Isabelle.”

She shook her head, opened the old journal, and began flipping pages.

“No,” I said, and held my hand out. I took her gnarled fingers in mine, looking into her watery eyes. There wasn’t time for this. I could hear the tick-tock of some terrible clock, burning away the minutes of Zack and Morgan’s lives. “You’ve read the journal, right?”

Ophelia nodded. “I don’t know about this…I’ve seen Grampa…”

Her voice shrank, and she sounded more than a bit like a frightened little girl. I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as I thought I would.

“I can do it without hurting you,” I said. “I think. Don’t think of anything but the journal. Nothing but that. Picture it, the part about Isabelle, about Puck and his Mors.”

Ophelia set her lips into a grim line. “Your friends are in danger?”

“Yes,” I said, my voice choked.

Ophelia closed her eyes. I picked her hand up, cradled it in mine, set my lips against her knuckles. And I breathed.

They weren’t images this time—I wasn’t taking a true memory. The flashes came as words, a memory of a memory, all at once. My vision went black, and I saw—

The year was Nineteen-Fifty-One, and I’d been officially dirt-napped for seven years. I do not know what took her so long—I have spoken with a few Phantoms in what I call the Grey Meadows, and all of them have told me that their Mors had begun hunting them almost from the moment of revivification. Hell, I’d even had the time to pull double duty as a teacher and student at Stanford, instructing Engineering by day and achieving my doctorate at night.

Something about being reduced to atoms by a thousand-ton explosion really kick-starts the old ambition, however dusty and tired it once was.

My mind reeled as I tried to pull myself out of the flow of Puck’s words, stolen from Ophelia—explosion? I felt my mind groping through Ophelia’s, and I saw it, Puck’s death—a locomotive by the docks. He was working on it, repairing it? A ship full of munitions, for the war…an accident. Fire and heat, swallowing up everyone nearby. I dived back into the memory, trying to sort through the borrowed images. I found Puck’s voice again, on the day he met his Mors, I think…

It was in one of my classes that I felt what I would later refer to as the bête-noire—a paralyzing, irrational fear. It washed over me. No, more than that—it inhabited me. Defined me. One moment I was explaining to a class full of freshman that the acceleration of a body is proportional to the resultant force acting on it—being Newton’s Second law, actually—and the next moment I was running down the hallway, playing Bullet Bill Dudley and shouldering students twice my size out of the way. There may have been a large degree of girlish screaming, as well.

I woke in the faculty restroom—the ladies one, naturally—vomiting my guts out and holding my jacket over the back of my head, just like they taught us if the A-Bomb ever hit. Ms. Lansing, an American Literature teacher, managed to coax me out of my panic-stricken stupor. It wasn’t until my brain began to swim out of its soup that I realized I had run across the entire Stanford Campus to the English building. Even half-in my fugue, I knew why I had gone there. Some primal part of me still ran to my long-gone Miri when trouble hit.

I faced a few inquiries after that—good natured, trying to be helpful. But a friendly witch-hunt is still no vacation in Fiji. Half the school had seen my shrieking, unseemly flight through the campus, and the board required a little more than my word that it wouldn’t happen again. The fact was, I had no idea if it would happen again. In all possibility, without having an explanation or a reason for it occurring, it most definitely would happen again. I settled for a sabbatical. When I say I settled, I mean, the board chose to press the importance of taking some time off. It was that, or take a lot of time off.

She found me on my second day of vacation. Points for persistence, I suppose.

I’d been reading, smoking my pipe, enjoying the sun—what you might expect from a stuffy professor on sabbatical. At noon on the second day, I felt the bête-noire again. First my stomach did a somersault, then my heart kicked it into top gear. My mouth ran as dry as a Mojave summer and my palms went slick. My brain told me to run, to flee, to do anything but stay in that spot. I dropped my book and leaped out of my recliner. Olivia wasn’t home, and Tanya hadn’t lived with us for six months, since she’d married that…musician, James. Anyway.

I was alone. And no one was going to help me. Even as my reasoning began to self-destruct in panic, I knew if I couldn’t stop it, something worse might happen this time. Run through a window, cut my jugular. Flee naked down the street. Decide to hide in the oven. Who knows.

I squeezed my fists together. I bit my lip. I tried my very best to hold my place. That’s when the knock on my door came.

I answered, to see a lovely young woman who would go on to introduce herself as Isabelle Cartwright. The bête-noire began to fade—I thought that maybe the presence of another person was allowing my inborn fear of humiliation to override the irrational panic. Of course, that wasn’t the case at all—I’d learn later that the bête-noire was an encoded phantom trait, a natural warning system to detect the approach of a Mors, our own personal brand of psychopomp. Now, in the truest and most excellent example of an evolutionary arms race, the Mors possess the ability to dampen the bête-noire, in close proximity. They even seem to have the ability to produce a kind of euphoria in their prey.

I felt this, immediately. When I saw Isabelle, I sensed a kind of relief and warmth baking from her. She asked if she could come in and speak with me. I asked her if she was in any of my classes—she looked about the right age. She told me that she wasn’t, but she had a friend who was. A friend who was in trouble. She wanted to speak to me about the issue, apparently. I let her in, and asked her if she wanted any tea.

She asked me what it was like to die. To truly be dead. She did not ask me with a predator’s voice, I remember—there was longing in her tone. A real desire to know. I answered her truthfully—it felt like the end, like my life had been taken from me, and everything before it had been a show. As though a wet grey blanket had been pulled over my body, and I was looking at the world through a filter of ash. I wanted to be alive. I needed to be alive. But I was not, and I knew that for sure.

I’m not certain why I told her, or why I wasn’t surprised at her arrival. Maybe it was the euphoric aura that she projected—maybe I was tired of pretending. She began to glow bright white, to fill me up with warmth and light. Part of me really wanted to believe that she was sending me to a better place.

But another part of me knew there was no better place. Not for me, anyway. I was a monster, and I had lived off the memories and emotions of hundreds of people since the day I’d died. Not murdering, not hurting, but you might call it a kind of killing. Taking from people what it is that defined them. Destroying what they had earned.

That part took over. That part activated a portion of my brain I’d never used before. It drew the essence I’d stolen from my last victim into my mind, and I lashed out at Isabelle. With only the power of my mind, what science-fiction writers called telekinesis, I threw cute, little, glowing Isabelle through the kitchen wall, an armoire, and finally through and out the front door. It drained me, and little more than a transparent ghost, I ran. Well, I flipped. I pushed myself into the Grey and ran for my life.

I would spend the next month running. Shunting between the real world and the Grey one, using every trick I could think of, surviving on luck mostly. I drained the essence from anyone I could, trying not to kill them. I became little more than instinct, a mad ghost, a monster. To survive. To get away.

And as an animal, at some point, I came home. I don’t remember why I went back—I didn’t have enough of a human brain to think or remember anything from that time. But I came to with my Olivia in my arms, staring up at me in abject terror. Her face pale and drawn, her eyes listless but wide, like a drug addict having a hallucination. I baked with heat—I was glowing, like my innards had turned into hot coals. And my dear Olivia had become a frozen statue—her icy skin burned my arms.

I turned, to find her there. Isabelle. The melancholy look on her face must have mirrored mine. How long had she hunted me? How many people had I hurt? And how had I, even in my animal stupor, attacked the most important person in my un-life?

With tears in my eyes and my body raging like a furnace, I picked little glowing murderer Grim Reaper bitch Isabelle off of the ground and screamed in rage at her. I remember a flash of agonizing fire, I remember thinking of my little baby girl, Lucy, her neck swelled up like a balloon, my last bit of hope dying. My daughter dying before I even knew who she was. An image too of Mirabelle, long gone, and of Olivia, my love, in my arms, draining away. I remember Isabelle shrieking in pain. Then I remember waking up in the Grey, drifting in the tides, buoyant, and barely conscious on the sea foam.

The waves deposited me in the ash-grey sand, and I dreamed with my eyes open. I let my mind wander, let my borrowed body absorb the native energies of that damned place. I don’t know how long I dreamed. I don’t know how long I wallowed in the shame and terror and cowardice, not knowing how much I had hurt my dear Olivia. And I didn’t have the courage to find out, did I? To face her, to face myself.

Finally I went back—

A tugging sensation, a sudden rush of icy wind caressing my neck. I let out a strangled cry, and pulled myself out of the stolen words. The real world faded back into existence, and I was lying on the ground. Ophelia stood over me, cradling her hand. Even from the floor, I could see how blue and lifeless the flesh on her hand had become.

A sob escaped her lips, and she rubbed her frozen hand and looked at me with huge wet eyes.

“Oh God,” I said. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize…”

“Forget it,” Ophelia hissed, sucking in deep breaths. “I’m fine. Forget it.”

“Can you tell me what happened?” I asked. I know I was being callous, but I had to know. “What happened after? And who’s Lucy? He mentioned a baby named Lucy.”

Ophelia shook her head.

“It won’t help you in your little quest, will it?” she said. “In fact, it’ll do just the opposite. You got what you wanted, didn’t you? It’s time to go.”

“But—”

“Get out of my house, hon,” she said. “Right now.”

“I still need your help,” I said. “And I’m not leaving without you.”

“Yes, you are,” Ophelia said. She walked out of the office, leaving me alone on the floor with my thoughts of Puck, his death, and the girl he’d had to kill to save his own life.

Chapter Seventeen

Dead Girl Walking

Ophelia rooted around her house, getting ready as I explained the situation. I told her about Abraham, and about Zack and Morgan, trapped in hospital beds in one world and in a dilapidated train in another. It was nice, for once, to see a surprised look on her face.

She came out to the kitchen table with a handful of gauze and finger braces. I think I saw, for a moment, the dimmest flash of sympathy on her sour face.

I spent the next twenty minutes in what you might call extreme agony, as she twisted and braced my shattered digits into something resembling fingers. Her brusque manner and harpyesque tendencies disappeared the instant she set to work.

“Will I heal…faster?”

“Than us chickens?”

“Well, yeah.”

Ophelia shrugged, “Probably. To be honest, I don’t get how they’re still broken.”

I shook my head, “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” she said, “if your body is just…energy, or whatever, can’t you just…not have broken fingers anymore?”

It sounded like a possibility. She stepped away from me for a moment, and I did my best Jedi/Shaolin monk concentration on my bandaged hands. But after five minutes of trying to will my fingers unbroken, I was left with only a deep blush. I shook my head, and Ophelia shrugged.

“Worth a shot,” she said, and slapped my shoulder. “Looks like you’re as good as…well…better than…well…you’re bandaged, anyway.”

I nodded and hopped off of the kitchen table.

“So are you gonna help me?” I asked her.

“Haven’t I already?”

“You know what I mean.”

Ophelia didn’t look at me as she tucked her medical supplies away into a little black bag. Her face looked as soft as concrete, and just as forgiving. She fumbled with a roll of gauze—the flesh of the hand I’d been gripping was pallid, gray, with a ring of bruised flesh encircling her wrist. It didn’t look as bad as Kent Miller’s frost-burned forearm, but then again, I hadn’t taken real memories from Ophelia. I’d lifted her impression of a journal she’d read. I wondered if she’d still remember it, or if she would have to read it again to get it back. To be honest, I wasn’t sure how it worked, which made me all the more dangerous, didn’t it?

“I can’t help you,” she whispered.

I closed my eyes. “Why? My friends are—”

I stopped. I covered my mouth and tried to remember how to breathe. It wasn’t easy.

“I can’t,” Ophelia whispered. “I’m old, and tired, and I don’t want to die. Maybe that makes me a coward, but maybe I don’t give a right goddamn about that.”

“I can’t do it alone,” I said. I still hadn’t gotten the hang of breathing without my voice hitching and crawling. “Please.”

Ophelia growled something, low in her chest, and it sounded like ripping canvas.

“I’ll tell you how to do it,” she said, finally. “How to wake them up.”

Breathe. Oxygen. My chest heaved, and I felt a light-headed wave of giddiness scrape up my spine.

“Thank you,” I said. I wanted to hug her, but I had the feeling that would be a really bad idea.

“And then I never want to see you again,” she hissed. “Ever.”

I had to ask. I had to.

“What about Puck?”

“My grandfather’s dead,” she said.

“And so am I, right?” I whispered.

“Right,” she said. Ophelia snapped the black bag closed, ran her fingers through her iron gray hair, and turned those watery, cold eyes up to mine. “Pay attention now.”

I nodded. I listened to her explain medically-induced comas like my friend’s lives depended on it.

When she was finished, she scooped a long black trench coat from a hook on the wall and handed it to me. It had gray lapels and gray cuffs, and was about fifty times more stylish than any clothing I’d expect her to own. I slipped it on. I wish I’d been surprised when it fit perfectly.

“What’s this?” I said.

“It’s cold,” Ophelia snapped. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

“Getting all soft on me?”

She squawked her horrible laugh, her face twisting in a sneer.

“Not quite,” she said. “But I don’t need a fifteen-year-old’s death on my conscience.”

I shook my head, squeezed the wrist of my broken hand, and sighed. I headed for the door without another look back. As I opened the front door, I noticed Ophelia’s little black revolver. Right where I left it, on the entrance way table. I ran a hand over the gun and shivered.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “Someone else has my death on their conscience.”

I stopped, and looked back over my shoulder.

“Who’s Lucy?” I asked. It was a long shot.

“Grampa’s first daughter,” Ophelia said, her voice drifting out of the kitchen. “Daughter of his first wife Miri. Miri died giving birth to her. Lucy died a year later. Diphtheria.”

I shook my head, unable to ignore the swell. I dragged tears out of my eyes and took long, harsh breaths. I looked down at the revolver, still lying on the entry table, and closed my eyes.

I left without another word.

I walked. I walked with purpose, and with speed, but I walked. Whatever was going to happen at that hospital, however it ended, I wasn’t ready. I needed to think, I needed to plan, and I needed to not vomit from pure, stupid fear.

With Puck’s story behind me, and my own careening toward me at unsafe velocities, I felt the tidal tug of fate sucking at my arms and legs. Did Abraham know I was coming? I think he did. Even without his handy-dandy Phantom-Detector, I think he knew. It had been his plan, of course—hold my friends until I showed up. Which I would, of course.

I guess it was a classic for a reason.

I thought about Puck’s story on the way there. It hadn’t been nearly as helpful as I would have hoped. Then again, what exactly had I been expecting?

“Hey, Lucy, when battling your Mors, remember to use the #3 wooden stake and to sing ‘Mary Mary Quite Contrary’ when you stab him. This combined with the cough drop you ate should be enough to kill him.”

No such animal. I guess Puck had only done it once, and mostly by accident.

What had been the situation? Puck, in some animal state, had attacked his wife and drained her of essence. Isabelle, his Mors, had shown up to collect him or eat him or whatever the hell it was they did to us. He’d been angry, full of rage. And full of essence, too. Was that it? Did I just need to fill up the tank and Hulk-out?

Maybe. But with the arctic chill streaking up my body, the kind that sank into my bones and my teeth, my tank was on E. And rage? Not quite. I shook with abject fear and worry, definitely, but nothing even approaching anger. Well great, Lucy Day. Zero for two in the first inning. Bases loaded. And the Man-In-White steps up to the plate…

I found myself at St. Elias’ Hospital in less than an hour. The very same hospital I’d come to visit Mr. Miller, the man who would have hit me with his car if I wasn’t the Incredible Ghost Girl. The same hospital Abraham had led me to last time. The very same damn trap.

“Unbelievable,” I said, to myself. “He’s already tried to lead me here.”

I felt in the pocket of my coat for two things—one was the stun gun my dad had made sure I carried. The other thing I wasn’t sure I really needed. I patted the heavy lump to make sure it hadn’t slipped in flight. All there. All ready for the stupid plan I’d concocted.

What time was it? I’d have to turn my phone on to check. I could only imagine the explosion of text messages, missed calls, and voicemails I was going to get the instant it came to life. And that reminded me of my parents, once again terrified out of their minds, wondering if their daughter had been kidnapped or eaten by wild dogs.

I put my intact hand against my forehead and looked down at the asphalt of the parking lot. I had no doubt in my mind—I was a terrible daughter. Mom and Dad would be a mess now—it’d only been a week ago when I’d disappeared the first time. Which meant the police and everyone else who cared to comment would be telling them I’d run away. My first story had been fishy, and with the addition of a second disappearance I would look like what…the rebel? The run-off-to-the-circus girl? The criminal, even?

I glanced around the parking lot—it occurred to me that my mother’s car would be there. Or at least, it must have been earlier. Back in the Grey Meadows, inside of Morgan’s train, I’d seen my mom around her bed. I tried not to remember her look of anguish.

I promised her something, in that moment, and I sent it along via brainwave—I’ll make it up to you, Mom. I vibed the feeling in her spiritual direction. But right then, I had friends to save, didn’t I? Time to be the Big Dead Hero.

I thought about my phone—I had to. I’m not a cat, and I’m already dead, so I decided a little curiosity couldn’t hurt. I fired off a quick prayer of mercy toward the sky and turned my phone on. I’d just opened the welcome screen when it vibrated and tweeted out its obnoxious 8-bit ring tone. I jammed on the END button until all the pop-ups and notifications and text-message warnings disappeared. I glanced down, and saw a little yellow envelope on the screen with the number “43” next to it in little glowing letters. Holy shit, man. It made me feel loved in a horrible, guilty, I’m-an-abominable-human-being kind of way.

I ran through the texts, not opening any of them, looking for anything from my mysterious benefactor. None of them were. I took a deep breath, brought the number up from my call log, and punched it into my phone. I sent my mystery-texter this:

Thanks for your help last time.

Any good advice for me now?

I waited, but not for very long. My phone buzzed, and I opened the message.

Try Your Best To Not Die.

I rolled my eyes. Cute. My mystery guy-or-girl was a real comedian. My phone vibrated again.

Oh, and Don’t Let Him Grab You.

Yeah, That’s It. Good Luck, Luce.

I put my phone away and sighed.

I dug in my coat, both hands in both pockets. My splinted-hand, still shooting off its dull throb, felt the smooth plastic and the two little metal teeth. The stun gun. My other hand felt the cold metal of the other object, the one I really hoped I wouldn’t have to use.

Was I doing this?

I looked out at the empty parking lot, wrapped in darkness. A soft but cold breeze played out against my already icy skin. The cold made me feel more alone, I realized. Weaker.

Deep breaths, Lucy Day. You’re a superhero right? You’ve got some twisted ghost-version—Phantom-version—of the Force, and a stun gun. Just add a cape and some eff-me boots and we’re good to go. You could be Electro-Bitch or The Phantasm. I laughed at that, but the column of frost that poured out of my mouth stopped me short. I swallowed the last of the giggles.

I ducked next to a car and looked into the side-view mirror. My lips were ice-blue, and dark circles outlined my sunken eyes. The irises had lost their color entirely, transformed into two black dimes. A spider web of blue veins pressed up against the translucent, paper-thin skin of my sallow cheeks. I appeared, for lack of a less-painful word, dead. I realized I’d never looked at myself when the bone-chilling cold swept over me. I wrapped my arms over my chest and looked away.

How long did I have? I’d been colder, the last time at the hospital, when I’d watched in horror as my legs and arms ceased to be. But I wasn’t far off from that. Closer, I knew, if I burned energy for any of my little Phantom tricks.

Which meant I had to…feed? Was that the best word for what I did? Or what I took?

I shook out my worries and touched the stun gun in my pocket to give me strength. Okay Luce. Let’s go.

I took three steps across the blacktop before a hand clawed into my shoulder and squeezed with such force that I barely managed a choking scream. I twisted, trying to free myself, and tumbled to the ground. Naturally, I landed on my broken hand. I squawked out another animal scream of torment. I tried to turn, to face my attacker. He had me. Had me while I was in my own stupid brain again. Thanks, Luce. Thanks for not being able to—

“Lucy?”

I spun and looked up. If it had been possible, my face would have drained of even more color.

“…Dad.”

My father stood over me, or rather, some version of him that I didn’t know. Normally tan and handsome, his sharp green eyes glinting with an almost dangerous level of mischief and intelligence, my dad had an intense, lively aura. But not now. His black hair stuck out in the front, as if he’d been running his hands over his forehead. His skin looked chalky, pale, and his sharp green eyes were dull and sunken. In fact, the circles under his eyes looked as bad as mine. He was wearing a t-shirt, and despite the chill in the air, was soaked with a dark ring of sweat around his neck.

“Lucy…what—?”

I held my good hand up, and as if on cue, my stomach hit the eject button. I rolled over on my side and vomited long strings of bile onto the asphalt. My dad moved with incredible speed, and I couldn’t believe it—he gathered my hair into his hands and held it out of the line of fire. When I’d finished, he scooped me up like I weighed nothing. Like I was eight years old again.

He set me on my feet, but his hands dug into my upper arms.

“Dad, that hurts—”

“Lucy. Where the hell have you been?”

“Dad, I’m sorry—”

“Sorry? You’re sorry?”

His voice flickered with two battling emotions. One of those voices wanted to bellow at me until I broke down into tears—which I would—while the other wanted to gather me up with gentle words and stronger arms and make everything better. Maybe it’s a universal Dad Voice—in fact, I’m sure of it.

“It’s not what you think—”

“What do I think, L-Lucy?” His voice cracked, and my throat choked. My vision went blurry with tears. “Tell me? Tell me how your mother and I feel. Tell us what we think, Lucy.”

I shook my head, and hot tears burned trails down my frozen cheeks. I looked into my dad’s haunted face, contorted to inhuman dimensions in anguish, and I knew something right away. He would never forgive me for this—not really. We might be okay someday—God I hoped there was a someday to look forward to—but this pain I’d inflicted would never go away. It might echo in him forever.

“I’m not trying to hurt you, you don’t understand—”

“Then explain it,” he shouted, and the hands on my arms rocked me with the force of his rage. “Explain why you would do this to us again. You know we thought you were dead the first time? Do you understand that at all? Do you even care?”

I didn’t have words. There weren’t words, were there? His heart had been torn apart in his chest, by me. What could I say to that? I’m sorry? I wish it had never happened? The words were true, but they weren’t enough. I felt that weight again, the sure knowledge that I would never make this up to him, or my mother. I’d broken something, irreparably, and even if it healed, it would never set right. For lack of a better metaphor, our relationship would always have a telling limp.

And in that moment, I knew not all of my suddenly fateful thoughts were my own. Somehow, in the same way I’d known the name of the bus driver who’d picked me up a few hours ago, I was half-thinking my father’s thoughts.

I clutched my mouth. The taste of salt flooded past my lips.

“Dad. I didn’t run away.”

“What? What does that mean?” Some of the hysteria drained out of his tone. Maybe, even under the anguish and rage, he was still no-nonsense, solve-the-problem Dad. God I hoped he was.

“Something…happened to me, Dad. Now it’s gonna sound,” I rubbed my temples and closed my eyes. I couldn’t say it to his face, could I? “…crazy. But you have to believe me. You have to trust me.”

I watched my dad’s eyes balloon. The fingers on my arms squeezed even tighter, and a pulse of blood ran up and down my broken fingers. My gorge rose at the pain, but I managed to keep what remained of my bile in my stomach.

“You want me to trust—”

“Dad, wait. Please, p-please just listen,” I said, my voice disintegrating with every word. “Zack and Morgan are in trouble. I can’t explain why, but please believe me.”

“I know,” Dad said. Something about hearing their names calmed him somewhat. “They’re in comas. No one can explain. Your poor mother is up there with Morgan’s mom right now. Trying to…comfort each other.”

“I know what hurt them,” I said, and in the lull of his rage, I managed to disentangle myself from his clutching fingers. “I know who hurt them. And I can stop it. Maybe I can even fix it.”

“Lucy, what are you talking about?”

His eyes were turning from angry to afraid. Desperately worried. And it wasn’t about the aforementioned attacker, I’m sure.

“Dad,” I said, letting out a long breath. “Someone who is after me…hurt them. To get to me. I don’t…I can’t explain more than that, not right now. Please trust me.”

I know what I sounded like to him at that moment—I’d been receiving random brain messages long enough to know firsthand, in fact. I sounded like a runaway drug addict. Which I looked like, in fact. I took Heroin chic to a whole new level.

“Lucy, I think you’re sick,” my dad whispered.

I clenched my fist, and felt another hot trail singe the ice from my cheek.

“Dad—”

He grabbed me by the upper arm and dragged me away from the car. I staggered along behind him, frozen in more ways than one. How could I stop him? How could I explain that if I didn’t make my run against Abraham, if I didn’t go into that hospital right now, people could be killed or worse and every one of them would be my fault?

“Dad!” I said, tugging at his arm.

He spun toward me. His other hand was digging in his pocket—he produced a slim silver cell phone and flipped it open.

“Dad, wait.”

His thumb paused over the buttons, no doubt either about to speed dial my mother or to inform the police to stop the search. Knowing my dad I expect he would call the police first—he’d always been such a good citizen.

“Lucy.”

He said my name as if it was a sentence all its own. As if it conveyed a meaning I should have picked up on. It wasn’t questioning or stern. It was just…Lucy. With the same tone you might whisper the word “help.”

“Dad, I know what you think, trust me,” I said, with a little pathetic laugh I knew would be lost on him. “But I’m not…well it doesn’t matter what I’m not. But if you ever trusted me at all, ever, if you ever thought your daughter was smart or useful or reliable…you have to let me go back into that hospital. If I don’t…you might regret it forever, even if you don’t understand what I’m saying right now.”

Dad watched me with those hang-dog eyes…and his wheels turned. It made a little bright hot spark of hope sizzle up in my chest, and I took half a breath. When I let it out, a puff of frost hissed out of my lips.

“Lucy, honey,” he said. “It’s time to go home.”

My eyes closed, but they did little to dam up the tears. I clenched my fist, and I grabbed his wrist with my good hand. He hissed and looked down at me in shock—his arm felt like it was running on magma instead of blood. I imagine he felt quite the opposite from my icy fingers.

“Lucy! Jesus!”

I looked him in the eye, and I knew what I had to do. Or maybe, what I had to try to do. I love my dad more than life itself…but that only applied to my life. I couldn’t afford to give away the lives of other people for that love. I didn’t have the right.

“Daddy,” I said, and I closed my eyes. “Give me a kiss, and I’ll go home with you.”

I heard him suck in another breath. It was an odd request—he hadn’t kissed me since I was eleven. Something about turning into a little miniature woman probably gave him the creeps or made him feel like a perv.

“Please,” I whispered, between frost-covered lips. “Then I’ll go, okay?”

I watched him lean down, and hesitate—I’m sure he thought it was the desperate urge of a high-out-of-her-mind potential drop-out. But like any good father, he couldn’t deny me. He pressed his flaming lips against mine—just a little peck. An I-love-you-baby peck. It was enough.

I sucked air until I felt my ribs creak. I thought of two things as I did, praying to God it would work. I thought of all the pain I’d given him because of my disappearance. Then I thought of this meeting, when he’d first grabbed me around the arm and seen my pale hypothermic face.

It felt like putting a snorkel in a hot oven and drawing in deep. Dry, scalding air seared my esophagus, my trachea, and shot flames into my lungs. My breath double-stuttered from the sudden agony, and I took a step back, clutching my mouth with both hands. My eyes filled with a hundred flashing images—it was a strange effect, because my eyes were open. I could see two different things at once—one unchanged, the sight of my suddenly-pale father, wilting like a flower on a hot day. The second sight broadcasted a hundred different images, flickering in front of me like a broken projector.

They showed me a film of suffering in the space of an eye blink. The hours on the phone, the hours in his car, driving around Anaheim in a desperate, unsuccessful effort to find me. The sight of his cracked palms, shoved into his eyes, his mouth drawn in a half-sob. My mother, wan and corpse-like, her hair long and stringy and unkempt, her eyes dark. Half of her fist shoved in her mouth as she stared down at the coffee table for the hundredth time. Examining nothing with a horrible intensity.

Then I saw our meeting, moments ago, in the very parking lot where the two of us were staggering, overwhelmed by branching agonies.

Heat flooded through me, banishing the otherworldly chill. I took a deep breath as the images faded away, and I managed to leap forward and catch my father before he hit the ground.

He wasn’t as heavy as he should have been—it felt like his bones and muscles had been scooped out and replaced with foam. He didn’t quite pass-out, but he wasn’t there anymore. His eyes were half-lidded, moving in strange circular motions in his head. I managed to drag him over to the hood of a nearby car and prop him up against it. After a few tests, he managed to keep his feet, even if he looked completely rocked.

I tried to distill my panic into something useful. I closed my eyes, leaned forward, and touched my forehead to his. I made very sure to hold my breath as I did.

I kissed his forehead.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I hope I did more good than harm.”

I grabbed his phone and turned toward the St. Elias sign. Jackpot. The number for the hospital. I dialed it, and in a frantic tone I explained that I saw a man lying on a car in the hospital’s parking lot, completely tanked out. Probably a drunk, I told them, but he might be in real trouble. The girl on the phone told me to wait right there and that someone would be out in a few seconds. I thanked her, shut the phone, and tucked it back into my dad’s pocket.

I checked one last time that he was stable, half-laying on the hood of the car. Then I turned and ran full speed toward the doors of the Intensive Care building.

I felt the gut-wrenching, run-for-your-life panic before I was half-way into the lobby.

Chapter Eighteen

Grim

My eyes darted around the cold, sterile lobby, trying to find the source of the… what had Puck called it, in his journal? The bête-noire. The relentless, stabbing panic—the primal sensor Phantoms had, tuned to their particular Mors. But as the seconds stretched on, and nothing leaped out at me with a loud Boo! I realized that while he was close, he wasn’t exactly on my six.

But it felt so—I looked up. For a second, my heart hiccupped—I don’t know what I’d been expecting. Maybe Abraham, his ruler-straight black hair hanging around his long sharp face as he clung to the ceiling like a giant version of some sickening white spider. But, the only thing I saw was the spongy-looking perforated ceiling tiles and long bars of throbbing florescent lights. He seemed so close though…maybe he was right above me. In a room one floor up, twisting the tap and filling my friends with barbiturates, or maybe squeezed in a supply closet, ready to leap out like a monster in a Halloween maze.

I didn’t know, but then again, maybe it didn’t matter. I wasn’t here to defeat him, or seek him out. Today, Ms. Lucy Day would be playing the part of bait—I was just the little fake rabbit on the metal track. Just something for dogs to race for.

There wasn’t anyone at the front desk. I crept forward, trying to glance down a hallway perpendicular to mine without sticking my entire head out into the gap. I saw a nurse drift into a room down the hall far on my left, and I heard gentle murmurings down that way.

I vaulted over the front desk, slapped my hand against the top, and managed to land on the other side and keep running without shattering my ankle into tiny fragments. I did stumble, and hit the set of double doors on the other side of the desk with more shoulder and momentum than purely intended. They blasted open, and I skittered to a stop in front of a bank of elevators. Bingo.

I stabbed the up arrow with my hand, and as it came to life with a soft yellow glow, my mouth fell open. I’d hit the button with my bad hand—and the more I thought about it, I was pretty sure I’d vaulted the desk with the very same hand. I raised my bandaged-and-braced hand up to eye level, wiggling the fingers as much as I could, imprisoned as they were in their little aluminum cells. I felt no pain—just a sort of dull stiffness. I flexed my fingers. Then I made a fist and punched it, hard, into the palm of my other hand. Nothing. Well, the metal of the braces stung the opposite palm, but that was all.

The elevator in front of me—hey, convenient—slid open, and after checking that it was empty, I stepped inside. I stripped off the Ace bandage and the four little braces, dropping them to the floor with four little tiny tings. My fingers were straight, pink, and fine as wine. I flexed them again, as if to convince myself.

When I guessed the source of my miraculous, Wolverine-like recovery, my smile faded. My dad, lying on a hood or, hopefully, on a gurney. I’d attacked him. There wasn’t another word for it. I closed my eyes for a moment and tried to push it away. I reached out and slapped the button for the second floor.

The doors slid open within seconds, and I took another long breath. Now, or never? It wasn’t the easiest decision I ever made, that’s for damn sure. But finally, staring down at the remnants of the finger braces, shining on the thinly brown-carpeted elevator floor, I felt as invincible as I was going to be.

Now or never, Lucy Day.

I jumped out of the elevator, both of my hands in my coat pockets, gripping the weapons I’d stowed away. Nobody stood in the long taupe hallway. I glanced to my left and saw the women’s bathroom and a long row of hallways. To my right, the men’s, and pretty much the same. Leaving it to fate, I headed left. I didn’t make it three steps before a door down the hallway opened up. I saw a hand gripping the doorway, and with a tiny squeak of panic, I bolted sideways into the little girl’s room.

One quick, leaning peek told me that no one was hiding in any of the stalls. Determined to change those statistics, I ran into the last stall, hopped up into a crouch on the seat—the grade-school special—and latched the stall with a tiny click just as the bathroom door opened.

I peeked out through the gap created by the stall door and the frame, the same crevice I always stared at whenever I used a public stall, fearing that some great monstrous eyeball would appear and stare hungrily at me. Two women came in…and I felt my guts drop out of my body. That God had a quirky sense of humor, there was no doubt.

The two women couldn’t have been more opposite in appearance—one, a blonde woman who looked just like an aging beauty queen, the other a mom-haired brunette wearing tennis shoes, jeans, and a sweatshirt. I knew them both. The beauty queen was Morgan’s mom—Mama Veers. The momish one, appropriately, was my mother. I tensed my entire body like a gigantic spring, and a powerful pressure to pee came over me. I would have laughed if I’d been in any other situation.

The feeling passed quickly—as it had been a week since I’d needed to eat, drink, pee or…well, you know, I figured the urge psychosomatic in nature. I wasn’t wrong. I took a stealth-conscious, shallow breath, and listened as they began to talk.

“Her dad—” Ms. Veers said, and ran her hands under the sink before lightly dabbing her sweaty forehead, “—I…don’t even know what to tell him.”

Mom shook her head, “Let’s just wait for now. The doctor said they weren’t sure…that they could wake up any second. No need to get yourself talking with Sal again.”

Ms. Veers nodded, let out a deep breath, and leaned her forehead against the mirror. It felt deliciously cool to the touch, a fact I knew I shouldn’t be aware of.

I noticed that both of their eyes were sunken and dark. They had the look of sleep-deprived college students or heroin addicts. Knowing I was responsible for their tears, the Hell that had become their lives…I closed my eyes, and I listened.

“Any word yet?”

Mom shook her head.

“David is still out there,” Mom said, her words gaining strength. “And the police…we’ll find her. I don’t think she just ran off. She didn’t even take anything, from her room.”

Ms. Veers nodded at that, but the look on her face spoke disbelieving volumes.

“Lucy’s no dummy,” Mom said, and unbelievably, her voice rang with pride. “If she ran away she’d take clothes, food, maybe some money. Definitely her computer.”

I tried not to laugh at that. Watching my mom, drawn up, defending my ability to break her heart in a smart way, I’d never felt more love from another and more loathing for myself.

“Are you hungry?” Ms. Veers asked.

Mom hissed a restrained laugh, and I didn’t realize until that moment that it was a sound I missed, “Are you taking care of me?”

Mama Veers chuckled at that. “Taking care of each other, honey. Plus, I’m hungry.”

My mom looked like she was about to say something, but then she began to shake, and her lips clamped tight. I lunged a little—it looked like she was having some kind of attack. But before I could burst out of my stall, Ms. Veers wrapped her arms around Mom and tugged her tight to her chest. My mom didn’t sob, I don’t think she’s the type, but she did just sort of tremble, her eyes squeezed shut, rigid in Morgan’s mom’s arms.

Then, something buzzed, and both Mama Veers and my mom looked up. I barely choked off a chirp of panic before I grabbed my pocket with both hands, trying to stifle the minuscule sound of my vibrating phone. Three terror-filled gropes of my pockets, and the phone’s buzzing died.

“What the hell—?” my mom began, but a braying electronic ring sounded from her own purse. Mom glanced down and tugged her cell phone out of her purse.

Within seconds, they forget about the strange noise that had almost revealed my location. She pressed her phone tighter to her ear, mumbling affirmatives. It sort of looked like her plan was to shove the entire phone into her brain. Her knuckles were white.

“What?” she said, finally, louder. “It’s on?”

Mama Veers held her out at arm’s length, her face asking a hundred questions. Mom held up the one sec finger, her head cocked into her phone. I felt a thrill of panic and relief and surprise, second-hand emotions wafting off of my mother like dumpster fumes. It made me feel a little heady, actually, like paint thinner.

“Jesus…okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much.”

My mom snapped her cell phone shut and clutched it one handed like a life preserver.

“What?” Mama Veers said when an agonizing moment had passed and Mom still stared blankly at the wall. “What?”

“Lucy’s phone is finally on…that was the p-police,” she said. I sucked in a sharp breath, and had the two of them been less distracted, they definitely would have heard it. I clamped a hand over my mouth.

“Yeah?”

“The phone company can track her phone with it on—did, track her phone.”

Mama Veers put a hand over her mouth.

“She’s here. At least…the officer said St. Elias Hospital. Or within a hundred yards.”

“Jesus,” Mama Veers said.

My mind echoed that sentiment. I felt caged, suddenly, filling with overwhelming panic. My cell phone? They could do that, outside of government conspiracy movies? Why the hell hadn’t anyone told me they could do that?

Mom began to glow with excitement. Years sloughed off of her haggard, worn face, and I could swear the dark circles under her eyes brightened a little. She was a woman transformed—not even Mama Veers’ skeptical expression could slow her down. Me…well, I felt my plan unfolding into chaos before my very eyes.

“The police are on their way,” Mom said, vindicating my fears. “In case…I guess in case it’s actually her attacker or something.”

She said the last part quickly, and with an air of denial. She might as well have said, “In case it turns out to be Big Foot.”

“You think it’s her?” Mama Veers said.

Mom grabbed her purse from the sink in a white-knuckled grip and bolted for the door.

“Let’s see,” Mom said, and was out the door. Morgan’s mom raced after her.

The cops were on their way…Mom would be looking for me. Abraham would be getting just as desperate as I was, which meant trouble. Desperate, dangerous people were unpredictable.

I counted to ten—with the Mother-May-I’s in between—then left the stall. When I’d first tore into the bathroom, I hadn’t taken much time to review my surroundings before diving headfirst into a stall. This time, as I walked out, I noticed my reflection. It couldn’t have been further from the wan, drowned girl with the raccoon eyes and the thin, blue lips. My skin, pink and flush, glowed with health and, not ashamed to say, very little acne. My hair had that Pantene-commercial volume and sheen, and it framed my face rather than choking it. Lips fuller and pinker than I’d ever seen them.

I let out a long breath.

Was I a vampire? Just a monster, draining the living to become a mockery of it? Suddenly, I didn’t want to look at that reflection anymore. I wanted nothing to do with it. It was more of a perversion than a reflection—if I didn’t think stealth and my survival weren’t, at the moment, synonymous, I would have smashed that stupid mirror to bits. I settled on turning away and sneaking out of the bathroom.

No one in the hallway, but I did hear the unmistakable sound of elevator doors clunking together. Two moms heading downstairs, I guessed, one of them in a frantic cloud of elation. I took a deep breath, made a point to turn my phone off, and followed my nose.

The bête-noire trickled in, and despite the urges of my body and the jelly-like strength of my legs, I went toward the source. I used it like a bloodhound, or a really twisted game of Hot and Cold. There were three more doors left in the hallway, before it swung to the left. All three were patient rooms.

I peeked in the little glass-and-wire window of the first room, and my heart flip-flopped. Morgan. Lying in bed, wearing a flimsy white paper gown, with a string of tubes draping down from an IV and into her wrist. Still, her skin was rosy, and the way her long golden hair splayed draped across her pillow, I couldn’t help but feel the smallest stab of jealousy. She looked more like Sleeping Beauty than a coma patient. Ugh.

I shook off the badly-timed envy moment and peeked around the room. Abraham wasn’t in there—in fact, nobody was. Empty.

I opened the door slowly and pulled the stun gun out of my pocket. I groped for its little metal teeth to make sure I was pointing it the right way, then I crossed the threshold. One of the fluorescents on the ceiling flickered, and I jumped and almost tased myself in the leg.

“Morgan?” I whispered, fruitlessly. She didn’t move or stir.

I crossed the room and took an eyeful of her IV, trying to sort English words out of the technical hieroglyphics. I did manage to make out “Thiopental” on one of the bags, which I was eighty-percent sure was one of the drugs Ophelia had mentioned. One of the ones they don’t use much anymore. Abraham had been out of the game for a while, was my guess.

But it was pretty simple from there. The IV computer required an access code—but I had a more elegant solution in mind. As gently as I could, I picked up Morgan’s hand and examined it. The IV tube disappeared into a large squarish Band-Aid looking thing with a hole cut in the center. Ophelia called the needle a cannula, and I peered at it closely. It wouldn’t feel good, and there might be some bruising later, but I could just take the IV out without causing too much damage. It took me a while to work the Band-Aid off—you could tape a desk to the ceiling with that stuff. Finally I managed to scrape it off enough to free the cannula.

I eased it out of her arm, trying my best to quiet the squeamish protests of my girly brain. It came up, and blood with it, dripping down her arm and flecking her white hospital gown with a Rorschach pattern of blood. I held my hand tight to the wound until it calmed down, and put the Band-Aid back in place as a stop-gap bandage.

I pretended to be a tough nurse from a medical drama, but mostly I wanted to yak.

I grabbed Morgan’s arm and shook it, hoping for a reaction but receiving none. I didn’t think it worked like that—just shut off the juice and all better, but maybe I was hoping for it. I leaned down and kissed her forehead.

“I love you, honey,” I said. “I’m gonna fix this. I promise.”

I knew she could see me, from the windows of the train car in that Grey place. Or at least, I hoped she could. I didn’t want to think of those horrible, slouching monsters catching up to them. Were they locked in those very train cars right then, watching twisting corpses slam their fists against the steel like some bad zombie movie?

I ran my hand over my face and wondered if they were looking through Zack’s windows too, in that faraway Grey land. Would they be able to tell me what I was walking in to? Probably. I could picture Puck and Zack and Morgan, staring in horror as I walked into an ambush. Then again, can you call it an ambush, when you see it coming? Or is that just suicide?

I squeezed my best friend’s hand again, and left her room. I didn’t even tuck the stun gun back into my coat. Instead, I flipped it in my hand and tucked it tight to my wrist. No point in giving away everything, right?

I checked the second room, but the lights were off. The third room was lit. I sneaked up to the door and peered inside the window. Zack, looking very…well, Zack-like, lying in his bed. He looked pretty tan against the white of the pillow and the hospital gown, and I realized I needed to hang out with less attractive people. Still, I couldn’t help but feel a flutter of panic at seeing him so…helpless.

I sneaked into his room, a little bit surprised to not be immediately jumped by Abraham. The bête-noire filled my head with bowel-shaking ugly fear, but I was keeping a handle on it. Still, he should be so close…

I tried to put that out of my mind, and went to Zack’s bedside. There was clear evidence of family members—flowers, purses, extra blankets and empty Coke cans. Why they weren’t in the room, I had no idea. The idea of them all leaving to go to the bathroom or hit the cafeteria seemed a little far-fetched. Was Abraham trying to clear out the civilians? How nice of him.

But that meant I had even less time, if Abraham was so ready for me.

I repeated the same steps I’d used on Morgan, and freed the IV needle with a similar splash of bright red blood. I held his hand, trying to stem the flow, staring into his closed eyes. The handsome, square line of his jaw. The dark hair, the spikey front deflated a little, lying over his brow. I brushed it out of his face, trailing my fingers down across his cheek. Something warm sparked inside of me, and calm tears put a sheen over the world. He could see me, I thought, from the train car. Maybe he was seeing me for the last time.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m sorry I couldn’t just stay dead, like everybody else. I’m sorry you’re here. God…”

I put my hands on his shoulders and laid my head on his chest. The steady rhythm of his heart, the shallow rise and fall of his chest lulled me, wanted to draw me down. This close to him, I couldn’t smell hospital anymore—just him. Just Zack.

I heard a noise, and it ripped me out of the moment. I spun around, leaping off the bed, and stared at the tiny square window.

Mom. Her eyes wide, staring at me. Oh no.

I ran for the door and threw it open.

It happened fast. I suppose that’s the only way it could have happened.

I jumped out of the room, but as I did, the air seemed to shimmer and distort, like looking over a campfire. Mom disappeared—just flicked away, like a cheesy effect in a bad movie. The hallway darkened, too, and my eyes tried to adjust to the shifting scenery. Standing in the center of the hallway where there had been nothing but air, was Abraham.

Dizziness swept over me, and I hesitated. Abraham, still draped in immaculate white doctor’s clothes, moved like a blur and wrapped his arms around me. I screamed and felt a wave of heat burn my skin, like I’d just bear-hugged an oven. I let out a choking gasp, tried to fight, tried to struggle, but he was a rock. Pulsing rings of light tore out of his body, flickering the darkened room like a strobe light. Each pulse that swept over me weakened my resolve, filling me with warmth and light and happiness.

He was made of happiness, radiated it. Everything I had ever wanted…they could be mine. Just let go, the warmth told me. Let it all go. My knees weakened and buckled, but Abraham held me up. Wouldn’t let me fall. My head slumped—my cheek fell against his chest. I breathed in his scent and closed my eyes.

“Lucy!”

My eyes opened. I felt light…like I might just float away.

“Lucy!”

It wasn’t easy to see, both because of the pulsing light and because my eye lids just… didn’t… want to… open. When I managed to turn my thousand-pound head a little, I saw Zack, on his bed, tearing at the tubes sprouting from his right arm. Zack, rolling to a crouch on his bed. Zack, diving at me and Abraham like a handsome cruise missile.

He knocked us both down and out the door, and my shoulder cracked hard against the tile floor. A tidal wave of cold pain raced up my arm, and I screamed and rolled away from them. I clutched at my shrieking shoulder, and as I did, I realized the excruciating pain had lifted some of the fog. Well that, and the fact that Abraham was no longer holding me in a death grip, filling me with his… whatever-the-hell it was.

I dug in my pocket as I rolled—only seeing Abraham and Zack out of the corner of my eye. Finally, my hand closed over the little plastic stun gun, and I whipped it out of my pocket. I crawled to my knees and looked up.

I saw Abraham kneeling, holding Zack by his throat. No, that’s impossible… Zack looked, physically, like he could snap Abraham in two. He outweighed him by a good forty pounds, at least. Zack’s muscles were toned, and he was at least three inches taller than Abraham. And Zack fought. Even as Abraham began to stand, holding Zack at arm’s length like he was stuffed with feathers, Zack swung his arms like a jackhammer, raining blows down on Abraham’s face. He jerked and cursed and spit with each punch, but they weren’t doing the damage they should have. Abraham looked like an annoyed pedestrian in a driving rain rather than a man in a brawl.

I raced across the hallway and buried the stun gun’s metal fangs deep into Abraham’s back and squeezed the trigger. Blue arcs raced through the gun, and it shrieked its tac-tac-tac-tac-tac through the empty hallway.

Abraham arched his back and roared, his hand spasming and dropping Zack, who hit the tile floor like a sack full of potatoes. I held down the trigger, grabbed Abraham’s shoulder, and forced him against the wall. For a brief, terrified second I wondered if touching Abraham would zap me too—this proved not to be the case, another movie myth zipping past my head. I jammed my forearm into his back, slamming his face up against the wall, and kept the stun gun firing.

He jerked and sputtered under the shock, and for one brief moment I wondered if it would be possible to kill the bastard. But the longer I held the trigger, the more he began to fight. He pushed at the wall, weakly at first, but gaining strength. Zack made it to one knee, gasping for air, both hands cradling his throat.

“Dammit,” I whispered between gritted teeth, and tried to reach into my coat for the other weapon.

As soon as I took my pinning arm off of Abraham’s back, he bucked like a mule. I held the stun gun as tight as I could, and it lifted only an inch off of his coat, but that was all he needed. He spun, and with what looked like a casual one-arm push, flung me across the hallway. My back hit the wall and blew all the air out of me, and I landed in a tangle on the tile.

“When are you going to learn?” Abraham whispered, and I was happy to hear a catch in his voice. The stun gun had done something, anyway. “This isn’t good versus evil, Lucy. This is just nature. This is the way it should be. And you… well, shouldn’t. I only—”

Wham. Abraham staggered, and turned around. I glanced up to see Zack, still wearing that hilarious paper gown, on his feet behind Abraham with a badly-bent IV stand in his hand. Apparently Zack had hoped his swing-for-the-fences strike would have a little more effect. His face twisted in disappointment.

“Son of a bitch,” Zack said, and tried to swing again. Abraham raised a thin arm and deflected the blow. His other arm swung around and hit Zack so hard I thought his neck broke. Zack’s nose exploded in blood, and he staggered. The pole hit the ground with a ring, and Zack tumbled to the floor. He didn’t move.

“No,” I screamed, and felt a wave of heat tingle up my arms. I didn’t even try to stop it. A blast of invisible force struck Abraham in the chest and flung him against the wall. Some part of me—some still-thinking part of me, outside of the curtain of red rage, made the effort to use that same power to push Zack down the hall, away from us, away from danger. His unconscious body slid a good thirty feet before coming to rest—gently—at the foot of a wall.

I stood up, and Abraham fought to escape the power holding him against the wall. His feet dangled a foot off the ground. I approached him, feeling waves of heat leech away. I knew I couldn’t keep this up long without burning every ounce of juice I had. Abraham’s thin, too-powerful arms corded and pushed against the invisible bonds.

My last chance.

Tears were sliding down my eyes, and I wasn’t sure why. But I leaned forward and pressed my lips against Abraham’s. They were hot—blistering. I opened my mouth, and so did he, out of instinct or fear or…who knows. I took a gigantic, chest-creaking breath and tried to drain him dry.

I’ve never been hit with a truck…but I imagine it wouldn’t have felt too different. A blast of lung-searing heat scooped into me, but it wasn’t the usual batch of essence. It filled me, and as I drew it in I realized my mistake. Abraham…the Mors…wasn’t human. He didn’t have essence to steal from. Or if he did…he had an unlimited supply. He was a conduit for it. As I tried to drain him, I felt an even more intense version of the happy-drug he exuded from his body. My legs wobbled, and a sudden blast of cold sliding up my spine told me I’d lost—his weird light was stealing mine. I began to crumple. I could feel him, along the edge of my peripheral vision, breaking free of the force holding him to the wall.

I triggered the stun gun. It wasn’t much—just a finger twitch—but the half-second of shock made Abraham twitch. I threw myself away from him, but he grabbed my wrist and twisted hard. My bones shattered, and I shrieked in agony. He pulled the stun gun from my hand and with a look of unmistakable satisfaction shoved the metal fangs into my neck and pulled the trigger.

My muscles twisted, and I had no air to scream. I jerked and bobbled in his grip, feeling the stun gun dump into me and turn my body into jelly. After what felt like an eternity, he stopped, and he let me fall to the ground.

“Stupid bitch,” Abraham growled. He wiped his hand across his mouth. “How’s that feel? Fun, huh?”

I tried to crawl away, but the combination of the stun gun and the suddenly biting cold made my body control go to hell. I managed to wiggle a little and slide away from him, but he just laughed bitterly, leaned down, and stabbed my hip with the stun gun. He zapped me again, the tac-tac-tac noise drowning out my whimpers. I writhed, but my body wasn’t my own. I didn’t stop until he let up.

I couldn’t sigh or move or talk, but when he looked at the stun gun in disdain and threw it down the hallway I felt a tiny measure of relief.

Abraham raised his leg and stomped on my outstretched arm. My elbow shattered, and this time I had the strength to scream. I rolled, but now both of my arms were useless. My left wrist broken, my right elbow shattered, I cradled them both to my chest, unable to stop the tears from rolling down my face.

“You… b….”

I tried to curse him between sobs, but I didn’t have the strength. An arctic wind blew across my body, and I knew I didn’t have long. This wasn’t going to be it, I decided, as I pushed myself across the tile with only my toes. Abraham stalked behind me, watching me try to escape with amused eyes.

Then he paused and seemed to gain his composure.

I pushed my head up against a door near me, and another shove of my toes pushed me through. I glanced up…I could see Morgan’s outstretched arm. She hadn’t woken up yet. I pulled my head up a little…Zack lay motionless where I had pushed him.

“This is it,” Abraham said. He crouched down next to me, and I tried to tug my cheek away from his outstretched hand. I sobbed as his hot finger ran down my cheek. “I got a little… carried away. I’m sorry. I didn’t…”

He looked down at my arms with genuine pity. I tried to spit at him, but I didn’t have enough.

“Just do it…” I whispered.

He dropped to one knee and began to pulse with that white light.

Euphoria slipped over me like a comforting blanket. His body, throbbing with light, cut a lean silhouette against the fluorescents in the ceiling. He covered my eyes with his hand, and the throbbing in my useless arms subsided. He leaned down, and his breath brushed my cheek.

“Goodbye,” he said.

I grabbed a handful of his lab coat with my grasping fingers and… we… flipped.

The world swirled away, and we landed hard on what had to be a rooftop. I could see the black tar of the roof, feel it underneath me. Around us, below us, the grey landscape rolled on. We were in the city…I could even see the train station, with its huge rusted spider crouched over the hub of three or four sets of rust-red tracks. Dilapidated buildings leaned in to the cracked streets.

A small shack sat on the rooftop—it took me a second to realize it was the stairwell down. A half-shattered wooden door hung twisted on bent hinges, revealing a triangle of shadow leading down into the building.

Above me, Abraham crouched, a freakishly long and lanky human-shaped white light. The grey clouds above him roiled, like a storm, shot through with flashes, pregnant with lightning.

Abraham looked down at me, just a monster made of light, and shook his head.

“Here,” I whispered, my body almost empty, wasted. The biting cold left me, but there was no warmth to take its place. I felt the bones crunch in my twisted wrist, and my elbow felt like it had been dipped in smoldering glass. I offered Abraham’s inscrutable glowing face a thin smile. “Here, you’re the freak.”

I emptied the last of my reserves. Behind me, all the way across the roof, the broken door ripped from its hinges, spun to correct itself, and flew at Abraham.

Part of it smashed into his chest. A long splinter of wood the size of a hockey stick broke off the side and impaled him through the stomach. The glowing figure lurched sideways, clutched at the spear of wood, and crumpled to the ground. No scream. No metal-tearing shriek. He landed on the ground next to me.

I was empty. I felt light… maybe what dying felt like. I’m not sure—I sort of screwed it up the first time. But I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and let it fade. Darkness swept over me, for a while.

Chapter Nineteen

Murder

My eyes popped open.

The grey storm clouds still swirled above me. I turned my head, slowly, feeling a bit more substantial. Like I might not just float away. Abraham’s lanky body still lay beside me, but it was moving. Wiggling. Still pulsing with that white light. Somehow dimmer.

I don’t know how I still lived…existed. I guess there, in the Grey, we have nowhere else to go. Maybe we couldn’t use enough juice to die. Something there sustained me—I knew that—the aching cold always disappeared, temporarily, when I went there. It was there, in the other place, the real place, that we had to burn so hot to stay alive. I let out a long slow breath and turned back to the Abraham-monster.

“I think I know how to beat you,” I said, finally. The solution had occurred to me only as my eyes opened. Something Puck had written, without even knowing it.

How is that? A voice floated to me, maybe in my head, maybe not. It sounded tired. Abraham’s real voice, probably.

“Can I ask a question?”

The impaled, glowing form shook, and I marveled. It was unmistakably a laugh.

I’m not going anywhere.

“Were you going to kill me?” I asked him. Lying beside each other, broken, without the strength to stand, we made quite a pair.

Can’t kill the dead.

“What is it then?”

We remove you. We undo the damage you’ve done.

“Where do I go?”

Nowhere. You cease to be.

I didn’t talk, for a long while.

“What about my soul?” I felt childish asking it, but nothing had ever seemed so important.

Another long pause. Finally, the white-glowing form turned its featureless face toward the sky.

Haven’t figured it out? You are your soul. Naked. A light bulb filament without the glass. Burning so hot and so bright because it can’t not. It burns or it ceases to be—like you.

He sounded sad—I’ll give him that.

“But…why?”

Some people with great willpower who die in times of happiness…you couldn’t accept your death. And so you traded your soul. You used it…to live. Now, you take the bits of other souls to sustain yours. Fuel for the fire. And your’s is an inferno.

“If I die? If I…fade away?”

You’re gone.

“Heaven? Hell? Whatever?”

Not for you. Where does a burned up leaf go? The air, maybe. Maybe nowhere.

I closed my eyes.

“What are you? You sent by…God or something? You an Angel of Death, Abe?” I whispered, unable to disguise the wry laughter in my voice. I watched the brewing storm far above us with little interest.

I don’t know. I was killed by one like you…forty years ago. I was his first murder. I think that’s how it works.

“Puck?”

No. Life isn’t that interesting.

“This is revenge?”

It’s…my duty. My job.

I covered my eyes and let out a long slow breath. My cheeks were slick with tears. My breath came in hitches and jerks.

“I’m going to kill you now, Abraham,” I said.

I wouldn’t tell you these things if I thought differently.

I reached over and touched his hand. I jumped a little—his fingers curled around mine, like two lovers holding hands. I took a deep breath and flipped us.

Bright florescent light pierced my eyes, and I took a deep breath. Ice flooded into my lungs, and I jerked. It covered me, penetrated me. Defined me. I glanced down, not surprised to see my feet and calves had already faded. My thighs were turning transparent. I held up my arms…gone up to the elbows. No wonder they didn’t hurt so much. I laughed a sardonic, depressing chuckle. An upside?

Maybe I wasn’t gonna kill anybody. Maybe it was over.

I turned my head to the side. Human-looking Abraham lay beside me, his once white lab coat scarlet with blood. A wooden spike the size of a baseball bat stuck out of his stomach, and one of his long-fingered hands held it, cradling it like a baby. The other hand lay motionless beside mine…as soon as we had flipped over, he’d let go of my hand. He stared up at the ceiling, his skin paler than normal. He took shallow, raspy breaths. They were, I noticed, becoming stronger.

“Abe,” I whispered. “Maybe you win after all.”

Abe said nothing. I don’t think he had the strength.

We breathed beside one another, mine growing fainter, his stronger. I tried to move or crawl, but I didn’t have the limbs or the solidity. I looked up at the ceiling—I lacked the courage to watch my body disappear. Or my soul, I guess, if anything Abraham had told me was true. I think it was.

I’d never been a religious person. I guess being religious wasn’t terribly cool, and had gone out-of-fashion. But I’d thought about things. I’d thought about what happened at the end. The very end. Everyone does, once in a while, I suppose. We have to. At some point, we have to tangle with Death. The first bout is just a thumb wrestle—a question from a child.

Mommy, what happens when we die?

Not a fun question for mommies around the world. I remember when I’d asked my mom that very same question. I asked her with tears streaming down my eyes yet in a calm voice. I’d come from my talk with Dad about Scooter, our little beagle that had been run over by an old lady in a Volkswagen. He told me that Scooter had passed away—that he wasn’t around anymore. I thought that was a funny way of explaining that my little puppy, who licked the stray barbecue sauce off my face like it was communion, was now a red trail of guts thirty-feet long down Thistle Street.

Mommy told me that Scooter the Beagle had gone to Doggy Heaven. That he could play all day with all the other white-robed, ghost puppies, and never had to take a bath or go to the groomers or go to the vet ever again. That he could just chill out.

“Doggy Heaven sounds nice, Mommy,” I said to her, wiping the cold, used tears from my cheeks. “But it sounds kinda smelly.”

She said it was, and that all the Doggy Angels preferred it that way. That made sense, I thought. Scooter always did have his cute little nose jammed in the worst substances he could find.

I didn’t need any more explaining beyond that. If doggies went to Doggy Heaven, little girls went to Little Girl Heaven. There weren’t any mean boys in Little Girl Heaven, and there definitely wasn’t homework or chores or broccoli. The idea worked for me—I guess it works for all of us. It lends life a pleasant symmetry.

My idea of Heaven evolved, as I did. Suddenly maybe Little Girl Heaven had a few boys in it, the right kind, anyway. Okay, maybe it had a lot of boys in it. The homework and the chores thing pretty much stayed the same. It wasn’t a place I thought about often. I don’t think many fifteen-year-olds think of Heaven very often. Death doesn’t even have your address when you’re fifteen. Or at least, it only has the address of a small, unfortunate group. The rest of us float along, wrapped in a forgivable sense of immortality.

But I always knew I’d go there, when all was said and done. That God or the Force or the Flying Spaghetti Monster could forgive the little transgressions and find a spot for me. He’d wag his finger at the time I’d stolen a Twix bar from the Food Mart. Or the time I’d punched Bobby Petrino in the nose for calling me a Cootie-Factory. He was mean, and he deserved it, and I felt the allegation to be a serious, slanderous one.

He’d wag his finger, but the Pearly Gates weren’t padlocked.

I guess they were now. I didn’t have Little Girl Heaven…I didn’t even have Doggy Heaven—which I always secretly hoped was right next door to Little Girl Heaven, and that there was some kind of policy on visitation rights.

Now I’d fade away. I’d cease to be. Forever.

I felt colder than I’d ever felt before.

“Please.”

That’s all I said. I didn’t have any more breath. I didn’t have lungs to draw more—they were gone. I was gone.

My eyes began to go dark, even though they were open. I felt like I had been floating on top of a swimming pool, and I was slowly…sinking…down.

…

…

“Lucy,” a voice said. It sounded warm. Loving. Maybe there was someone above…someone who—

“Lucy…no…please.”

That didn’t sound right. Floating in blackness, made of blackness, the sound faded. The voice did too.

“I love you, Lucy. Please…please just…stop.”

Dark.

Oblivi—

“Fuck it,” the voice said.

I felt warmth at first. A soft but balmy breeze, caressing dry skin.

Then it poured over me, like hot molasses. Thick and powerful and warm. Engulfing me and blasting away the darkness with a blinding ray of white hot light.

I could see the ceiling above me—the white spongy ceiling tiles and the florescent tubes. I felt something pressed against me, burning like a bonfire. It flowed through me, and it felt like some drug had begun to wear off. Hands came alive, and I felt my fingers flex on their own. The shattered bones in my wrist and elbow corrected themselves with little painful pops, glorious pops, for even pain felt like…felt like feeling.

The warmth penetrated me, burning my core and blasting away every ounce of the grave’s paralyzing chill. It was only when I sucked in a hot breath that my lips came alive.

There were lips pressed against mine. They had been gentle at first, but now they parted, and mine did, too.

Zack.

I looked up at him, his tanned—but bruised—face. His azure eyes were closed, but I pictured them anyway. I felt my body respond to the kiss, and it found a comfortable, complimentary shape to his. We fit together. We always would have, if I had been smart enough to act.

If I had just told her how I felt. If I had just…been a man. If I had just ignored my stupid friends and my stupid cowardice and walked over to her and said…I love you, Lucy Day. Or hell even…Go to the movies with me, Lucy Day. Hold my damn hand, Lucy Day. If I could have just told her. If I had told her a year ago. If I had grabbed her and kissed her and explained that there was no good reason we shouldn’t be together.

The way she smiled that goofy, unabashed smile. Like a little girl, without conscious effort to smile right. The way her eyes flashed when she made a joke. Hell, the way she always put her pencil behind her ear, forgot about it, and then asked if she could borrow mine.

And as I kissed her, as I felt her begin to solidify… My Ghost-Girl. The girl I’d…

Oh God.

Zack folded up suddenly, and pulled his face away from mine. I, me, Lucy flashed out of my stupor of borrowed thoughts and dreams and blazing heat…Oh God.

Zack had never been so pale…no person I’d ever seen had been so pale. Blue veins glowed through his paper-thin skin, and his eyes were a pale powder blue. He gasped for air, his face twisted in a rictus of pain. Then he fell backward and crumpled against the wall.

I touched my lips…and pulled my fingers away fast. They felt like stove burners cranked high. My whole body thrummed. I could feel sweat beading all over my skin. A runnel of perspiration slid down my back. I looked at the still, crumpled form and felt my mind shut down.

Zack.

I crawled to his side and put my hand on his chest. It pushed against my fingers, but only just. Like my dad had been, only ten times worse. Alive but…cold. Drained.

“Lucy…”

I snapped my head over my shoulder. Abraham jerked, coughed loudly, and pulled the huge splinter of wood out of his stomach. He tossed it across the floor. It left a little streak of blood on the tile.

I stood up. The hole in his stomach…wasn’t. Just a hole in his shirt now, showing a bare patch of bloody but intact skin. He began to stand, too. His eyes burned with anger.

I pulled off my jacket—it felt like a hundred and twenty degrees in that room—and tossed it over Morgan’s unmoving legs. I took a deep breath, looked down at the still form of my boyfriend, then up at Abraham.

“You killed him,” Abraham said.

“No I didn’t.”

“You will.”

I closed my eyes. I thought of Puck, then I thought of his journal. I thought of Isabelle, his Mors. And then how Puck had filled with rage. He thought of his little darling daughter, dying in his arms. A little daughter named Lucy—maybe life was that interesting—who had swelled up and died with nothing to save her. Of Puck’s darling Olivia at his feet. And how he had destroyed Isabelle.

The memories. His memories.

Abraham couldn’t be drained of essence. He was overflowing with it…he was a factory of it. And now, I was too. I could feel Zack in every molecule of my body, in every hair and drop of blood. His love for me. It burned like molten steel in my belly. It made the air around me vibrate.

Abraham couldn’t be emptied. But he could be overloaded.

Abraham began to pulse, trying to pour his poisoned essence into the air around him. I leaped at him, grabbed him by the chest, and thought of Zack. Or more, I thought what Zack thought. What he felt. The inferno he had dumped into me.

Light welled around my fingers, blue light. Azure, the color of Zack’s eyes. It went supernova through my fingers, pouring through me, ripping into Abraham. Filling him. Overflowing him.

It went quick. A sharp pulse of white light. Black smoke, thick and acrid, leaked out of his wide screaming mouth and the corners of his bright-white eyes. Another flash, too bright, and I shut my eyes against the intensity.

His weight slumped in my arms.

I opened my eyes.

The thin, black-haired man was gone. His face was riddled with wrinkles, and his hair had gone stark white. He was even more slender than he had been, and it didn’t take much effort to hold him up. The real Abraham, I realized. What Abraham would have been, if some Phantom hadn’t drained him to death fifty years ago.

Whatever power that had made him a Mors was gone. I didn’t know what he was…but he wasn’t that. I felt no sense of icy-fear spiking up my back. I felt nothing. Just pity. I let him go, and he stumbled back. His eyes were open, watery and red, as he slid down the wall.

I fell to one knee. Whatever Zack had given me…was mostly gone. I felt a cool breeze over my skin. I’d experienced worse. I moved to Zack’s side. I moved to kiss his forehead…and stopped. I settled for touching his cheek.

“Zack?”

I tried to suppress panic.

“Zack…please wake up.”

I heard a noise behind me. I turned around. Old, withered Abraham was on his feet. He had a scalpel clutched in his hand, and his face glowed with hatred. I sucked in a breath, but that was all. It was too fast. Too fast to stop him. He was too close. I threw myself in front of Zack.

Blam.

Blam. Blam.

The tiny room exploded with noise. It pierced my head, filling my ears with cotton and my head with ringing.

I looked up. Abraham clutched his chest, half-turned, and crashed over an instrument cart and down to the ground. I looked for the source of the gunshots…the source of the sulfur smell stinging my nostrils.

I looked up at my savior.

Morgan. Sitting up in her bed, the sleeve of my coat in one hand, Ophelia’s black revolver in the other. The revolver I’d picked up from the hallway table and hidden in my coat. The one with the silver bullets.

The last resort.

The gun fell from her fingertips. She covered her face with her hands.

The air rippled a little, and my ears popped, like I was descending from a high altitude. Abraham’s last bubble of fascination died. Whatever was keeping this a private show died with him.

The door of the room swung open, and the world poured in.

Chapter Twenty

Broke

“So what happened?”

“Um. Well. The door flew open. Officer Sykes, you met him—”

“Last week, I remember.”

“Right, yup. Officer Sykes and two other cops threw the door open. They had their guns out…all that stuff. It didn’t matter. Abraham…that man. Morgan shot him, with his own gun. He’d left it on the hospital bed. I guess…I guess he put a lot of faith in the drugs he was pumping into Morgan and Zack.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Marian Crane said, tapping a pad of paper lightly with the back of her pen. She wasn’t facing me. She never faced me when I was talking. Just stared at the blank wall to the left of her desk. Like there were subtitles there or something, “Then what?”

“Then the cops checked that we were all okay. Morgan was groggy…still is a little messed up actually, from the coma. They said she’ll be okay, the doctors. Just a side effect of the barbiturates. Zack is, uh, Zack’s, you know. He was fine.”

“Are you okay?” she asked me, not terribly concerned-sounding.

“Yeah, sorry. Just a catch. Um, he had gone into shock, after being knocked out by Abraham. But he’s okay too. Then, they took us out of the room. All of our parents were there. Even my dad, who—”

“Abraham had drugged?” she interrupted.

“Attacked, actually,” I said. “Abraham had attacked my dad in the parking lot. Apparently Dad can’t remember. Head injury.”

I tried to keep my voice steady. My dad had been just fine. Shaky, confused, with no memory of running into me. But just fine. A miracle.

“Right, right,” Crane said. “How were your parents?”

“Very…grateful. And very parent-y. They sort of took turns hugging me or holding me the rest of the night. Mom even slept in my bed that night. Pretty funny, huh?”

Crane shrugged. Apparently not funny.

“And Morgan’s mom was there,” I said. “And her boyfriend. Morgan’s mom’s boyfriend, I mean, Morgan doesn’t—”

“Right, right,” Crane said again. “What happened with the police?”

“They asked my story,” I said. “When everything had settled. I told them what I told you. The old man…Abraham, had pulled up a car outside of Benny’s house—”

“Ben Krakowski? The boy who threw the party?”

I nodded sharply, a little annoyed at her interruptions. “Yeah. The old man pulled up in a car outside of Benny’s. He seemed kinda weird, but harmless. He came out and asked us how to get to the 91. Then he hit Zack in the head with something in his hand. Grabbed him. Said if me and Morgan didn’t get in the car he’d kill Zack. He drugged us…I guess he left Zack and Morgan, left them on the lawn. Then he, uh, he took me.”

I folded my hands over my lap. I plucked at my skirt, trying to make it settle properly across my knees.

“Right, right,” Crane said. She fiddled with the silver comb holding her hair up in a loose bun. “Then he drugged you?”

“Mmm-hmm,” I said.

“How do you feel now? Any after-effects?”

I frowned a little at her, but she wasn’t looking. Kept staring at that spot on the wall.

“No, fine, thanks,” I said.

“How’d you get into the hospital? In Morgan’s room?”

I took a shallow breath. “Well. I woke up in Abraham’s car. It was in the parking lot. I guess he was crazy enough to come back again and try to check on Zack and Morgan. I guess he had to…admire his work or something. Anyway I woke up and went in.”

“And you remember nothing? Where he took you, while you were drugged?”

“No.”

“Did he—?”

“No.”

“I assume the police. They sometimes collect evidence—”

“No. They asked. I told them no. I don’t feel like—nothing had changed. He hadn’t done anything to me.”

Crane paused for a long time. I stared at her plump but attractive face, trying to read some sign of emotion. She and Officer Sykes would have gotten along well, I realized. Probably did, during their robot maintenance sessions.

“You’re a very lucky and unlucky girl, Ms. Day. Anyone ever tell you that?”

“What do you mean?”

“Attacked, twice in two weeks,” she said, and ticked off a finger. “Two unrelated incidents. Unlucky. But you made it through both okay. With barely a scratch to show for it. Lucky.”

I frowned.

“What are you saying?”

“What do you think I’m saying?”

Ugh. Maddening.

“I really don’t know,” I said.

In the distance, muffled by a couple doors, I heard the loud electronic beep of the bell. Looks like my head shrinking would have to wait until tomorrow. Crane turned to face me. She smiled, stood up, and held her hand out. I reached forward and shook it, lightly. I tried to turn, but she didn’t let go. She didn’t tug or grab my hand—she held just enough that I’d have to yank my hand and look like a freak to get away.

“Do you understand why I’m asking you these questions?”

“To help me…express myself?”

“In a way,” she said. “I’m trying to get you to slip up. You’re a fine liar, Lucy Day, but you’re not one of the greats. You’re going to slip up—your stories don’t make that much sense to begin with.”

I drew up. I pressed my lips into a thin line.

“Then what?” I asked her, coldly. “I’m in trouble, huh?”

“No,” Crane said, and unbelievably, gave me a little tight smile. “Then you’ll start telling the truth. And then, only then, will you finally be out of trouble. Do you understand?”

I cleared my throat. I let out a sigh. She let go of my hand. I picked up my backpack, slung it over my shoulder, and headed for the door.

“Goodbye, Ms. Crane.”

“Goodbye, Ms. Day.”

I walked out of her office, out of the counseling center, and into the chilly winter air. The sun, high in the sky, tried its best to shine through the thick layer of gray clouds. It reminded me of somewhere else. A place even more Grey. I shivered, and pulled my jacket tighter around me.

My meetings with Ms. Crane had started up again, the Monday I had come back. Just a little vacation, I thought. Just a day to recover from the nightmare. I’d spent all of it at home—no surprise there. Mom and Dad wouldn’t even let me in a room alone, much less go out anywhere. I don’t know if I was grounded—it wasn’t malicious enough to be called that. I was…umbilicaled.

My meeting with Crane—Wednesday, had been scheduled for sixth period. I’d missed Math…oh no. However will I make it through the day?

That thought brightened up my day considerably. Crane’s pointed questions, not so much. There wasn’t much I could do to get her off my back. I’d just endure it, I guess, until she got bored and gave up. Part of me thought that might take a while.

Morgan found me in a matter of minutes. Walking—slowly—toward the parking lot, doing my best to linger, I saw her jog around the corner of the portables, from the gym. She had a jacket on, too. It was nice to know the cold wasn’t just—well, wasn’t something else.

“Hey,” she said, and slowed down. She walked the last ten feet to me.

“How was volleyball?”

“Eh,” she said. “I think I’m gonna quit soon.”

I nodded. It should have surprised me, but it didn’t. Ever since Friday she had looked terrible. Her eyes were dark and sunken, like she hadn’t had much sleep. Her skin pasty, a little greasy. Her usually coiffed hair instead pulled into a tight ponytail behind her. A little dingy looking. Haunted.

“Sorry,” I said, and I wasn’t talking about volleyball. I’d probably apologized to her a hundred times. I still wasn’t sure what I was apologizing for.

She shrugged.

“How was Crane?”

“Nancy Drew would be proud.”

“That’s not good,” she said, softly.

“It’s over,” I insisted. “Over.”

We walked on, and near the gate to the parking lot, I saw Wanda and Daphne and Sara, waving to me. Morgan held a hand up, and I did the same. They glanced at each other, as if debating something. Then they waved again and walked off. They hadn’t exactly been avoiding us…I hoped they were just giving us a little space.

“How’s your mom?”

Morgan shrugged. “I thought she would freak worse…I went to a party while I was grounded.”

“Yeah, well, mortal peril does wonders on the mother-daughter relationship. I highly recommend it.”

She laughed a little at that. That little laugh gave me some hope. For us. For her.

“How’s Zack?”

I rubbed my face. “I don’t know. He’s been…distant. Really weird. Like—”

“Stop.”

“What?”

Morgan looked behind me, hard. My eyes popped open, and I rotated on my heel. Zack. Jogging toward us. Morgan tapped me on the shoulder, waved to Zack, and walked off toward my mom’s car. I waited for Zack to approach me, trying not to burst into a terrified run in the opposite direction.

“Hey, Luce,” he said, and slowed down.

“Hi,” I said.

“Would it be possible to meet you somewhere? Tonight, I mean?”

I glanced toward my mom’s car.

“I really doubt it. Not the way they’ve been.”

“Nowhere? Not for coffee or…anything?”

I clutched my hands together.

“I don’t—”

“It’s…important.”

“How important?” I said, trying to be playful. I failed miserably.

“Very. The most.”

I looked toward my mom’s car again. The Goblin mobile.

“I’ll try,” I said. “I’ll call you.”

Zack nodded, turned, and walked off again. Not a word. Not a goodbye. He looked nervous…not half as nervous as I felt. My body was buzzing with electricity. The walk to my car took forever, or no time at all.

We went home. Mom followed me from the living room, up to my room—she helped me find clothes to change into. Luckily she didn’t follow me into the bathroom—I washed my face—but she was right there, sitting on my bed pretending to rifle through a copy of Bust magazine. She escorted me downstairs, then into the kitchen, where she made me sit down while she fixed me an after school snack.

I didn’t think much. I couldn’t. Because my thoughts were for Zack, and they were jumbled, nerve-wracking, and poison-tipped. I knew they would take me down if I let them. If I tried to guess or speculate or wonder. Or think. Thinking was the worst.

Mom handed me a paper plate with a peanut butter and honey sandwich on it. She sat down next to me with an identical sandwich. She asked me about my day, and I told her enough boring things to make her stop asking. I wasn’t hungry, which was no surprise nowadays, but I devoured the sandwich quickly. The trick I’d learned from Puck seemed to be helping—the more I forced myself to eat, the more I showered, the more I went to the bathroom when I didn’t have to, the slower I burned away. Mundane anchors, props for pretending.

Other than stealing a little sorrow from Mom and Dad, something I hoped was a blessing, I’d lived mostly off the residual heat from Zack. Maybe I can do this, I thought. Maybe I can nip and peck. Maybe I can make it.

I went into the living room to find something on TV—with Mom—and plopped into the cushions with wild abandon. Halfway through an old episode of 30 Rock my cellphone beeped. I glanced at my Mom—she looked at me with terror disguised as good-natured curiosity. I took my cellphone out and wasn’t surprised to see Zack’s name. I punched ignore. I put the phone back in my pocket.

“Well?” Mom asked.

“Well,” I said, and took a deep breath.

“What?”

“I kind of need to know the limits of our arrangement here.”

“We have an arrangement?” Mom asked her eyes wide with fake-innocence.

“I need to know what it would take to meet Zack for coffee somewhere.”

Mom’s lips twisted.

About forty-five minutes later, I walked up the handicap ramp toward the front of the Starbucks just down the street. It wasn’t hard to find Zack—I spotted him through the window. Hell, I didn’t even need to use my eyes to find him anymore. Part of him still lived in me, just a gentle banked coal now, but still there. I went inside, took a brief stop at the counter to order a drink that was more dessert than coffee, and then sat down across from Zack at a little square table. The Starbucks was blissfully empty. Probably a first.

Zack gave a little, strained smile, and glanced out the window. He looked back at me and shook his head.

“That’s your arrangement?”

I followed his gaze out the window. My dad’s car was parked just outside of the coffee shop—I could barely make out the faces of Mom and Dad, staring at us through the windshield. I turned to Zack, my lips turned in a playful smirk.

“What?”

He shook his head and snorted. “Nothing. Makes perfect sense, actually.”

We talked a little, about nothing. Well, maybe not nothing—comparing the lies we’d told the cops, which had been pretty damn close without even having to coach each other. And what had happened with our parents. Zack’s father had berated him for the better part of a day about handling situations like old crazy guys in cars, but after that had become almost as smotheringly defensive as my parents.

We didn’t talk about Abraham. We didn’t talk about the Grey Meadows. We didn’t talk about Puck—who I had seen only briefly since, standing outside of the hospital as my parents were taking me home. He was fine, just a long silhouette in the shadows of a tree, one tweed-clad arm raised in a half-wave. That vivid red scarf at his neck, whipping in the gentle breeze, the outline of his crazy static-shocked hair glowing with the dim yellow arc-sodium light. A smile on his face, both happy and sad. Reserved.

We didn’t talk about what happened in the train, while I was recruiting Ophelia. I’d spoken with Morgan already about that, and she’d told me a horrible story about their train, surrounded and under siege by those twisted, jerking corpses. They pounded and moaned and whispered things…Morgan barely got through the story. She’d told me that something in Abraham’s light, when he’d tried to erase me, had revivified Zack. And her, too, when we moved to her room. At least, that had been Puck’s explanation.

Our small talk expended, Zack stared at me across the table, I couldn’t help but shift uncomfortably under the gaze.

I couldn’t bear the wait. He wasn’t speaking, and his eyes drifted between mine and the table in front of him. Finally I reached across the table, my staked-out parents be damned, and squeezed his hand.

He flinched. I let go.

“What’s going on?” I asked him. I felt a hitch in my throat.

He looked down at the table.

“I had to see you,” he said. “In person.”

I felt the color run out of my face, and I felt a cold trickle drip into my stomach. His face, so handsome, yet pale and drawn. He looked like a man about to vomit, or maybe one who just had.

“I—”

“What is this?” I asked him. He was beginning to blur. The entire Starbucks was beginning to blur.

“I don’t know,” he said. “When I woke up in the hospital room—”

“That’s over,” I said. I tightened my jaw. I tried to swallow, but it was like downing a fistful of dry crackers, “Stop. That’s over now. All of that is over—”

“It’s not that…it’s not what happened. It’s not Abraham or post-traumatic stress or fear or anything like that—”

“How do you know?” I asked him. I blinked, trying to clear away the sudden blur. “It’s only been a few days.”

Zack took a deep breath. His eyes hadn’t left the table. He hunched forward, like he was exhausted. His shoulders were rounded, his arms tucked in. He smelled good. I could smell him from across the table. It made it worse.

“I—something changed. I look at you,” he said, though he didn’t. “And I see you. You’re still beautiful, you still crinkle your forehead when you’re thinking…still smile—”

“—like a little girl?” I prompted, and he nodded, a tiny heartbreaking smile tugging the corner of his lips.

“You’re funny and smart and perfect,” he said. I closed my eyes. “But I don’t…I can’t feel you anymore. It’s like looking at picture—like you’re not there.”

“Because…because of—”

“No,” he said. “It’s not what happened to you. More like, what happened to me. I— I’m sorry.”

“Are you saying you feel nothing?” I said. The barest breath, like someone whispering two tables down. I opened my eyes but I couldn’t see anything but wet shapes.

Zack said nothing. He folded his hands on the table, right over the spot he was staring at. He wasn’t crying. He looked upset, and terrified, and guilty but—he wasn’t shaking. Not like I was. Not shivering, not clutching my own hands. Not on the edge of a hysteria I couldn’t control. Not like the floor had just dropped out.

“I’ve never been kissed like how you kissed me that day,” I said, suddenly, pathetically. My voice sounded stretched, tinny, weak. “That wasn’t nothing. You’re goddamn kiss brought me back from the dead.”

Zack shifted in his seat.

“I loved you that day, Lucy,” Zack said, in the barest whisper. “I don’t think I’ll ever love anything like I loved you that day.”

Zack closed his eyes.

“What about today?” I asked him. I didn’t have to.

“Lucy—”

“What about today, Zack?” I said, louder. A few of the employees turned our way, and Zack shifted again. Good. Great. I hoped the world could hear me.

“Please. I don’t want—”

“What. About. Today. Zack?”

Zack shook his head. He looked up at me, and his face raged more than I gave him credit. His eyes shined with tears, making them look even more like lapis lazuli, and his lips were thin and pale. He locked my eyes with his and would not let go. In those eyes, I saw pity, and remorse, and fear, and guilt. But not sadness. Not gut wrenching loss. He sucked in a breath. It caught in his throat.

“Nothing.”

I stood up, slowly, and everything seemed louder, and brighter. My chair scraped across the tile floor, and it could have been an entire desk being dragged. I could hear strained whispering behind the counter. The light from outside dazzled me.

When I saw just how badly my hands were shaking, I tucked them into the pockets of my jacket. I looked down at Zack. He looked up at me.

“Please, Luce, don’t go.”

I felt my body convulse in a sob, and I touched my lips to hold it in. I wasn’t going to do this. Not there. I wasn’t going to break down. I growled, low in my throat, trying to find some well of resolve or willpower or strength, inside of me. I dug deep for sterner stuff, even as it felt like my guts were shriveling away.

Zack felt nothing for me.

I turned and walked out the door, as gently as I could, as deliberately as I could. I watched my hand, still shaking, unfold from the jacket pocket, reach forward, and grasp the door handle—a robotic gesture, the movement stilted, unnatural. I opened the door and walked, step by step, to the car. I thought only of my feet moving, of my steps carrying me away.

I touched the handle of the car. I opened it. I sat down in the car. I put on my seatbelt. I looked up when Mom asked me a question. I answered it with a lie. My dad asked the same question, and I answered it with a lie. I told them I wanted to go home. They took me home.

I walked in the door. I walked up the stairs. I told my Mother I would sit alone for a while. I closed my door. I looked across the room, at my dresser. There were three pictures on my dresser. One was last year, at the beach. It was me and Zack and Morgan and Daphne in bathing suits. Zack was pretending to cringe in terror while Daphne and Morgan and I pretended to hit him with giant Day-Glo Fun Noodles.

I thought about Zack. I thought about the little nugget of heat still in my belly, the one that belonged to him. The last glowing piece of what I’d taken. Of what had broken me today. Of what Zack would never feel, or have, or know again.

I took that tiny spark of what could have been, of what had been, of everything Zack felt for me, all that was left after using it to destroy Abraham. I took it and reached out, toward the picture of the four of us. The frame cracked under an invisible hand, then glass exploded over the dresser and onto the floor. The metal twisted and jerked, squeezing into a little ball. I kept pushing, kept squeezing, kept folding the silver frame in until it was no bigger than a golf ball. And inside it, crushed and squeezed and obliterated was, I knew, that picture. The ball lifted off the dresser and flew into my hand.

That little coal in my belly was gone.

I wished I could dump myself out. I fell onto my bed, and I cried myself into oblivion. I let them come out. I thought of every kiss and ever shy touch and every smile and every time he held me and everything he said to me. I thought of the times he’d saved my life, and the times I’d saved his, and the way his smile made my stomach feel.

Eventually, when I was all used up, when my body shook with tiny after-shocks, I fell asleep.

My first time, since I’d died.

I didn’t wake up until morning.

Interlude

Goodfellow

My eyes came open. Sunlight streamed through the window above my head, a bright band of blinding light. Grogginess—I’d almost forgot what that was like. I rubbed sleep out of my eyes and sat up slowly. I had one thing to do, before I tried my best to tackle a future without him. Without Zack.

The thought resounded inside of me, like a scream at the bottom of a well. I pushed it away, because there was something more important.

There was one person I had to thank.

I showered and dug through my closet for the girliest sundress I could find. It turned out to be a cornea-burning shade of yellow, complete with a print of white flowers and vines. I put on a pair of sandals, and slipped a white cardigan over my shoulders. I put my hair half-up and half-down, with a thin braid extending from each of my temples to tie together behind my head.

I put on light make-up, outdoor make-up, just enough to round me out. I looked at myself in the mirror and managed to find something like a smile. Look at that, Lucy Day. Just like a real girl.

I dug through a chest in my closet, filled to the brim with jewelry I never used anymore. I found what I was looking for, and ran to my picture drawer. A few bits of glue and some scissors later, and I was ready. I stood in the center of the room, closed my eyes, and flipped.

Beach sounds, first. Waves committing suicide against the sand, over and over, an endless parade. The cold wind of the ocean, slicing across my skin like a razor. The out-of-place beach party smoke smell. I opened my eyes, and I wish I could say I was surprised to see him.

He stood in the waves, just at the edge, his brown slacks rolled up above his knees. The grey ocean licked at his bare feet. One hand cradled a pile of white seashells, and his ancient, lined face was tilted down toward them. He picked at them, tossing the broken ones back into the tide.

I waited, my hands behind my back. Finally, he looked up. A smile tugged the crags of his face into youthful buoyancy. His wild hair stuck out at all conceivable angles, and that damn red pilot’s scarf danced in the wind like a flame behind him.

“Puck,” I said. “Or Robin?”

Puck walked up onto the beach, smiling all the while. It kindled something inside me, where the great black hollow now lived. The one that had been for Zack. An ounce of happiness. Of approval, and caring.

Puck shook his head.

“Puck then?”

He nodded.

I looked him up and down. Then I held my hands above my head like a ballerina and revolved slowly.

“What do you think?”

The old man bowed and took one of my hands. He kissed the back of my hand like a knight, and I laughed and rolled my eyes. Puck stood up again, straight as a fence post, and smirked. Then he touched his fingers to his lips and made a bright loud smacking sound, just like an Italian chef complementing his own food.

“Thank you,” I said, and curtsied.

Puck stepped forward and wrapped his arms around me. He must have been thinking extra hard, or feeling extra strong, because I could pick up dribs and drabs of his thoughts. I held tight to him, for a moment, enjoying the moment. I never thought I’d see him again. Puck had been there, when I was at my loneliest and most confused. When my world had ended, Puck had taught me a new one.

He was ecstatic to see me alive. It poured off of him like a waterfall.

“I have something for you,” I said. From the front pocket of my cardigan, I removed a little oval silver locket on a silver chain. I held it out to him. “Open it.”

Puck’s face smoothed out, the smile disappearing. His eyes grew wide, and wet, and he mouthed the words thank you. I waved my hand, biting hard into my lower lip.

He took the locket in his long slender fingers, and turned it over. He popped it open and gazed down into each half. One was a picture of me about six months ago, taken by Morgan. It was a candid shot, me looking to my right, the green grass of the park behind me. I couldn’t remember what I was looking at, but it was without a doubt my favorite picture of me. The other picture was a baby picture of me, wearing a tiny sundress, digging a hole at the beach. A bright pink bow the size of a Frisbee had been clipped into my hair. My mom, naturally, trying to turn me into a doll.

Puck held his hand over his mouth. Though he did not shudder or sob, trails of silver tears slid down his cheeks. I watched him bite hard into his hand and turn away from me, and for a split second I thought I’d made a terrible mistake.

“I’m sorry! Oh Puck, I just thought…I just wanted to say thank you. For everything you’ve done for me, and for my friends. I’d be dead without you. Morgan and Zack would be dead without you. You’re a hero. And if you ever regretted making the decision you made, the same decision I made, just remember—we wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t become a phantom, all those years ago. Just, thanks. Thank you.”

I watched Puck’s shoulders, watched the side of his face. He dabbed at his eyes with the scarf, closed the locket, and slipped it over his head. He turned to me and tucked the locket away down the front of his button-up. A small timid smile curved his lips.

Thank you.

I reeled. I heard him that time, as clear as a bell, floating in my thoughts.

I grinned at him and curtsied again.

She told you?

The feeling of hearing his voice in my mind was strange. I touched my temple and shook my head a little to clear it.

“About your first daughter. About Lucy? Yeah, Ophelia told me.”

Puck nodded.

“You didn’t lose her this time,” I said. I touched his arm. “You never will.”

Puck touched the locket on his chest, then looked up at the roiling grey clouds overhead. I let him pull himself together, and I watched the grey horizon across the ocean for a long time. Finally, I heard a rustling sound, and I turned toward him. His hand was held out, and a perfect white shell sat in the center of his palm. I looked up at him, smiled, and took it.

“So how did I do, Puck? Bagged my Mors, didn’t die, saved all of my friends. And did it all while staying incredibly fashionable. How did I do?”

Puck looked up at me, gravely, and held one hand up.

He made the see-saw motion.

I leaned down, scooped up a handful of wet sand, and hurled it as hard as I could. But he was already running down the beach, dancing and leaping and booking as fast as he could.

“Don’t think you’ll get away with this.”

I ran after him, intent on putting a sand-clod right in his stupid grinning face.

Epilogue

Winter Informal, or, One More Secret

The next week passed, because it had to. I don’t think I had any part in it passing, and if I had, I imagined the world would have ground to a halt. I spent those first days as a husk. I ate, though I wasn’t hungry, something I was getting used to. I slept, a lot, in fact, though I was never tired. I went to class, and I did my homework.

I suffered the pity of Morgan, Daphne, Sara, and Wanda with aplomb, I feel. I would have preferred just never talking about him ever again, but they made me. Morgan, I told the truth about what happened. The other girls I gave them what they wanted to hear—he broke up with me, because of my disappearances. He couldn’t handle them, emotionally, and so he thought it better that we end it. Better for him, better for me. I don’t know what he was telling people. I didn’t care. I couldn’t.

I told Ms. Crane the same thing. I turned her attention to my break-up, and away from my shoddy story about being attacked by Abraham. Talking to her helped, even if it was half lies. Gradually I began to come back to life, even if it felt like I’d had something torn out of me, an organ I would never replace. Something vital. Something good.

That’s why, when Sara told us that David Ebersbach had asked her to Winter Formal, I didn’t immediately end her life. And, to her credit, she told us in a low, sad, very frightened voice, like she’d just told a tiger that she tasted really great.

“I don’t care,” I told her, in the quad during lunch. “Stop tiptoeing around me, guys. Just don’t ask me to go dress shopping with you.”

They’d all laughed at that, nervously, like they had to. Whatever. Better a fear-laugh than that dead terrified silence, like I was made of porcelain and their words were stones. Like I might just lose my mind and start biting people.

When the conversation came around to everyone’s dance plans, I groaned and buried myself in my turkey sandwich. But I listened to them talk, because, well, it was better than thinking. Better than living in the place in my brain where Zack and I go to Winter Formal and look dazzling and stun the world.

Morgan hadn’t been attracting the boys like she used to, which she readily admitted. Gorgeous, leggy, blonde volleyball star Morgan had been put on the shelf, maybe permanently. I hadn’t seen her since that day without a ponytail or a baseball hat, and she lived perpetually in sweat shirts. Still, I don’t think it was just that. Her sunken eyes were her most distinguishing feature now. I wondered if they would ever go away. If maybe I hadn’t broken both the people I loved most.

And Wanda…she still hadn’t recovered from her attack at Benny’s party. She was even twitchier, if that was possible. Even more sullen, drawn in, and terrified. Daphne just hadn’t decided which boy to take.

“Well, to hell with it,” Daphne said, suddenly, as we pondered our miserable states. “No dance.”

“What?” Sara asked, annoyed. I didn’t blame her.

“No, yeah, I like it,” Daphne said. She stood up on the little stone bench and held her arms out wide. Morgan covered her eyes and Wanda groaned audibly. “Picture this. Four girls, all dateless. In sweatpants.”

“Oh God,” Morgan said.

“Wait. Wait it gets better,” Daphne said. She was proselytizing now, her arms sweeping an imaginary crowd. “We’re in a dark bedroom, maybe just candles, maybe just the glow of Pretty in Pink.”

“Lame,” Sara said.

“Shut up now, hon,” she said, and patted Sara on the head. Sara swung a lazy arm at her, but Daphne juked out of the way and hopped to the other low stone bench. “And we’re eating. No, not eating. Shoveling. I’m talking unhinging our jaws for Hershey bars and Corn Dogs. I’m talking about making fun of bitches, and talking about boys—”

I looked up at her, and she must have seen something there. She held her hands out defensively.

“—or never talking about boys. I changed my mind. And we’ll drink soda and pass out and have a sleep over. Bring your pajamas, your Skittles, and your self-pity.”

“Sounds awesome,” Sara grumbled.

“Not for you, hon,” Daphne grinned. “You’ll be fighting off gropes, and drinking crappy punch, and watching the air-humping that stands in for dancing nowadays.”

“Nowadays, Gram-Gram?” I said, and Daphne laughed.

“Naysayers be gone. Who is down for Pityfest? Show of hands people.”

My hand and Wanda’s and Morgan’s, despite our groaning, went up in tandem. Daphne laughed and clapped her hands together.

“Lame,” Sara said, again, and scooped her things. “I’m gonna go figure out logistics with David.”

“Bye-bye now,” Daphne said.

That Friday, we all went over to my house. It had to be my house. I wasn’t grounded, exactly, but we all agreed it would rock the boat less to keep us in sight of my parents. Mom and Dad didn’t mind—Mom was ecstatic to see me start to come out of my funk, even if it was only by inches.

And Daphne kept our promise. We scarfed junk food, and talked about girls we hated, and we watched Molly Ringwald—though it turned out to be The Breakfast Club instead of Pretty in Pink—and we wore sweatpants. I thought of Zack only once an hour, which, I assure you, was a record, even though every time I did, it tore a fresh hole I knew would never quite heal.

As the night began to wind down, Wanda took me aside with the pretense of going to the kitchen with me. In the darkened hallway, she grabbed my arm and gave me a nervous little half-smile. She reached for her throat, and removed a long silver chain with a cross on it.

I held out my hand and shook my head before she even said anything.

“Just wait,” Wanda whispered. “I… just want you to borrow it. For a while.”

I was touched, but I shook my head. “I’m okay, Wanda—”

“This is my grandma’s… she gave it to me when my dad died,” Wanda said. She looked at the plain little silver cross with watery eyes. “She told me that whenever I missed him, I should touch it, and I would feel a little better. Just knowing…I don’t know…maybe someone was looking after me. I know it’s dumb…”

“It’s not dumb,” I said.

“Well… I want you to borrow it,” Wanda said, and shook her head at my denial. “Please. You have always helped me…saved me. Talked to me, even though I’m kinda a dork—”

“Wanda—”

“Yes, I am,” she said, and gave a self-deprecating laugh. “So, please. Let me help you.”

I bowed my head a little, and she slipped the chain over my neck. I looked down at the little spinning cross and let it settle on my t-shirt. I touched it. I looked up at Wanda. She must have seen it in my face before I even felt it, because she immediately pulled me into a tight hug. I sobbed silently against her shoulder.

When it was over, I leaned back, tried to wipe the tears from my eyes, and thanked her.

“Just give it back whenever, Luce,” Wanda said. “It’ll be okay.”

I nodded. I looked down at the cross, and I pinched it between my fingers, and I drew a deep shuddering breath to try to calm myself.

A little explosion of heat seared my fingertips and slid up my arm. It rushed through me, coated me, warmed me over. I felt a jumble of emotions—sadness, relief, anger, pity…and a shotgun blast of images. Some were of Wanda, but some were of a woman I didn’t recognize and yet knew to be Wanda’s grandma when she was young.

I stumbled a little, but Wanda grabbed my arm.

“Are you okay?” she asked me.

I looked down at the little cross with dawning wonder.

“Lucy, just, you know what?” Wanda smiled, clearly trying to lift me up. “I want you to keep it.”

“Wanda, no—”

“Shut up, Luce, okay?” Wanda said, still smiling. “Let me do this.”

I stared at her, then down at the cross, then back up at her.

“Thanks,” I said. “Thank you so much.”

Wanda shrugged, turned, and started heading back upstairs.

“It’s just a necklace, right?”

Just a necklace. I watched her walk away, my thoughts careening together. When she had first showed it to me, she was on the verge of tears just looking at it. And I know how deeply she cared for her grandma, who had just recently passed away. And knowing it helped her get through her dad’s passing…just a necklace? She’d even said it with a throwaway tone. Just a necklace.

I looked down at the silver cross, feeling the familiar heat flowing through my body. Essence.

I’d taken it out. The emotions Wanda had invested into it…I fed off it.

And I didn’t hurt anybody.

I tucked the necklace back into my shirt and felt a rush of raw happiness turn my face into a broad grin. I didn’t hurt anybody. Could it be done again? Was it possible for me to live like that?

I bolted into the living room, to my mom’s favorite gaudy Hummel figurine, tucked away in its glass case. I eased the door open, scooped up the little porcelain umbrella girl, and pressed it to my mouth. It felt warm against my lips, and I inhaled with a sharp breath. That heat slid down my throat, warming me a little more. I laughed and dropped the Hummel back amongst its fellows.

I went to the kitchen and made a sandwich, but mostly just to occupy my hands while I thought of the possibilities. I felt light. Elated. I went through the motions on cloud nine. It wasn’t until I turned around that I noticed someone had been standing in the hallway, watching me. I jerked a little.

“Daphne?”

Daphne nodded. Her face was grave.

“No ‘thank you?’” she whispered.

I cocked my head. I couldn’t help but feel a little creeped out. I could barely see her, lurking in the shadows of the darkened hallway. And the serious cast to her face—it looked unnatural on her. Scary, actually.

“What?”

She stepped forward, but the overhead glow actually made her grave features look more frightening. I took a small step backward, clutching the butter knife I’d been using to cut my sandwich. What the hell was going on?

“You’re not going to thank me?”

“For what?”

Daphne had something in her hand. She tossed it to me. I barely caught it, fumbling with the butter knife and either almost dropping it or stabbing my own face off. I turned the object around. A little silver touchscreen phone. Daphne’s new phone, that she had been raving about. The one her father had bought her.

“I don’t get it,” I said.

“Dial your number,” she said.

I lifted the phone, so I could both dial and keep an eye on her at the same time. Some spark gleamed in her eye, but I couldn’t tell what it was. I dialed my number, and my phone began to buzz in my pocket.

“Okay, it works,” I said.

Daphne sighed and tossed her purple-streaked black hair out her face. I flipped it open to answer it.

The number. I knew it right away. The text messages… the ones telling me to run, telling me to get the hell away from Abraham.

I dropped my phone. It made a loud cracking noise, bounced once, and landed on its face.

“Oh, crap,” Daphne said, looking forlornly down at my fallen phone. “Butterfingers.”

I shook my head at her, feeling panic rising.

“What? It was you? How… do you know?”

Daphne smiled an unknowable, mysterious smile.

“We’ve all got secrets, honey,” Daphne said. She raised an eyebrow, walked forward, and plucked her phone out of my hand. I goggled at her as she folded her hands behind her back and gave me an impish grin.

I closed my mouth. I thought it might be scraping the floor soon.

“Are you… like me?”

Daphne shook her head.

“Are you… like Abraham?”

She made a yuck face. A hell-no face.

“Takes all kinds, Lucy,” she said. “You think you’re the only freak out there? I’ll tell you what I am. I’m your friend. Now let’s go upstairs and see if we can’t get a pillow fight started.”

She gave me another grin and bounced out of the kitchen with her hands behind her back. I stood, rooted to the spot, trying to regain control of my motor functions. My mind spun like a top, stuffed with more questions than I had time to think about. Daphne. I couldn’t believe it. Worse. I didn’t even understand it.

I looked down and touched my cross. I felt a little spark there, still left, and I took a deep breath and drained it away. My face split into a smile.

I can do this.

I can live.

About the Author

B.C. Johnson was born in 1985 in Southern California, and hasn’t relocated since. He discovered a love for telling stories at seven-years-old, though those consisted of either fabricating expansive lies, or writing mostly plagiarized stories. Between then and now, he’s worked a number of odd jobs, including machinist, lighting designer, demolitionist, sound mixer, receptionist, custodian, and museum events manager. He currently works live theater, as the guy calling cues or making the lights flash. He lives in Anaheim with his awesome fiancée, Gina, who may or may not be some kind of angel, and his half-Corgi, half-Jindo dog, Luna, (or Luna-Tuna, to her friends.) When he’s not playing video games, drumming on every surface imaginable, or spending way too much time reading tvtropes.org, you may find him writing completely not-stolen (he promises) stories.

Deadgirl is his first novel.

Copyright

This eBook is licensed to the original purchaser only. It cannot be sold, shared, transferred, or given away.

Published by Cool Well Press, Inc.

270 Bellevue Avenue, 334

Newport, RI 02840

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations for reviews. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet, without the publisher’s permission and is a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines and/or imprisonment.

Deadgirl

Copyright © 2012 by B.C. Johnson

ISBN: 978-1-61877-114-8

Editor — Craig Dunn

Cover Artist — DarkAshe Graphics

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

Published in the United States of America

First electronic publication: April 2012 by Cool Well Press, Inc.

www.coolwellpress.com