My whole body ached, and my head throbbed with an intensity that I suspected would only grow worse when I finally decided to brave the light and crack my eyelids open.
“Will!” A vague whisper from my right. “Wake up. I know you’re in there. I saw you pulling against those skanky armbands. I mean, seriously, do you think they clean those after every use? I doubt it. You’re, like, sharing skin cells with the last sweaty and depraved lunatic they locked up. Sick people are so gross.”
Alona! The disgust in her voice was as distinct as the antiseptic hospital smell. I braved the light enough to squint in the direction of her voice. When my eyes stopped watering and focused, I found her sitting in the visitor’s chair next to my bed, her knees pulled up to her chest as if she didn’t even want her ghost feet touching the floor. She looked pale and tired, and for the first time, a line of bruises decorated the left side of her face. That meant either she didn’t have the energy to project herself as flaw free, or she was really feeling beat up.
“Are you okay?” I asked, my mouth feeling stuffed full with cotton.
She straightened up and flipped her hair over her shoulders when she saw me watching. “I’m fine,” she said quickly. “But I’m not the one locked up with a cracked face.”
Automatically, I tried to reach up to touch my face, but my effort only tightened the restraint on my arm.
Alona unfolded herself from her chair and moved to sit on my bed. Her deft fingers worked the Velcro and straps until my hand was free. “I’ll have to refasten that, you know, or else they’ll be locking you up tighter next time they come to check on you.”
“Yeah, I know.” I traced the swollen lines of my cheek carefully with my fingers. Puffed up like a pincushion and hot, the right side of my face felt like it’d been microwaved.
“They did X-rays or an MRI or whatever about an hour ago. You have a hairline fracture in your cheekbone. I heard them talking about it before you woke up.”
I groaned. Well, that explained the pain radiating down to my jaw and up to my temple.
She pulled her legs up on the bed and curled in closer to me, her hip and backside a steady warmth against my waist. “Why didn’t you run? I told you to run.”
“I thought Joonie would listen to me, that she’d stop it when I confronted her,” I said.
She rolled her eyes. “Good thinking.”
“Hey,” I protested.
“I’m serious. Now you’re stuck in here.” She shook her head, and the scent of her shampoo drifted toward me. “They’re all convinced that you’re schizophrenic and possibly epileptic on top of it. You’re on a regular floor for now, but they’re going to move you as soon as a bed opens on the psych floor. And the chin-rubber is back.”
“No.” I struggled to sit up.
“Yeah. He has hospital privileges here or something. Your mom’s trying to get rid of him.”
“My mom is here?” I reached for the remaining strap to undo it.
“Don’t.” Alona pushed on my shoulder, forcing me back. She gestured to the mostly closed door. “They’re in here about every fifteen minutes. I don’t know if I can get you all the way tied up again without getting caught. I’m good, but maybe not that good.” She gave me a wan smile, the likes of which I’d never seen from her before, and it startled me.
Over the years, I’d seen all kinds of smiles from her. The kind designed to make all the blood drain from your head and gather behind your zipper. The kind given with cold, cold eyes, showing she was mad as hell but wasn’t going to break form to show it. The superior smile was a particular favorite of hers in recent years, like she couldn’t help but find it funny that you, a petty, insignificant being, would try to interact with her. None of those even looked related to her current expression. She looked … defeated.
“What happened in there?” I asked, not entirely sure I wanted to hear the answer.
Alona lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “She had candles and that stupid board. And she kept talking to coma-gir … I mean, Lily.” She hesitated. “I think she’s trying to fix her.”
I frowned. “What do you mean, fix her? Lily is—” I paused to take a deep breath, needing it to force the words out—“brain dead. She has been since the day of the accident.” Fifty-four miles per hour around a curve that has a thirty-mile-per-hour speed limit. One tree. No seat belt. Lily, as we knew her, wouldn’t be coming back. It never got any easier, that realization. I kept thinking it would, but no.
Alona shook her head slowly. “I don’t think she’s talking about brain surgery here, Killian. Lily’s empty, you know? The lights are on but nobody’s home?”
I grimaced but nodded. Alona had quite a way with words.
“So first, I’m wondering what Joonie’s trying to do with all the candles and spirits and everything.” Alona waved her hand dismissively. “I mean, hello, even I recognize some kind of creeptastic ritual when I see it.” She paused, her sharp green eyes focusing in on me as though trying to will me into believing her words. “I think she’s been trying to call up Lily’s spirit.”
That was … possible. Joonie had not been the same since Lily’s accident. She’d blamed herself for it, a crazy line of thinking that went something like this: if she and Lily hadn’t had a fight, Lily would have been with us instead of the first-tier crowd and she’d still be alive … in more than just the technical sense.
“But then, I’m like, what does any of this have to do with Killian? I mean, she could try to call up Lily’s spirit on the Ouija board without you.”
“It won’t work, though,” I said, “with or without me. Lily isn’t here anymore. She’s … moved on. Like I said before, people who are really gone are gone. There is no reaching them.”
“But I bet Joonie doesn’t know that,” Alona pointed out.
“Probably not,” I admitted.
She took a deep breath. “It gets worse.”
“How?”
“She’s not just trying to call up Lily’s spirit. I think she’s trying to get it back into Lily’s body.” Alona hesitated. “And she wants you to help.”
“No,” I said instantly.
She looked at me in exasperation. “What else could ‘get you back where you belong’ mean? She was staring right at Lily’s body when she said it, and she definitely mentioned you.”
“No, I mean it’s not possible. It’s a one-way door. It has to be,” I tried to explain. “Once you’re out, you’re out. Otherwise, you’d see walking corpses everywhere when people like Grandpa Brewster or Liesel got tired of being trapped in between.”
“But Lily’s still alive.” She gave a shudder.
“Not really.” As much as it hurt to say that, I made myself keep going. “Her heart still beats and everything, but she wouldn’t be able to function, even if you could get her spirit back inside her body. The connection between the two is broken.”
She rolled her eyes. “Again, you know that. Does Joonie?”
My mouth worked for a second, as I tried to find an answer. “But Joonie doesn’t know what I can do. How would she even think to—”
Alona held up her hands. “I don’t know. Not my problem. You figure it out. I’m just telling what I saw and heard.”
I shook my head, angry at the suggestion. “No, she knows better than to mess with stuff like this.” Even if it was possible, which it wasn’t … as far as I knew, there were so many things that could go wrong. What if Joonie successfully managed to get Lily’s spirit back into her body only to discover that it was little more than a prison of flesh and bone?
How would she even know she had contacted the right spirit to begin with?
“Desperate people do really dumb ass stuff,” Alona said. “Trust me on that.”
“Joonie would never take the chance of hurting Lily,” I insisted. What was left of her, anyway. “It almost killed her when Lily ended up here.” Joonie had spent most of the month of September locked in her room, not leaving for school or anything until B
rewster threatened to keep her from graduating if she didn’t return. After that, she’d dragged herself back to school, but it had taken a couple more months for her to show even some spark of her former self.
“I bet.” Alona’s voice was bland, but her tone hinted at something she wasn’t saying.
“What is that supposed to mean?” I demanded.
“You know.”
“No, I don’t.” I ground out the words.
She sighed. “Was Lily your girlfriend or not?”
I shifted uncomfortably. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Just answer the question.”
“No. She wasn’t. We were friends. I looked out for her. At least, I tried to.” Obviously, I hadn’t done such a great job of that.
Alona arched an eyebrow. “I saw the picture of the two of you.”
“How …” I shook my head. I didn’t want to know. “Okay, so she might have liked me a little or something, but it never turned into anything. She had a crush on Ben Rogers, too,” I pointed out. Which was probably the reason my friendship with Lily had stayed just that, a friendship. I liked her. She was sweet and funny. Hell, she even made Joonie happy, and that was a true miracle. But obsessing over the popular crowd and their entanglements had been one of Lily’s favorite pastimes, one that I did not share. So, it hadn’t been that big of a shock, at least not to me, when she dumped us to climb the social ladder after she and Joonie had that big fight.
“Lily wasn’t the only one with a crush,” Alona said.
“What are you talking about? Joonie?” I laughed. “Joonie doesn’t like me like that.”
“Not you,” she said pointedly.
“What?”
“Oh, my God, could you be more dense?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know what, just forget it. Even if I tell you, you won’t believe me and you’ll just get angry, so it’s not worth it. I don’t know why I’m even here in the first place. You don’t listen to anything I say—”
“You’re not saying anything!”
“You don’t do what I tell you to, you dismiss all of my ideas. I mean, what’s the point of having a spirit guide if you’re just going to ignore her?”
“Trust me,” I said. “You are impossible to ignore. I’ve tried. As far as I’m concerned, you can’t leave here fast enough.”
She froze, a wounded look flashing across her face.
I felt like a shit. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
“Yes, you did. I’m done here.” Alona swung her legs off the bed. “I don’t have the time to waste on you anymore.”
“Alona, wait.”
She ignored me and pushed her hands against the mattress to climb down. I grabbed for one of her wrists … and my hand passed right through her.
I gasped.
Alona glanced back over her shoulder with a sigh, more bruises flickering to life. “Looks like you’re getting your wish.”
Will stared up at me, his face pale except for the black eye he’d gotten from Chris and his bruised and swollen cheek. “What’s happening to you?”
I turned away from him, closing my eyes against the tears that suddenly stung them. “Shut up, I’m trying to concentrate.” I’d been fighting this sensation of being pulled away since the moment I’d woken in his hospital room. It felt like I’d left part of me behind in the place I couldn’t remember, and something on the other side was working as hard as possible to get the rest of me.
“Think positive thoughts.” He sounded panicked. “Um, makeup sales, prom dresses, sex in the backseat of a limo.”
I shot him a look over my shoulder. “Exactly what kind of prom night do you think I was planning?”
He raked his free hand through his rumpled black hair, making it stand out even more crazily. “I don’t know. I’m just trying to help.”
I shook my head. “Thanks, but it’s not working.”
“Maybe if you think positive thoughts about other people—”
“Killian. I’ve been here two hours, and I’m fading in and out, no matter how often I think about puppies, rainbows, and your surprisingly large biceps.” Ha, let him chew on that one for awhile.
A pause. “My what?”
“Forget it. You were right. There’s a time limit for everyone, and mine is just about up.” Oddly enough, the thought brought relief. I was tired of fighting this … whatever this was. I just wanted to be done.
“No. That doesn’t make sense. You’re my spirit guide … or whatever,” he insisted.
“Yep, one that you don’t listen to.” I wiped under my eyes and shifted on the bed to face him again.
He struggled to pull himself into an awkward half-sitting position. “Okay, I might have been wrong about that. I didn’t throw your papers away.”
“It doesn’t matter, Will. I can’t stay,” I said wearily. That was the conclusion I’d reached while waiting for him to wake up. “I’ve only got a few hours left here, less if I’m here and Gus shows up again, and I’ve got some stuff to do.”
“Things you put off doing until you had no choice.” His shoulders slumped and he sagged back onto the bed.
“Exactly.” I nodded. “You were right about that. And”—I hesitated—“you were right about my mom.”
He looked up, surprised. “Alona,” he said, his voice gentle, not pitying. There was a difference, and I could recognize it now.
I waved away his words and the sudden stinging in my eyes. “Shut up, I don’t want to talk about it now.” I took a deep breath. “But I wanted you to know you were right. And … yes, some of those things I wrote down from Grandpa Brewster and the rest, they probably aren’t what’s holding them here. But”—I leaned closer making sure I had his attention—“some of them are, and you can do something for those people. Hiding doesn’t help anyone, including you. You need to know that.”
He looked away. “What about you? You’re my spirit guide. You’re supposed to stay here for as long as I need you.”
I smiled. “You don’t need me. If you did, I wouldn’t be disappearing, right?”
“We don’t know that.”
The sound of voices in the hall grew louder. “Someone’s coming. I better go.” I took a deep breath, steeling myself to push off his bed and actually leave. Finally leave.
He caught my arm before I could get down. His hand rested warmly against my skin, not passing through or sinking in. He pulled me toward him, his pale blue eyes bright with emotion, and I let him. His mouth, so warm and soft, brushed over mine, once, twice … and lingered. I snuggled closer to his heat, bracing my free hand against the pillow. He let go of my wrist to thread his fingers through my hair and tilt my head. Suddenly, I was being kissed, really kissed, and I leaned into him, tasting him as he tasted me.
The loud clatter of something hitting the floor in the hallway broke us apart.
“Maybe you should have done that earlier,” I said, trying to catch my breath and feeling deliciously warm for the first time in days. “When I was alive.”
He smiled, his cheeks flushed. “When you were alive, you would have hit me.”
“Yeah. True.” I slid off his bed and walked around to the other side.
“Let me come with you,” he said quietly. “I can help.”
I shook my head. “What then? When I’m gone and they find you’ve escaped? What kind of measures do you think they’ll take next time?”
He didn’t say anything. I folded his free wrist back into the restraint, wrapping the fabric as loosely as possible, and he let me. I was right, and he knew it.
I smiled at him, his image suddenly blurry with tears. “You want one last piece of guidance, not that you’ll listen?”
“Alona—” His voice broke.
“Tell your mother the truth. Your dad had his reasons for keeping this secret, okay, fine. But that didn’t work out so well for him. You don’t owe anything to him, you aren’t obligated to do what he did just b
ecause you share the same gift.”
“And if she doesn’t believe me?”
I tapped the restraint around his wrist. “Kind of hard for her to make things worse, right?”
“Stay. We’ll figure something out.”
“Please don’t make this any harder, okay?” I forced a choked laugh. “I’m scared enough as it is.”
“Alona, please. Just wait!” He struggled against the restraints.
I straightened my shoulders and gave him my biggest, see-it-from-across-the-football-field smile. “Can’t. Time’s up.” I touched his cheek but pulled away before he could try to grab me. “I’ll come back to you if I can. If not … see you on the other side someday, maybe.” Then I walked through the door and down the hallway before he could change my mind.
I pulled hard enough against the restraints to shake the bed, and succeeded only in rubbing my wrists raw. Okay, so Alona had a point about the consequences of breaking out of here, but did she have to tie me up again to prove it?
“Having a little trouble?” A little girl, probably about ten or eleven when she died, with blond pigtails and pink striped pajamas rolled her heavy wheelchair through the partially closed door.
I ignored her.
“Oh, come on,” she said. “I know you can hear me.”
She wheeled herself closer, but I turned away, facing the ceiling, and concentrated on twisting my wrist inside the binding. The right restraint, the one Alona had undone, was looser than the other.
“I saw that blond chippie with the foul mouth leaving your room. So, I know you can talk to us,” the little girl continued.
Chippie? She almost caught me with that one, nearly got me to turn my head and look at her. Alona and I had, after all, been shouting pretty loudly there for a while. But even if this girl had heard something, there’s no way she could be sure it was us. “Us.” Now that was a funny term to be applying to me and her highness, Alona Dare. But kissing her … no matter how long I live (or don’t live), I will never forget her mouth, warm and soft, moving under mine, the heated silk of her hair wrapping around my fingers and that small, pleased, almost inaudible, sigh she gave.