"We've come a long way since then."
"Sure. Now she only throws you around in self-defense practices. She really enjoys that quality time with you, too. Won't practice on anyone else."
I glowered up at him. "Yes, she's never going to be my BFF. But what do you want me to do? Hang out with only you and Simon? Ignore her?"
"Um, yeah, because that's exactly what she'd do to you."
"Which doesn't mean I should do it back. She's been trying to fit in. You know she has. And if she doesn't have at least one person she can talk to, she's liable to just take off. Get captured or killed. She might not be your favorite person, but you don't want that."
He hesitated a second too long.
"That's cold, Derek. Even for you, that's cold."
"I didn't mean--"
"Just go back to the house, okay? You obviously aren't interested in helping Tori. Or helping me."
"I--"
"Just go."
When he didn't, I did.
Evading Derek in a crowded place isn't hard. I can slip through gaps. Derek can't and no one moves for him . . . until he starts scowling, then they move fast, but by then, I'm long gone. Even his werewolf nose isn't that helpful in crowds. He can follow my trail, but it takes a while to tease it out.
Derek and I don't fight a lot. Okay, we do, but it's usually spirited disagreement, not real anger. The subject of Tori was the exception. He's frustrated by how quickly I've gotten over her past mistreatment. I'm frustrated by his inability to get over it. Even Simon sees she's trying and treats her like a part of the group.
Who's right? I don't know. I just know that Tori has lost more than any of us. First, her mother. Now her father. And although she tries to hide it, a big chunk of her self-confidence is gone, too. She's gone from being the popular girl to the one nobody wants around.
As I concentrated on dodging Derek, I found Tori. Typical. Stop looking for something and there it is. She was walking straight toward me, so there was no mistake. Then she saw me, and swung the other way, moving as fast as she could without breaking into a run.
I did run. I'm not as worried as I once was about what people think. Blame Derek. Or thank him, I guess. Being less self-conscious is a good thing. As Aunt Lauren pointed out the other day, I hardly ever stammer any more.
When Tori ducked into a back hall, I knew I finally had her. It was a dead end leading to the restrooms.
She hesitated near a service door. A group of girls came out of the bathroom and took up the whole hall. When they'd passed, Tori was gone. I reached the door, and quickly looked around to make sure no one was watching. Then I opened it and peered inside.
The room was empty.
I was about to back out when I heard a curse. I followed it to a big metal grate on the wall. No way. How would Tori even get up--?
Well, there was a table under the grate. But still, crawling into a vent? Wasn't that a little dramatic? Even for Tori?
Depended on how badly she wanted to get rid of me.
Or was it a test? See how far I'd go to help her?
When I climbed onto the table and peered through, I could make out a distant light. It shifted, and I saw Tori's face, illuminated by the light ball spell Kit had taught her.
I lifted the cover and crawled in. I could still see Tori ahead, stopped, glancing around as if trying to figure out where to go next.
I felt my way along. When Tori started crawling again, I instinctively picked up speed, then stopped myself. I didn't have a light ball, so it was almost completely dark. I had to take it slow and steady.
My fingers inched along the metal bottom. Then they touched down on empty air, and I pitched forward, but caught myself.
"Chloe?" Tori's voice sounded oddly weak as it echoed down the vent. "Is that you?"
She waved the light ball around and squinted.
"Yes, it's me," I said. "Just hold on."
"I . . . I smell something. It's . . . it's making me dizzy. I need-- Oh, God, I feel sick. It's some kind of gas."
"Hold on." I reached out gingerly. I couldn't feel the floor. "There's some kind of gap."
"It dips a little. Just climb over. I . . . I really feel sick."
"I know. Just wait until I--"
Fingers grasped my ankle. I jumped, and if it wasn't for that iron-grip, I'd have tumbled right into the gap.
"Careful!" Derek yanked so hard I fell flat on my face. "It drops off right in front of you."
I kicked free and glared over my shoulder at him. "I know. That's why I stopped. But thanks for almost scaring me over the edge."
"You're too jumpy."
"Huh. Shocking really. Between ghosts popping up and my werewolf boyfriend sneaking up, you'd think I'd have nerves of steel." I turned back to Tori. "Sorry! We're coming. Just hold on."
"Who're you talking to?" Derek asked.
"Tori."
"What? Did she fall down that hole?"
"No, she's right there." I pointed.
He squinted into the tunnel. "Well, if she was, she's gone."
The light ball had gone out, but there was no way he shouldn't have seen her earlier. He had a wolf's night vision, which is how he'd noticed the gap.
"But you heard her, right?" I said. "We were talking."
"I--" He lowered his voice. "I only heard you, Chloe."
I started scrabbling forward. "Tori!"
Derek caught my ankles and pulled me back along the shaft. Next thing I knew, I was standing on the floor, struggling, with his arms around me.
"I need to go back," I said. "I'll be careful. I need to--"
His arms tightened. "She's okay. There must be a logical explanation."
A logical explanation for why I could see and hear Tori, and he couldn't? Of course there was. She was a ghost.
"And it's not that," he said, as if reading my thoughts.
He lifted me onto the table and leaned down until his face was right in front of mine. "Nothing could have happened to her. Not that fast."
"No?" I looked up at him. "She couldn't have been grabbed by someone following us? Dragged into a hall and shot?"
The flash of terror on his face made me regret the words. He knew it could happen--to any of us, at any time, and there was nothing he could do about it, no matter how hard he tried to protect us.
We tell ourselves we're too valuable to kill. Then Liz pops around, and we're all reminded that she was once one of us. Another Lyle House resident. Another genetically modified supernatural. Our friend. Now a ghost. Murdered by the Edison Group.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm just--" My heart thumped so hard I couldn't breathe. "If anything happened to--"
"It didn't. I . . ." He wanted to say "I know it." But he couldn't. That fear-flicker again. Then he straightened. "This isn't going to help. Where did you see her last?"
"I--I'm not sure. I mean, there's no way of knowing when it was her and when it was . . ." I couldn't say her ghost. "Not her."
"Did you see her open the door to get in here?"
Right. That's how I'd could narrow it down--when was the last time I'd seen her move something or be noticed by someone.
"No," I said. "Kids were blocking the way. The grate was closed, too. And when she was walking through the mall, she was dodging people, but no one looked at her."
"Good. What else?"
"There was nothing in the parking lot either. On the road, a car crossed over to give her room, but it was clearly her then, because she was in my sights all the way from the house to--"
I glanced up sharply. "The abandoned house. I thought she went inside. Then I saw her running across the back yard." I slid off the table. "We have to get to that house."
Outside the service room, there was a second door just past the bathrooms. An exit clearly marked "Emergency Only." Derek ushered me through it. Someone shouted behind us, but we took off running.
As we jogged, Derek kept his fingers wrapped around my upper arm. At one time, I'd have thought he wa
s pushing me along, telling me to hurry up. I knew better now. It was part protective and part reassurance. Every time I stumbled, he'd keep me upright. Every time my breath hitched, as I thought of what might lie ahead, he'd murmur "It's okay, it's okay," and stroke my arm with his thumb.
Had I seen Tori's ghost? I knew if I asked Derek, he'd give me a bunch of other possibilities. We were supernaturals; there are always other possibilities. But I was a necromancer. When I saw and heard someone that no one else did, it was never anything but a ghost.
And there was no question of who I'd seen. She'd looked straight at me in that shaft. Looked at me and pretended she needed help, so I'd fall into some kind of hole. I wanted to say that meant it obviously wasn't Tori, but who was I kidding? She might not have done anything to hurt me lately, but what if she somehow died in that house and she blamed me for chasing her into it? Could she try to hurt me back? Absolutely.
We reached the house and I ran to the open window I figured she'd gone through. Derek caught my hands and pointed at the jagged bits of glass along the sill. There was dried blood on one.
"I-is that--?"
"It's old." He said it quickly, but not convincingly.
He led me to the back door. There, hidden by the shadows of a sagging porch roof, he snapped the lock. When I tried to push past, he grabbed my shoulder and started stepping in front of me. Then he stopped and moved aside.
"I'll be careful," I whispered.
He may have let me go first--a huge act of trust for Derek--but that only meant he settled for walking so close I could feel his breath on my hair.
I picked my way through the kitchen. There was debris everywhere, everything from broken dishes to ripped-off cupboard doors. There were empty boxes too, cereal and cookies that mice and rats had devoured, leaving their droppings dotting the floor.
"About what I said earlier," Derek began as I headed for the hall door. "About Tori. It did sound cold. I didn't mean it like that."
"I know."
"I don't want anything bad to happen to her. I just wish she'd treat you better. Sometimes she does, and other times, I want to shake her and tell her to smarten up. I don't like seeing her mouthing off to you when you've been nothing but nice to her."
I walked down the hall.
Derek exhaled behind me. "Okay, yeah, Simon would say that's kind of ironic, me not liking someone else snapping at you."
"I didn't say a word." I let him squirm for a second, before glancing back. "It's different. I know that. And I know you're trying to tone it down. Occasionally even succeeding."
I moved into the living room. "I should have told Tori. It would have been easier if it came from me. I knew that. I just . . . I chickened out. We're getting along so much better, and I didn't want to screw that up."
I stopped in front of the window. "Can you get her trail from here?"
"Yeah." He knelt, then glanced up at me. "Whatever happened, it's not your--"
"Let's just find her, okay?"
We could deal with my guilt later. I'd certainly had enough practice dealing with it, after killing Tori's mother.
I didn't say that, but he knew I was thinking it, and the look on his face--that mix of pain and anger and helplessness--reminded me why I was crazy about him. He wasn't always the nicest guy. He wasn't always the most romantic boyfriend. He wasn't going to be writing me poetry or bringing me flowers. But that look said more about his feelings for me than all the flowers in the world.
I crouched and kissed him, whispering, "I'll be okay. But thanks."
He mumbled something, gruff and unintelligible. I started to stand. He squeezed my knee, then bent to pick up Tori's trail.
She'd come in that window, as I thought. There wasn't any blood on the floor, though, so no sign she'd hurt herself badly crawling through. He followed her scent into the front room. As soon as I walked through the doorway, I saw the hole. Not a big one. Barely two feet wide, the rotted floor freshly cracked, bits of sawdust still scattered around. Fresh blood glistened on a jagged piece of broken wood.
I raced over. Derek grabbed the back of my shirt when I leaned over the hole. Below, I saw a pale figure, arms and legs askew.
I ripped from Derek's grasp and ran toward the kitchen, where I'd seen a basement door.
He caught me before I reached the doorway. Didn't stop me. Just grabbed a handful of my shirt again, slowing me down.
"Be careful," he said. "The floor's rotted. The stairs--"
"Will be rotted, too. I know."
Taking my time going down those basement stairs was one of the hardest things I've ever done. I kept leaning and bending and straining to try to see Tori. Finally, Derek scooped me up and lowered me over the side, then let me jump the last few feet to the floor.
"Go," he said. "Just be--"
"Careful. I know."
I ran across the room, my gaze on the floor so I wouldn't trip over anything. There wasn't much down here--vandals had stuck to the upper floors. I was almost to the front room when someone stepped in front of me.
I let out a yelp and stopped short. There stood an old woman with long, matted white hair. She was dressed in a frilly nightgown better suited to a five-year-old.
"What are you doing here?" she said, advancing on me, bony forefinger extended, yellowing nail headed for my eye. "Get out of my house."
I stumbled back--right into Derek.
"It's a ghost, Chloe." He recognized my reaction, even if I no longer shrieked everytime I saw one. "That means you can go . . ." He put his hands around my waist, lifted me and walked forward. "Right through it."
The old woman let out a screech and a string of curses.
"This is my house," she screeched. "Rebecca Walker. My name is on the deed. I still own it."
I ignored her and raced over to where Tori lay sprawled on the floor.
"Serves her right!" Rebecca shrieked. "Kids, breaking into my house, stealing my things. Almost as bad as those developers. The floorboards didn't rot so fast on their own, you know. Those people wanted to cause an accident. Force my poor Timmy to sell."
I dropped beside Tori and touched the side of her neck. I thought I could feel a pulse, but my fingers were trembling so much I wasn't sure. I glanced at Derek. He was already kneeling on her other side and checking for a heartbeat.
"Oh, she's fine," Rebecca said. "Well, so long as she didn't break her neck. But if she did, it would serve her right, breaking into other people's property. Probably meeting some boy here. That's what they all do. Boys and girls. In my house. Upstairs, in my--"
"Would you shut up?" I said, so loud I startled Derek. I turned to him. "Is she--?"
"I said she's alive," the old woman said. "I'd know, wouldn't I? I'd have seen her ghost and the only one I've seen is that woman who followed you here."
I turned sharply. "Woman?"
"Oh, now you want to listen to me, do you? Is this how you treat ghosts, girl? Ignore them until it suits your fancy? Well, let me tell you, I don't--"
She kept ranting. I turned back to Derek, who was on the phone, calling his dad. I shook Tori's shoulder. Her eyelids fluttered and she groaned.
"She's going to be okay," Derek said. "Your aunt's coming." Aunt Lauren was a doctor. "What did the ghost say about a woman?"
"That one followed me here. Another ghost."
I turned back to Rebecca Walker. A month ago, I'd have been tripping over myself to apologize for ignoring her. I credit Derek for that too--teaching me I don't need to be so polite all the time. I still believe in being nice, but with ghosts, if they're nasty to me, I have to give them attitude right back or they'll take advantage.
"Do you want us to call the police, too?" I asked. "Report this accident? Or would you rather we kept it quiet so your son doesn't get in trouble?"
She stopped ranting.
"We'll make you a deal," I said. "We won't tell anyone what happened here. In fact, we'll alert your son to what the developers did. In return, you'll tell me everythin
g you know about this woman."
Now she started squawking that she didn't know much, that it was just some lady who must have been following me because of my necromancer's glow. She's come in here, seen Tori fall, and taken off.
"I can't tell you more than I saw, girl, so you'd better not hold out on me."
There was genuine panic in her voice. That's another thing Derek made me realize--I often feel that I'm at the mercy of ghosts, but really, it's the other way around. They're stuck and I'm their only chance for contact with the living world.
"We had a deal," I said. "I'll do my part, if you tell me what this ghost looked like."
Rebecca jabbed a finger in Tori's direction. "Like her. Same height. Same hair. Skinny. Blue eyes, though. And older. Maybe forty. Dressed all fancy, too, like she thought she was something special."
"Diane Enright," I whispered. "She's describing Tori's mom."
He swore under his breath. "She used a glamour spell."
"A what?"
"Glamour spell. It makes the spell-caster look like someone else. It only works if you're expecting to see the other person."
"Like when that other person disappears from sight, then returns. Or seems to."
I marched from the room. Derek came after me.
"Stay with Tori," I said. "Please. I don't want her to wake up and hear this."
He hesitated, but agreed, and watched me head up the stairs. I went out the back door, then I gazed around the empty yard.
I swallowed. I might have marched up those stairs, but my knees were trembling. This was Diane Enright. Tori's mother. The woman I'd killed. Murdered.
Oh God. I couldn't do this. Couldn't face her. Couldn't--
No, I had to.
"Mrs--" I took a deep breath to steady my voice, then channeled Derek, putting a snap into my voice as I shouted. "Diane! I know you're out there."
She popped up in front of me, so fast I blanched. I crossed my arms, willed my feet to stay still and reminded myself she was just a ghost.
"Little Chloe Saunders, looking so fierce," she said. "I suppose that's what happens after you kill someone, isn't it?"
I tried not to flinch, but I must have, because she laughed again. "Or not so fierce after all."
"What do you want?"
She looked down at me, and she was still smiling, but it gave me goose bumps. "I think you know."
I just stood there, staring up at her.