“No!” Phoenix cried out. “Darina will keep our secret.” He confronted the stern older man. “You can totally trust her.”
Hunter gave a thin-lipped smile. “You’d stake your life on it, am I right? If you still had a life to lose.”
“Don’t joke. This is serious.” As Phoenix went up to Hunter and tried to stare him down, Jonas, Summer, and Arizona grew nervous. “I mean it,” he insisted. “I care more about Darina than I do about myself. I don’t want you messing with her mind.”
“Like I said before, very sweet and touching,” Hunter stated without a trace of emotion. “But, boy, you don’t even come close to changing my opinion, which is that Darina will crack under pressure. Then knowledge of the Beautiful Dead will leak out and none of us will get what we want. Rather, what we need.”
His calm reasoning finally got right under Phoenix’s skin. “How come you’re doing this?” he argued, passion firing up his voice so that it was louder than usual, almost a yell. “First you scare her half to death but you still let her get through the barriers. You let her and me meet again. Then you slam the door in our faces.” He swung round to face Jonas. “Tell him he can’t do this—he can’t wipe Darina’s memory!”
Jonas shrugged. “Nothing I can say will make any difference. It’s down to Hunter.”
Hunter turned his back on Phoenix and stared at me. “Don’t you want to go back to Ellerton?” he asked. “Back to your family, trotting along to school and choosing colleges like any other kid?”
“I’m not like any other kid,” I protested angrily. “I don’t run with the pack. Tell him, Phoenix.”
But his last protest seemed to have emptied him out and all he could do now was stand close and hold my hand.
“OK, so here’s what I’ll do,” Hunter announced. “Right now I’m caught up in something important, so I won’t make a decision until after I’ve given the problem more thought, maybe later today. Arizona, take Darina into the house and sit with her. Jonas and Phoenix, I need you to come with me.”
I didn’t want to leave the barn, terrified that once Phoenix was out of my sight I’d never see him again. But Arizona gave me a look. She played a zombie mind trick, zapped my resistance, and made me follow her without even looking over my shoulder. My limbs moved without me telling them to.
“Count yourself lucky,” she told me, the wind catching her long hair and whipping it across her face as we crossed the yard. She took a key from her pocket and opened the door of the house.
“How come?”
“You have until later today—a few extra hours of being with Phoenix, of knowing what’s happening out here. It’s more than most people get.”
Inside the museum-house, Arizona sat me down on a dusty rocking chair by the kitchen range. She perched on the table and stared at me. “I guess you love the guy,” she muttered.
I met her gaze. “I don’t care what Hunter does to me. Nothing matters except Phoenix.”
“Lucky you again,” Arizona sighed. “I never felt like that about anyone when I was on the far side, and now I guess I never will.”
“So let me out of here.” I saw what I thought was a chink in Arizona’s armor. “Let me have that chance. Nobody will know if you leave the door open and let me escape. And I swear again that I won’t tell a living soul.”
She shook her head, casually swinging her long legs over the edge of the table. “Oh my, Darina. And I had you down as an A-grade student. A little freaky, but so straight As.”
Angry, I sprang out of the chair. “And I always thought you were in love with yourself!” I flung back. “I was right!”
Another look from Arizona took the strength from my legs and I slumped back in the chair. “You’re forgetting that Hunter hears every word we say,” she reminded me. “He’s out there with Phoenix and Jonas, on the lookout for weekend hunters. A bunch arrived at the Government Bridge campground, downstream from here. Hunter wants to make sure they don’t stray in this direction. But that doesn’t mean he’s not listening to us.”
I was so frustrated I felt hot tears sting my eyelids. “You’re prisoners, all of you. How can you live like this?”
Arizona gave me a faint smile. “This isn’t ‘living’—not in any way that you’d understand. You have to get your head around that, Darina. Phoenix isn’t alive anymore. None of us are.”
“Wherever Phoenix is, whatever he is, I want to be with him,” I told her. “That’s what you have to get your head around.”
Part of me wanted to leave at that moment. I’d never been Arizona’s buddy. Nobody had, but then, everybody had. We’d been in the same class since the beginning of high school but we’d never been close. She was the aloof type—more of a loner than me in a lot of ways, never opening up and letting people in. And maybe I’d been jealous—the looks, the style, the brains—Arizona had them all. It’s what kept people away.
“OK, I’m not arguing,” she told me. “But I’m not letting you leave either. And while we’re here I get to put you straight on a couple of things.”
“Go ahead.” Resting my head against the hard wooden backrest, I tried to fight the pool of tears gathering behind my eyes.
“First, you hate Hunter for obvious reasons. But it’s his job to keep the group safe. He’s our overlord, and without him we’d be out of here without a trace. It’s him you have to thank for finding Phoenix.”
“Overlord?” I questioned. The word sounded unnatural coming from her lips. Hunter’s power was getting scarier by the second. “How come he’s in charge?”
“Listen. This isn’t Hunter’s first return to the far side. He’s been dead a long time—almost a hundred years. If he was alive he’d be twenty years older than this ranch house, which he built with his own hands.”
I sat up straight and stared at Arizona. “Did he die in this house?”
“Yeah. Someone shot him, right here.” She tapped her forehead. “The bullet went clean though his brain. They never knew who did it, but it’s too late for justice—the killer’s dead and buried by now. But Hunter stayed in limbo. He became an overlord, ready to bring souls back to the far side and guide us in our mission. We’re the sixth group he’s led. There are eight of us—nine including Hunter. That’s a whole bunch of restless souls he has to take care of, so it’s no wonder he’s kind of strict.”
“Is he ever more…” I stopped to search for the right word.
“More human?” Arizona laughed. She obviously heard noises outside in the yard and went to open the door. She let Summer in, carrying a bowl of soup and some crackers that she placed carefully on the table. “Darina wants to know if Hunter ever loosens up,” Arizona said.
“Hey, Darina,” Summer said, ignoring the question and avoiding looking at me. “Hunter and the guys could be out there awhile. You need to eat.”
I shook my head. “Do you think I can eat? Summer, I need to persuade Hunter to back down. He wants to zap my memory cells clear of you all. How do I stop him?”
“There’s no way,” she said softly.
Like the others, Summer looked exactly the way she had on what they called the far side. Long, soft, fair curls still framed her heart-shaped face. She wore a floaty, pale blue top that slipped off one shoulder to show a frame as delicate as a bird’s.
“Hey, it’s me, Darina, you’re talking to,” I protested. “We’re the kids who went everywhere together…when…”
“When I was alive?” she cut in, looking me straight in the eyes. “I know, Darina. And it hurts that I can’t help you. But you know why not.”
“But I can find a way of helping you!” I was up on my feet, demanding Arizona’s and Summer’s attention. “You’re here on a mission right? You all came back out of limbo to find justice.”
They both frowned. Summer listened closely. Arizona’s eyes narrowed, her lips curled in the trace of a mocking smirk.
“I can go back to Ellerton and play detective,” I promised. “You tell me the questions you nee
d to ask and I get you the answers.”
Arizona laughed. “You and whose team of top homicide cops?”
Oh, please. Even dead, Arizona Taylor had to be the most annoying person in the whole of Ellerton High. “So maybe you don’t want my help, but, Summer, I bet you do. Listen, I saw your dad the other day. I can call by the house whenever I like, give him and your mom any message you need me to.”
Summer took a deep, deep breath. “I miss them. I feel so sorry.”
“So do we all,” Arizona cut in. “The whole town is traumatized. These things—knife crime, shootings—happen in big cities, not here in Ellerton. It’s like an earthquake hit the place—the ground cracked open and everyone fell in.”
I was shocked by the force of her words. The smirk had faded. She was right. Four kids from the local school had been struck down—and parents especially went through each day wondering who would be next.
“So what hope do you have of helping these people?” Arizona had dropped the scornful tone completely and genuinely seemed to want to know. “Or of figuring things out for Summer and me, for Jonas and Phoenix?”
I wouldn’t be beaten; I wouldn’t give in before I’d begun. “A better chance than you,” I told her. “At least I don’t have to hide.”
The afternoon crawled by. I sat in the rocking chair feeling the dust of a century settle on me.
“Where are they?” I asked Arizona, who still kept guard. “What’s keeping Hunter?”
She sat by the window, staring out. “There must be trouble at Government Bridge. Eve, one of the other girls, was called out to help. It’s not the first time this has happened.”
I wanted more information. “Tell me what you mean.”
“Trouble’s brewing. It’s the start of the hunting season and guys with big muscles and guns are coming.”
“I saw the mule deer up on the ridge,” I recalled.
“They’re here a lot,” Arizona explained. “There’s good grazing on the ridge and down in the valley. The place will be crawling with hunters before we know it.”
“Too many for you to deal with?” I guessed.
She nodded. “Some of those hunter guys are developing a vigilante attitude. They suspect something weird is happening around here and they don’t like it.”
“The place spooks them and they don’t know why,” I heard myself add. I quickly got the picture—beating wings whooshing through their tough-guy heads, death faces swooping down at them and wiping their memories clean.
“Hunter thinks there’s talk in the bars in town, at gas stations, and in the gun stores. Some guys are planning to get together. Maybe they’re the ones out at the campsite right now.”
I got up and paced the creaking boards.
“Don’t worry, Phoenix can’t get killed twice over,” Arizona said with a grim smile. “Anyway, the guys with guns don’t even see him and the others. We can stay invisible when we choose. Usually we don’t think about it. No, I bet what happened is that the vigilantes split up into pairs and that some of them are still nosing around—until Hunter finally tracks them down. When he does, they’ll be out of here fast.”
Scared out of their wits and too macho to admit it. I thought of all the boasting and exaggerating that would be going on in the town bars tonight.
“You want to know something funny?” Arizona asked. “Jonas’s dad is one of the vigilantes.”
“No way!”
“Trust me, he is.”
“That’s so not funny,” I spat. Poor Jonas, out there scaring his own dad half to death.
As we talked and Arizona smiled and I felt sick and angry, a figure appeared on the ridge and began to run down the hill. I recognized Phoenix the second I saw him through the window, so I turned and flung open the kitchen door.
“Quit that!” Arizona warned as I tried to dash across the yard. She ran after me, grabbed my wrist, and held it in a grip so tight it felt like a band of steel. So I called to him, watching him cover the ground with his long stride, wondering again how someone who looked so alive and strong could be dead.
Phoenix vaulted a wooden fence and ran across the yard. “It’s OK, the campsite is clear. The hunters finally jumped in their Jeeps and headed back to town.”
“How many?” Summer asked. She’d hurried after us out of the barn at the sound of Phoenix’s footsteps.
“Ten altogether.”
“Including Bob Jonson?” Arizona wanted to know.
“Yeah. It was tough on Jonas.” Phoenix noticed her tight grip around my wrist. He frowned at her and she let me go. “Hunter took care of him, made sure he stayed out of Bob’s way. But Jonas saw his dad in the distance, riding his bike along the Foxton road. He’s bought a Harley, just like the one Jonas crashed.”
No one said anything for a while. Then Phoenix took me gently by the hand.
“Come with me,” he said, leading me into the barn.
We sat for a moment holding hands on some wooden steps leading to a hayloft, my heart pounding again. But as a shaft of warm sunlight fell across us, a sense of calm came over me.
“Darina,” Phoenix began.
I put my finger across his lips. “Whatever it is, don’t say it.”
He stared into my eyes instead. His own eyes were that mesmerizing gray-blue, deep as the ocean, his brows straight, his cheekbones high, framing that luminous gaze.
I swallowed, drinking in the sunlight in the barn, the dancing dust, a white dove in the rafters. “Can you make time stand still?” I murmured.
“I haven’t learned how to do that yet.” He tried to smile, but his tone was serious. “Not even Hunter is that powerful. Darina, how long were we dating?”
The change of topic surprised me. Still, I came up with the answer quick as a flash. “Two months, two days, and seven hours. A lifetime.”
“It went fast,” he said as he studied my palm and traced my lifeline down to the base of my thumb. “I could never get you out of my mind—not for a moment. You were always there.”
“Even before we kissed?”
Phoenix nodded, glanced down at the floor then up again at me from under hooded lids. “Since the day I walked into school and saw you. Boom! And when we got together, that didn’t feel like a first kiss either. It felt like I’d spent my whole life kissing you.”
I leaned forward, my cheek touching his. “I know. I know.”
“That’s what I need to talk to you about,” he said. He pushed my hair back from my face and made me look straight at him. “I want you to promise that you will find a way to go forward without me—”
“Don’t!” I pleaded. “I’m here now. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Listen to me. Hunter will be here soon. I need you to promise before he gets here—don’t do anything stupid.”
“Like forget to go on living?” My feeble attempt to lighten the mood ended in my voice cracking and tears leaking down my cheeks.
“Darina.” Phoenix cupped the back of my head in his hands. “You have a life ahead of you. Live it for me, please.”
“Or I could die and join you,” I said before I could stop myself. “I’d come and find you in limbo. We’d be together again.”
He shook his head. “That’s not how it works. Stop—you’re freaking me out.”
“How do you think I feel?” I replied, my voice thick.
“We don’t have much time,” Phoenix insisted. “I have to make you understand. Love doesn’t end just because I’m not around. It goes on. I love you. You love me—forever.”
“Where does love go on? How?” I asked, desperate.
“It just does. Every time you think of me again—that’s love. Every place we’ve been together, every drop of diamond-clear water in Deer Creek—that’s love.”
“It’s not enough and you know it. It hurts too much. I need you with me, by my side.”
His eyes didn’t blink. “But I am there. My heart is there. Trust me.”
I closed my eyes then opened them a
gain. “Can you see the future?” I whispered. I wanted to know if I’d ever be happy.
“No. Only the past. I can take you to our first date, back to the first time I held your hand and you said to me how it was weird, I wasn’t like you’d thought I’d be.”
“And you said, ‘How did you think I’d be?’” I murmured, remembering it word for word. “And I jumped in like a hothead as usual and said I thought you’d be a tough guy like Brandon, and you laughed and said, ‘Thanks for that!’ And I said ‘no offense, I didn’t mean you weren’t macho or anything, that honestly I thought you were cute…’”
Phoenix grinned, his eyes sparkling. “You see,” he said, putting my own hand to my heart and holding it there. “That’s where love is. It’s never going to go away.”
Which is when Hunter and Jonas came into the barn.
Here’s the plan,” Hunter said.
I looked at Jonas and saw he was almost broken by what he’d just been through—finding his dad among the vigilantes and watching the old man’s mind being zapped by the Beautiful Dead. Jonas’s head was down, his shoulders slumped.
“Darina,” Hunter went on. “You get to go home with your brain in full working order.”
Phoenix and I jumped to our feet. We stood facing Hunter, taking in the verdict.
“On two conditions,” he went on. “First, you keep your mouth shut tight.” Hunter’s voice was harsh. His face was hard.
“That’s cool. I promise I won’t say a word,” I whispered.
“I know that.” Hunter walked up and came between me and Phoenix. He flicked me a look of total certainty then casually dropped the killer ingredient into the mix—the one I knew was coming. “Because if you break this promise I send the boy right back where he came from. And this time he can never return.”
I reached for Phoenix’s hand, but Hunter grabbed my arm instead.
“Second, when you get back to Ellerton you work for us.”
I nodded. “I’ll do whatever you want. Arizona, Summer, and me—we already discussed it.”
“I’m well aware of that.” He smiled. “As I recall, Darina, Arizona doubted your ability to seek out the truth. She doesn’t think too highly of you, period.”