“Go now!” I cried.
“I can’t bear to leave you.” He sighed, stepping back to let his head rest against the log wall of the cabin, letting the raindrops trickle down his face. “I want to stay here with you.”
I shook my head. “You can’t. Hunter said to go.”
“I want to be with you,” he insisted, letting his eyes close and drawing an uneven breath. “I’m clinging to every moment we have together, Darina. Don’t turn me away.”
I went to him, put my arms around his neck, and tried to make him listen. “I’ll be here when the storm ends. We can be together then.”
Phoenix put his cheek cold against mine. “It’s too hard.” He groaned. “When I’m with you, it’s ecstasy. When we’re apart, I’m in agony. And all the time I’m afraid.”
“Afraid of what?” I whispered. Outside the storm raged, but here under the porch, I felt safer.
“Of what happens next. I have three days left on the far side—that’s all.”
“I know. But, like I told Hunter, I’m making new contacts, finding out facts, pushing for answers…”
He stopped me by gently brushing his fingers over my lips. “That’s not what I mean. I’m not scared that you won’t solve the mystery because I know in my heart that you will work at it until you do. No, the bottom line is, I’m not certain anymore that I even want to find out who killed me because the price may be too high for my mom, for Zak, for Brandon.”
Startled, I took a step back. “It’s what I told Hunter—you can’t be scared of the truth. I thought we all agreed—we need to know!”
But he shook his head. “It’s weird—lately it’s begun to feel kind of irrelevant and unreal. And I’ll tell you what else really scares me, Darina—what happens next? It’s the big question, what comes afterward—after my twelve months are finally up?”
After you step away from the far side for the last time, after you return to limbo—what then? “No one knows, do they?” I whispered back. “Not even Hunter.”
“Being like this—being Beautiful Dead, isn’t how you imagine,” Phoenix murmured. “Superstrength, superhearing, time travel—in the beginning it blows your mind. You think you’re invincible.”
“Then it ends.”
“And you realize you’re not all-powerful. You’re just like any other human being, only you get to die twice.”
I stepped in and clung to him again. “I understand,” I murmured. “It’s good that you’re telling me. You know what I think? It’s normal to be scared. I’m certain that’s how Jonas felt, and Arizona and Summer. But what will keep you strong, what will get you through is this feeling we have between us—you and me.”
His hands cupped my head, and he gazed at me in silence.
“That’s what you always tell me,” I told him. “You say that what survives, long after we’re gone, is love.”
• • •
We held each other until the overlord strode down from the ridge with Danny Kors behind him.
I saw them and tore myself away from Phoenix. “What’s wrong with Hunter?” I cried, running back into the rain.
He was striding across the meadow, one arm hanging limp at his side. His face was white, his eyes dark and hollow.
He didn’t speak. Brushing past me as more lightning forked across the sky, he stepped onto the porch, and with what was obviously a fast-reducing reserve of strength, he ordered Phoenix to leave. “Do it,” he hissed. “Get out of here before it’s too late!”
Phoenix shook his head and took a step in my direction. Then Hunter blasted him with angry force, sent him reeling sideways along the porch, surrounded him in their shimmering energy field, and made him fade and disappear.
The look of mingled hope and sadness that Phoenix gave me as he lay on the porch surrounded by white light broke my heart in two.
And now Phoenix was gone and Kors had crossed the meadow. He spotted me with Hunter and drew his gun. “Darina, get away from there. Stand clear!”
I froze on the step of the porch. “You don’t understand. Don’t do this! Don’t shoot!”
“It’s OK,” Hunter said quietly as he stepped in front of me. Now that Phoenix was safe from the storm, he could give the sheriff his full focus. So he leveled his gaze on the gun barrel and walked slowly toward him.
Kors’s right hand held steady as Hunter advanced. His arm was braced, his left hand lending support. “One more step and I shoot.”
The overlord walked on. His only intention was to send Kors out of here a second time with a sore head and blank memory. One step, two steps, three…
The sheriff fired his gun, his hand jerked from the recoil.
The bullet hit Hunter in the shoulder and passed clean through—no wound, no blood. He carried on walking. Four steps, five…
Kors fired again. He hit his second target—the center of Hunter’s chest. Again the bullet passed through without a mark.
Hunter didn’t flinch. He advanced with steel-cold, unblinking eyes, reached out, and took the gun from Kors as if he was taking a toy from a child. Then he threw it to one side and swept the sheriff off his feet, sending him crashing against the side of the rusted truck parked at the side of the house. I heard the impact, saw him slump to the ground.
Then I witnessed something I’d never seen before. Hunter stood astride Kors, one arm still limp and with a look of exhaustion on his face. The storm had seriously weakened him, I realized, and he’d reached the limits of his strength. Still he had to wipe his victim’s memory and escort him out of here. But the overlord’s shoulders sagged, and it looked like he didn’t have the energy.
Was this it? Was Hunter going to fail? I took a step toward him and felt him raise invisible wings to beat me back.
Fading then fighting back, summoning his strength, he gazed down at Kors and surrounded him with dazzling white light. The sheriff groaned and tried to raise himself. Hunter intensified the light. Kors slumped back, sighed, and vanished.
The wings beat all around me. The storm raged. Hunter tilted back his head and let the rain stream down his face.
“Go quickly!” I gasped, unable to move from the shelter of the porch.
He turned his head toward me. His eyes were dull and blank—they told me that it was already too late. Wings surged over me. Hunter stood under the storm, gazing up at the dark heavens.
Lightning darted down. It struck the water tower on the ridge with a terrifying flash. The air crackled. Hunter swayed but didn’t move from the spot.
Go! I prayed.
He stood like a tree in a storm—swaying, bending in the wind and rain. He seemed to be waiting.
Thunder filled the valley, crashed around us, and rolled on. Then lightning split the sky, once, twice in quick succession, and the deafening clap came with it—two flashes of blinding light, a giant’s roar. Hunter stood alone at the edge of the meadow, staring at the sky, illuminated then plunged back into darkness, lit up again by nature’s fury.
Fight! I pleaded. Don’t let this happen to you!
He turned his head again and looked at me, growing too weak even to keep up the barrier of wings that held me on the porch. The beating wings faded, releasing me so that I could run out into the rain to be at his side.
When I reached him, he didn’t meet my gaze but turned his head away.
“Look at me!” I pleaded.
The storm was wild around us, rain lashed us, stung our faces, and drenched us through.
“I can’t lose you—not now!” I whispered as I clung to Hunter’s arm. “Don’t you know how we look up to you—all of us?”
He answered in a voice already thousands of miles away, spinning with the planets in vast black space.
“Everything comes to an end.”
“No. We’re not finished. You have to take care of Phoenix.”
“Others will come,” he promised. As he turned again and looked at me, the faded death-wing tattoo on his temple seemed to darken, his skin to grow ghastly white.
“Phoenix needs you!” I told him.
“Don’t talk now,” he whispered, raising his hand to my cheek and looking deep into my eyes, swaying again and sighing with the wind.
His touch was icy cold. Dark blood began to trickle from the place on his temple where Mentone’s bullet had entered.
The wind drove on and rolled the storm clouds out of the valley and up onto the next ridge. Above us the sky began to lighten.
“Listen to me, Darina,” Hunter said, gazing steadily at me, the last glimmers of light fading from his eyes. “I chose you to help the Beautiful Dead, and it was a good choice. You didn’t let us down. No one could have shown more courage, more devotion.”
I felt anguished tears rise and let them fall down my cheeks. Please stay!
“If I’ve been harsh in the past, it was not to blame you, but for the good of the others,” he explained. “For Jonas, Arizona, Summer, and Phoenix. My job above all else was to keep our secret and to protect them.”
I understand. Above our heads, wisps of white cloud trailed after black.
Hunter gazed at me with deep tenderness. “I have always believed in you.”
I saw the inner light fade to nothing, felt his strong hand tremble. Determined to stand until the end came, he braced himself against a sudden wind that gusted across the yard.
Stricken and helpless, I lost hope.
Hunter’s eyelids flickered. A light seemed to surround him—that miraculous glimmer.
“It’s time to say good-bye,” a voice told me.
I glanced around and saw Dean stride out of the barn toward us.
Hunter’s grip finally loosened. He was still gazing at me as his body melted in a halo of silver light.
There’s no reason to be sad,” Dean said. He stayed with me after Hunter departed, leading me into the barn, up the stairs into the loft where we quietly watched blue skies take the place of storm clouds over the aspen ridge.
“This is part of the unchanging cycle—Hunter’s time is finished. I take his place. And you’re right, Darina—it can never be the same.”
“I didn’t even think that,” I protested.
“Not yet,” Dean agreed. “But you will. What you feel for Hunter is unique. Keep it in your heart and cherish it.”
I glanced at the new overlord. His voice seemed to have deepened, his face was sterner than before. His short hair was steel gray, his grayish-blue eyes shone from under a straight, strong brow. Like all the Beautiful Dead, his skin was white and smooth as ivory.
Dean held my gaze. “Do you want to continue?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“To go on with the task. I talked with Phoenix just now, and he expressed his doubts. So I need you to tell me honestly, Darina—do you still want to use the days we have left to release Phoenix from limbo and send him safely on?”
“Or…?”
“Or stop now. Go home and be safe.”
“You already know the answer,” I told him. “Phoenix means everything to me. I don’t understand why you even have to ask.”
“Because, whether you acknowledge it or not, there is a choice, and I need you to think about it.” Dean spoke like the cop he used to be when he was alive—slow and measured, aiming to take the heat out of my angry reply.
“I do realize how much Phoenix means to you.”
“I love him,” I said fiercely.
“And there’s the old saying about love being blind. All I’m pointing out is the other side of things, like the fact that this time around Phoenix isn’t one hundred percent certain he wants to continue.”
“Neither was Summer,” I pointed out. “She thought maybe it was too painful for her mom. And Jonas—he thought he was hurting Zoey. This is nothing new.”
“With Phoenix, the doubt is stronger,” Dean argued. “Besides, this time you’ve placed yourself in real danger. Any more pressure from you, and who knows how guys like Oscar and Nathan will react.”
“I’ve thought about it. I’ve talked it through with Phoenix. Why won’t anybody listen to me?”
Dean fell silent for a while, pacing slowly between the window and the wooden stairs then back again. “Let me give you some background,” he said quietly. “These are things I learned through my job, working alongside Henry Jardine in the Shepherd County sheriff’s office. Number one, the drug scene in Ellerton is run by ruthless professionals. Behind Oscar Thorne there’s a network of international suppliers who possess nothing you or I would recognize as a decent moral code—zero honesty, loyalty, or compassion. Around here Thorne might act like the big guy, but in the world of drug running he’s expendable—one bullet to the head and bang!”
“So?” I demanded. “Why are you focusing on this? What does it have to do with who stabbed Phoenix?”
“A fight like that, flaring up between rival gangs at a gas station—it might seem spur of the moment, but often there’s a long history, fed by greed and revenge. Say, for instance, Oscar’s kid brother, Nathan, is already a known drug mule. The day Phoenix is killed, someone knows the kid’s carrying stuff in his car. This someone—Phoenix maybe—grabs a split-second opportunity to snatch the package—let’s say it’s worth a cool five grand—from the glove compartment. One of Oscar’s guys catches him in the act. Five thousand dollars is a lot of money—certainly enough to draw a knife for.”
The pit of my stomach churned as I pictured the scene.
“Phoenix wouldn’t do that. He wasn’t into drugs.”
“So someone else. Let’s say it was a flashpoint.”
“Do you know this for sure, or are you guessing?” I wanted to know.
“It was a definite line of inquiry when I was alive.”
“But no one who was there at the scene will open up to the cops.”
Dean nodded. “That’s how it works. And I’m telling you this because part of me agrees with Phoenix—this scene is way too big and complicated for you to unravel. And even if you did, and you make Nathan Thorne a prime suspect, there are still guys like Vince Hall and Robert Black to bring into the equation.”
Sighing wearily, I tried to prepare myself. “So tell me the bad news about those two.”
“They’re both heavy users of cocaine. Oscar supplies them, obviously.”
“And…?”
“They’re into Harleys, as you know. But Hall was once the owner of the black Chevrolet now driven by Nathan Thorne.”
“I know the car you mean.”
“Hall liked to get out of his head on crack cocaine then jump in the Chevy and drive up the jeep road to the summit of Amos Peak. He did it for kicks. It was just my luck that one day I was on duty out there when Vince chose to take Black with him on one of his joyrides. He saw my patrol car up ahead and was not happy about me stepping out to talk with him.”
“You’d already radioed the registration number back to the office,” I murmured, digging deep in my memory for something Jardine had once told me. “But somehow that information was lost from the record.”
Dean nodded. “Vince was so unhappy to see me that he totally forgot to put his foot on the brake.”
“He ran you down?”
“Without a second’s hesitation,” the new overlord agreed with a wry smile. “Stopping to talk would’ve spoiled their day, considering they had a quantity of illegal drugs on them at the time. Plus, they never would’ve got to the top of Amos Peak without a clear run at the summit.”
• • •
“I carry on.” This is what I would say to Phoenix when he returned after the storm. I wouldn’t need to speak the words—he would look into my eyes and know.
I waited in the barn with Dean, watching
the sky clear some more, remembering Hunter’s last conversation with me before he left the far side for good. “Hunter believed in me,” I murmured. “He told me that himself.”
“Then you have a lot to live up to,” Dean said quietly.
He stood in the doorway, watching the sun sink and turn the sky pinkish gold. Rainwater still dripped from the roof, and steam rose from the wet, warm earth.
Behind us, in the dark space of the old barn, gentle wings began to beat. I held my breath and waited.
“We return to the far side,” Iceman and Phoenix chanted, emerging out of the magical light. “We are back from beyond the grave.”
I gasped and ran to Phoenix, eager to have his arms around me.
“Hunter is safe,” Iceman told Dean. “We watched him travel on. He was at peace.”
“The world turns,” Dean said. “Nothing stays the same.”
“You understand what happened to him?” Phoenix murmured, holding me tight and gazing down at me.
“Kind of. He saved you, but the storm was too strong to save himself.”
He held me close to his smooth, cold chest. “Not only that. Hunter learned the truth about Marie and his daughter so his time on the far side had run its course. Dean was ready to take his place.”
Still it was hard to believe that I’d never again see Hunter’s tall, strong figure stride along Foxton Ridge or set eyes on those features that seemed carved out of stone.
“I’ll miss him more than I can say.”
“I hear you.”
Looking into Phoenix’s clear eyes the color of the evening sky, I spoke out loud words he’d already read in my heart. “I’ll never forget Hunter.”
“Likewise,” Phoenix whispered. “We—the Beautiful Dead—owe him everything.”
• • •
Thursday was almost here, and everyone was texting me.
come to my place, 2nite 6:30—luv zoe
u owe me coffee—hann
xox meet 4 catch up—jordan
Surrounded by packing cases, watching Laura take down pictures from the walls, I texted them back to say I was busy moving.
god, darina, how come? Hannah texted.