“Don’t think about me!” I begged. “Think about you. Today is all you have!” All we have!
Phoenix’s grip strengthened. His fingers were laced through mine—his were ice-cold, mine were warm. “We can’t trust the cops to arrest the Thornes,” he insisted.
“Yes, you can. Kors is good at his job. He’ll track them down.”
“Not soon enough.”
On we went, out of the meadow, across the thorn scrub and flat slabs of glittering pink rock, up the hill toward the water tower.
“I’ve told Dean this is it, we’re out of here,” Phoenix murmured in the shadow of the tower. “It’s my choice, and it’s a straight one—your life or mine. It’s a no-brainer.”
I made him turn and look right at me, deep into my eyes. “I did this three times before—for Jonas, Arizona, and Summer. I can do it again.”
He’d cut himself off from me and made up his mind.
“No, Darina, you can’t. This time it’s Oscar Thorne we’re dealing with.”
“This time it’s you,” I countered.
He looked at me so long, so deep that I thought the silence would go on forever. We were still in the shadow of the tower, beneath the canopy of bright green aspen leaves, with the sweep of the mountains behind us, the blue sky above.
Phoenix, my Phoenix, I won’t stop now. I’ll never give in.
“I don’t want you to grieve for me,” he said softly as the breeze blew his hair from his face, revealing the angle of his cheekbones and jawline, the curve of his eyebrows, the depth of those blue-gray eyes.
As long as I breathe I’ll grieve for you. You’re in my head, my heart—you always will be. How can I kill the memories?
Why would I want to?
“But don’t be sad. Be happy.”
All I want is more time with you.
We walked on hand in hand toward Angel Rock.
“We’ll have more time together, but it’ll be different,” Phoenix said.
“How—different?” The word scared me. I want it to be the same.
We stopped, and he turned toward me. “You believe in the soul? I don’t mean any special religion—just the idea of a spirit.”
I think I do.
“An energy, a life force, and we’re all part of it. It’s where we come from and where we go to.”
Turning again and walking me toward Angel Rock, he held my hand so firm, looked so deep into my innermost thoughts, that I said out loud, “Yes, I believe that.”
“I’m part of that energy and so are you. That’s how I get to be there with you next week when you’re back in school, next year when you go to college, when you party and dance—I’ll be there.”
I believe you.
“I’ll be there when you meet the right guy and raise your kids. And whatever I said in the past, I promise I won’t be jealous—I’ll be happy for you.”
I understand. My heart was squeezed. I could hardly breathe.
“At all your life events I will be by your side.”
Now my heart was aching, bursting, breaking. I held on to his cold, cold hand.
“I will watch you grow old,” he promised.
• • •
“I know one thing for sure,” Dean announced. It was late afternoon, and the shadows in the yard were long and deep.
“We have a situation with the Thorne brothers that makes it too dangerous to send Darina back.”
“So we quit,” Phoenix insisted. “How many times do I need to say it?”
I shook my head. “I won’t. I can’t.”
Dean turned to Phoenix to explain my point of view.
“You see what Darina’s saying? If she quits now, that’s it for her—she won’t be able to move on with her life. What kind of future does she have, knowing that she failed in the most important task she ever had?”
“Thanks.” I sighed. “Make him understand, tell him we don’t have time to talk—we need to move on.”
Deep in thought, Dean led the way into the barn, where Iceman sat quietly on the steps leading to the hayloft. He was resting, recharging his powers, waiting for the overlord’s decision.
“Go sit, Darina,” Dean told me, and I went to the steps and sat down next to Iceman. Somehow, his quiet presence and the big dark space soothed me, like being next to a priest in an empty church.
Dean stood with Phoenix near the door. “My decision is that we go on,” he told him calmly. “But Darina stays here with us.”
I took a breath, deep and slow. We go on!
Phoenix gazed at me across the floor of the barn. I love you, Darina. I will not let you die.
“I know this looks like chaos,” Dean went on. “But we need to establish some logic, some pattern. What happened before the fight at the gas station? What key facts are we missing here?”
I admired Dean’s cop brain, at work on motives, moving toward opening a new line of inquiry. “Like, why did Nathan hit Brandon?” I asked eagerly. “What reason did he have?”
Dean nodded and turned to Phoenix. “Was there something in the background—a key detail that we overlooked?”
“Nothing that I know of.” Phoenix sounded defeated. “My brother doesn’t talk about stuff like that.”
“But he’s part of the culture,” Dean pointed out. “He hangs with guys who know the Thornes. He listens and picks up information.”
“Brandon isn’t into drugs.” Phoenix came back with more force to defend his brother.
“That’s what I figured. I’m not saying he was part of the deal. But focus on exactly that fact—Brandon isn’t part of the Thornes’ organization, but he knows their lifestyle.
“Plus, he’s a guy who can take care of himself—you don’t push Brandon Rohr around.”
“You’re certain Brandon never shared any information with you about Oscar and Nathan Thorne?” I checked with Phoenix. “Or about any of that gang—Black or Hall?
“Or what about the younger kids, Stafford and Miller?”
“We didn’t talk,” he insisted. “That’s the way it was.”
“So—Oscar Thorne has his Ellerton territory.” Dean moved us on. “Believe me, I know—this is a specific area, with established boundaries. Deals are done. Drug mules link the international runners with the local chief. A lot of guys know how it works and who works it, but no one says they know or does anything to challenge the system.”
“But maybe Brandon did,” I suggested. “What if he saw his kid brother hanging out with Stafford and Miller and knew that Zak was getting pulled into some nasty stuff—wouldn’t he act on that?”
“Most guys would,” Iceman agreed, and we all looked at Phoenix for his reaction.
He stood silent for a while, his face pale and thoughtful while the bond of family loyalty took hold. “You’re guessing,” he said. “You can never be sure.”
“Which is why we get to travel back in time,” Dean decided, standing between two narrow shafts of light in the gloomy barn. “We take a look at a couple of things and establish a motive. We move on from there.”
• • •
I have wings, and I’m spinning through a black tunnel. I don’t know which way is forward and which way is back. Gravity doesn’t exist, only a pinprick of light that we move toward, which I glimpse then lose. A terrible force is dragging, twisting, propelling me on. Phoenix and Dean are with me, their white wings folded, helplessly turning, tumbling, whirling through space.
The speck of light grows to a disc. We fall and spin in pain toward it. The force tears at our limbs, our clothes, and hair.
We spiral on, the light expands, brilliant and blinding. I close my eyes and open my wings. The agony ends. We are there.
Angel-me stands invisible beside Dean and Phoenix in a huge, cold, empty warehouse with sleet rattling down on the metal roof.
There are no windows, no electric light, and for a while we see nothing.
We hear the muffled sound of a car engine pull up outside the building and cut out. A door opens, and daylight floods in.
We’re surrounded by hundreds of large, square objects covered in see-through plastic wrapping, taped up, ready for transportation. Beneath the wrapping I make out tables and chairs, beds and sofas. The big sticky labels on the outside read: The Wonderful World of Wood.
Oscar Thorne and Vince Hall lead the way between the unwieldy humps of packaged furniture that look like lumbering prehistoric creatures toward a small glass office in the corner. Nathan Thorne follows close behind, calling to Jacob Miller and Zak Rohr to keep up.
“There’s no one here,” he assures them. “The business went bust two weeks before Christmas.”
Jacob looks scared but excited, Zak just plain scared.
I glance sideways at Phoenix, see him take a step toward Zak before Dean reaches out a hand to stop him.
“There’s not a thing you can do to change things,” Dean says.
“Zak shouldn’t be here,” Phoenix mutters. “He knows not to hang out with these people.”
Dean frowns, communicates a telepathic warning, and makes Phoenix focus on the action.
“I said, it’s OK!” Nathan insists. He comes so close to us we could reach out and touch him, waiting right there for the others to catch up. “What’s with you guys?” he mutters. “You know you don’t make my brother wait.”
Angel-me spreads my wings and rises into the air with Dean and Phoenix, who’s staring down at Zak, trying to read his state of mind. We go ahead to the glass office, where we see Oscar and Vince placing dozens of small packages in rows on the desk. Vince begins to count and rearrange the packages, while Oscar looks out impatiently through the glass partition.
Nathan and Jacob hurry toward the office. Zak hangs back.
Then we hear another engine approaching. This time it sounds like a motorbike. The screech of tires tells us that it has pulled up in a hurry.
Oscar hears it, leans over the desk, and with his forearm sweeps the packages into a leather sports bag. Vince leaps up, breaks out of the office, and begins to sprint down the aisle of furniture toward the door. Nathan, Jacob, and Zak stay rooted to the spot.
I hover over the action with the Beautiful Dead.
Before Vince reaches the exit, Brandon appears, silhouetted against the light. Behind him is a curtain of sleet that slants toward the ground and a million tiny white balls rebound.
Invisible Phoenix lets out a groan as his older brother shows up. He’s desperate to step in again and is hurting big-time because he knows he can’t.
Vince sees Brandon and hesitates. Back in the office, Oscar closes the zipper on the bag and comes out with it tight under his arm. Brandon strides toward Vince, who comes at him, but Brandon lands the first punch, which sends him crashing into the furniture. Without saying a word, Brandon walks on, takes hold of Zak’s arm, turns him toward the door, and starts to march him out of the building.
Twenty paces away, Nathan sets off after Brandon and Zak.
He takes a shortcut, vaulting over tables, shoving chairs aside, and overtaking the Rohrs before they have a chance to reach the door. Pulling a knife from his pocket and setting himself across their path, he stands with his feet wide apart, eyes staring wildly.
Brandon says nothing, only looks irritated at the interruption. He glances over his shoulder at Oscar, who is pulling Vince Hall free of the furniture, then at Miller, suddenly looking like he wishes he wasn’t there. “Ttt.” Brandon makes a clicking noise with his tongue then gestures for Zak to step to one side. He stares at the knife in Nathan’s hand and sighs.
“You lay a finger on him and you’re dead!” Oscar warns Brandon.
The threat brings a frown to Brandon’s face. Again he’s irritated.
Oscar’s voice rises an octave. “No shit—you’re dead!”
“Ttt.” Brandon lashes out at Nathan, sends the knife clattering to the ground and Nathan staggering back through the doorway where he skids on the sleet-covered ground, loses his balance, and lands hard.
“Walk!” Brandon orders Zak, shoving him through the door.
Zak also staggers, almost tripping over Nathan, who squirms on the ground.
Brandon picks up the weapon. As he strides past Nathan, he treads hard on the hand that grasped the knife. Then Brandon and Zak walk out of sight.
“I swear—he’s a dead man,” Oscar mutters, hearing Nathan yell out and setting off after Brandon.
Hall hooks an arm around Oscar’s waist to hold him back.
“Not now,” he tells him, tapping the bag containing the drugs to remind him of important business. “Later.”
Oscar tries to break free. “I’ll get the kid, too,” he promises his little brother, who has crawled on all fours back into the warehouse.
“Later!” Hall insists.
Outside in the whiteout world, we hear a motorbike roar to life. Hovering in the dark roof space of the Wonderful World of Wood, I watch the scene play out then look at Phoenix’s troubled face.
“How do you feel?” I ask him, trying hard to imagine how I would react right now in his shoes.
He doesn’t answer, just holds up his hand to ask me not to speak and let the scene play out.
“Leave it to me—I’ll get Zak!” Nathan argues it out with Oscar, keeping his injured hand pressed to his chest. His baby face is flushed with shame. “No one walks away from this—not Zak Rohr, not Brandon, nobody!”
• • •
The journey back to the present hurts just as much as traveling into the past. Every muscle is twisted, every joint feels like it’s being wrenched apart. You enter the vortex, and it spins you so fast, so hard that your brain rattles inside your skull. Your angel wings contract, shrivel, and vanish into two red-hot arrows of pain lodged in your shoulder blades.
Without that point of light in the far distance, you would give up the act of breathing, let go of your hold on life.
But I did it—I traveled beside Phoenix and Dean and held on. The light opened up at last into a gentle halo surrounding us, lowering us gently to earth.
“So now we know,” Dean told Iceman, who stood waiting for us in the barn entrance. “There was a full-on feud between the Thornes and the Rohrs. Those guys were at war.”
I ought to have been glad to have the evidence, but the main feeling was fear.
“How are you doing now?” I asked Phoenix.
He stood exhausted in the shadow of the barn, his supernatural energies drained and at an all-time low. His breathing was shallow, his beautiful, clear eyes dull. “I’m doing good,” he lied.
Iceman came across, slung Phoenix’s arm around his shoulder, and helped him into the barn, where he sat him on the steps. Dean and I followed. I crouched beside Phoenix and stroked his hand. “You need to rest,” I whispered, trying to ease the ache that lingered beneath my shoulder blades.
“And think,” Dean urged. His face had the steadfast, solemn, stony look. I guess it was the responsibility of becoming overlord—the weight of steering the Beautiful Dead’s eternal future. “Try to remember—did this incident at the warehouse ever come up between you and your brothers? Is it something you were aware of?”
Phoenix let his head hang low. “I don’t remember exactly.”
There was a pause then Dean said, “I need the truth.”
As always, Phoenix recognized that he couldn’t deceive his overlord. “Maybe Brandon…one time, he might have mentioned it.”
“Good. And did he ask you to watch out for Zak?”
“Again, it’s not clear. But yeah, I guess.”
This was so not like Phoenix that I asked Dean to hold back. “He’s exhausted. He can’t take any more questions.”
Nodding abruptly, Dean eased me back for a consultation. “This sure looks like a motive,” he said.
“Nathan is the kind of kid to keep hold of a grudge and let it fester.”
“Until it drives him crazy,” I agreed. “Pretty soon he would be out there looking for payback. And in his devious brain, harming Phoenix and making the whole Rohr family suffer forever would be the ideal way to do it.”
“It worked,” I said flatly, thinking of the twelve months of hell Nathan had put Sharon, Michael, Brandon, and Zak through.
“So that’s it—we think we have the answer.” Iceman was at the door, looking up at the mountains and watching the sun sink until only a rim of molten gold lay on the black horizon. “Nathan Thorne sees the scene at the gas station as a trigger for revenge. He jumps at the chance of striking back at Brandon, and since that’s not enough, he pulls a knife and stabs his brother.”
Out of the months of chaos and doubt came a simple, solid solution. It matched my gut feeling—Nathan Thorne was guilty. He killed Phoenix for revenge.
But Iceman, always in the background, always reliable, turned back toward us. “It doesn’t feel like the end,” he told the overlord. “I still think there’s more.”
Maybe it’s because Dean had been a cop that he listened to Iceman. It was the investigator in him, the professional who checks and double-checks his facts.
“No jury would convict Nathan on the evidence we have,” he agreed. We’d moved Phoenix from the barn to the house, put logs on the fire, and lit the oil lamps. I was watching his every move, following every breath he took.
“A strong motive and a history of violence between the Rohrs and the Thornes doesn’t automatically mean a guilty verdict.”
“But you heard the threat. Nathan said no one walks away! That means he was planning to kill them.” I was against Iceman. I needed what we’d seen to be enough.
“But he didn’t say Phoenix’s name,” Dean reminded me. “Only Brandon and Zak. We didn’t get exactly what we needed.”
“So we go back again,” I urged. “Tonight, right now!”
Dean took a while before he made his next move, pacing the room, making the floorboards creak. He stopped on the bloodstained spot where Hunter had fallen long ago. “Another trip—will you make it?” he asked Phoenix.