Her jaw trembled in silent, arid sobs.
She really couldn’t stop.
And she was terrified.
“Elliot, please, wait,” I said, grabbing her arm. It didn’t work; she just dragged me along with her.
If I couldn’t make her stop, I could at least keep her from dying of dehydration. I lifted my water bottle and poured some into her mouth.
But she didn’t make any effort to swallow it. It just leaked out all over her filthy sweatshirt.
“You have to stop her,” Lydia said. “It’s too hot. This trail’s too difficult. She’ll die of exhaustion.”
“I know,” I said. “But I don’t know how.”
“Can’t you block the path?”
“She’ll just go around me.”
“There’s a narrow pass a little way ahead. If you can block the far side and trap her in there, she won’t be able to keep going. She’ll have to stop.”
It was worth a try. I ran ahead.
The narrow pass was about twelve feet long and three feet wide, bordered on its sides by the cliff and a ten-foot boulder. I wedged a bunch of big branches between the rocks on the far side, blocking off the passage just where it started to widen again. Then I hung back and watched the trail for Elliot.
Finally, she came. She was slower now, growing weaker and weaker. In addition to the painful gasp of her breath, her lungs made a hollow wheezing sound, like a little sigh.
She went into the pass.
I stepped out behind her, setting another thick piece of brush across the near opening. I watched her get to the other end, bump up against the branches, and slowly turn around, dragging her left leg.
Her face was flushed red, but there were deep gray circles under her dull eyes.
“Elliot, stop,” I pleaded, as she got closer to me, foot by agonizing foot. “Please.”
Lydia appeared, her face pale with dread. “It’s not going to work.”
“Wait.” I turned to Lydia. “You can stop her. You stopped me that night I was walking outside. What did you do? Try it on Elliot!”
Lydia’s mouth dropped open. She glanced down at her hands. “It’s…different than with you. It’s…it’s…meaner now.”
Right. It was different because I was Lydia’s power center. She had to protect me in order to save herself.
“How can you be so selfish?” I said.
Her eyes flashed with pain.
“You’ll do it if it means saving yourself,” I said. “But to help an actual living person, you refuse?”
Lydia looked at me like I’d slapped her. “What do you mean?” she cried. “I was never trying to save myself!”
“Lydia, I’m begging you! Don’t let her die.”
I don’t know if ghosts can cry, but Lydia was about to. She gave me a hurt look, then grimaced, closed her eyes, and charged forward, plowing into Elliot.
But she didn’t go through her and come out the other side.
She disappeared completely.
Elliot stopped walking and swayed on her feet for a moment. Then she looked at me, and there was a glimmer of recognition in her eyes.
“Alexis,” she whispered. Her voice had a slight vibration to it, like when you talk into a fan. “Don’t come too close. It’s not safe.”
“Where have you been?” I asked. “What happened to you?”
“I don’t know.” Then suddenly she looked up at me, her dazed eyes full of hope. “This is a dream, isn’t it? It’s just a nightmare.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“It has to be.” She almost smiled. “That explains everything. I knew it wasn’t real. It’s too horrible to be real.”
“Come with me,” I said.
“No. I don’t have much time. I need to keep going.”
“Why, Elliot?”
She raised her finger to her lips, lost in thought. “I’m trying to get somewhere…trying to find something.”
“I’ll help you. Just come with me. Drink some water.”
I reached out to touch her arm, and she jerked away. “No, I’m not—I’m trying to get away from something.”
Then she looked at me. Her eyes went wide with horror.
“I’m supposed to get away from…you, Alexis.” She looked down at herself. “Are you—are you doing this to me?”
Suddenly she went into a frenzy, like a trapped animal. She scrambled over the branch that was blocking her exit and gave me a hard shove.
“Stay away from me!” she cried. “Stay back! Leave me alone!”
“Elliot, listen to me,” I said. “This isn’t real! It’s not me you need to get away from!”
But it was too late. Elliot’s eyes clouded over. The air around her seemed to shiver, and all of a sudden, Lydia’s nearly-invisible form fell out of her body and landed in a heap, too weak to stand or float.
“Lyd?” I said. “Are you okay?”
Elliot started to trudge away, down the trail.
Lydia waved at me, her arm just a faint blur in the air. “Follow her,” she rasped.
I tried to plant myself in Elliot’s way, but she shoved me backward, toward a short incline behind me. I tried to steady myself, but my foot slipped on a patch of loose gravel, and I lost my balance and I fell back, landing hard on my side.
Elliot stood still, staring down at me.
Suddenly, her neck went slack and her head hung low, her chin touching her chest. My throat constricted as she raised her head and looked at me.
Her eyes were empty black holes.
She took a step closer. I went to back away, but my path was blocked by two big rocks.
Elliot kept coming toward me. Only it wasn’t Elliot.
“Laina?” I whispered. “What do you want?”
She didn’t answer. She stood a foot away from me, looking down. I could have reached out and grabbed her legs.
“Please don’t hurt my friend,” I said. “Take me instead. Please.”
From the darkness of the eye sockets, blinking eyelids emerged—Elliot’s terrified eyes. “Alexis?” she cried in a strangled whisper. “Oh my God—please—I can’t—”
It worked, I thought. Laina’s letting Elliot go.
“Hurry!” I said. “Run! Run away!”
“I’ll be back,” she said. “We need to get help.”
She made a move to go past me, down the trail.
Then, with a grunt of surprise, she jerked and started moving backward.
But not walking—she was being pulled.
“No!” she yelped. “No! Let me go!”
My body was frozen, and my voice was frozen, and my mind was frozen, watching Elliot struggle like an antelope being dragged away by a pack of lions. Her bare feet stumbled helplessly against the trail.
“Why?” she cried. “Why is this happening?”
I forced myself to my hands and knees, crawling up the hill.
“She’s getting away.” Lydia was too weak to move, but she urged me on. “Alexis, hurry! She’s getting away!”
I got to my feet, ignoring the shock of pain emanating from my ankle with every step I took.
I came around a bend in the trail and stopped short.
Elliot was standing at the very edge of a cliff, fighting against Laina’s hold on her.
“No,” I said. “Don’t.”
When Elliot saw me, she stopped resisting.
She looked at me with an expression of calm—almost acceptance. “This isn’t your fault, Alexis.”
Then she doubled over, like someone had punched her in the stomach.
And she plunged backward off the edge.
I heard screams, and I thought they were Elliot’s…
Then I realized they were my own.
I started for the cliff, but Lydia moved in front of me.
“Wait,” she said. “It’s no use. She’s gone.”
“No,” I said. “Don’t say that. I can save her. I have to go find her.”
“Alexis.” Lydia reache
d out, and I felt the weight of her hand on mine. “It’s like me, remember? It was too late to save me. And it’s too late for Elliot. She’s dead. You have to get out of here.”
“No,” I said.
I tried to move, but she held on to me.
“I’m sorry about before,” she whispered. “I wasn’t trying to save myself. I swear.” She faded almost all the way out, then back in again, like the heavy blinking of a person who’s trying to stay awake. “I…I have to go.”
And she disappeared.
I sat hunched over in shock, wondering where Lydia had gone, and if she was okay. Or had I bullied her into trying something she wasn’t strong enough to do and…
Had I really done it? Had I killed her again?
My hair, matted and tangled, hung in front of my face. My hands were scratched and cut, but I was too numb to feel anything.
The world seemed empty and useless. Even the landscape around me was alien and hostile—jagged rocks jutting out of the ground; rough, rocky cliffs and hillsides covered in cacti and weeds that would cut your skin like a paring knife.
There was no use imagining the worst at this point, or being afraid of it.
I was living it.
After a couple of minutes I forced myself to start moving again. I had to find Elliot. I believed what Lydia said, that I couldn’t save her. But I had to see for myself. So I limped down the trail until I reached a gentler slope that led me down into the narrow ravine. My ankle tweaked with every step.
I spotted her body from fifty feet away, lifelessly sprawled on the rocky ground. Her jaw was slack, her arms splayed out at her sides. She was very dead.
I knelt next to her anyway and reached up to brush a lock of hair away from her eyes.
She looked so peaceful—and that was horribly wrong.
Because Elliot was never meant to be peaceful. She was supposed to shine and blaze like a Fourth of July sparkler.
“I’m so sorry.” My voice was low, as if she and I were having a difficult conversation.
But of course there would be no more conversations.
Suddenly her hand shot up and grabbed my wrist.
Her eye sockets melted to darkness. She bared her teeth and pulled me down close to her face.
A rotten stench—the scent of death—puffed into my face.
“I’m doing this for you,” she hissed.
Then she fell backward onto the gravel.
I’m doing this for you.
Not to me. Not because of me. For me.
The sun was bright overhead and the inside of the car was growing warm.
I’d hauled myself up to the main trail and trudged back to the parking lot, but that was as far as I could make myself go.
I need water, I thought. I’m dehydrated.
But I really didn’t care.
The hills off in the distance began to blur together into a mass of rusty browns and dull grays.
Girls would just keep dying. There was nothing I could do to keep them from dying. And it was somehow my fault. Not that I would ever figure out why or how it was my fault, since Lydia was gone—which was also my fault.
There would be no answers.
There would just be more dead girls.
MORE CARS, CARRYING HIKERS, came and parked alongside me. That meant it wouldn’t be long before someone happened across Elliot’s body. I hoped they would. The sooner they found her, the less her family would suffer.
Finally, I started my car and drove home. I was so distracted that I nearly ran a red light and had to swerve to keep from hitting a guy on his bike.
I parked and wondered vaguely what my next step should be. Call the police? Call Agent Hasan? Turn myself in?
There was no getting around Jared’s being Laina’s power center. Aralt had been tied to the girls in the Sunshine Club as his power center, but he was governed by his libris exanimus, the book that contained him between stints with clubs.
Laina was just a ghost. I mean, she was a superghost (what that meant, exactly, I wasn’t sure), but as far as I could tell, she wasn’t controlled by any sort of book.
Or…was she?
My mind flashed back to Jared’s locked closet door. Did the closet contain something he didn’t want me to see? Something to do with Laina?
No. Impossible. He’d been truly shocked when I’d tried to tell him that she was a ghost. That was the kind of reaction you couldn’t fake.
I walked into our town house without bothering to wonder if there would be anyone there. Mom had her board meeting. Dad had gone to work—there was no point in his staying home if Kasey and I were at school.
Only we weren’t.
I’d skipped school—
And Kasey was home, too.
She stepped into the hallway, staring me down. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I just decided to go for a walk instead of going to school.”
“A walk?” Her gaze traveled up and down my filthy beat-up body and my torn, stained clothes.
“Yeah.”
“Where did you go last night?” she asked.
There was no point in denying it. I blinked. “Out.”
“Lexi…” Her hair was pulled into a low loose bun. Her hands were on her hips. She looked like a character from a TV show about lawyers. “You always leave…right before the bodies are found.”
“What are you saying?”
“If she’s making you hurt them, tell me,” Kasey said.
I had to take a step back and lean against the wall to keep my legs from giving out. How on earth could my little sister know about Laina? And how on earth could she suspect me of being a murderer?
I shook my head. “I just learned about her last night, Kase.”
“Don’t lie to me,” she said. “I heard you talking to her a week ago.”
“Really? To Laina?” I asked, my investigative side forcing my hurt-slash-shocked side to take a backseat. “A week ago? Was I asleep?”
“What?” She quirked her head to the side, puzzled. “Who’s Laina?”
We stared at each other.
“I heard you talking to Lydia,” she said.
“Oh, that. No, Kase,” I said. “It’s not what you think.”
She swallowed hard. “I know what it’s like, Lexi—to be lonely, and to think a ghost is your friend. Does she tell you what to do? Does she promise you things? Is she…is she making you hurt those girls?”
“No,” I said. “Kasey, you don’t understand. Lydia is—”
I cut myself off and took a shaky breath. As much as I’d wanted to protect my little sister and keep her out of this world, it was too late now.
“Lydia’s my friend,” I said. “But not in a bad way. She’s not hurting anybody. She’s helping me.” Or she was—until I killed her.
Kasey’s eyes narrowed. She didn’t believe me—and after what she’d been through, I didn’t blame her. Everything I was saying was something she could have said about Sarah.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” I said. “I mean, you either believe me or you don’t. But I wouldn’t lie about it. You never lied about Sarah.”
She thought about that. “Not to you.”
“Lydia’s not behind this. She’s not hurting those girls—and neither am I.”
“Then why did you find Kendra?” she asked. “I mean, it was so obvious, once I thought about it. And Ashleen—that was your lens cap they found, I know. I checked your camera.”
I wanted to shout at her, shake her. She wasn’t supposed to be doing this. She was supposed to have a normal, happy life, and be a normal, happy girl. She was supposed to be pretty and popular and sail through high school, letting me absorb all of the pain, all of the suffering.
But what if—the thought hit me hard—what if that wasn’t what she wanted?
What if she wanted to help?
She was fifteen years old. I’d been fifteen when I fought Sarah.
Just like I had the right to fight
…so did she.
“In October,” I said, “right before Lydia died, she threw chemicals in my face. They got in my eyes, and I was afraid I was going to go blind. So I retook the oath, and Aralt started fixing my eyes. I never got the chance to read the abandoning spell because Lydia burned the book.”
Kasey’s mouth dropped open. “Aralt is doing this?”
“No,” I said. “He’s gone. But my eyes…they’re different now.”
She stared right into them, and I fought the urge to turn away.
“They’re haunted,” I said. “I can see ghosts in photos and on TV.”
“My God, Lexi,” she breathed. “Why didn’t you say something?”
I choked. “Wait—before you freak out. There’s more.”
And I told her about Lydia.
She had to put a hand on the wall as I spoke. Then she backed into my room and plopped down on the bed. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me. I would have helped you. With all of it.”
“I didn’t want you to help me,” I said. “I wanted you to be safe.”
She raised her eyebrows and gave me an angry look. “You think I want to just live a clueless, stupid life while you’re out there suffering? Are you out of your mind?”
“Possibly,” I said. “Believe me, I’ve considered it.”
She pulled me down and wrapped her arm around me, resting her head on my shoulder. “I can’t be happy if you aren’t happy. I’m not going to let you sacrifice yourself for me.”
“But you have a chance to be normal,” I said. “And I don’t think I do.”
“Well, I don’t want it,” she said, with a decisive shake of her head. “I don’t want to be normal.”
I was overcome by emotions, but for once I didn’t burst into tears. I just sat there feeling somehow like I was the little sister and she was the big sister. She was the protector and I was the one who needed protecting.
“Now,” she said, “tell me absolutely everything.”
So I did. I started with the bright light and the girl—Laina—taking control of Mom’s car, and I told her everything that had happened since then.
She stopped me sometimes and asked questions, which I answered as well as I could. She was trying to work out a way for us to get into Jared’s closet.