“I love him, Mom,” I say, the words catching in my throat, so true it hurts to speak them. “And he loves me. He told me he loved me, but I was too scared to say it back. And now I’m afraid I won’t get the chance. I think he might be …” What lie to tell, what cover story to explain how desperately I need to go to Ben? “I think he might be running away. I need to stop him, and let him know we can get through the thing at school tomorrow. That we can get through anything.”
Melanie stares at me for a long moment before she speaks. “Go change into some dry clothes.” Hope dies inside me. I’m going to have to sneak out the window. I have no other choice. “And then you can have the keys.”
“I can?” I ask, shocked.
“Yes, you can. But you’re going to take my cell phone and answer the second I call and wear your rain clothes and not drive too fast or do anything stupid with this boy.”
“I won’t. I won’t!” I dash across the kitchen and give Melanie a quick hug. “Thank you, Mom.”
“You’re welcome,” she says. “He’s lucky to have you.”
I look up at her, wishing I could tell her how much her words mean to me. Instead, I hug her one last time and run from the room, determined to change clothes faster than anyone has ever changed before.
Hold on, Ben. I’m coming.
EIGHTEEN
Where are they? Where has she taken him? Where would I go if I were Gemma and wanted a nice, private place for a murder?
Murder. Ben’s blood on the floor, Ben’s sightless eyes staring up at—
I swallow and grip the wheel tighter. Maybe they’re just talking. Maybe things aren’t as dire as I fear. Surely Gemma can’t have been turned completely. Just yesterday, she seemed to care for Ben. Just this morning, she warned me away from him. No matter what Romeo promised her, no matter what Ben might have said this afternoon, surely she isn’t ready to take his life. At least, not yet.
I cling to that hope as I steer through the streets of Solvang, searching for any sign of Gemma’s or Ben’s car. The rain pounds so hard the windshield wipers can’t keep up, barely swiping away one sheet of rain before another riot of wet takes its place. I have to lean forward, strain to see the flooding streets.
School hasn’t let out yet, and half the businesses have closed early. The usual tourists have been scared away by the crazy weather, and the town feels eerily deserted. The emptiness makes my anxiety spike higher and higher.
Where are they? Where have they gone?
I paw through Ariel’s memories, searching for any clue as to where Gemma might go, but I can’t find anything solid to hold on to. Ariel’s life still feels so much more distant than it should. I’ve let my own desires take up too much space inside this skin. I’m crowding out information I need to keep Ben safe.
He has to be safe. What will I do if he isn’t? What will I do if I’m too late? What if Romeo has—
Romeo. I might not know Gemma as well as I’d like, but I know Romeo. I know the way he works, know the places he encourages his converts to go. He likes isolated locations with a touch of the macabre. Cemeteries, deserted buildings, the ruins of ancient churches. There aren’t any church ruins in Solvang. There are plenty of cemeteries, but it’s raining so hard that they wouldn’t be ideal. Maybe a deserted building, someplace where Gemma knows she won’t be observed.
Someplace where she can turn off the security cameras and clean up the mess at her leisure.
One of her father’s barns! But not on the Sloop grounds like yesterday. She won’t want to be seen driving Ben through the gate, and my gut tells me he wouldn’t hide under a blanket a second time. But the Sloops own a lot of land, miles of vineyards spread out all over the area, clear down to the ocean. Most of those vineyards have outbuildings to store farm equipment. And didn’t Ben say something about being with Gemma at a barn?
We made out one time at one of her family’s barns, near my house.
I turn on Ben’s road, hoping my gut is steering me in the right direction. I can’t imagine Ben wanting to go anywhere with Gemma. Unless she’s holding a gun on him, she probably suggested someplace close.
Unless she’s holding a gun … Her father has quite a collection. It wouldn’t be hard for her to get her hands on one. I should have grabbed something more serious than a paint knife, but Melanie was in the kitchen, standing right in front of the knife drawer.
I drive faster, scanning the small placards on either side of the road, the ones that name the grape varietal growing in a field and often identify which winery the grapes belong to. The Sloops always have theirs marked and are one of the few companies that bother putting fences around their property. There’s really no reason to. The only people who wander into the fields are drunk tourists wanting their pictures taken with the vines, and they rarely hurt anything.
I guess even the Sloops know that on some level. The vineyard of chardonnay grapes about a mile past Ben’s house is surrounded by a barbed-wire fence, but no gate blocks the muddy road leading into the fields. I brake hard, sending the back of the car skidding before the wheels catch and turn down the narrow lane. There are tire marks in the soggy earth, and they look fresh.
A few minutes later, the land dips down, revealing a low spot in the field where the grapevines are half underwater. I brake, second-guessing my instincts until I see the tracks swerving out of the mud on the other side of the standing water. Someone has driven through here recently, and almost got stuck on the way through. Globs of mud cover the grapevines near the tracks, testimony to how the tires spun as they fought their way out of the flooded area.
Maybe Romeo told Gemma to meet him here for just this reason, knowing that should the rain continue to fall, they’ll all be flooded in on the other side, giving them plenty of time to kill Ben and complete the spell to bind Gemma to the Mercenaries before anyone reaches their location.
I eye the water. It isn’t moving. I won’t be swept away if I try to cross on foot, but I have no idea how much farther Gemma has driven. Some of the fields are miles across, and I can’t see a barn from here. What if I go on foot and I’m too late, what if those minutes I could have gained in the car make the difference between life and death?
My foot shifts to the gas pedal and the car eases down the hill. Water rises up the side. Up, up, until I hold my breath, wondering if I’m going to make it. Will the engine stall? Will the tires float up off the ground? Melanie’s tiny Hyundai doesn’t weigh much, and the water is rising, rising, until I could reach out the window and touch it. The car makes a sputtering sound, and I feel the wheels spin uselessly for a second before catching the ground again.
“Please, please, please,” I mutter, leaning forward in my seat, willing the car to roll just a few more feet.…
The wheels spin, then catch, spin, then catch, and finally hit the road on the other side, spraying mud as the car fights its way out of the flood. And then I’m moving again, up the small rise, down into a shallower stand of water, and then up once more. About a hundred feet away, I see it. A small barn, and Gemma’s BMW parked around the side.
Relief and fear burst inside me, overloading my nervous system, making me shake as I pull to the side of the road about fifty feet away and cut the engine. I don’t want them to hear me if they haven’t already. I take only a second to flip up the hood of my raincoat and pat my pocket—ensuring the paint knife is still there—before stepping out into the downpour. Thunder crashes and the rain slams against my head and shoulders, tiny fists warning me to get inside and leave nature to its own devices.
I walk as quickly as I dare up the hill toward the barn entrance. There’s no door, and the structure isn’t that big. Depending on where Ben and Gemma are standing, they might have seen me already. My gut tells me to move slowly, to try not to attract attention. Just in case.
But it’s hard to slow my steps, to keep from breaking into a run. I have to see Ben. I have to touch him, feel the warmth of his skin and know that he’s still alive.
>
Please, please, please. Please let him be okay. I don’t know what I’ll do if he isn’t, whether I’ll be able to stop myself from falling on Gemma with this ridiculous weapon and finding some way to end her. I’m afraid I’ll kill her if she’s hurt him, no matter what the consequences for my soul or Ariel’s body.
The seconds tick by with ruthless slowness, each slippery step an eternity. And then a car engine guns to life, and time stands still.
I spin to the right, making the turn just in time to see Gemma’s BMW leap from the mud and bear down on me. I catch a glimpse of her pale face behind the wheel, meet her eyes for a moment that leaves no doubt that she’s seen me, before the rain smears her reflection. Then all I can see is gray steel and the grille of the car and mud flying from tires that spin faster and faster with no sign of stopping.
I jump to the side without a second to spare, the moment so close I feel the heat of the engine on my legs. The rear tires spatter me with filth as Gemma speeds away. Raindrops pound into the puddles like quarters hurled from outer space. I lie in the muck, shaking with fear, unable to move, unable to pull myself up off the ground.
She’s left. She almost ran me over. Why would she do that? Why, if she doesn’t already have Ben’s blood on her hands?
A sob rises in my throat. I don’t know if I can do it. I don’t know if I can go in there and look down at another dead body. Not the body of some soul mate I barely knew, but the body of a boy I love. A boy I pushed away when I should have drawn him close and kept him safe. A boy so good and—
Hands close around my arms, lifting me off the ground, making me want to scream with relief. I know those hands. Even before his face appears above mine, I know it’s Ben pulling me out of the rain.
Ben. Alive. Alive!
We barely make it under the cover of the barn’s roof before I hurl myself at him, twining my arms around his neck, feathering kisses across his face—his cheek, his chin, his lips, his nose, his lips. His lips. Warm, scratchy with the hint of stubble, soft and beautiful and blissful and Ben.
Ben, Ben, Ben. I could say his name a thousand times and never get tired of the sound of it. I could kiss him like this for hours, days, years. But first, there’s something he has to know.
I pull my mouth from his. “I love you.” And I do. I’ve already had a soul mate, Ben’s aura is glowing for another, and these aren’t my lips that speak or my arms that hold him. But it is my heart and my truth. He is my love. My impossible, doomed, undeniable love.
“And I love you.” He cups my face in his shaking hands. “I’m so glad—I can’t believe— She almost ran you over!”
“What about you? Are you okay? Did she hurt you?” My hands run over his shoulders, down to his chest, feeling the pulse of his heart beneath his damp sweater. It’s black this time, flecked with drops of red. I touch a drop with one finger, and my knees nearly buckle with relief. Paint. Not blood.
“I’m fine, but—”
“But nothing!” I squeeze his shoulders, brush his damp hair out of his eyes. “I told you to be careful with—”
“She wanted to go someplace where we could talk in private,” Ben says. “My sister-in-law kept showing up on the porch offering snacks so she could listen to what we were saying. It was embarrassing, and I knew this barn was close. Then the phone rang, and Marianne went to get it, so we got in Gemma’s car. I thought I’d be about twenty minutes, and be back before she noticed we were gone.” He hugs me closer as the thunder booms again. I let my arms twine back around his neck. “But as soon as we turned off, I knew I shouldn’t have left. Gemma just … perdio la mente. You wouldn’t believe the stuff she was saying.”
Oh, I might. “Like what?”
“Like … crazy stuff. Apparently she and Dylan are …”
“Friends?”
“More like friends.” He snorts beneath his breath. “It’s just a physical thing, I guess, but she said it’s been going on for a while. She said you knew all about it.”
“I didn’t.” I shake my head. But I should have guessed. From what I know of Gemma, she doesn’t hang around with boys for purely friendly purposes.
“I knew you didn’t,” he says. “I told her that. But she said that’s the reason you went out with Dylan and the reason you and I … connected. She thinks you’re trying to steal her identity because you’re too messed up to create your own. And she’s convinced you tricked me into beating Dylan up and … just a bunch of stuff that’s so far out there I don’t see how she could say it with a straight face.”
I roll my eyes. If Ariel and Gemma were in a race to see who was more messed up, Gemma would be the front runner by a lap or three.
“I told her you didn’t trick me into anything.” His forehead drops to mine. “And I told her how I feel. About you.”
I pull away, looking up at him. “You did? Even though—”
“I was hoping you’d come around.” His lips quirk into one of his crooked smiles. “But even if you hadn’t, it’s still the way I feel. It’s not going to change.”
“What did she say?”
He slides his hands up and down my back in a way that’s one part comforting and another part incredibly distracting. “She told me she was in love too. With some other guy.”
“What?” My brow furrows.
“She wouldn’t name names, but I guess there’s a third guy in the picture. One who’s ‘worth the trouble.’ She says they’re in love and he’s convinced her to change her life, and that she doesn’t want to play games anymore. She actually had the guts to say she was trying to protect me. From you. That you’re crazy and have all this ‘deeply buried rage’ no one else knows about and on and on until I just started laughing.”
“You didn’t.” My lips curve despite my worries.
“I did. And then I told her I liked your deeply buried rage and everything else about you. That’s when she really lost it.” He shrugs, a movement that brings me even closer, until I can feel our stomachs press together as we pull in our next breath. “I couldn’t care less. Gemma is nothing to me. I never felt this way about her. I’ve never felt this way about anyone.”
“Me either.” Even in the days when I worshipped Romeo, I didn’t feel like this.
I didn’t feel I could tell him anything and he’d try to understand. I didn’t believe he saw through to the heart of me and loved me for my strengths and my weaknesses. Romeo lifted me up to dizzy places with his adoration, but he never held me with such gentle recognition, never made my feet feel planted on solid ground. Planted in a place where something real and wonderful could grow, something more amazing than “forever.”
One human life, a human heart freely given—it’s the greatest gift anyone can give. And Ben wants to give his to me. The last of the pink in his aura deepens before my eyes, until the heart of him burns a rich wine-red. It’s a light going on in the darkness in more ways than one.
My hand slides from his neck to press against my chest. I’ve never been able to see my own aura—I assumed I didn’t have one after my death—but what if … what if … what if I am glowing as brightly as Ben?
It would certainly explain why Romeo was so thrilled when the lights first came on in the theater. He must have seen my aura and thought I was glowing for him. And then he saw me with Ben. That’s why he was suddenly so intent on asserting his claim, why he—
What have you done? This changes nothing.
What have I done? I’ve fallen in love with someone else—true love, burning-heart love. And it changes everything.
“Do you think a person can have more than one soul mate?” I ask, my pulse racing as I wait for Ben’s answer.
He cocks his head. “Why? You thinking of replacing me already?”
Something inside me lightens, just because he’s so certain. So certain that I am the One. His One. “No. No, I just … I thought I was in love once. A long time ago when I was … younger.” Several hundred years younger. “I was so sure that was it, my one
chance, but now …”
“Gemma said Dylan was your first date.”
I bite my lip, not wanting to lie, but too afraid to tell the whole truth. “I met the other boy at a party. We never went on a date. He would sneak into my house at night and we’d talk, but it only lasted for a few days. Five days after I met him he … left town.”
“You’ve only known me three days.”
The realization makes me start. It’s true, but it seems I’ve known Ben forever. I’ve felt that way since the night we met. It’s as if some part of me has been waiting to meet him my entire life, my entire afterlife.
“I knew that first night,” Ben whispers. “That first hour. Right after I wiped the blood off your face, I just thought—this is it, this is …”
“What?”
“This is the girl I’m going to spend my life with. I could see it,” he says, a vulnerable look in his eyes that makes it hard to swallow.
Maybe he really did fall in love with me, me, that first night. Before I saw him in the light, before I knew his aura was colorless before we met. Maybe Ben isn’t the soul mate I’ve been sent to protect after all. Maybe I’ve been sent for Gemma and someone else. Maybe the other boy she’s seeing, the one she told Ben was worth the trouble.
“I don’t need any more time to know that I’ve never felt like this before and never will again,” Ben says, banishing thoughts of anything but him as his hands smooth over my hips. “But I don’t care if you have.”
My eyebrows arch. “You don’t?”
“No. I don’t care if I’m not the first.” His head tilts and his lips move within a whisper of mine. “As long as I’m the last.” And then he kisses me, until the world spins and my blood races and there is nothing but Ben.
And he is perfect and right and good and I love him. I don’t care if this is impossible. I don’t care if it’s forbidden. I know it isn’t wrong. There’s nothing wrong in the way he makes me ache, nothing wrong in the way his heart speeds along with mine, nothing wrong with his hands on the buttons of my raincoat, working at the barriers that separate us from each other. I want his skin on my skin, I want—