The Ghost and the Goth (8 page)

I drew two entwined circles and labeled all the pieces appropriately.

I handed her the receipt. “Does that help?”

She studied it intently for a long moment before raising her gaze to meet mine with a frown. “So, you’re saying I’m stuck here.” She held up the receipt and tapped at it. “In between. Like purgatory.”

I held up my hands. “I don’t do religion.” I’d seen enough dead people of all religions and no religion to know better than to explain it in those terms.

“You said you thought I went straight to hell,” she pointed out.

Damn, she was definitely sharper than I’d thought. “I meant gone for good.”

She lowered her hand with the receipt, staring down at it. “When I disappeared this morning, both times, I don’t know where I went. I don’t remember anything. Time passes, I guess, based on when I wake up back here. But I’m just … gone.” Her green eyes met mine defiantly, but they sparkled a little more than normal, like she was close to tears.

“Are you saying I’m in hell when I’m not here?”

“I don’t know.” I folded my arms across my chest. “Does your hair smell like brimstone when you get back?”

Her forehead furrowed. “How do I know what …” Her eyes widened as she caught on. “Oh, you’re an ass!” She tossed the receipt back at me. “I’m being serious here.”

“I don’t know, okay? People disappear in Middleground all the time. Sometimes they come back, most of the time they don’t.” I frowned. “Usually, though, the ones that stick around have unresolved issues, things they need to work through.”

“Yeah, and … ?” Her eyes flashed dangerously, like I was perilously close to saying the wrong thing.

I shifted uncomfortably. “What kind of issues could you have, anyway?”
Other than being a bitch.
I kept that little gem to myself, but it didn’t seem to help.

Her head jerked back like I’d slapped her, her mouth falling open slightly. Then her green eyes narrowed, and she pushed herself off the bed, her feet landing with a thump on the hardwood. “I don’t have issues? I don’t have issues?” She grabbed for the closest thing at hand—which was, unfortunately, my half-packed bag—and chucked a T-shirt at my head. “You don’t even know me, you … freak.”

“Hey!” I held my hands up in a defensive position.

“I’m dead, and I’m stuck here. I totally have issues!” A pair of jeans sailed at my face.

“Just because everything looks okay on the outside”—she paused to reload, stepping forward to grab from the bookcase this time—“doesn’t mean”—several books flew at my head, and I ducked—“that it is.”

Tobin’s Spirit Guide
thwacked into my headboard and tumbled off, landing on the floor with a solid thump. “Watch it,” I said. “You could have taken my head off with that thing.”

“Would anybody have missed it?” she taunted, grabbing another armload of books.

“Stop!” I slid off the bed, under her line of fire, wincing at the resulting throb in my head. “I’m sorry, okay?”

“Not good enough,” she said from between clenched teeth, each word punctuated by a book. At least she’d moved on to the paperbacks.

Marshaling what remained of my strength, I grabbed her around the waist and hauled her away from the bookcase, trying to ignore the fresh flowery smell of her hair and the way she squirmed against me. Then, she lashed out with one of those long legs I’d been admiring earlier and caught me behind the ankle.

We crashed down onto the bed, which gave off an ominously loud crack and thump as we hit it. Again, not exactly part of the fantasy.

I
sat up, tossing my hair back from my face in a single movement, and found Killian beneath me. In the tangle—all his stupid fault, by the way—I’d ended up sprawled across his chest, which was actually broader than it looked. Navy blue
is
a slimming color, I guess.

His hands, also bigger than I’d thought, rested lightly on my legs, and I felt the heat of his skin and the soft fabric of his T-shirt rubbing against the inside of my knees when he breathed.

Three days isn’t that long to go without human contact, unless everyone you touch turns your insides into a cold, shaky mess. Then it feels like forever … and touching Will Killian actually felt pretty good.

He stared up at me, and I noticed that his creepy pale blue eyes had a darker ring of blue around them, like the edge of some mountain lake that’s not quite frozen yet. He licked his lips nervously, revealing white and even teeth that I’d never really seen before because—hello?—he wasn’t much into the smiling thing. Yeah, I have a thing for good teeth, so what? It’s not like a foot fetish or something nasty like that. Just because I happen to like the work of a good orthodontist doesn’t mean I have to like the person who
has
the teeth or anything—

“Um, Alona?” he asked tentatively.

I snapped back into myself and the moment. What was I doing? This was Will Killian, for God’s sake. I slapped at his shoulders. “Get off me.”

He yelped. “You’re on me!”

“You planned this.” I tried to push myself off him, but his body pinned my left foot to the bed beneath us.

“Oh, yeah, I set it all up, starting with you throwing books at me—”

I stopped struggling for a second to glare at him. “I wouldn’t have thrown books at you if you hadn’t—”

His whole body suddenly tensed under mine. “Do you hear that?” His eyes going wide, he sat up. His movement freed my foot but sent the rest of me sliding toward the floor. He caught my arms just below the shoulders and pulled me upright, so now I really was sitting in his lap.

“Killian,” I warned.

“Shut up. I’m trying to listen.”

The urgency in his voice seemed genuine, so I clamped my mouth shut. If that black shadowy thing was back …

But all I heard was a car outside. It sounded like it might be turning into a driveway nearby. Nothing supernatural about that, but Killian sure seemed freaked by it.

He lifted me off his lap and set me to one side—fine, so he
was
stronger than he looked—before pulling himself the rest of the way onto the bed and standing on it to peer out the window, high in the wall behind his headboard. He craned his head hard to the left, looking toward the driveway. “Shit.” He lowered himself down carefully, first to the bed and then the floor.

“What’s going on?” I demanded. “My ten minutes aren’t up yet.” He wasn’t seriously going to walk away from me, was he? “I only got to ask one question, which you didn’t even really answer. You were just guessing.”

He ignored me, bending over to scoop up the clothes I’d tossed at him and jam them back into his bag.

I stood up on his bed, wobbling a little, and made my way to the window to see for myself. A car, total blah-brown sedan of some type, pulled to a stop in Killian’s driveway. As I watched, the two front doors popped open. A tiny woman with Killan’s same dark hair climbed out on the passenger side. Her eyes were visibly red, even from this distance, and she was twisting something white, a handkerchief or a wad of Kleenex maybe, in her little hands. A short, thick man with a full beard and one of those jackets with the leather patches on the arms came around from the driver’s side to put his arm around her.

“Your mom and your stepdad,” I guessed. “What’s the big deal?” Other than his stepdad’s excruciatingly bad fashion choices. He was wearing those old man dress shoes with the thick rubber soles. I didn’t know anyone actually wore those—I thought they were just the shoe equivalent of the bogeyman. Ugly, horrendous, reported in legend but never clearly seen in real life.

“My mom never remarried.” He zipped his bag shut and threw it over his shoulder.

“Okay, so …” I hopped down off the bed and followed him as he left the room.

“You have to go. Now.” Killian ignored me. He moved down the hall, past the kitchen to a door that I’d missed seeing the first time. Probably the front door to the house.

“We had a deal!”

He stopped so abruptly I almost ran into his back.

He turned to face me, bright spots of color in his otherwise pale face. He was sure worked up about something. “That guy out there?” He jabbed a finger toward the driveway. “That’s Dr. Miller, my psychiatrist. He wants to lock me up for seeing things that aren’t there. Get it?”

Not exactly. “But I am here.”

“Not to him, and you’d have a hell of a time proving it to anyone but me. So, if you want the rest of your ten minutes, you have to shut up and stay out of the way until I can get out of here.” Killian lined himself up next to the door. With great care, he pulled the dead bolt back, making a face when it made a loud grinding noise against the housing. Evidently, they didn’t use this door very much.

The raw panic in his voice took away some of the insult of his words, but it also gave me an idea. I sidled closer. “Promise me you’ll help me.”

“What?” He looked up at me, his hand frozen in a claw on the doorknob. Behind us, through the kitchen, I could hear the sound of voices. They were talking outside on the driveway. Clearly, Killian was counting on them coming through the back door while he went out the front. It could work, but the right timing would be crucial.

“If I can’t go back to what I was”—and trust me, after what I’d seen in the coroner’s office, nobody was getting back in that body—“then I want to move on. Angels, harps, clouds, tossing down lightning bolts on Misty’s head, Krispy Kremes three times a day without getting fat—I want it all. Staying around here is just …depressing.” I tilted my head to one side and lowered my eyelashes to give him the look that once made Chris drive all the way to Peoria to buy me a peppermint mocha latte when the ONE Starbucks in town ran out of the peppermint syrup. “I’ll stay quiet and out of your way. Just make the white light come for me.”

He shook his head with a tight smile. “I can’t do that.”

“Why not?” I demanded.

“It’s not up to me.”

I rested my hands on my hips. “Well, who is it up to?”

He didn’t answer, just cocked his head to the side with a frown, listening to something, and held his hand up for me to be quiet.

Oh, yeah, right.

“I’m serious, Killian,” I continued. “I can’t stay here, not like this. I need help. You’re not my first choice, of course, but I need—”

He let his breath out in a frustrated hiss. “All right, all right. I’ll help you,” he said in a harsh whisper. “Just shut up already. Please.”

It was the “please” that got me. He sounded angry, but scared, too. It wasn’t any fun to mess with him when he was like that—no matter what you may have heard, I’m not into torturing people. Besides, I’d gotten what I wanted.

So, I shut up … for now.

Through the kitchen, I heard the rapid tap-tap of footsteps and the jingle of keys. Someone was coming up the sidewalk to the back door.

Killian waited a second longer than I would have—but hey, it was his great escape—and then he twisted the doorknob and pulled the door open just as his mother stuck her key in the back door lock.

It would have been perfect. They would have had no idea of how long he was gone, probably wouldn’t even have bothered to search outside the house.

Except … when Killian pulled open that front door, Dr. Miller stood behind it, his hand up and poised to knock. I couldn’t have said which one of them was more shocked.

Boogeyman rubber shoes, supernatural in their silence, strike again.

They got him back to his room and in bed, quick as a flash. It only took me a couple seconds in their company to see that while Killian’s shrink might have been the one with the power to send him away, it was his mother who ran the show. Not by pleading or whining, not like my mother. She was broken, by the loss of her husband and the pending loss of her son, and clearly struggling to keep it together. A request from her left Killian scrambling to obey, his face naked with guilt. He’d dropped his bag at the door and followed her without question. If she’d handed him a straitjacket, he’d have buckled himself in with a smile.

Fabulous. This was going to go well. I know all the talk-show hosts blab on and on about having involved and caring parents, but I still think there’s something to be said for uninvolved and apathetic parents. It’s a lot easier.

I parked myself on Killian’s desk chair again to watch the show. I had a vested interest here.

“Where were you headed, Will?” Dr. Miller paced at the foot of the bed while Killian’s mother hovered near the door, probably not wanting to crowd the great doctor. Whatever. I hated therapists. Useless lot, all of them. Always asking you to talk about your feelings. What good does that do anyone? Just makes you think and feel more about the things you can’t change.

“Just somewhere to think.”

“Do you want to talk about what happened at school today?” Miller took his hands from his pockets to cross one arm over his waist and rest the elbow of his other arm on it. Seconds later, his chin settled into the cup of his hand. The guy stepped away from his desk for a few hours and he couldn’t support his own head. A chin-rubber. Great. I rolled my eyes.

Killian shrugged, a little too defensively. “Nothing to talk about.”

Miller frowned. “Principal Brewster wanted to expel you. I’d say that’s something.”

“You talked to him?” he asked.

The doctor paused for the first time, hesitation flashed across his face. “I was with your mother at the diner when she got the call,” he said finally.

Killian flashed a look at his mother.

Oh … something going on between his mom and the shrink? How revolting.

“William, I’m worried about you.” His mother took a step inside the room, her thin, pale hands wringing one another. “Things have been getting worse and—”

“Mom, I’m fine.” Killian threaded his hands through his hair. I saw the wince when he touched the knot on the side of his head, but he hid it pretty well. “Brewster was just being a jackass again. He took Marcie and—”

“That’s the only reason you’re not expelled. That, and your mother’s efforts with Principal Brewster on your behalf.” Miller didn’t sound so happy about that.

Killian stiffened, no doubt imagining the pleading conversation that had gone on. Brewster was a hard-ass, that was for sure, but he enjoyed having power over the powerless. The smartest thing to do was just to respect him to his face and keep on his good side from the beginning. Clearly, Killian had blown that.

“It’s all right,” his mother said gently. “It wasn’t as bad as all that.” She gave him a weary smile.

I could see, though, that it wasn’t all right, at least not with Killian.

“We’ve talked about this, Will.” Miller blundered on in his calm I’m-the-therapist-so-I-know-best voice. Every word out of his mouth made me hate him more. He and Dr. Andrews must have gone to the same shrink school. “Your music is meant to aid you, but if you’re relying on it too much—”

“I’m not,” Killian protested. I could have told him it didn’t matter. Miller had already made up his mind.

The good doctor strolled closer. He lowered a hand to hitch his pants up, obviously intending to sit on the foot of the bed. Then he noticed the tilt of the bed, the left side three or four inches lower than the right. Oops. The bed had broken our fall, and we’d broken it.

Miller straightened up with a frown. “What happened here?”

“Nothing,” Killian said again.

“He’s not buying it,” I said. “Make something up.”

He gave the tiniest shake of his head.

“Julia, the boy’s bed is broken,” Miller pronounced.

“What?” His mother hurried closer, her tiny feet moving soundlessly on the carpeting. Clearly, Killian had gotten his size and height from his father. “What happened here, William?” She sounded aghast, staring down at the bed. If the awful couch in the living room was any indication, he was probably going to end up sleeping on his tilt-a-bed for years to come.

“Was it the spirits again?” Miller asked. “Did they attack you?”

He was good. You could almost miss the eagerness behind the thick layers of fake concern.

“No, no. Nothing like that.” He shook his head vigorously in response to Miller’s question.

“Then what?” Miller prompted.

Killian shifted uncomfortably in his bed. “It was a girl, okay?” He looked to his mother with pleading eyes.

“She attacked you?” Miller sounded astounded, and far too excited.

Killian only hesitated for a fraction of a second. Then he stretched his arms out again, tucking his hands behind his head with a cocky and lazy smile and looking for all the world like a guy who’d just gotten some. “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

“In your dreams,” I protested.

Miller’s face fell. “You mean an actual girl.”

“How many other kinds of girls are there, Doc?” Killian asked, still smiling. Oh, yeah, I was so going to hit him when the stupid doctor got out of here.