“Did you actually just take a photo?” Casey’s teeth grind together. “Who does that?”
“We didn’t mean anything by it,” Amanda explains. “We loved Liddy like a sister. The whole team did.”
“Like a sister,” Casey repeats. “Yeah, apparently you love her so much you have to post pictures of yourself at her memorial service online, follow it up with a witty bunch of hashtags and see what your followers think.”
It’s like some sick, twisted social event. Is that what the rest of them are here for? To snap some classy photos on the balcony, throw up a peace sign and a duck-face or two and see how many new followers they can drum up with washed-out filters and sympathy?
“Why stop at the angel?” Casey continues coldly. “Couldn’t find a little tombstone emoji?”
Amanda’s jaw drops, her face flushed with embarrassment. Her eyes cast around at the crowd that’s gathered, a murmur of nosy intrigue bubbling up around them.
Good, Casey thinks. Be mortified.
“Look,” Sophie says, tossing her blond hair and lowering her voice. “If you want me to delete it, I will. Okay? No big deal.” She pulls out her phone and swipes her finger over the screen. “Here. It’s gone. Can you stop acting so shocked? As if fifty other people haven’t already posted photos.”
Sophie shoves the phone in Casey’s face and she sees a rolling screen ranging from somber, heartfelt send-offs to goofy selfies, all taken inside Liddy’s house.
Casey doesn’t have the words. Is she appalled? No. Furious? Maybe … Devastated? That’s the one. They were treating Liddy like some trending fad and hopping on before her fifteen minutes of fame are up.
Casey tries to catch her breath as she backs away from the girls. She feels like she’s pinwheeling through the crowd, falling and fleeing all at once.
She has to get away from here. From them. From everyone acting like it’s okay that Liddy’s gone.
“Casey?” someone calls after her.
It sounds like Evan. It’s probably him. She doesn’t know who else would care enough to call through the crowd. But she’s already running, pulling the keys from her pocket. She doesn’t stop until she reaches the car.
“Casey, wait!” Evan says. He catches up to her on the sidewalk.
“I can’t, Evan.” She pulls the door open, sighing shakily as she tries to get control of herself. “I have to go.”
“I’ll go with you.”
Her fist balls around the doorframe. “I just … need some time, okay? Can you get a ride?”
“I … Yeah, sure.” His hand feathers through his hair. “I’ll ask one of the guys, I guess.”
Casey nods and gets in the car. She doesn’t look back as she speeds away from the pretty seaside manors. Her fingertips blanch around the wheel as she tries to keep from bursting into tears.
As she nears downtown, traffic is bad. Being a coastal town with the perfect ratio of quaint shopping ventures to mom-and-pop dining establishments means the streets are flooded with an obnoxious number of beachgoers and vacation club members from May to September. Even now, as the sun sits low in the sky, Main Street is packed with families making their ways to and from the water, carrying an assortment of beach umbrellas, coolers, and screaming toddlers.
She idles at the same light for seven minutes, waiting for tourists to read their GPS instructions. She watches green come and go three times.
While Casey waits, she studies the line of cars and the people sitting inside those cars. It begins as a calming exercise, a way to dull her mind to the scene at the memorial. By the time she’s done, she’s memorized every color combination of baseball cap, sun hat, and Hawaiian shirt. It’s like her own personal game of Guess Who? She even studies what’s left of the clouds, sparse and puffy, dotting the sky in between the orange fade-out that begins as the sun touches the horizon.
A feather blows across the windshield, white and silky looking. It gets stuck, suctioned to the glass right in her sight line. Casey sighs, blasting the windshield with washer fluid before turning on the wipers, swiping the feather away.
The longer she sits there, the more she thinks about Liddy’s memorial. She can’t help it. The thought is obsessive, knocking at her temple until she gives into it, recalling the look on Sophie’s face as they struck a pose and snapped the photo. The tittering laughter. The hushed giggles.
A sick, tight feeling spreads across her chest.
Sophie and Amanda didn’t really know Liddy. Not in the same way Casey did. None of those people did. Who were they to trivialize her memorial into a few hastily snapped selfies and stupid hashtags?
She squeezes the wheel as a flash of fiery anger grabs her. It fades as her phone rings on the passenger seat.
Casey glances at it and sees Evan’s face light up the screen.
She feels bad about leaving him, but the pressure against her chest only tightens, and she ignores the phone call, letting it go to voicemail.
She just wants to get home.
Giving up on Main Street, Casey cuts left into the Stop-n-Shop parking lot. A horn blares, and she throws her hand up in an apologetic wave before driving around the gas station and through the gravel lot at the back of the building. The last time she did this she ended up with a nail in her tire, and she and Evan and Liddy had spent forty minutes working out how to put the spare on.
If Liddy in a sundress and ballerina flats wielding a lug wrench doesn’t perfectly capture her personality, Casey doesn’t know what does. Liddy was good at proving people wrong, at showing up when they underestimated her.
Casey bumps along the gravel, avoiding potholes and biting her lip until she reaches a flat stretch of road.
The nice thing about the tourists is that they don’t really deviate from the giant green signs that point the way to the water, so while they all sit in traffic on Main Street, Casey can turn onto the back road that curves behind the Stop-n-Shop.
It’s a longer route, but there isn’t another car in sight, not even a pair of floating headlights in the rearview. Casey settles back into her seat, fingers drumming the wheel as she fiddles with the radio. She’s flipping through a few stations, back and forth, trying to skip the commercials, when she first sees it.
A dark shape appears between the orange-tinted clouds, hurtling toward the ground. For a moment she thinks it might be one of the giant birds that flood town during the summer to hunt along the beach and steal snacks from tourists, but before she can discern the shape, it’s swallowed up by another patch of clouds.
Casey glances at the road. Trees rise up on either side, curving at the tips to create the impression of a tunnel as she pulls up to a four-way stop. Looking left and right once, she turns back to the radio, flicking the dial to the last station, hoping the commercial for lawn care and pest control is over.
Then, on the road ahead, a shadow appears from that dark shape above, spreading against the pavement like spilled paint. The shadow shifts, drawing closer and closer to the front end of her car.
Casey leans over the steering wheel for a better view and looks up. The hard rubber presses into the bottom of her throat as her jaw drops.
This is no bird. Whatever it is, it’s far too big and falling far too fast.
Distinct shapes take form—arms, legs—spinning wildly through the air.
Casey gasps as it hurtles directly toward her car.
“Holy—” Casey throws the car into reverse and guns it. She swerves to the side in her haste, accidentally blasting the horn as she crashes back into her seat.
Heavily, it hits the ground in front of her car, throwing up pieces of gravel that ricochet off the hood and windshield, leaving small fissures in their place. A tremor runs beneath the car and the entire thing seems to sway like a boat over a wave.
Casey watches it all in silent horror, unable to move, gripping the steering wheel and gearshift and breathing like a runner after a marathon.
She reaches for the keys bobbing near her knee with a sh
aking hand and turns off the engine. Then her hand falls to the door handle, and she rolls out of the car, failing at anything resembling coordination. Hot dust-filled air sweeps around her as she uses the door as both a ladder and a shield, climbing it like a monkey. She rests her chin on the curved edge of the frame.
And then she sees it. Him.
The pavement is caved in around the body, thick chunks turned up around the edge of the crater. In the middle of it all lies a boy, flat on his back, limbs splayed wide.
Casey turns to look up and down the road. She’s alone. They’re alone, she realizes with a jolt of panic. They. Them. The body and her. One girl and one dead guy who fell out of the sky and almost totaled her car.
She leans over and clutches her knees as her body begins to shake. Her brows furrow together. Help. That’s what she needs: to call for help.
Coming to her senses, Casey grabs her phone off the passenger seat and then inches closer to the crater, trying to get a better look. There’s still a lot of dust in the way; it rises up in clouds around her as she takes a tentative step toward the body, using one hand on her car to steady herself. The air feels sooty and thick. When she cuts her hand through it, she feels tiny grains and feathers. Soft puffs of white swirl around her feet as the scene settles.
Weird. Her heart jumps as she sees the full reception symbol light up in the corner of her screen. She dials and presses it to her ear. As she waits for the call to connect, she moves toward the deepest part of the crater and shouts, “Hello?”
There’s no response.
“Of course not,” she whispers.
She shuffles closer to the body, every cell inside her recoiling. Her heart thuds so fast she feels like it’s about to burst from the effort.
“911,” the operator says. “What is your emergency?”
“I—” What is she supposed to say exactly?
Then the boy coughs, and she sees his eyes snap open, concrete dust fluttering from his lashes.
Casey screams in shock, scrambling back on her hands and feet, dropping her phone somewhere in the rubble. She reaches for it blindly. “What the hell is happening?”
The boy clenches his teeth and groans, sitting up on his elbows. “Don’t,” he mumbles. He begins to move, shifting and tensing.
Casey feels her fingers wrap around her phone. Then, with surprising agility, the boy reaches out toward her. “Stop.”
Where she’s expected blood and gore—broken bones at the very least—is a pair of wide eyes, staring at her, glazed and white, almost like some sort of ghostly mirror.
He mutters something that sounds like Gabriel and she shudders, trying to shake off the fuzzy, muted ring echoing in her ears. It makes her dizzy and her thumb, as if with a mind of its own, hits the red END CALL button.
A feather sweeps by her hand, this one larger than all the others, and the boy tracks it with his eyes. Suddenly, he’s on his feet, tipsy at first until he finds his balance. He starts chasing the feathers around the crater, scooping them up and stuffing them in his pockets.
He’s a lot taller now that he’s standing. And not so much of a boy. Lean but toned. Face smooth but with a shadow along his cheeks and chin. His white shirt is torn near the ribs and at the collar. His jeans fared better on impact, but look washed-out under a layer of dust. Oddly, he’s not wearing any shoes.
He catches a few more stray feathers and tosses them into her lap. “Hold on to these.”
Another breeze whispers through the crater and he goes chasing a feather onto the road.
Casey lies there, half on her back, clutching the feathers and her phone, disoriented and still dizzy. This can’t be happening. Her heart gives a great lurch in response. It’s impossible.
It’s insane! her inner Liddy screams.
She crawls to her feet and hurries to the top of the crater, the climb awkward with full hands.
Feather-boy stands farther down the road, studying the length of a feather against the sunset. Maybe it’s the shadow he casts upon the ground. Or the way his silhouette glows with the sun behind him, but fear prickles at the base of her spine.
She lifts her phone to her ear again, hitting the power button, and his head snaps toward her. He closes the distance so quickly Casey trips into her car, thumping against the passenger door.
“Don’t touch me,” she says, shrugging away from him.
His eyes are a pale blue now, like his faded jeans, but they begin to swirl, ghostly and white. The dizziness fills her and she clutches the car with one hand as she looks him over: cheeks ruddy with life, dark hair pulled into a knot at the back of his head, and a fistful of feathers.
“How about we don’t make any other calls right now, okay?” With gentle but insistent pressure, he tugs the phone away from her ear. “It’ll only complicate things.”
He raises a brow, almost in question, but she finds herself nodding. Why is she nodding?
“I’ll take these,” he says, relieving her of the feathers she’s gripping like a lifeline. He studies these too and, after a moment of deliberation, he sets a few of the smaller ones free. As soon as he looks away, the dizzy pressure in her head fades.
“There’s not a scratch on you,” she whispers. Her brows draw together in confusion. Something like fear still hammers against her rib cage, but curiosity swells and shoves it to the background. “How is that possible? You fell.”
“Yeah, and let me tell you. It hurt. A lot. But I’m fine.”
“You can’t be fine,” she retorts. She looks to the sky and waits to see something, anything to explain what or where he fell from. Only there’s nothing. Nothing but sky. “How are you just fine?”
“We should get going.” He ignores her question and looks over his shoulder at the empty road. “Or else we’ll have a lot of awkward questions to answer.”
“Questions,” Casey repeats. Then a spell seems to break and she pushes off the door. “What the hell—”
“You really need to stop saying that, Casey.”
“How do you know my name?”
“I know a lot of things. All of which are better explained away from here.”
“I don’t think so.” Casey crosses her arms, fear becoming defiance. He walks around the car to the driver’s side, and she marches after him. “What are you doing?”
“I already told you. We need to leave.” He pulls the door open and she pushes it shut again.
“That’s not how this works.”
He looks over his shoulder, squinting into the distance. “We won’t be alone for long. The authorities will come to investigate your call.”
“Good. Great! Then maybe you can explain to them this giant hole in the road and how exactly you came hurtling out of the sky.”
“Is that what happened?” he asks, and there’s something akin to amusement in his voice.
“That’s exactly what happened,” Casey says. “I know what I saw.”
“I never said you didn’t. The police on the other hand—” He lets her weigh the meaning of his words for a minute. He’s so tall he has to tip his head to look down at her. “So, what’ll it be? A nice chat with the police or…?”
“Tell me what’s going on,” she insists. “Then I’ll decide whether or not we hang around for the cops.”
His eyes narrow, like he’s testing her resolve. When she doesn’t budge, he sticks out his hand toward her. “Fine. My name’s Red. Nice to meet you.”
Casey looks at it for a moment, then frowns. “Red what?”
“Red. Full stop. Now can we get out of here?”
“Definitely not. I’m not in the habit of picking up hitchhikers on back roads. Especially when they fall out of the sky. Which is still my biggest question here, and I think you’re kind of glossing over that whole point by telling me your name and thinking that it’s enough.”
His eyes begin to swirl again and she snaps hers closed, turning her head away. “Stop that. What are you doing?”
He sighs. “Please
just get in the car.”
“No.”
“I forgot how stubborn humans could be.”
“Humans?” Her stomach dips and lurches, her breath coming a little shallower. After a moment, she cracks one eye open to see him with his hand pressed to his stomach. Her mind automatically jumps to images of punctured organs and internal bleeding thanks to all the Grey’s Anatomy marathons she and Liddy watch.
No, wait. Used to watch.
“Are you okay?” she asks quietly.
“I forgot what hunger feels like.” He shakes his head, almost fondly, and her moment of sympathy dissolves. “Anywhere good to eat around here? I’m starving. And if we’re gonna talk about what’s been going on with you, I need a burger or something.”
“A burger—” Casey rubs her fingers against her eyelids, massaging away the ache that’s formed there. “First you tell me how you just appeared out of the sky. You literally fell from the clouds, got up, and chased a bunch of feathers around. Now you want a burger. I mean…” She laughs humorlessly. “You know how ridiculous that sounds, right? And what was that thing?”
“What thing?”
Casey rolls her eyes, getting annoyed at having to repeat herself, at him dodging questions faster than she can come up with them. “With the eyes and the dizziness,” she says.
“It’s called a veil.”
“A what?”
“I’ll explain later.”
“Not later. Right now,” Casey insists.
“Fine, we’ll talk while we drive, but tell me something first.” He looks at her with an intensity that makes her drift back into the car door. “What do you remember about the night you died?”
THREE
“WHAT ARE YOU?” Casey asks, trying to keep her voice from quivering as she hugs the steering wheel so tight, her limbs begin to feel like lead weights.
“Red,” he says simply.
Her hands slip from ten and two. She wipes her sweaty palms on the bottom edge of her dress, but it doesn’t help. “I didn’t say ‘who,’” she says. “I said ‘what.’”
The Dark In-Between Page 3