by Nan Higgins
“Well, here’s a condensed breakdown: AfterCorps was built so that surface jobs could fund the work we do. That work has gotten progressively more expensive because of the ways we operate now. Industrial and technological advances have simplified and streamlined a lot of our jobs, but it comes at a hefty cost.
“In short, your parents have had more money going out than coming in for quite some time, and I don’t envision that changing any time soon. It would be more cost effective for Nathan to get AfterCorps to implode than it would for him to keep it going. He could then just focus on the funeral business and get the money to roll back toward his bank account.”
My dad had spoken of AfterCorps with so much pride and reverence. I thought about my parents arguing when I was in the hospital and how my dad hadn’t walked away from this organization no matter how much my mom had wanted him to. He’d been so concerned about how AfterCorps would survive if he left, I couldn’t make sense of a scenario in which he would purposely sabotage it. And that didn’t even begin to explain how he was suddenly okay with putting his only daughter at risk of harm and death.
“Wait a minute,” Macy said. “I get that I know the least about AfterCorps of anyone in this room, but I know Aria’s parents. Even if they wanted all this to go down like you say, there’s no way they’d jeopardize Aria’s safety to make it happen.” Thank you, Macy.
“Which explains why they were so disproportionately devastated when Aria had her quickening, and why they have been acting so strangely since she began her training.” He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward. “Don’t you think it’s odd that they have dismissed what you’re doing in AfterCorps and kept you in the dark about everything from your lineage to basic interpreter protocol? It seems like they don’t think you’ll have to worry about being an interpreter for very long, and if the goal is to run AfterCorps into the ground, they would be correct.”
I slumped back on my pillows and looked at the remains of my cold eggs. How could this be happening? Part of me felt there was no way my father would sacrifice his integrity along with everything his family had ever worked for to plan something like this. Another part had to acknowledge that this was the most plausible thing I’d heard since I’d come into my interpreter abilities. I didn’t want any part of this to be true, but I owed it to all of us to consider it.
“What happens if AfterCorps is destroyed?” I asked.
“Everything would change for the dead and the living. There would probably be clusters of people helping priors transfer, but it would be unorganized. Chaos. There’d be no judicial system, no way to track anything. It would be interpreters helping ghosts cross over who had no business moving on to their last destination. And a lot of priors would slip through the cracks and wander the earth indefinitely.”
I couldn’t wrap my mind around that, nor could I fathom that my father was capable of torturing Clara. The lying I’d accepted, but this? It would make my dad a monster, and that I couldn’t accept.
“What can we do?” Sloane asked.
“The best thing the two of you can do is stay here where I can protect you. Sloane, I’ve told your mom I’d like to have you stay with me. She knows about Aria’s situation, of course, and I let her know we are going to have training here because it’s too dangerous to try to transport her back and forth. I said we’d be doing intensive training, a bootcamp of sorts. She’ll be bringing some clothes by for you later.”
Sloane nodded slowly.
“What if…” I swallowed hard. “What if all this is true? What will happen to my father?” I was terribly torn between desperately needing and completely not wanting the answer.
Those deep grooves appeared on Nick’s forehead, and he frowned. “I don’t know.” That was a lie, though. He did know, and the fact that he didn’t want to tell me made me more frightened than I’d ever been.
Chapter Twenty-eight
“It’ll take a day or two to regain your strength,” Nick said, shuffling Macy toward the door amidst her promises to text to check on us later. “I’ll be in the next room, so yell if you need me.”
I lay down and wondered if I’d actually be able to sleep with all these disturbing thoughts occupying my mind.
“What are you thinking?” Sloane asked.
“That my life is a castle of lies built on a foundation of deceit,” I said.
“Dramatic,” she said, but her voice was gentle, and she stroked my arm and shoulder.
“You asked.”
“I did.”
“Sloane?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think there’s still a way to figure out how to transfer Clara even if we aren’t doing our training at AfterCorps?”
She drew herself up onto her elbow and stared. “Well, yes. There’s always the sneaking out option. Although I’d have to go alone; it’s too dangerous for you. At least I know if I’m by myself, priors can’t come at me.”
“Okay. Think you could do it tomorrow night?”
“I don’t see why not unless I unexpectedly take a turn for the worse.” She grabbed my hand. “Are you sure?”
“I think so. This investigation could go on a while, and there’s no guarantee this was the last we’ll see of Clara. In fact, it’s practically guaranteed that she will come back. Besides, if Nick is right, what’s the point in trying to preserve good standing for either of us at AfterCorps? If my father succeeds, there’ll be nothing left. If he fails…well, I think they’ll have bigger fish to fry than a few unruly trainees who took matters into their own hands.”
The words came out in a jumbled rush, I was so afraid of having second thoughts or taking time to think too hard about what it meant to admit that my father might be behind everything that had happened to me. Feelings had become too dangerous, and I was ready for action.
“You’re really serious, aren’t you?”
I bit my lip hard before answering her. “I am.”
* * *
We tossed around the possibility of letting Nick in on what we wanted to do, but in the end, decided against it. While he’d finally opened up about the investigation, it had been a challenge to get him to that point, and he’d been less forthcoming about the details. He’d also rebuffed Sloane’s attempts to get him to see how dire it was to get Clara to cross over as quickly as possible, and since that was our goal, it seemed better not to tell him. The truth was, I fully trusted only two people now: Sloane and Macy. As much as I appreciated everything Nick had done for me, I wasn’t convinced about his intentions.
Our plan was pretty straightforward. Sloane’s mom would come to bring her clothes, and Sloane would distract her with a tour of Nick’s place while I went through her purse to get her AfterCorps badge. With it, Sloane could later gain access to where she needed to go.
“My mom lost her badge once before,” she explained when she got the text that her mom was on the way. “It took forty-eight hours before they could issue her a new one because that’s how long an old one is active when it’s reported missing. I guess enough people have lost them and then found them in their houses or whatever a day or two later, so the rule was instituted to save money.”
“Kinda speaks to some cash flow problems, doesn’t it?” I shook my head when I saw the concern in Sloane’s eyes. “I’m okay. Just ready to get this over with.” My nerves had become thin and worn, and all I wanted was to get out of my current state and move forward with my life. I was barely fazed by the risk involved anymore.
Sandy Dennison arrived with a duffel bag slung over her right shoulder and a purse clutched in her right hand. Sloane hugged her mother for a long time, then grabbed the duffel bag, along with the purse, and took them to the bedroom. When she came back, she had Nick with her.
“Hey, Mom, you should see Nick’s herb garden in the back.”
“Oh, really? Nick, I didn’t know you had a green thumb.”
“I dabble a little.” He smiled. “Come on out. I’ll show you.”
Sloane
stepped outside with them but not before nodding toward the bedroom where I was already headed.
The purse was on top of the duffel bag in the center of the bed. I reached in and found her wallet. When I pulled it out, her keys came with it and clattered to the floor.
“Shit.” I paused to make sure the sound hadn’t alerted anyone to come see what I was doing, but based on the total silence, I guessed they were still outside. The keys went under the bed, and I had to move the dust ruffle to find them. Once I got them back into the purse, I started going through the wallet. There were photos of Sloane and her brother as kids and what looked like senior pictures. My fingers shook as I flipped through the different compartments: driver’s license, debit card, credit cards, reward cards for gas stations and grocery stores. I’d searched every section and hadn’t found it, and I heard a door close.
“It’s just lovely,” Sandy said.
I shoved my hand into the purse and got stuck in a small side pocket. I felt something cold and plastic—the AfterCorps badge. I jammed the wallet back into the purse and stuck the badge in my pocket just in time to hear Nick coming down the hall.
“You hungry?” he asked, filling the doorway. “I’ve had a stew cooking in the Crock-Pot all day, I figured Sandy might want to sit down for a meal with us.”
I hoped the guilt I felt about adding thievery to the list of things I’d done to try to free myself of Clara didn’t show on my face. “I could eat,” I said. “Let me just wash my hands first.”
* * *
“Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?”
I was watching Sloane, dressed all in black, put on her backpack. We’d packed her mom’s badge, my keys to the outer funeral home doors, a can of mace, and a flashlight. She wouldn’t need the backpack just for those small items, but we wanted to give her a way to carry back any helpful papers or items that would get us closer to learning how to get Clara crossed over.
“You know you can’t.” She sat beside me on the bed. “Look, I know you’re worried, but this is how we have to do it. Believe me, I’d much rather have you come with me, but we can’t take the risk.”
“Just be careful.” We stood and hugged. I held her as tightly as I could before releasing her. “I love you.” I had new respect for what she had been through since we’d been together. I hadn’t fully appreciated how worried she’d been until now, when I wanted to go and protect her and keep her from going into danger without me. She’d become such a big part of my world in these few short weeks, and I couldn’t handle the thought of anything happening to her.
“I love you too. I’ll text when I’m there.”
She grabbed her car keys off the nightstand and slipped out the glass door. Once outside, she gave me a quick wave before disappearing into the night.
* * *
I’d been pacing for almost two hours when I heard the door open. I whirled around and saw Sloane creeping in. I’d gotten the text that she was in the office and another telling me she was on her way back, but I’d gotten no other details. It had been the longest two hours of my life, worrying about whether she was okay, wondering what I’d say to Nick if he came in to check on us and discovered she was gone, and burdened with the nearly uncontrollable fear that Mrs. Braverman would come back while I was alone and defenseless.
I rushed to her and gave her a hug, and she kissed my cheek. When she pulled back, she dropped her backpack, and it sounded heavier than when she left. She moved slowly across the room and sat gingerly on the bed.
“Well?” I asked.
“I think I found what we need. I got some textbooks. I didn’t take the time to read them. I just grabbed what I found and got out of there.”
Something about the quiet, careful way she spoke set me on edge. “What is it?”
She was silent so long, staring at the floor, that I started to think she wasn’t going to answer. Finally, she raised her head, and I saw how pale her skin was, how dark her eyes. “Clara was there.”
“You saw her?” I gasped. “But…but how?”
“Come sit with me.”
Dazed, I sat next to her. She swallowed hard before she began to speak. “I was in the storage room looking for the books. I heard someone behind me or maybe just felt them, and I thought, ‘That’s it, I’m caught.’ Because a lot of AfterCorps business happens at night, and I had a story in case I bumped into anyone, but I didn’t have any way to explain why I was creeping around the storage area.
“Anyway, it was her. She looked a lot different from when she came here, Aria. She looked…brighter, more substantial.”
“But if there were no other interpreters around, you shouldn’t have been able to see her.” This had to be a mistake, and if it wasn’t, my world was about to get rocked again. My mouth went dry, and I could barely swallow.
“I know.” She nodded impatiently. “Just listen. She was terrified, kept looking behind her, and she talked so fast.” She scrubbed her eyes and shook her head as if to clear it. “Clara said she’s being possessed by a demon. She’s trying to fight it, but she’s losing. She said the last two times she came to you, she wasn’t the one in control. The demon is coming after you.”
That warm heat crept into me again. Sweat prickled my temples, and my neck and chest flushed. Since I’d learned about my grandfather having been killed by a demon, there hadn’t been any more talk about them, and after a couple tense days in which I imagined frothing-mouthed demons coming for me in the dark, I’d put my thoughts about them aside. Clara had seemed the more pressing threat. I had no idea I’d left myself open to the real danger.
“Do you believe her?” I asked. “Do you think it’s true?”
“Yes, I do.”
I jumped up. “We have to tell Nick. If it’s true, it’s so much more dangerous than any of us thought.”
Sloane stood and grabbed my hands. “We can’t tell him.”
I gaped at her. “Why not?”
“Because Nick is working with the demon. It’s not your father that’s behind Mrs. Braverman being stuck here. It’s Nick.”
Just like that, this whole swirling, fuzzy mess of circumstances began to come into focus and sharpen. I was living in the home of the man responsible for demonic attacks on me, and we’d very nearly told him we were going to try to force Clara’s transfer. My father wasn’t behind it; Nick was. I trusted Sloane and believed the anguish and panic on her face.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Sloane told me everything Mrs. Braverman said, which wasn’t much. She said there had been instances where she could hear Nick communicating with the demon, and they definitely wanted the blame for Clara’s failure to transfer placed on my father.
“I don’t understand why Nick would want that. They’ve been best friends for years.” I’d been wading through the murky confusion of deceit and false stories for months now and was frazzled from the struggle of trying to make sense of pieces that seemed not to go together.
“I don’t know. Power, maybe? Nick is your father’s right hand. If it looks like Nathan is messing things up for priors, or worse, is corrupt, then eventually he’ll be pushed out of AfterCorps, won’t he? And Nick will be in charge.”
“We have to warn my parents,” I said.
“I agree. But the first thing we need to do is get Clara transferred. Once she goes, the demon will probably find another weak prior to inhabit, but it will buy us a little time to get your dad involved, and he can take the lead on this.”
I couldn’t let myself be paralyzed by the guilt I felt at letting myself be manipulated into believing my dad was behind something sinister. I’d been told so many partial truths and half lies that it was no wonder I’d lost faith in people I’d trusted in the past. Sloane was right; our best shot was to help Clara transfer so that the worst of all this would be thwarted, at least for a little while. Long enough that my dad could figure out what to do about Nick.
We’d spent the rest of the night reading through the textbook
s, learning what we needed to do in order to get Clara’s transfer done. Somewhere near two o’clock in the morning, I noticed Sloane starting to fall asleep. I watched her eyelids slide down and her mouth open slightly. I couldn’t imagine what I’d do without her and didn’t want to. My heart filled with love and gratitude that she was here with me, ready to go to hell and back. I curled myself into the space beside her, and not long after that, I drifted off too.
* * *
“Today’s the day,” Sloane said softly the next morning. “Are you ready?”
“I’m ready for tonight,” I whispered back. “I’m dreading hanging around with Nick, acting like everything is normal.”
“Me too. I’m planning to avoid him as much as possible.”
I frowned. “That’s not a good idea. I mean, I don’t want to spend time with him either, but we have to pretend everything is normal. It’s just one day, right?”
“Yeah, you’re right.” Part of me wondered if we really should put our plan into action. What if Sloane was wrong? But I knew she wasn’t. I hadn’t forgotten the look on her face when she’d come back last night. My biggest concern was that we weren’t well equipped to take on a demon, but we couldn’t afford to wait. We didn’t have experience or power on our side; the only thing we had was the element of surprise. We needed to get this done before Nick realized something was off.
We took turns showering and went to the living room together. Nick sat at the kitchen table eating a salad and watching the news.
“Hey, sleepyheads!” he said when he saw us. “I thought about coming in to wake you, but I figured if you were still sleeping, you really needed it. There’s coffee if you want some.”
“Thanks.” I nudged Sloane toward the coffeepot, and she filled two large mugs while I got the buttered praline creamer from the fridge.