Shine

by Jeri Smith-Ready

  “I’ll be quick.”

  “I’ll be waiting.”

  The hot water was just what I needed. Cascading over my scalp and shoulders, it chased away the last shadows of clamminess. I rested my palms against the sandy-tiled wall and let the flood caress the back of my neck, loosening the tension from the last twenty-four hours of—well, almost dying.

  A knock came at the door.

  “Yeah?” I heard the door open. “Forget something?”

  “Aye.” A sliver of curtain peeled back, enough to show one of Zachary’s vibrant green eyes. “I forgot how hard it is to think of you in the shower.”

  I shifted back, the water now between us, blurring his image. “There’s not much room in here.”

  “Aye.” He stepped inside, putting half his body under the spray. The lower half.

  I lifted my hands. “Your bandage’ll get wet.”

  “Aye.” He took my wrists and moved forward, pinning me against the hard, slick wall, arms above my head. Then he kissed me, settling himself fully under the stream of water that flowed from his skin onto mine, its path unbroken by air or space.

  With my hands in his grasp and his name on my lips, I could believe that nothing—not even time itself—could tear us apart.

  Later we fell asleep lying tight together, arms and legs entwined, making up for the hours apart, for everything that had almost been stolen from us.

  So when Zachary began to stir in his sleep, I woke instantly.

  “No!” He shuddered all over, then his legs jerked, his knee slamming my shin.

  I hissed in pain and knew I’d have a bruise. “Zachary.” I set my hand on his chest, then jerked it away when I felt his heart pounding, like it wanted to burst the bonds of bone and skin and bandage. In the clock radio’s electric-blue glow, I saw his face covered in sweat, soaking the hair at his temples.

  “Stop.” I tried to keep the panic from my voice, but his arms were tightening like a boa constrictor. “You’re hurting me.”

  “Don’t go,” he cried. “Come back!”

  I pried one of his arms off me, enough to squirm over to slap on the bedside light.

  He still didn’t wake, just flailed, snarling. I ducked before his fist could connect with my face. It slammed the pillow.

  “Zach, it’s me.” I grabbed his slick, goose-bumped arm. “It’s Aura.”

  He stilled, then his eyes fluttered open.

  “Aura.” He half sat, jerking his head to scan the room. Then he sank back onto the bed with a wordless groan.

  “It was just a dream,” I told him, wondering if it was the same one he’d been having for months.

  “Sorry.” Zachary pulled a corner of the sheet to wipe the sweat from his face and neck. “The nightmares stopped the last few weeks, or I would’ve warned you.” He drew his thumb over the edge of the fresh bandage on his chest. It had stayed in place, despite his thrashing.

  “Can you tell me? Is it about last summer?”

  He stared at the ceiling, breath heaving. “I can. But I’m not sure I can. If I have . . .”

  “You do have the strength.” I lay on my side facing him. “Let me help you. Start with the dream.”

  He was silent for several moments, then he swallowed hard. “The room’s blank white. So quiet.”

  “Who else is there?”

  “No one.” He pressed his thumb and forefinger to his eyes, then pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m alone.”

  “Are you afraid someone might come in?”

  His whisper twisted. “I’m afraid no one will ever come in again.” My stomach grew heavy as my mind seized a terrible new possibility. I’d pictured him beaten, burned, half-drowned. All the things I’d heard about governments doing, especially to noncitizens.

  But I’d never imagined . . . nothing.

  “Zach, did they—leave you alone?” I couldn’t say the word “isolation.” I knew from Gina’s civil rights cases that solitary confinement was the cruelest torture of all. It drove prisoners mad.

  “Aye.” Now both hands covered his face, trembling. “How long?”

  “Weeks.”

  My hands formed useless fists around my pillow. “Why would they do that?”

  “After the witness ghost disappeared—the one who saw me with Logan—the DMP tested me, to see whether I could talk to ghosts.”

  I ached with guilt for inadvertently helping Tammi Teller pass on.

  He continued. “There was a post-Shifter intern who told them how the test ghost screamed and cried when it couldn’t get away from me. The DMP shipped me off to 3A that morning.”

  “And that’s when they put you alone?”

  “Aye. My room was comfortable enough. I had books.” He drew his thumbs along the ridges of his eyebrows, wincing at the bruise on the left side. “No TV or video games or music, because of the wires, I suppose. And no mirror in the bathroom, or anything else that could be made sharp.”

  “What about food?”

  “They’d slip it through a slot in the door. I’d wait for hours just to see the fingertips of the person delivering it. They wore white rubber gloves. I once tried to reach through to touch them, and they—” He rubbed the fingers of his right hand. “I never tried it again.”

  “Zach . . .” My tears started to flow. I took his hand and kissed his fingers, as if I could travel back in time and heal his pain.

  His face contorted as he watched me. His other hand gripped the sheets so hard, his knuckles grew white. Then he turned his head away quickly and fixed his eyes on the wall. “I stopped eating. At first it was a troscad, a hunger strike to shame them, but then I just wasn’t hungry. I was nothing.”

  “What do you mean, nothing?”

  “I didn’t feel real anymore. I didn’t know who I was.” His hand went slack in mine. “And when I did, I wished I’d been on that plane.”

  “Oh God, Zachary,” I choked out.

  He closed his eyes. “I would fantasize what it would’ve been like, to be snuffed out so quickly and mercifully.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  Zachary tensed again. “You told me you wanted to hear.”

  “I do! I’m sorry.” I clutched his fingers. “I want to know everything.”

  “Are ye certain? Because it’d be easier to stop.” He dragged his nails over the bandages on his chest, like he wanted to rip out his own heart.

  “No, please keep going. What made you decide to live?”

  He turned his head toward me, and when he opened his eyes, they shone clear and wet. “You were the only real thing in that place. On the days when I felt so daft I couldn’t remember my own name, I knew you were out there. I knew you existed, even if I didn’t.”

  My chest felt like it was imploding. “I never forgot you.”

  “I knew that somehow, but listen: Thinking of you made me hungry.” He wiped a tear from my cheek. “I thought, if I starved myself, you’d be so disappointed in me.”

  I wasn’t sure if I should laugh or cry. “What were they doing all that time?”

  “I never understood it. They would slip a wee black box under my door where the food came in. Then the slot would seal tight, and the lid of the box would pop off. I suppose it was controlled by a timer or a signal from another room.”

  My throat grew tight and cold, like I’d swallowed an ice cube. “How big were the boxes?”

  He spread his hands about six inches apart, then two inches the other way. “They were empty. I thought perhaps they released an invisible gas, but I felt no different afterward.”

  I buried my face against his shoulder. “Zach, those boxes weren’t empty.” My fingers dug into the blanket. “They had ARGs in them.”

  He went completely still. “At-risk ghosts? Ghosts that were almost shades?”

  “They collect them to protect us, and they’re supposed to keep them at headquarters. But Nicola said they took some to 3A.”

  “And put them with me,” he whispered. “They didn’t take t
hem away after. The boxes would be removed with nae lids on.”

  My breath trembled. “Because they can’t put a shade in a box.”

  Zachary sat up straight. “All those boxes? The ghosts changed to shades because of me? Why?”

  “There’s something about you. It used to make Logan shady, remember? But he could always go somewhere else to escape. If your room was BlackBoxed, those ghosts couldn’t leave unless they turned to shades.”

  “Christ, it must’ve been torture for them to be trapped with me.” He looked at the window. “And all those shades are out there now in the world?”

  “How many?” I asked, though I dreaded the answer.

  He ran a hand through his sweat-damp hair. “Dozens.”

  “Dozens?” I thought of the few shades I’d been able to save in September. It would take a lifetime of equinoxes to make up for the shades the DMP had created while experimenting on Zachary.

  I sat up. “But once they knew you could turn a ghost to a shade, why keep running the same experiment? Why would the DMP, of all people, want to make more shades?”

  “How can you wonder that, after the way you saved our lives today?”

  For a moment, my mind blanked. The details of the fight with the Children of the Sun at Dowth had blurred, as if it had happened days ago. All I could remember was pain and terror and Zachary’s blood.

  And the shades.

  I put a hand to my mouth. “They want to use shades as weapons. They think if they can control them—or find someone who can—they can use them against post-Shifters.” Dylan and I had talked about this the day he’d told me Logan said this was possible. “They want to use post-Shifters to hurt each other until we’re all under their control.”

  “They had some of you working for them. I saw them before they put me in—in that room.”

  Interns. Nicola had bragged about their program and its coveted slots. Some of those post-Shifters must have worked at 3A.

  “You sure there were dozens of boxes?” I asked him.

  “Maybe more or less. I couldn’t count when I couldn’t remember one day from the next. The only day that was different was when the lawyer and the man from the British consulate came to visit. Before they came, someone shaved me and trimmed my nails.” He touched his cheek. “It was heaven.”

  “Couldn’t the consulate guy make them stop torturing you? What did your father say when he found out? What did MI-X say?”

  Zachary looked down at his lap, bare shoulders hunched. “No one knows. Not my father, my mother, my psychiatrist. The DMP said if I told anyone, they’d get you, too.”

  I was suddenly as dizzy with fear as I’d been in the Dowth chamber. “They’d test me?”

  “Aye. Or isolate you, to ‘keep the world safe from freaks.’ ”

  “But if they thought I was a danger, why didn’t they just take me anyway?”

  “Dunno. Because they treat their own citizens better? Or you were too high-profile because of Logan? Or maybe they were lying. I couldn’t call their bluff with your freedom at stake.” He took my shoulders. “Aura, I would’ve stayed there forever—I would’ve died—to keep you from that fate.”

  I clutched my pillow so hard my fingers cramped. I wouldn’t have survived that kind of torture. He’d saved my life, and nearly lost his mind doing it.

  “You must’ve been so scared.”

  “For you, aye, but not for myself. They were already doing the worst thing they ever could do to me. When you’re in hell, there’s nothing left to fear.”

  “What about now?” I drew the back of my fingers over his jaw. “Are you afraid now?”

  His neck twitched, caught in the reflex of shaking his head. He wanted to say no. “I—I dunno. Sometimes.” His lips barely moved as he uttered the last word.

  “When?”

  His gaze locked with mine, as if it was the only thing holding him up. “Every time you walk away, it feels like I’m dying.”

  His words split me open.

  “I know it’s wrong.” He began to shake, the waves of hair over his brow trembling with the rest of him. “I shouldn’t need you so much.”

  I thought of all the hours during the last two days when I wouldn’t let him touch me, for the sake of ghosts and shades, and how he’d tried so hard to hold on to me yesterday.

  Without knowing it, I’d made him relive his torture.

  I whispered his name again, but this time in Gaelic. “Sgàire.” The word felt tough and tragic in my mouth, sounding like scar. He had so many of those now, inside and out.

  Zachary closed his eyes, turning his lips to the pulse at my wrist, his tongue brushing the beat of my life. Then he pulled me tight against him. His hand shook as it curved around my ribs.

  “Wait,” I said.

  Panic flickered over his face as I pulled away slightly. My heart crumbled to see his expression, though I knew it would change in an instant.

  “This time”—I gently pushed him to lie on his back—“let me.”

  I pulled back the covers, then drew down his boxers, all the way past his feet. Zachary sighed as I began to touch him everywhere, kiss him everywhere, showing how much I loved every inch of him, just as he’d done for me on the riverbank so many months ago. He swept my hair aside to watch, and the look on his face was pure wonder.

  I reveled in the sounds of his pleasure, and the way he uttered my name at the height of it all, as if I were lifting him out of the hell that still scorched his soul.

  As I lay beside him again, he turned his head to me. “You. You’re magnificent.”

  “Oh.” I didn’t know what to say. “Thanks.”

  “Thank you.” Zachary glanced down. “No’ for that.” He cocked a brow. “Well, aye, for that. But I mean, for before.” His eyes met mine. “Thank you for letting me . . . speak.”

  My heart felt swollen. By telling me what had happened, he’d taken a huge step toward healing. But it was only the first step.

  A bright thought occurred to me. “Now that I’m here in the UK, you can tell everyone. The DMP can’t hurt us anymore.”

  “I thought of that.” He shook his head. “But as soon as you set foot in the States again, they can grab you. If I report what happened to me, you can’t go home.”

  My stomach sank. So this was my choice: stay here and help Zachary find peace, or go home and let the DMP get away with soul-murder. What about my family and friends? Gina? Grandmom? Megan? The Keeleys? Could I give them all up for Zachary?

  It wasn’t that simple, and it wasn’t just about Zachary. It wasn’t even about my own safety. It was about justice. It was about making the DMP live up to the ideals of the country that created it. This wasn’t what America was about.

  And if it was, I was better off without it. Before being an American, or a Baltimorean, or a Salvatore, I was a human being. There was no greater loyalty than that.

  All these noble and moral thoughts ran through my mind, but the strongest force tugging at me was Zachary. I couldn’t leave him without ripping my own soul in half.

  I laid my head on the pillow next to him and wrapped my arms around his body, careful of the bandages. “I’ll stay.”

  He let out a hard breath. “Aura, are you sure that’s what you want?”

  “I’ve never been so sure of anything.” I pressed my forehead to his. “I promise you’ll never be alone again.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  We caught a morning flight from Belfast to Glasgow, since returning to home base—for one of us, at least—still seemed like the logical next step. We were running out of cash, and Zachary was starting to worry about his parents worrying about us.

  Once we were there, I’d call Gina and let her know I was safe. I dreaded telling her that I wouldn’t be coming home. I knew she’d rather I stay here and be safe than go home and be detained by the DMP. But she’d be pissed I was missing Christmas with the family—like my mom did, nineteen years ago. I also knew she’d feel better if she could talk to
Zachary’s parents. Eighteen or not, I was still her little girl.

  As we flew in, the late sunrise glowed pink against the distant snow-speckled mountains and rugged highlands. I could tell already that this was a wilder place than Ireland, than any place I’d ever been, and I had a feeling that in twenty-four hours, I would know Zachary far better than I did now.

  Wispy snow fell as we took a cab through the city toward the northern end where the Moores lived, in the Maryhill section. On the way, I gaped out the window at the buildings’ dark, brooding beauty, and sighed at the grand Victorian architecture. “You told me Glasgow was beautiful, but I figured you were biased.”

  “I am biased. It’s not for everyone.” He swept a light hand over the back of my shoulders, leaving the words I hope it’s for you unspoken.

  Zachary’s neighborhood reminded me of my own Charles Village—rows of modest but well-kept homes, with lots of students, but possibly bordering on some dodgy areas where I wouldn’t walk alone at night.

  The cab pulled up in front of his house, which Zachary examined for a moment before paying the driver. “Wait a minute, would ya, mate? Might need you again.”

  We got out of the car and climbed the snow-dusted concrete stairs from the sidewalk to the house. “Why did you ask him to stick around?”

  “Their car’s here, but none of the lights are on. Mum and Dad should be up by now. If they’ve gone to the hospital, in an ambulance, we’ll want to get there fast.”

  For some reason, I felt more nervous about seeing a very sick person than I ever did about seeing dead people.

  Zachary opened the door quickly, revealing a foyer with a living room to the left. He motioned for me to stay behind him. I sent a nervous look back at the cab, then followed.

  The living room was full of open, half-empty boxes of Christmas-tree lights and decorations. Which was odd—Fiona and Ian seemed like the type to clean up after themselves.

  “Mum?” Zachary called. “Dad? Martin?”

  No answer.

  We moved past the stairs into the warm, spotless kitchen. Zachary passed his hand over the empty counter, tapping his fingers. Then he moved the microwave forward a few inches and looked behind it. Finally he peered inside the coffeemaker, in the compartment where the water goes.