Shift

by Jeri Smith-Ready

  “I can do lots of things. Get this.” Logan dropped his knees into a cross-legged position again, scooting closer in excitement. “When I was a shade, I held on to three hopes to keep my soul from ripping apart.” He extended his thumb. “Number one. Remember when I said I wanted to make a difference? I can make the hugest difference, now that I’ve turned from a shade back to a ghost. This has never happened before, right?”

  “As far as people know.”

  “Tons of witnesses saw me shade out at the Green Derby that night. If the world finds out it’s not permanent, maybe the Obsidians will stop locking up shady ghosts and find some way to help them.” He gestured between us with his thumb. “Maybe together we can figure out how.”

  “Sure.” My stomach fluttered at the thought of another media circus. But it was time to stop forgetting the world—and time to start changing it. “By the way, they don’t call them ‘shady’ ghosts anymore. They call them at-risk ghosts. ARGs for short.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since you. The press totally skewered those Obsidian agents who tried to capture you.”

  “Good. Especially after the way they roughed up you and Dylan. Were you hurt?”

  “Just some bruises.” I rubbed my wrist, which had already been sprained before I’d hurled myself at the agent.

  Logan cocked his head. “So I’m famous now?”

  He looked way too pleased with himself, so I changed the subject. “What was your second hope?”

  Logan’s face lit up, literally glowing brighter. “I want to make music again.”

  “But Mickey and Siobhan are too old to hear ghosts.” His brother and sister were eighteen—twins, in fact—born before the Shift.

  “I’ll sing with post-Shifters. It’ll be easier to rehearse if I can communicate with my bandmates.”

  “What about the audience?”

  “You’ll hear me, and so will everyone younger than you.” He grinned. “Prime market, right? We’ll be the first band that was made for you guys. The labels’ll be lining up to sign us.”

  I stared at him in disbelief. The promise of a recording label contract was what got Logan killed in the first place. To woo him into signing, the A and R rep from Warrant Records had given him cocaine, which, mixed with copious amounts of alcohol, had stopped his heart forever.

  The old Logan was back, and only a little wiser. I hoped a little was enough.

  “I’ve been writing more songs in my head,” he said, “about being a ghost and a shade.” His face turned smooth and solemn. “How I’d die all over again just to touch you.”

  He swept his ethereal hand over my solid one, and I thought I felt the motion of air against my skin. But it was just my imagination, juiced up by wishful thinking.

  “Aura, you were my third reason. The only one that matters.”

  My lungs tightened. Logan had come back for me, but was I still in the same place? The night he shaded, I’d pressed the pause button on my life.

  But with the spring thaw, I’d lurched into slow-mo: a night out clubbing with my best friend, Megan, a shopping trip with Aunt Gina. An afternoon at Zachary’s intramural soccer game (I hated watching soccer, but I liked watching him, more than I wanted to admit).

  Now that Logan was here again, I could hit the play button, move at the speed of life. But in which direction?

  “I don’t know if I can do this.”

  “Do what?” He kept smiling, but his voice cracked a little.

  “Be with you that way.” The words seemed to shred my throat on their way out. “Like before.”

  His smile vanished. His lips parted, then closed, then parted again. “Aura, I—” Logan stood up fast, radiating nervous energy. “I came back for you.”

  “Not just for me. You had to save yourself.”

  “You saved me.” He pointed at me. “You had the power.”

  “We don’t know that. Besides, you told me not to wait for you, remember?”

  “Well—yeah. But that was when I was a shade. And now I’m not.”

  “We said good-bye before you ever shaded.”

  “And all this time you’ve been trying to get me back.” He lifted his palms. “Doesn’t that mean something?”

  “I didn’t call for you so you could be my boyfriend. I did it because you were suffering. I did it because I love you.”

  “But if you love me—” He took a step back, then another. “Is there someone else now? Are you with that Scottish guy?”

  “I’m not with anyone. But yeah, I care about Zachary.” I noticed I looked away when I said his name, just as I had once been unable to meet Zachary’s eyes when I spoke the word “Logan.”

  “‘Care about’? You care about music, you care about football, you care about freaking awesome cookies.” Logan quieted. “What does that mean when it comes to him?”

  “We’re friends.” A cold breeze swept my bare arms. My window was still open.

  “And?”

  “And we’re going out tomorrow night.” I rose on shaky legs and went to the window. “There’s an ancient-astronomy exhibit opening at the Maryland Science Center.”

  “So it’s for school,” he said with relief. “That paper you’re doing?”

  “Our adviser got us into this special preview reception. It’s kind of a big deal.” I slid the window shut, my fingers almost slipping. “We’re going out to dinner first.”

  “With your adviser.”

  I fastened the latch. “No.”

  Behind me, Logan fell so silent, I would’ve thought he’d disappeared if it weren’t for his violet reflection in the window.

  “Who’s taking you to the prom?” he said finally.

  “No one’s asked.” No one I liked, at least.

  “I asked you the day after Homecoming, remember?” He came to stand beside me. “Let’s go together.”

  The idea should’ve made me laugh, but instead I wanted to cry at the memory of Homecoming. We thought we had all the time in the world together. Less than a week later, he was dead.

  “Ghosts can’t get into my school.” I turned to face him. “Ridgewood is totally BlackBoxed.”

  “Then we’ll dance together outside. It’ll be warm enough by May. Everyone’ll join us, and it’ll be a big—”

  “Logan, you’re dead.”

  He jerked back as if I’d slapped him. Then his face twisted into jagged lines. “You didn’t mind before. You didn’t mind me lying in your bed every night. You didn’t mind me whispering in your ear while you touched yourself.”

  My breath froze in my lungs. Logan slowly covered his mouth, his eyes turning round and wide.

  He staggered back. “Oh God. Aura, I’m so sorry. I can’t believe I said that.”

  I covered my burning face with my hands. The old Logan would’ve never been so harsh. What had shading done to him? “That was as much for you as it was for me.”

  “I know, and I loved it. I loved you. I still love you so much.” He stepped forward, his glow shining through the cracks between my fingers. “I know we can’t have the future we wanted, but we can have now, right?”

  “I can’t do this anymore.” My hands muffled my words. “Promise me we’ll just be friends, or leave me forever.”

  “Fine. Friends. Whatever you want.” His voice shook with fear. “You know I mean it. Ghosts can’t lie. Aura, look at me.”

  I lowered my hands. Logan was leaning over, eyes level with mine. With his shirt fallen open, I could see the planes of his violet chest—and my name tattooed over his heart. It would be there forever.

  “Promise me,” I said.

  “Better yet.” He lifted his left hand, palm down, fingers spread. “Spider-swear.”

  I finally laughed. We’d invented the secret handshake, as serious as a blood oath, when we were six years old. Spider-swear had never been broken.

  I spread my own fingers and slid them between his. We folded our palms down, extended our thumbs for the spider’s antennas, and
wiggled our fingers for the eight legs.

  “Spider-swear,” we said together, eyes locked, as solemnly as when we were kids.

  A sudden heat gripped my hand. I ripped my gaze from his face, to the place where we had joined.

  Logan’s whisper cut the shocked silence. “Whoa.”

  My mouth opened but no sound came out. Impossible.

  I could feel him.

  A warm palm pressed against mine, the webbing of our fingers locked together. It couldn’t be real.

  “Don’t move,” he breathed, softer than ever. Logan slowly wrapped his fingers around my hand.

  Tears spilled down my cheeks as I realized it had to be a dream. Logan hadn’t come back to me. He was still a shade, roaming the world alone, poisoning post-Shifters with his bitterness.

  He was still in hell.

  I closed my eyes. “I don’t want to wake up. Please, God, don’t make me wake up.”

  A gentle hand touched my face. I flinched away, expecting Aunt Gina, who would shake me out of sleep and offer comfort food.

  The hand touched my cheek again. It wasn’t soft and cool like Gina’s. It was warm, with calloused fingertips like those of. . .

  . . . a guitar player.

  “Aura,” Logan whispered, “it’s not a dream.”

  I opened my eyes. He was touching my face.

  Logan. Touching.

  My other hand brushed aside the edge of his soft cotton shirt and met the smooth flesh of his chest. Flesh that was no longer violet, but instead looked as it had when he was alive.

  My heart pounded when its counterpart thumped beneath his skin. “How?”

  “I don’t care,” he said, and kissed me.

  I kept praying.

  I prayed while Logan locked the door and marveled that he could touch a solid object.

  I prayed while he picked me up and carried me to the bed, like he had before he died.

  I prayed while he kissed and touched me, urgent but deliberate, as if memorizing my taste and feel, as if I were the one who could disappear any moment.

  I prayed this wasn’t some massive cosmic joke.

  As I peeled off his shirt, Logan gave a nervous laugh. “I’ve been wearing that thing for five months.”

  “And it doesn’t even smell bad.” He, on the other hand, smelled amazing. One inhale against his bare chest brought me back to October eighteenth, the night I’d last touched him. “Logan, you’re alive.”

  “Definitely feels like it.” He grabbed my hand as it reached his waistband. “Hang on.”

  I froze. Was he going to call me on the fact that I was pawing him like a nympho two minutes after breaking up with him?

  “We don’t know how long you’ll be like this.” My fingertips dug into the lean muscles of his lower back.

  “But—did you go on the Pill while I was gone?”

  I stared up at him. “Are you kidding me?”

  “Look, if I’m really alive, even if it’s temporary, what if I get you pregnant?”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Ten minutes ago I turned from a shade to a ghost, which is also impossible. Then I turned from a ghost to . . . whatever I am now—and that’s even more impossible. And if you get pregnant and I’m not really alive, what would the baby be? Half-ghost? Half-dead?”

  I clenched my fingers around his arm. Logan, of all people, was thinking about consequences. Shading had changed him more than I thought.

  “I’m not on the Pill. I don’t have anything.”

  The corner of his mouth quirked. “I’m kinda glad you didn’t need it.”

  “Hey, it’s not like I was saving myself for the day you had a body again, so don’t get excited.”

  “Too late.” He curved his fingers around my jaw and kissed me, hard enough to turn my limbs to liquid fire.

  It was easier then, just to make out. Like old times, before the do-we-or-don’t-we question. Before I worried I wasn’t enough for Logan. Before I worried about losing him to his groupies.

  I waited for my old anxieties to come crashing in. Now that he was back—and solid—wouldn’t other girls be all over him again?

  Maybe. But he’d proclaimed his love for me under oath. He’d clung to thoughts of me while he was a shade. And there was that tattoo. So I wasn’t worried anymore.

  Not about his feelings.

  He pulled away, just an inch. “This changes everything, right?”

  Lying beside him, I soaked up the sight of his face in full color, the way I thought I’d never see it again outside of photographs.

  “I never stopped loving you, Logan. I never will.”

  His thumb traced the edge of my lip. “Even if I become a ghost again? Or a shade?”

  “I meant what I said.”

  “But you didn’t say that you changed your mind about breaking up with me.”

  I pressed my palm to his stubbled cheek, wishing I could freeze time. The future meant nothing compared to this.

  “Aura, I don’t need an answer this second. Whatever happens . . . right now, I’m happy.”

  A single tear slipped out of my eye, rolling over my temple like hot wax down a candlestick. Logan caught it.

  “Hey, look.” He held up his wet fingertip. “I finally wiped away your tear.”

  I smiled despite my doubt. “Thank you.”

  “It’s the least I can do, considering I cause most of them.”

  The sadness in his eyes stabbed at my heart. The twitch in his jaw twisted the knife.

  I pushed him onto his back and kissed him hard, my hair falling in dark curtains around his face.

  Groaning deep in his throat, Logan slid his hands down my back and over my hips—hands that were strong and solid for the first time in five months.

  “Don’t make us stop,” I pleaded. “I don’t care what happens later. I want to be with you now.”

  “Now,” he echoed.

  When our clothes were gone, Logan coaxed me back on top of him. “It’ll hurt less this way. I wish I’d known that the first time. Then—”

  He cut himself off, and as we stared into each other’s eyes, we silently filled in the rest.

  If it had hurt less the first time, then I wouldn’t have made him stop. Then on his birthday he wouldn’t have been so nervous and gotten so drunk, and then I wouldn’t have yelled at him for almost passing out, and then he wouldn’t have taken that cocaine to wake himself up for sex.

  And then he never would have died.

  I closed my eyes. “It doesn’t matter now.”

  “Yeah. Let’s pretend we believe that.”

  I kissed him softly, ready for this at last.

  Suddenly my face hit the pillow, crushing my nose against the warm sheet. I turned my head and opened my eyes.

  I was surrounded by violet.

  I shoved myself up and saw Logan lying beneath me, but he might as well have been invisible.

  “Aura, what happened?” He grasped for my arm, but his hand went right through me. He gaped at his body, which was clothed again in his baggy shorts and open shirt. “Oh God. No.”

  “Logan?” I clawed at him. “Logan, come back.”

  “I don’t know how!”

  I stuck out my trembling hand. “Spider-swear, like before.”

  He slid his fingers between mine.

  “Spider-swear,” we said together, but our hands passed through each other like they were made of air.

  Like Logan was made of air.

  “No . . .” I jammed my hands against my eyes. “Why?”

  “I don’t know.” He rolled off the bed. “Goddamn it! God-fucking-damn it!” As he paced, the edges of his form started to darken and ripple.

  “Logan!” I rushed to block his path, not that I could stop him. “Calm down or you’ll shade again.”

  He clutched his hair. “I was alive, Aura.” His voice crackled with static. “And God, you look so beautiful.” He reached for me, then recoiled. His hand was shot through with black lightning
.

  “Logan, look at me.” I waved my arms, though his shady energy made me dizzy. “Look at me!”

  “I can’t look at you!” He turned away and hunched over, covering his face. “I want you so much, it makes it worse.”

  I stood helpless as he tried to contain himself. The black streaks zipped over his body, following the lines of his muscles and bones, as if a thousand invisible knives were carving him up.

  “Logan, you can fight this. Stay with me. Please.”

  For a moment the black lightning zoomed faster, stronger. Then, just when I thought he would disintegrate, the streaks slowed and faded until he was all violet again.

  A knock came at my door. “Aura, are you all right?” Aunt Gina called. “I heard you yelling.”

  “Shit.” Logan straightened up. “I’ve gotta get out of here.”

  “No!” I grabbed my nightshirt from the floor. “If someone else sees you, they might report you to the DMP. Then the Obsidians will trap you in one of their little boxes forever.”

  Aunt Gina rattled the doorknob. “Are you on the phone at this hour? Why is your door locked?”

  “Just a second!” I called to her as I slipped on my nightshirt, then turned to Logan. “I’ll only tell her you’re a ghost again, none of that other stuff.”

  He looked at me from the corner of his eye. “Put on some pants.”

  I did as he asked, for his sake as much as my aunt’s. Then I opened the door.

  Gina stood with her hands on her hips, her short blond waves flat on one side from bed-head.

  I smoothed my own hair, hoping it wasn’t too tousled.

  “Logan’s back.”

  They call them the loudest band in New York!” Megan shouted over the gut-bending bass and distorted guitars as she accelerated toward another yellow light. “Which makes them the loudest band in the world, right?”

  The car hit the intersection a split second before the light turned red. “Yes!” Megan hissed, bobbing her head and pumping her fist. The section of dark red hair not pulled back into her tombstone barrette swung against her cheek.

  We weren’t late for school. Megan tended to drive to the tempo of her music—which was always fast. This morning it was her latest discovery, A Place to Bury Strangers. I’d laughed at the name, until I heard ten seconds of the first song and fell in love.