“And you’re certain... promised? That she... once she’s... she wants?” His words drift in and out, drowning under the noise of the blood in these ears.
“She hasn’t lied to me yet.” There’s a stubborn note in Franklin’s voice.
“That you know of.” Martinez must have moved closer.
I struggle to try and open my eyes, to sit up and tell them that they do not need to be afraid of me. Not this time. But this body refuses. Clinging to the semblance of life is hard—cold sweat prickling in my hair, the old penny taste of blood on the back of my tongue—and there isn’t energy for anything else. It doesn’t matter. The car shifts as Franklin climbs back in, and the engine purrs, soothing.
For a moment, I feel a twinge of guilt. This will not save everyone—the Sisters have already taken lives. It may not satisfy Martinez’s anger either. But it will keep others from being hurt in the future. Not just safe from the Sisters, but safe from Percy. Safe from me.
I drift more deeply into sleep as the car sways around me. I cannot save everyone, but I can save some.
18
Franklin leans back in his chair, feet propped on the edge of the bed. “Shit, Delaney. Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
We reached Crossing in the early evening and checked into the old motel on the edge of town. Now, Laurel sleeps in the other room while I have sat Franklin down and explained to him, in detail, what I expect to happen tomorrow.
He’s already looked through my books—all the notes on past and future—but this is more precise. More concrete. More terrifying.
Franklin takes a swallow from the beer he picked up at the gas station on the corner and stares at the ceiling. He is silent for a while, finishing off the last of his drink methodically.
I curl up against the headboard and wait.
Addie always said you can’t depend on other folks. They promise things they can’t do. Or they break the promises they’ve made. The only thing you can count on is yourself. Other folks just let you down, she used to say. Even if they don’t mean to.
I have found that generally not to be true. Not with folks who care for those around them. In a general sense. In a specific sense. And there ain’t much love in this world that is more specific than Franklin’s love for his sister.
He swings his feet down off the bed and leans forward, dark brown eyes fixed on me, intent. “And you are certain you will keep us safe? Even when they break their deal with you?” His hands shake.
I lean over and take his hand in mine. “Not everything I say is true, Franklin. But this is not a lie. I will keep you and Laurel safe.”
He sighs. “Right.” He lets go of my hand and stands up, slow. “You should get some sleep. Tomorrow will be hard.”
19
Percy sits at his desk. Overhead the lights flicker and buzz, but he doesn’t seem to notice. I guess since I am the one dreaming about him, there is nothing abnormal about the guttering light.
He tucks his tablet into his shoulder bag, stands up, and slides his phone into his jacket pocket. Straightens the cup of pencils and double checks to be certain he has logged out of his computer. Satisfied that everything is as it should be, he slings his bag over his shoulder and heads for the elevators.
I follow behind.
The descent to the lobby is slow. I press back into one corner. I don’t know if it will make a difference if I try to touch anyone within these dreams, but I’m not certain I want to risk it. If they aren’t just the generation of my obsessive subconscious, I don’t want to risk the barely controlled application of my Touch.
Percy stands in the middle of the elevator, staring at his reflection in the polished stainless steel doors. Every so often there is a beep as we pass another floor. Slowly dropping down through the building, the shadows grow thicker with each passing moment as if we are descending not just to the lobby but into the ground itself.
As the darkness grows, my grip on this moment loosens. I hear screams in the distance. Nightmares breathing down the back of my neck eager to disrupt. Without meaning to, I take a step toward Percy.
He turns and looks at me. Not just in my direction, but at me. The lines around his mouth fade, replaced by a wistfulness I have only seen when he held me in his arms. “Delaney?”
The elevator dings, and the doors slide open. In an instant, the shadows are gone. Percy blinks and shakes his head. Adjusts his bag hanging from his shoulder and steps out into the lobby.
The night security nod as he passes. To me they are faceless, but not frightening.
Percy steps out the doors and heads down the sidewalk toward the edge of the block that makes up the FBI offices. Tugs his phone from his pocket and glances at it. It’s late, but there should still be a bus running. If not, he’ll catch a taxi closer to downtown.
He waits for a moment at the corner for the lights to change even though the street is wide and empty. In the distance the interstates hum with traffic.
The light changes, and he crosses the street, hands in his pockets, and a knot at the bridge of his nose—thinking.
I follow a step or two behind. The buildings on either side of us jump and glitch. I’ve never been here before, and it’s hard to imagine the location without waking myself up.
Halfway down the block, Martinez is waiting, leaned back against his car, arms crossed on his chest.
Percy stops. “Martinez.”
“Cox.” He is in his shirt sleeves, collar undone. Always with the gun holstered on his belt.
Percy looks up and down the block. There are a few other cars parked against the curb, but the buildings on either side of the street are mostly dark, and the street is empty. “What’s going on?”
Martinez chews the inside of his lip for a moment. “I need your help.”
Percy nods, automatic. “Sure.”
“You won’t be able to talk to anyone else on the team about it. Not yet, anyway.”
“Okay.” Percy looks at him expectantly.
Martinez raises an eyebrow. “Just like that? No questions, just…okay.”
“Did you want to have to talk me into it?”
Martinez grins, sheepish. “Well. I might have had a whole speech prepared. Answering all the questions you have about your abilities, returning to your roots, and finding those things you want most.” He shrugs. “Probably sounds better in my head anyway.”
Percy has gotten so still that for a moment my dream-addled brain presents him as a cardboard cutout. “Answers,” he says finally. His voice is papery, too.
“That’s right.”
Percy runs his fingers through his hair. “And Delaney?”
Martinez nods solemnly. “Yes.”
Percy sighs, glances back down the street. I am glad I have taken momentary shelter in the dark wedge of an emergency exit. If I were not drenched in shadow, I am certain he would see me this time. “Are we leaving now?”
“No. Tomorrow. A little before lunch. Meet me in the parking garage down the block.”
“Okay.” Percy nods. The knot in his forehead eases. “Okay. Tomorrow.”
Martinez pushes himself away from the car, already fishing his keys back out of his pocket. “See you in the morning.”
20
The clearing in the woods is much the same as it was the last time I was here. The ruined house has collapsed further in the intervening months, kudzu and honeysuckle covering the exposed wood in a layer of rippling green. But in the middle of the clearing, where The Salesman’s box disintegrated and Gil Mains broke my burning flesh from my bones, there is a mound of dirt that even the stubborn chickweed won’t dare to grow on.
Franklin opens the trunk and pulls out a shovel. “Guess I’d better get to work.”
I swing my feet out of the car. “I’ll help.”
He shakes his head. “You sit tight. Last thing I want is you passing out of that body before the others get here and leavin’ me to try and talk everyone into carrying on with this little dea
l.”
Even if I didn’t feel two breaths away from dead, I don’t have much desire to dig, so I nod. “Okay.”
Laurel makes a face, but she pulls a second shovel out of the trunk and follows Franklin across the clearing toward the barren patch of red clay.
I huddle in the back seat of the car. Waiting. Hoping I haven’t waited too long. Hoping the others show up. It is so much harder trying to shape the future when all I have is my words, but even without magic behind it, the tongue is a powerful thing.
The sun is warm, and I doze off. When I wake up, Franklin and Laurel have abandoned their shovels, using their hands and pieces of wood scavenged from the collapsed house to clear the last of the dirt away from the sprawled bones. My sprawled bones.
I stagger out of the car and shuffle across the clearing. Drop awkwardly to my knees.
“Careful,” Laurel says as I reach out to touch the smooth white skull. “They’re hot.”
Franklin wipes his face on his shirt sleeve. “Come on. We’ll need wood for the fire.”
They head into the woods, looking for fallen limbs. Arguing with each other. I don’t have the energy to try and figure out the gist of their conversation, though I still catch individual words bouncing through the trees. Not that I need to know; it’s easy enough to guess. Still arguing over whether they should go through with this. I wonder if Laurel is telling her brother about the monster that follows me in the afterlife. He already knows about Percy.
I hold my hands over my hot bones, willing this dead heart to beat just a little longer.
A car engine rumbles nearby. Martinez’s car edges slowly into the clearing. He pulls around to park next to Franklin’s Chevy Nova. When he turns the car off, the silence is almost deafening.
Percy gets out and slams the door behind him. “What are we doing here, Martinez? You said there’d be answers.”
Martinez gets out more slowly, rolling his shirt sleeves up. “You’ll see.”
“I’ll see what?” Percy pauses, looking at me. “Who’s this?”
I reach under my jacket and lift the edge of my shirt. Find the soft bruised spot just under my ribs where Franklin hid Percy’s stolen memories—the truth about what happened with the necromancer in Savannah. The skin tears open easily under the pressure of my fingers, blood trickling down my belly as the memory drifts out like a dark thread.
Percy staggers and digs his knuckle into his temple. “Ugh.” When he looks up, there’s a darkness around his eyes that makes me shiver. The air around him ripples, the magic that was forgotten coming to the surface in a single breath. He holds up his hands, and his shoulders hunch up as though he is expecting a blow. “No.” He turns and glares at Martinez. “What is this? What have you let me do?”
Martinez backs up a few steps, keeping the car between the two of them. “Go talk to her,” he says firmly. “She will explain.”
“She will hate me.” He tries to pitch his voice low, but the words hiss in the muggy air.
I stand up, unsteady. “Percy.”
Percy twitches and changes direction to circle around me.
I tuck my hair behind my ear. I never forget that this is not my flesh and bones, but looking at him—for the first time in months—I am more aware than ever of this flat chest and lanky arms and legs.
“Delaney.” He touches my cheek with trembling fingers. “Oh, Del. I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry?”
“I would have saved you if I could. Even if it meant…” He shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. I’m still a monster.”
“Ah. No.” His body is warm under my hands, and I cling to him, tears flowing as I realized how much I have wanted to hold him again. “You aren’t a monster.”
His hands tighten on my shoulders, and magic flushes against my skin as his anger and fear struggle behind his eyes. “You know what I’ve done, Delaney. In Savannah. Before that.”
“Percy. If you knew the things I’ve done, the hurt I have caused.” I rest my forehead against his. “We will do better in the future.”
He shudders and that deadly, childish growl of magic in his chest subsides. “Are you certain, Del?”
“Yes.” I smooth the hair back from his eyes. “You are here now. And soon I will have my bones back, and we will never be separated again.” It feels strange, touching him with these hands, but they are all I have for now.
And, despite the unfamiliarity of this form, he holds me close. “That is all I have wanted, Del.”
“I know.” I lean my forehead against his. “I know.”
There’s a murmur of voices, and the Sisters emerge from the edge of the woods. They pause when they see Martinez and Percy. Lean their heads together to whisper to each other.
Finally, Sarah steps forward. “Who is this? I thought this deal was made between you and us.”
“It is.” I reach down to grasp Percy’s hand, tight and reassuring. “But I promised you a source of Power. Percy will provide you with what you need to reunite me with my bones.”
She eyes me, suspicious, but edges closer. “And him?” A nod to Martinez.
I shrug. “He will separate body and soul when the time comes.”
Martinez, to his credit, remains quiet, arms crossed over his chest. Drawing on that blank disposition he uses in the interrogation room to hide his true intent.
Sarah nods. “All right.” She twitches her head at the other four Sisters—carrying a couple plastic milk crates between them, jars and uncomfortably sharp tools chiming gently inside. “Let’s get this over with.”
21
Franklin and Laurel return, arms full of fallen branches. They pause when they see the Sisters, but Franklin murmurs to her—reassuring—and they walk forward, drop the firewood on the ground.
“Here.” Franklin nudges it with his foot. “Will you need more?”
Sarah considers the pile of wood, the space where my bones lie. “Maybe,” she says.
“All right.”
Laurel is already trotting back into the woods, eager to put some distance between herself and the Sisters. Franklin follows more slowly, waiting until he has passed between the first of the trees before turning his back to the clearing.
Percy pulls me closer, watching uneasily as the Sisters begin marking a five-pointed star with salt on the ground around my exposed bones. “Delaney. What is going on?”
“They are going to help us get my body back. Not this.” I hold up one cold hand. “But my real body.”
He frowns. “That sounds dangerous.”
“Yes. But not impossible. Not if you let them draw on your magic, Percy. Not if you call my soul back from the afterlife.”
“Afterlife?” Now he looks truly alarmed. “What if I can’t?” His arms tighten around me, painful. “There must be another way.”
“There isn’t.”
He shakes his head. “Why can’t you just stay as you are?” He presses his forehead to mine. “It doesn’t change my love for you.”
I pull away from him. I know he means to comfort me, expressing that he can love me in any form. But it hurts that he doesn’t understand how hard it been staying in this body that is wrong, that is not me. “Even if this form were not mostly dead, Percy, I couldn’t stay in it.”
“It doesn’t matter to me,” he says. To prove his point, he leans forward and kisses me. Clumsy at first in his eagerness, but sincere.
Tears slick down my cheeks, and I tangle my fingers in his hair, even as I draw back. “It matters to me, Percy. I cannot stay like this.”
The lines in his face deepen, anger struggling with grief. “I could find another way.” His gaze slides past me to the Sisters, busy carving lines in the red clay. “You know I have the necromancer’s magic now.” He says it quiet, but his magic rises in response. “This body may not be right, but I could get you another one.”
“No.” I say it sharp. “Percy.”
He looks at me, and I see the marks left on him, left on his magic from
every time he has used it. The snarling aggression of the neighbor’s dog, the fear and callousness of the creep that tried to steal his life, and the desperate obsession of the necromancer. “Why won’t you let me save you, Delaney?”
“Because that will not help me.” I knot my fingers in the front of his shirt. “I need my bones. Not these. Not theirs. Mine.”
Percy’s weight shifts, and I move with him, keeping this body between him and the Sisters. “Besides, we said we’d do better in the future.” It’s harder than ever to smile, but I do my best.
Percy frowns, but he nods, reluctantly. “You are right. I’m sorry.” He smooths the cold tear tracks from my face with his fingertips. “I just... I don’t want to lose you. Not again.”
“Put me back in my bones and, I promise, we will never be separated again.”
“Yes.” Percy nods. “I will do whatever it takes.”
Thunder whispers in the distance, the hot summer sky overhead slowly turning grey and dark. A cold breeze curls through the muggy afternoon, teasing sweaty skin.
Laurel and Franklin bring more wood, then retreat to stand with Martinez. The Sisters finish their salt diagram and lay out the wood, start the fire with a word and a flash of energy.
Sarah looks at me. “We’re ready.”
I clasp Percy’s hand tight and wobble forward. The fire stretches up and out, sucking greedily along every dry branch and twig piled over my bones. “You will let them use your magic?”
“Yes.” Percy touches my face again, tender. “And I will draw you back.”
“Don’t hurt anyone while I’m gone,” I say sternly.
The thing in his chest snarls, but he nods, focused on me and not on his fear. “May we only be parted a moment.”
Martinez moves closer, looking at Percy warily. “You ready, Delaney?”
“Yes.” I step back across the salt lines, and the fire reaches out to caress my shoulders.
Touch: A Trilogy Page 27