Ghost Hand

by Ripley Patton

  I looked across at Emma, hoping for some help.

  She raised her eyebrows at me.

  “I—thanks—it’s not that great,” I said to Passion, lamely. I couldn’t do it. Not like that. The timing just wasn’t right. At least, that’s what I told myself.

  That night we had a very awkward slumber party in Marcus’s tent.

  * * *

  Jason came back during breakfast the next morning. One minute we were all eating bacon and eggs, and the next minute there he was roaring up on his ATV.

  He got off the wheeler, marched up to the couch where I was sitting, and said, “What’d you do with him?” leveling his gun at my head. There was alcohol on his breath. A lot of it.

  Next to me, Emma cringed against Yale, terrified.

  Passion stood frozen, like a deer in the headlights.

  Nose looked ready to jump Jason, but Marcus caught his eye and gave a little shake of his head.

  I just sat, looking down the barrel of Jason’s gun. It was becoming a regular thing. I was practically used to it.

  “Put the gun down,” Marcus ordered. “She didn’t do anything.”

  “Oh, she did,” Jason insisted, his finger hovering over the trigger. “She disappeared them. They weren’t there. Nothing was there. It looked like they’d been gone for days.”

  “They have been gone for days,” Marcus said.

  “What are you talking about?” Jason demanded.

  “He’s talking about this,” I said, reaching into my sweatshirt pocket and pulling out the cube.

  “Olivia,” Marcus warned.

  “What the fuck is that?” Jason asked, lowering his gun a little.

  “I don’t know exactly,” I said, “but I pulled it out of Dr. Julian. That’s my ability. It isn’t disappearing people. It’s reaching into them and pulling things out.” From the corner of my eye I could see Passion staring at the cube, hanging on my every word. Yale and Nose and Emma were listening too. Jason just looked confused. “My hand pulled those blades out of—someone.” I could at least give Passion that much anonymity. “And when I needed something to protect me from the minus meters, they started blocking minus meters. They took on that power.” This was harder to explain than I’d thought it would be. “Then I stuck my hand into you,” I said, staring into Jason’s eyes.

  “You took something out of me,” he whispered, his eyes looking past me as if he were remembering it.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “You took something out of me,” Jason repeated, his voice growing louder, rougher.

  “Yeah, but I didn’t mean to.”

  “It’s in there, isn’t it?” Jason asked, looking at the cube wide-eyed.

  “How did you—”

  “I can feel it,” he said, taking a step back, his left hand clutching at his chest. “Ever since that day you grabbed me, I could feel it on you. Like you had a hold on me.”

  “Here, take it,” I said, trying to hand the cube to him. I didn’t want a hold on Jason, or Dr. Julian, or Passion.

  “You keep the fuck away from me,” Jason said, raising his gun at me again, warning me back. Marcus had circled around behind him while we’d been talking.

  “But it’s yours.”

  “I don’t want it,” Jason said, looking away from me, swaying a little. “I don’t want shit from you. Just tell me where the CAMFers went.” He sounded tired. He looked dazed. “I asked someone in town,” he said, letting his gun slant toward the ground. “One of the neighbors.”

  “What did they say?” Marcus asked, and Jason turned, looking at him.

  “They said an ambulance came. They said that CAMFer doc was up at the hospital in a coma, that he’d been like that for days. That’s when I knew she’d done something. That’s when I came back.”

  “What about the other CAMFers?” Marcus pushed.

  “Looked like they’d run. There wasn’t no sign of them in the house. Wasn’t no sign of anything. Not even the hole or the stairs or the room underneath. The freezer was full of food,” Jason said, looking at Marcus. “There was a cement floor under it. Like she made it never happened. Like she disappeared it all.”

  “They got rid of the evidence,” Marcus said. “Covered their tracks so we couldn’t prove anything if we reported them. Olivia didn’t do that.”

  Except, really, I had.

  I hadn’t meant to, but not only had I stolen Jason’s bullet, I’d stolen his one chance for revenge.

  * * *

  We all stood at the ATVs, except for Jason. Marcus had taken his gun from him and escorted him to his tent where he’d fallen into a drunken sleep. Even from the other side of the camp, we could hear him snoring.

  The others had already said their good-byes to Emma. Yale was helmeted up and sitting on his four wheeler. Emma was standing next to it.

  I reached out and hugged her, trying not to cry.

  “It’ll be fine” Emma said, patting my back. “I’m an actress, remember? And I’ll keep an eye on Dr. Fineman for you.”

  “Just stay away from him, okay?” I said. “No heroics.” The thought of my best friend living in the same town with that guy, even if he was in a coma, was hard to deal with. But it was even harder to imagine my mother sitting at Dr. Fineman’s bedside, just like she’d sat at my dad’s. What a fucking joke that was, because this time it really was my fault. I’d done that to him.

  “I gave her one of the blades,” Marcus said from behind us. “It should warn her if any of the CAMFers come back into town.”

  I wanted to turn around and hug him. We only had two blades, and he’d given one to Emma. But I resisted the urge and handed a folded piece of paper to Emma—a note for my mother. Marcus had helped me write it. Made sure I didn’t give any important information away. It said simply:

  Dear Mom,

  I am safe and I love you, but I could not come back with Emma. She doesn’t know where I’m going, so don’t bug her or blame her. I’m not doing this to hurt you. It’s just something I have to do. And I know you love me.

  Olivia

  “I’ll give it to her first thing,” Emma said, pulling me into another embrace. “And I’ll be fine. It’s you guys I’m worried about. Be careful,” she said, pulling away. “And let me know you’re still alive once in a while. You’re the only best friend I’ve got.”

  “I know. I will.” I said. I hadn’t told Emma we were going to Indianapolis. The less she knew, the safer she’d be. Also, Grant was there. If she knew, she might contact him and try to get him to watch out for me, and that was the last thing I needed. “When we come back, we’ll tell you how we saved the world,” I joked.

  “Cool,” Emma said. “I knew that first day back in third grade that making friends with you was going to pay off big someday.”

  “You did not,” I said.

  “Yes, I did,” Emma said firmly. “See you later, Liv.”

  She put on her helmet and climbed on the back of Yale’s wheeler, wrapping her arms around him. The motor roared, the ATV surged forward, and Yale and Emma disappeared into the woods toward Greenfield.

  I turned back toward camp. We had a lot of packing and planning to do. Indianapolis was two hundred miles away, and the CAMFers already had a head start on us.

  But Marcus took my arm and steered me toward his wheeler. “We have one last stop to make,” he said, handing me a helmet. “The others can break down camp without us.”

  I climbed on and wrapped my arms around him, burying my head in his back. I didn’t have to ask. I knew where we were going long before we pulled up to the wooded west gate of Sunset Hill Cemetery. We left the wheeler there and went the rest of the way on foot, winding our way, hand in hand, between barren trees and stumpy tombstones. The weight of the recent rain had pulled almost all of the leaves down.

  When we got to my dad’s grave, I sat on Melva Price, and Marcus stood behind me, his hands warm on my shoulders. He had known I needed to come here. We understood each other in so many ways. Wa
ys my father and I had understood each other. Marcus wasn’t replacing him. And I wasn’t taking Danielle’s place. But both of us were moving on. Together.

  “Goodbye, Dad. I love you,” I said.

  Then Marcus put his arm around me, we walked to the wheeler, and headed back to Piss Camp.

  THE END

  Available now:

  Ghost Hold, Book Two of The PSS Chronicles

  Check out the first chapter FREE on the next page.

  Ghost Hold Chapter 1

  ALMOST TO CIVILIZATION

  I had never been so happy to see a barn in my life. Yes, it looked like it was about to fall over, which had me questioning the wisdom of storing all our worldly belongings in it, but the squat red building had a roof and four walls, luxuries I hadn’t seen in over two weeks.

  As our ATVs pulled up, their trailers rattling behind them, I moved my hand from Marcus’s waist and yanked my bandana over my mouth to keep from inhaling the cloud of dust that billowed around us. I still hadn’t gotten used to the constant grime of camp life, the way my clothes held a layer of dirt, like Pigpen from the Peanuts cartoon, or the grit I could always feel between my teeth no matter how many times I brushed them. They didn’t show you that in the movies; that the life of a fugitive was filthy and sweaty, especially in the middle of an unseasonably hot Indiana October.

  Marcus cut the engine of our wheeler and, one by one, Yale, Jason, Nose and Passion cut theirs too. We’d replaced Jason’s stolen ATV fifty miles outside of Greenfield and gotten one for Passion while we were at it. I don’t think I’d truly grasped the reality of Marcus’s million-dollar trust fund until I’d seen him pay cash for those ATVs. But I hadn’t missed the pained, quickly-masked look on his face as he handed it over. It was blood money, paid to him in a settlement for the untimely and accidental death of his parents, but it was money we desperately needed.

  Marcus had offered to get me my own ATV as well, but I preferred to ride with him. I was a crap driver; that was the reason I’d given. But really there was just something about wrapping my legs around a thrumming motor while slipping my arms around Marcus’s waist that made the hundreds of miles of dust and dirt-eating worth it. Even so, I was really glad to be back to civilization.

  Marcus pulled off his helmet, and I lifted mine off too. He looked over his shoulder at me, and we smiled at one another, not needing to say anything. We were here. We’d made it to Indy without any apparent pursuit by Mike Palmer or the CAMFers.

  Well, we’d almost made it. We still had about thirty miles to go, but this was where we’d trade in our wheelers for a comfy rental van. We’d lock away all our camping gear and dirt-stained clothes in the barn and disguise ourselves as wealthy suburban teenagers. This was where the mission to save Samantha James really began.

  I slid off the vinyl seat, set my grimy helmet on it, and stretched my legs. My ass hurt, as usual, but I’d learned not to complain about it. It seemed there was nothing in the world teenage boys liked more than making sore ass jokes.

  Marcus, still straddling the wheeler, dug in his pocket for the key that would unlock the padlock on the barn door. That was something else he’d picked up in the town where we’d bought the ATVs. The key, the use of the barn, the promise of a van waiting for us with certain forged documents and supplies inside of it—he’d arranged it all in the space of a couple hours.

  But he hadn’t found the key yet, and I could feel the mid-day sun beating down on me, so I strode forward and sank my ghost hand into the lock. It made a satisfying click as it popped open.

  “Thanks,” Marcus said, coming alongside me. “You’re sure handy.”

  “Ha ha, very original,” I said, poking him in the ribs with my elbow.

  As Marcus and I pulled the heavy barn doors open, the others joined us, and we all entered the vaulted, slat-lit interior of the barn. It smelled musty inside, with a slight sweet undertone of rotting hay.

  “You’re sure our stuff will be safe here?” Jason asked.

  “Pretty sure,” Marcus said, “But if it isn’t, we’ll buy more. Anything personal you should bring in the van though, in case we don’t make it back.”

  In case we don’t make it back. There was a subtle message in that statement for all of us. We’d been outrunning danger for weeks, but now we were charging straight into the thick of it, and none of us knew exactly what that would look like, or what the ultimate outcome would be.

  I looked around at their faces, these boys who had once been my rescuers. Was this how they’d felt when they’d been just outside of Greenfield preparing to come get me? This calculated fear? This tingle of excitement and anticipation?

  My eyes fell on Passion, and she stared back at me, her pale face almost glowing in the darkness of the barn. Was she afraid or excited? I had no idea. She was a complete mystery to me, a mystery I’d spent weeks avoiding, despite the fact that we’d been living in the same camp.

  It hadn’t been that hard to keep my distance. She had her own tent and I’d shared Marcus’s. She tended to keep to herself, just like I did, so we’d mostly encountered one another at meals or around a low fire on the nights Marcus had deemed it safe enough for one.

  The first week after she’d joined camp, Nose had paid her a lot of attention, but she hadn’t given him any encouragement, and eventually he’d backed off. She hadn’t been mean or anything. And when he’d asked me if I thought it was his PSS Nose or the ski mask he always wore to cover it, I told him I doubted it. Passion wasn’t like that. She was always nice to everyone. Too nice. Annoyingly nice.

  So, if she was that nice, why did I have a problem with her? I had no good reason.

  A couple of days ago, Marcus had taken me aside and said, “Don’t you think it’s time you two hashed this out?” But that had made me want to talk to her even less. Honestly, Passion had every right to dislike me, not the other way around. I was the one who’d yanked something out of her soul, used it for myself, and then handed it over to the bad guys. She probably thought I was a complete bitch.

  And maybe she was right.

  “Let’s unload the stuff from the trailers into the barn,” Marcus directed the guys. “But set aside the personal stuff for Olivia and Passion to pack into the van.”

  “Speaking of the van, where is it?” I asked.

  “It should be out back,” he said.

  We all exited the barn, circled around to the back, and there it was gleaming in the sun like a golden chariot—an extra-long, brand new, white passenger van with bucket seats, tinted windows and a gray leather interior.

  It was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen. My butt could already feel that padded seat. My face craved the cool, dustless breeze of the air conditioner.

  Marcus opened the back doors of the van, and started passing out duffle bags for each of us containing a change of new clothes and our fake IDs. Mine said that I was Anne Clawson, seventeen, and Passion was playing the part of my cousin, Mirabelle Clawson, also seventeen, who’d come to live with us after her parents’ recent and messy divorce. Anne was my middle name, and Mirabelle was Passion’s. Marcus said it was always better to play close to the truth. It made the lies easier to remember.

  I tried not to be disappointed that the clothes in the duffle weren’t my style. Apparently, Anne Clawson, a rich girl with rich parents, didn’t have my dark sensibilities. At least there was a new pair of black leather gloves to help hide my ghost hand.

  But the clothes and the cousin thing weren’t the worst of it. Not even close. The worst part was that Marcus would be playing the role of my older brother, Clayton Clawson, a twenty-one-year-old pre-med student. The story was that our parents were away celebrating their thirtieth wedding anniversary in the Mediterranean while Clayton orchestrated the family move to Indianapolis. Yeah, my boyfriend was going to pretend to be my brother. I was really looking forward to that.

  As for Jason, Yale and Nose, they were a little too ethnically diverse to fit in to the Clawson famil
y. So, they’d be hiding out in the house Marcus had rented for us, running security detail, and laying low. Still, they’d get new clothes and fake IDs casting them as three of Clayton’s college buddies, just in case.

  “We can get changed in the barn after we get everything loaded,” Marcus said, handing the last duffle bag to Yale.

  And then we got to work, like the well-oiled machine we’d become. The packing was easy compared to setting up and tearing down camp every day. Marcus had us store the guns and ammo deep under the back seat in case we got pulled over, though, according to Jason, Indiana had some of the most relaxed gun laws in the country, which was the argument he gave for refusing to put his away.

  “Jason,” Marcus said. ”You’re not going to need it in the next thirty miles.”

  “You don’t know that,” Jason said, gripping his gun more tightly. It was useless trying to talk Jason out of anything. We all knew it, so I wasn’t surprised when Marcus let him keep the weapon.

  After we all got changed, the last thing to go into the back of the van, carefully wrapped in a blanket, was my father’s painting, The Other Olivia. Yes, it was singed around the edges, but it was all I had left of him. It was all I had left of anything, the sole belonging the CAMFers hadn’t destroyed when they’d burned down my house and chased me from my home town.

  As Marcus shut the back of the van Nose called out, “Shotgun!” and ran around to the passenger side door. Then he and Jason proceeded to fight over who should get to sit in the front. Jason’s argument was that he was carrying a gun; therefore he should get the shotgun position by default without ever having to call it. Nose countered that Jason’s gun was technically a hunting rifle, not a shotgun, therefore his argument was invalid and Nose should get the front seat. Marcus pointed out that neither a guy in a ski mask nor a country boy armed with a rifle were probably the best choice for most-visible front seat passenger, and I began to understand why he’d gotten a van with darkened back windows. In the end, he assigned Jason and Nose to sit all the way in the back. Yale and Passion sat in the middle, and Marcus drove with me riding shotgun.