“I’m no’ driving a grotesque purple rip-off of the Loch Ness—”
“And when you get out, it’ll feel like someone walked a mile wearing your balls for sandals.”
Zachary stared at him. “Aye. Chessie it is, then.” He crammed an extra five bucks into the man’s palm, then made what he must have thought was a subtle adjustment of his own jeans.
We put on incredibly attractive orange lifejackets and paddled away from the dock. There was no steering wheel—turning the boat required paddling faster on one side than the other. Zachary was overly eager, so we went in a circle until he slowed down to my speed.
The exertion warmed me, and by the time we were out in the harbor, I was sweating inside my wool coat.
“That’s far enough,” he said.
I collapsed in my seat, panting. The garish purple head of the dragon—or sea monster, or whatever—smirked down at me. “Far enough for what?”
“For them not to hear.” Zachary reached under his life vest and unzipped his jacket.
“Who?”
“The DMP. They’re watching us. They’ve been watching you for a long time.”
My sweat turned cold. “Why? And wait—how do you know?”
“My dad’s in the MI-X, the DMP’s UK counterpart. That’s why we’re here in the States.”
“To find me?”
“No. Yes. Uh, partly.” Zachary shook his head. “I’ll start from the beginning, but in case they’re watching us, we can’t look like we’re arguing.” He took my hand, and I could feel his warmth through my glove. “Just stay calm. I swear I’ll tell you everything I know.”
I breathed deeply, unsure of which was making my head spin more, his touch or his words.
No. Definitely his words.
“I told you when we met,” he said, “that I was born a minute before the Shift, seventeen years ago this morning. And you probably know you were born a minute after. But what you don’t know is that we were the only ones.”
“The only ones what?”
“Every minute that goes by on this planet, an average of four hundred babies are born. During my minute, and yours? Only one. Us.”
The chill of dread chased away the warmth of his touch. “What happened to the other babies? Did they die?”
“There weren’t any. I think they just—” He waved his hand. “Waited. Or hurried. In any case, they weren’t born when we were.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. But it can’t be a coincidence.”
I put a hand to my tightening throat. I was the First. I always knew it was possible. No—with all the mystery surrounding my birth, it was more than possible. Did that mean I’d made it happen?
“How do you know for sure?” I asked Zachary. “Your dad told you?”
“Right.”
I wondered who was watching us from the crowded shoreline. I had a mad desire to paddle as far as this sea monster would take us. “Who else knows?”
“Anyone who needs to. People high up in the agencies.”
“How high is your dad?”
“It’s classified.”
I looked away, at the pale amber sunlight reflected in the glass facade of the aquarium.
Okay. Collecting thoughts. I’m the First, Zach’s the Last, his dad is a secret agent, and my own government has been watching me since, well, forever.
I rewound my thoughts past the holy-crap-world-shattering implications, back to the part about Spy Dad. My stomach began a slow, heavy sink.
All this time, Zachary’s interest in me could have been totally fake. My mind skimmed through all of our “moments”—him declaring me bonnie when I looked like ass, the mug exchange at our first meeting with Eowyn, the near kiss after our impromptu Scottish lesson. Were any of them real?
I pulled my hand out of his. “Did your father make you hang out with me? Is this”—I gestured to the space between us—“some kind of spy mission?”
His eyes widened in horror. “No! No. Aura, listen to me.”
I really didn’t want to. If it had been warmer, I’d have swum for shore. But I was trapped.
“To be honest, it started out that way,” he said. “My dad asked me to keep an eye on you at school, but he didn’t tell me to join your research project. That was my idea.” Zachary lifted his hands as if to reach for me, then let them drop onto the knees of his blue jeans. “So was falling for you. My idea,” he added quietly.
My mouth opened, instantly drying from the bitter wind and my rush of emotion. “Falling for me?”
“Come on, you’re not blind.” He tugged on the collars of his sweater and shirt as if suddenly warm. “As I was saying, my dad wanted me to tell him if the DMP approached you at school. He’s spent the last two months negotiating with them.”
“For what? My freedom? My life?” I was still reeling from the confession of his feelings. Discovering I was the subject of an international dialogue was putting me over the edge.
“For a lot of things. Let me explain.” Zachary’s breath made a cloud as he spoke into the frigid air. “The group that’s now the MI-X used to be this paranormal brotherhood that went back centuries. They know how to handle ghosts without hurting them.”
“Can they teach the DMP those tricks?”
“They’re trying. But the DMP was started by some of the most paranoid people in U.S. military and intelligence. They think that everything different is dangerous.”
I massaged my temples, fending off a headache. “How can I even trust what you say? You know so much about me, but I don’t know anything about you.”
“That’s no’ true.” He leaned forward, his green eyes reflecting the gray water behind me. “I just told you my second-deepest secret, that I’m the absolutely last person born pre-Shift. No one else knows that, except my parents.”
“And probably half of MI-X, and the DMP, too. Big deal.”
He made a frustrated noise and turned to face the front of the paddleboat. “I don’t blame you for not trusting me. I’ve kept so many secrets for so long, it’s a habit.” His face finally dropped the mask of confidence. “But the way I feel about you, I’d put it all in your hands.”
“All what?”
“All my secrets, even the one my dad doesn’t know.”
“You can tell me.” I hooked my finger inside his elbow. “You can trust me.”
“If I told you, you wouldn’t believe.” Zachary lifted his head to look across the harbor, and suddenly his gaze sharpened. “But I could show you.”
Chapter Seventeen
As we walked up the gangplank of the USS Constellation, I kept a close eye on the descending sun. Historical landmarks like this nineteenth-century battleship were always haunted by the oldest, craziest ghosts.
But Zachary had insisted, and my curiosity ordered me to follow him.
Once onboard, though, he turned into a complete guy, distracted by the sails and the cannons and the pole thingies. While he examined every gadget and read every plaque, I stood at the chest-high railing of the wooden deck and kept vigil over the Inner Harbor.
The Christmas crowds now looked sinister. How many of the shoppers were secret DMP agents? Did my aunt know they’d been watching me? Did it have something to do with my mom and dad? How could it not, if it was about my birth?
As always, it was easy to pick out the post-Shifters by the colors they wore. I thought about the future, when almost everyone would wear red. The color of life would become the color of sameness, of disconnection. I looked down at my black coat and sapphire blue sweater and wondered how long I could hold out.
Zachary called my name from the top of the staircase leading down into the ship.
I thought of all the ghosts I’d seen belowdecks during our elementary school field trip. “You go ahead. I’ll wait up here.”
“It’ll be okay, I promise.”
I followed him reluctantly down the short, steep stairway.
The first level was a large open space
with cannons lining the outer edge, each pointing out a large square porthole. Light shone through these openings, but the room was dark enough that I would’ve seen any ghosts. During my last visit, this room had been full of them, wandering among the cannons, most dressed in their navy uniforms.
I tried to remember if Logan had gone on that field trip, and wondered why he hadn’t spoken to me once today. My phone was full of voice mail and text messages from Megan and my other friends wishing me a happy birthday, but no word from my supposed boyfriend? I didn’t know whether to feel hurt or worried, so I chose both, imagining him having fun without me in one of the Keeleys’ vacation spots, or chased by the Obsidians after deciding that shading was the new extreme sport.
“Look.” Zachary pointed to the low ceiling, where long poles were suspended on racks above each cannon. “They used those to load the gunpowder.”
“Uh-huh.” A sign near the staircase said the barracks were on the level below. That seemed slightly more interesting than a bunch of old guns. Plus, the wide-open windows here made it almost as cold as outside.
“I’m going down,” I told Zachary.
“I’ll be along.” He kept reading the wood-framed plaque on the wall.
I gripped the railing to descend, wondering when Zachary would reveal his secret. His obsession with facts and details came in handy for our research project, but not so much on a date (if that’s what this was).
The level below was warmer, tighter, and darker. Immediately a violet man appeared beside me, dressed in a captain’s uniform, spine straight as if awaiting inspection by the admiral.
“Excuse me, miss,” the ghost said, “I seem to have misplaced my pipe.”
I pivoted and headed for the more brightly lit bow (or maybe it was the stern), trying not to look like I was running away.
The ex-captain followed. “Just one smoke and I’ll move on. I’ve made that vow and I intend to keep it.”
Tugging off my hat and gloves, I entered a room at the end of the ship, lined with sleeping berths that opened onto a common area. The white doors listed the ranks of the sailors.
A middle-aged couple stood at the far end, twenty feet away. The woman held up an unfolded brochure so the man with her could read the map over her shoulder.
“This was where the officers slept,” she said. “The enlisted used those hammocks in that other room.”
Her companion scoffed. “Some things never change. When I was on that carrier, the officers had their own dining room, too.”
“Please help,” the captain’s ghost said behind me. “Perhaps you could write a letter on my behalf.”
I bit back a rude response. He could follow me anywhere. This was his ship. He’d probably been over every inch of it a thousand times during his life.
The lanterns were brighter here, but I could still see a long violet form on a bed in the third lieutenant’s berth.
The couple passed through the ex-captain on their way out.
“I don’t wish to frighten you.” The ghost’s pale beard bobbed as he spoke to me. “But you remind me of my daughter.”
I’d heard that line a thousand times.
“I don’t have a pipe,” I told him, “and even if I did, you couldn’t hold it. You’re wasting your time wishing for something you can’t have.”
“But is that not human nature?”
The man in the third lieutenant’s berth sat up. God, not two at once. My fists balled in anger at Zachary. I didn’t want to come aboard this stupid ship in the first place.
The ex-lieutenant charged out of his chamber. “She sent me a letter! We were supposed to be married, but she found someone else. Tell her I forgive her.”
“She’s dead by now,” I told him. “You have to move on.”
“They never paid my family,” came a deep voice from my left, another ghost.
I backed up against the far wall. “Please stop.”
A chorus grew around me—five, six, seven men yanked from their lives, spewing their grudges. Though they couldn’t hear each other, they seemed to be shouting to be heard over the cacophony.
“Leave me alone,” I whispered, squeezing my eyes shut.
“Just one pipe, that’s all I ask.”
“That three hundred dollars would have paid the rent for a year.”
“Why couldn’t she wait for me?”
“Stop it.” I covered my ears, but the voices grew louder.
“No one understands.”
“No one listens.”
“No one cares.”
“YOU TASTE WRONG!!”
My eyes slammed open at the new sound. “No … ,” I whimpered.
The shade shot toward me, streaking through the other ghosts in a quaking, purple-black haze.
“GET OFF OUR WORLD!” Its voice crackled and screeched like a smashed-up electric guitar. “YOU DON’T BELONG HERE!”
My stomach pitched as if the boat had capsized. My head pounded so hard, I couldn’t even scream. I sank against the wall, arms over my face. The shade hovered above me, its shrieks piercing like giant claws.
“I SEE WHAT YOU ARE!”
I collapsed onto my stomach and tried to crawl away across the worn wooden floor. In the background, the ghosts still shouted their pleas.
Then, silence.
I waited for a long moment, shoulders braced against another attack. When I heard footsteps, I opened my eyes but kept my face to the floor. No human outside of the Obsidian Corps could save me from this torment.
“Aura.”
I turned to see Zachary standing alone in the cabin’s dark doorway. The ghosts had disappeared. The shade was gone.
In a near whisper, he said, “Now you know.”
My mind flashed back to Logan’s sudden fade the day I’d picked up Zachary for our first star-mapping mission, and how that night I hadn’t seen any ghosts in the food court.
I couldn’t remember when I’d ever seen a ghost in the presence of Zachary. Logan’s Mr. Red.
“You did this.”
“I think so.” Zachary hurried to kneel beside me. “But I don’t know how.”
“And you’ve never told anyone?”
“Of course not.” He steadied me as I sat up.
I pressed my hands against my temples, reminding my brain which way was up. “If you can’t see ghosts, how do you know you can get rid of them?”
“One of my—someone I knew back home. Younger than I am, obviously. They figured it out, and we tested it.”
“How could no one else know?”
“I try to stay out of dark places unless they’re crowded, or wide open like our field. Or I avoid younger people.” Zachary looked over his shoulder at the doorway. “No one can ever know.”
“Not even your dad?”
“Especially not him. Can you imagine, the last person born pre-Shift turns out to be a walking BlackBox? I’d spend the rest of my life in a laboratory.”
Even now my mind was denying it—he had the one power I’d always longed for (before Logan died, at least). I broke away from him. “Stay in this room until I call you.”
I hurried out of the officers’ quarters and into the enlisted men’s barracks, a wide, dark space empty of tourists. Hammocks hung from the ceiling, resembling empty body bags. The only light came from a few dim yellow bulbs, and from small portholes spaced along the outer wall.
And from the ghosts themselves. Dozens converged on me, blurring in one giant violet mass. From a distance, the shade began to scream.
I turned and called Zachary’s name. The moment he ducked through the door of the officers’ quarters, the ghosts vanished and the shade was silenced.
“Whoa,” I breathed.
“It worked again, then?”
“It worked. Oh my God, that’s amazing!” I bounced over to where he stood near the stairway, feeling light for the first time in months. “How do you do that? Can you teach me?”
“I don’t do anything.” He spread his arms. “I jus
t am.”
“Since when?” My mind raced with the implications.
“Forever, I think.”
“Why?”
“I dunno,” he said with a touch of amusement.
“What’s your range? How close do you have to be to scare the ghosts?”
“Close enough for them to see me, I think. What are you doing?”
I froze, my hands against his stomach. What was I doing? I was patting him down like a rookie cop making her first arrest.
“Looking for obsidian?” The last word squeaked, but I didn’t let go.
“No ghostproof vest, if that’s what you mean.” Zachary’s voice lowered. “I’ve got nought on under here.”
My fingers quivered against the wool of his dark green sweater. “Maybe it’s part of you.”
“The obsidian? That’d make me a bit inflexible.”
One corner of his mouth twitched, and I stared at it, thinking about flexibility.
I inched my hands over his rib cage toward his sides, pinching a little to test that it was truly his flesh under the sweater. “To me you seem pretty, um, solid.”
His eyelashes flickered in the low light, then he took my elbows and eased me away from him. “Don’t you be playing with me, now. Not on my birthday.”
“I’m not playing.” I cut the distance between us back to zero. “And it’s my birthday too.”
The humor in Zachary’s eyes faded, and he seemed to come to a decision, one that I had apparently already made.
He cupped my chin and whispered, “Then happy birthday to us.”
I closed my eyes as Zachary leaned in to kiss me.
“Howard, it’s almost dinnertime!”
The scolding female voice from above was followed by the thump of a man’s dress shoes on the stairs beside us. I gave a silent curse as I pulled away from Zachary.
“Margie,” the man said, “I paid my ten dollars, I want to see the whole ship. Now get down here.”
“Be careful,” said the woman, standing on the level above us. “Go very slow.”
I looked up at Zachary, stifling a laugh. “Good advice.”
“Bollocks.” He took my hand, without gloves now, and led me over to one of the small portholes.
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