by Meg Cabot
I felt Jesse’s arm move convulsively, and so I threw all my weight on it.
“Shut up, Paul,” I said.
“And what about you, Jesse? I mean, what the hell can you give her?” Paul was laughing now, in spite of the blood that was still dripping from his face. “You can’t even pay for her to have a damned cup of coffee—”
Jesse exploded from my grasp. That’s the only way I can describe it. One minute he was there, and the next he was on top of Paul, and the two of them had their hands wrapped around each other’s necks. They went crashing to the floor with enough force to jolt the entire house.
Not, I was certain, that anyone could hear them. Brad had turned on the stereo downstairs, and music was now pulsing up through the walls. Hip-hop—Brad’s favorite. I was certain the neighbors were going to enjoy being lulled to sleep tonight by its dulcet tones.
On the floor, Jesse and Paul rolled around. I thought about smashing something over their heads. The thing is, they were both so hardheaded, it probably wouldn’t do any good. Reasoning with them hadn’t helped. I had to do something. They were going to kill each other, and it was all going to be my fault. My own stupid fault.
I don’t know what put the idea of the fire extinguisher in my head. I was standing there, watching in dismay as Jesse sent Paul crashing very hard into my bookshelf, when suddenly I was just like, Oh, yeah. The fire extinguisher. I turned around and left my room, hurrying down the stairs, the pulse of the music getting louder and louder—and the sounds of the fight going on in my room growing farther away—with each step.
Downstairs, Brad’s party was in full swing. Dozens of scantily clad, gyrating bodies crowded the living room, dancing to the beat. Half of them I didn’t even recognize. Then I realized that was because they were Jake’s friends from college. In my hurry I saw Neil Jankow holding on to one of those blue plastic cups Debbie Mancuso had been stacking so carefully on the kitchen counter. He sloshed foam everywhere as I tore past him.
So Jake, I knew now, had arrived with the keg.
I had to flatten myself against the wall just to make it past the people crammed in the hallway to the kitchen. Once I got there, I saw that it, too, was packed with people I had never seen before. A glance out the sliding glass doors revealed that the hot tub, which had been designed to hold a total of eight people, was currently holding close to thirty, most of whom were straddling one another. It was like my house had suddenly become the Playboy Mansion. I couldn’t believe it.
I found the fire extinguisher under the sink, where Andy kept it in case of grease fires on the stove. I had to shout “excuse me” until I was hoarse before anybody would move enough to let me back out into the hallway. When I finally got there, I was shocked to hear someone screaming my name. I turned around, and there, to my utter astonishment, stood CeeCee and Adam.
“What are you doing here?” I yelled at them.
“We were invited,” CeeCee yelled back—a little defensively, I noticed. I guessed that maybe the two of them had been getting some weird looks. They did not travel in the same social circle as my stepbrother Brad, by any means.
“Look,” Adam said, holding up one of Brad’s flyers. “We’re legit.”
“Well, great,” I said. “Have fun. Listen, I have kind of a situation upstairs—”
“We’ll come with you,” CeeCee shouted. “It’s too noisy down here.”
It was not, I knew, going to be any quieter in my room. Plus there was the whole thing about Paul Slater fighting the ghost of my would-be boyfriend in there.
“Stay here,” I told them. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
Adam, however, noticed the fire extinguisher and said, “Cool! Special effects!” and started after me.
There was nothing I could do. I mean, I had to get back upstairs if I was going to keep Paul and Jesse from killing each other—or at least Jesse from killing Paul, since Jesse, of course, was already dead. CeeCee and Adam were going to have to deal with whatever they might see if they followed me.
I had hoped I might lose them on the stairs, but those hopes were dashed when, upon finally reaching the staircase, I saw Paul and Jesse tumbling down it.
That’s what I saw, anyway. The two of them locked in a life-and-death struggle, rolling down the stairs on top of each other, each holding fistfuls of the other’s clothing.
That’s not what CeeCee and Adam—or anyone else who happened to be looking at that point—saw. What they saw was Paul Slater, bloody and bruised, falling down my stairs and seemingly hitting—well, himself.
“Oh, my God!” CeeCee cried, as Paul—she couldn’t see that Jesse was there, too—crashed heavily at her feet. “Suze! What’s going on?”
Jesse recovered himself before Paul did. He climbed to his feet, reached down, seized Paul by the arms, and pulled him up—just so he could hit him again.
That was not what CeeCee, Adam, and everyone else who happened to be looking in the direction of the stairs at that moment saw. What they saw was Paul jerked up by some unseen force and then thrown, by an invisible blow, across the room.
Much of the gyrating stopped. The music pounded on, but nobody was dancing anymore. Everybody was just standing there, staring at Paul.
“Oh, my God,” CeeCee cried. “Is he on drugs?”
Adam shook his head. “It would explain a lot about that guy,” he said.
Jake, meanwhile, apparently alerted by someone, pushed his way into the living room, took one look at Paul, writhing on the floor—with Jesse’s hands around his neck, though I was the only one who could see this—and went, “Aw, Jesus.”
Then, seeing me standing with the fire extinguisher in my hands, Jake strode over, took it away from me, and sent a jet of foamy white stuff spraying in Paul’s direction.
It didn’t do any good, really. All it did was cause the two of them to roll into the dining room—making a good many people jump out of the way—then crash into my mother’s china cabinet—which of course teetered and fell, smashing all the plates inside.
Jake looked stunned. “What the hell is wrong with that guy? Is he wasted or what?”
Neil Jankow, who’d been standing nearby with his cup of beer still in his hand, said, “Maybe he’s having a seizure. Somebody better call an ambulance.”
Jake looked alarmed.
“No,” he cried. “No, no cops! Nobody call the cops!”
At least, that’s what he was saying right up until Jesse threw Paul through the sliding glass door to the deck.
It was the shower of glass that finally alerted all the people in the hot tub to the life-and-death battle that had been taking place inside. Screaming, they struggled to get out of the way of Paul’s flailing body, only to find their escape dangerously impeded by shards of broken glass. Being barefooted, the people in the hot tub had nowhere to go as Paul and Jesse battered each other around the deck.
Brad, one of the people trapped in the hot tub—Debbie Mancuso hanging off him like a pilot fish—stared disbelievingly at the gaping hole where the sliding glass door had been. Then he thundered, “Slater! You are paying for a new door, you freak!”
Paul, however, wasn’t in a position to be paying much attention. That’s because he was struggling just to breathe. Jesse had him by the neck and was holding him over the side of the hot tub.
“Are you going to stay away from her?” Jesse demanded, as the lights from the Jacuzzi bottom cast them in an eery blue glow.
Paul gurgled, “No way.”
Jesse dunked Paul’s head beneath the water and held it there.
Neil, who’d followed Jake out onto the deck, pointed and cried, “Now he’s trying to drown himself! Ackerman, you better do something, and quick.”
“Jesse,” I cried. “Let him go. It’s not worth it.”
CeeCee looked around. “Jesse?” she echoed confusedly. “He’s here?”
Jesse was distracted enough that he loosened his hold somewhat, and Jake, with Neil’s help, was able to pull Pau
l up, gasping for air, with blood now mingling with chlorinated water all down his shirt front.
I couldn’t take it anymore. “You have to stop it,” I said to Jesse and Paul. “That’s enough. You’ve wrecked my house. You’ve made a mess of each other. And—” I added this last as I looked around and saw all the curious, half-frightened gazes aimed at me “—I think you’ve pretty much destroyed what little good reputation I once had.”
Before either Jesse or Paul could reply, however, another voice broke in.
“I can’t believe,” Craig Jankow said, materializing to the left of his brother, “that you guys had a kegger, and no one invited me. Seriously,” Craig continued, as I threw him an incredulous look, “this is some good stuff. You mediators really know how to throw a party.”
Jesse wasn’t paying any attention to the late-comer, however. He said to Paul, “Don’t come near her again. Do you understand?”
“Eat me,” Paul suggested.
Back he went into the hot tub with a splash. Jesse ripped him right out of Jake’s grip.
The surprise was, this time Neil went under with Paul. That’s because Craig, a quick learner, had decided to go ahead and follow through with his whole if-I’m-dead-my-brother-should-be-too thing, now that Jesse had shown him how.
“Neil!” Jake cried, trying to pull both Paul and his friend—who, as far as he knew, had inexplicably plunged into the hot tub face first—up from the bottom of the Jacuzzi. What he didn’t know, of course, was that ghostly hands were holding both of them down.
I knew it, though. I also knew that there wasn’t anything any of us could do to get them to let go. Ghosts have superhuman strength. There was no way any of us were going to get those two to give up their victims. Not until they were as dead as…well, as their killers.
Which was why I knew I was going to have to do something I really didn’t want to do. I just didn’t see any way out of it. Threats hadn’t worked. Brute force hadn’t worked. There was only one way.
But I really, really didn’t want to take it. My chest was tight with fear. I could hardly breathe, I was so scared. I mean, the last time I’d been to that place, I’d nearly died. And I had no way of knowing whether or not Paul had told me the truth. What if I tried what he’d said, and I ended up somewhere even worse than where I’d ended up before?
Although it would be hard to imagine any place worse.
Still, what choice did I have? None.
I just really, really didn’t want to take it.
But I guess we don’t always get what we want.
My heart in my throat, I thrust my hands into the hot, churning water, and grabbed twin handfuls of shirt. I didn’t even know whose clothes I had hold of. All I knew was, this was the only way I could think of to prevent a murder.
Then I closed my eyes and pictured that place in my head I had hoped never to see again.
And when I opened my eyes, I was there.
chapter
seventeen
I wasn’t alone. Paul was with me. And Craig Jankow, too.
“What the…?” Craig looked up and down the long dark hallway, as eerily silent as Brad’s party had been loud. “Where the hell are we?”
“Where you should have gone a long time ago,” Paul said, carefully brushing lint off his shirt—though, since this was an alternative plane, and only his consciousness, not his actual body, was on it, there was no lint to brush. To me, Paul said with a smile, “Nice work, Suze. And on your first try, too.”
“Shut up.” I was in no mood for pleasantries. I was somewhere I really, really didn’t want to be…a place that, every time I returned to in my nightmares, left me feeling completely physically and emotionally drained. A place that sucked the life out of me…not to mention my courage. “I’m not exactly happy about this.”
“I can tell.” Paul reached up and felt his nose. Since we were in the spirit world, and not the actual one, it was no longer bleeding. His clothes weren’t wet, either. “You know the fact that we’re up here means that our bodies, down there, are unconscious.”
“I know,” I said, glancing nervously up and down the long, fog-enshrouded hallway. Just like in my dreams, I couldn’t see what was at either end. It was just a line of doors that seemed to go on forever.
“Well,” Paul said, “that should get Jesse’s attention, anyway. Your suddenly dropping off into a coma, I mean.”
“Shut up,” I said again. I felt like crying. I really did. And I hate crying. Almost more than I hate falling into bottomless pits. “This is all your fault. You shouldn’t have antagonized him.”
“And you,” Paul said with a spark of anger, “shouldn’t go around kissing—”
“Excuse me,” Craig interrupted. “But could somebody maybe tell me exactly what—”
“Shut up,” Paul and I said to him, at the exact same time.
Then, to Paul, I said, a catch in my voice, “Look, I’m sorry about what happened at your house. Okay? I lost my head. But that doesn’t mean that there is anything going on between us.”
“You lost your head,” Paul repeated tonelessly.
“That’s right,” I said. The hairs on the back of my neck were standing up. I did not like this place. I didn’t like the white plumes of fog that were licking my legs. I didn’t like the tomblike stillness. And I especially didn’t like that I couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of me. Who knew where the floor might drop off from underneath?
“What if I want there to be something between us?” he asked.
“Too bad,” I said, shortly.
He glanced over at Craig, who was beginning to wander down the hall, regarding the closed doors on either side of him with interest.
“What about shifting?” Paul asked.
“What about it?”
“I told you how to do it, didn’t I? Well, there’s other stuff I can show you. Stuff you’ve never even dreamed you could do.”
I blinked at him. I thought back to what he’d said that afternoon in his bedroom, about soul transference. There was a part of me that wanted to know what that was all about. There was a part of me that wanted to know about this very, very badly.
But there was an equally big part of me that wanted nothing whatsoever to do with Paul Slater.
“Come on, Suze,” Paul went on. “You know you’re dying to know. All your life you’ve been wondering who—or what—you really are. And I’m telling you, I have the answers. I know. And I’ll teach you, if you’ll let me.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “And what do you get out of this magnanimous offer of yours?” I wanted to know.
“The pleasure of your company,” he said with a smile.
He said it casually, but I knew there was nothing casual about it at all. Which was why, in spite of how much I was dying to find out more about all the other stuff he claimed to know, I was reluctant to accept his offer. Because there was a catch. And the catch was that I was going to have to spend time with Paul Slater.
But it might be worth it. Almost. And not because I’d finally be getting some insight into the true nature of our so-called gift, but because I might, at last, be able to guarantee Jesse’s safety…at least where Paul was concerned.
“Okay,” I said.
To say Paul looked surprised would have been the understatement of the year. But before he could say anything, I added, gruffly, “But Jesse is off-limits to you. I really mean it. No more insults. No more fights. And no more exorcisms.”
One of Paul’s dark eyebrows went up. “So that’s how it is,” he said slowly.
“Yes,” I said. “That’s how it is.”
He didn’t say anything for so long that I figured he wanted to forget the whole thing. Which would have been fine by me. Sort of. Except for the Jesse part.
But then Paul shrugged and went, “Fine by me.”
I stared at him, hardly daring to believe my own ears. Had I just engineered—at great personal sacrifice, it had to be admitted—Jesse’s repriev
e?
It was Paul’s nonchalance about the whole thing that convinced me I had. Especially his response to Craig, when the latter reached out and rattled one of the doorknobs and called, “Hey, what’s behind these doors?”
“Your just rewards,” Paul said with a smirk.
Craig looked over his shoulder at Paul. “Really? My just rewards?”
“Sure,” Paul said.
“Don’t listen to him, Craig,” I said. “He doesn’t know what’s behind those doors. It could be your just rewards. Or it could just be your next life. No one knows. No one has ever come out through one of them. You can only go in.”
Craig looked speculatively at the door in front of him.
“Next life, huh?” he said.
“Or eternal salvation,” Paul said. “Or, depending on how bad you’ve been, eternal damnation. Go on. Open it and find out whether you were naughty or nice.”
Craig shrugged but he didn’t take his eyes off the door in front of him.
“Well,” he said. “It’s gotta be better than hanging around down there. Tell Neil I’m sorry I acted like such a…you know. It’s just that, well, it’s just that it really wasn’t very fair.”
Then, laying a hand on the doorknob in front of him, he turned the handle. The door opened a fraction of an inch…
And Craig disappeared in a flash of light so blinding, I had to throw up my hands to protect my eyes.
“Well,” I heard Paul saying, a few seconds later, “now that he’s out of the way…”
I lowered my arms. Craig was gone. There was nothing left where he’d been standing. Even the fog looked undisturbed.
“Now can we get out of here?” Paul heaved a little shudder. “This place gives me the heebie-jeebies.”
I tried to hide my astonishment that Paul felt exactly the way I did about the spirit plane. I wondered if he had nightmares about it, too. Somehow, I didn’t think so.
But I didn’t think I’d be having any more of them, either.
“Okay,” I said. “Only…only how do we get back?”