I'd Rather Not Be Dead

by Andrea Brokaw

  “Deal.”

  He flashes me a smile and shuts the door.

  My hands rub against the tops of my arms as he starts the engine and pulls out of the driveway.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Fray and I arrive at the overlook just as Ricky's aging sedan limps into the parking area. The ghost folds his arms loosely and leans against a tree to watch the curtain open on what may be the last scene of my life. I feel I should say something, apologize maybe. But I don't know what to tell him. And I'm sure he's picking up all of the confusion in my mind from my mental broadcasts anyway.

  Sitting by Fray's feet, I watch Ricky get out of the car and look around for a while before opening the door to the passenger seat. Somehow, he managed to get the living me into it, but he looks clueless about how to get her out.

  Fray reaches down and strokes a hand through my hair, petting me as we watch Ricky struggle to get the living version of me where he wants her to be. He hooks his arms under hers and drags her from the car with a groan of strain followed by my body making a very noticeable thump.

  After a series of deep breaths, Ricky gears himself up to try again. He does a better job of hefting the weight up to drag TOM along the ground, making it several feet before stopping to rest. A few feet after that, the other me wakes up enough to try to wrestle herself away from his clutches, but she instantly slips on the foliage, falling to the ground with a loud oomph.

  “Careful!” Ricky cautions, bending over her in what seems like honest alarm. “If you hurt her, I'll... I'll...”

  TOM shakes her head while Ricky tries to think of a threat. “Wha eh 'ell er you tal-ing aba?” she slurs.

  I translate the sentence and borrow it for my own. “Yeah, what the hell are you talking about, Ricky Woodman?”

  “I don't want Drew hurt,” he states firmly.

  Both Drews laugh at him.

  “What does he think is going on?” I ask Fray, who's frowning with a complete lack of amusement. His hand has stopped stroking me, though his fingers are still in place to comb through my hair with the movement of my head.

  “He thinks she's possessed by a demon.”

  “Right...” He said something like that earlier, didn't he? When he was talking to Tanya.

  Speaking of... Ah, there's Tanya. Propped against the back window with just the tip of her head visible. I wonder if he thinks she's possessed too. Or maybe just tainted by my demon. Does he consider demonic possession to be contagious?

  Back on the ground, TOM's stopped trying to fight. I think she may still be conscious, but she's given up on moving herself for the time being. Ricky kneels down and puts his hands under her arms. His face reddens as he struggles to lift her again.

  “Come on,” I mutter. “I'm not that heavy.”

  “Mom!” Ricky pants. “You said I wouldn't have trouble getting her there!”

  Mom?

  “His mom's dead,” I remind Fray.

  “Yeah. He thinks she's returned as an angel.”

  I turn my stare to Fray, who shrugs in a way that claims zero responsibility for Ricky's madness and starts to loop strands of my hair around the fingers of his hand. “She's in Shadow?”

  “No.”

  He doesn't say anything else as Ricky drags TOM to the edge of the concrete, nor while Ricky breaks to catch his breath before tackling the job of getting a hundred and twenty pound weight down a forest path.

  “Mom?” Ricky calls again, still not getting a response. Or at least not one I see evidence of. He waits a few moments, looking around expectantly and sighing when nothing happens.

  “He really expects her to show up.” I tilt my head in thought. “Are you sure she's not in Shadow?”

  “Positive.”

  My eyes go to Fray, who concentrates on not looking back at me. I wonder if he's noticed how much faster his fingers are moving across my skull than before. Finn's mom was onto something when she accused Fray of being allergic to straight answers. But is he being an ass or is he thinking solving the riddle will distract me from agonizing over what I can't yet act to change? I know better than to expect him to answer that.

  Biting my lip, I watch Ricky pathetically yank the other me along the ground in a series of short bursts and try to think through what I've learned since he arrived. The late Mrs Woodman isn't in Shadow. Yet Ricky honestly believes he's been in touch with her. He could simply be crazy, but I think Fray would have diagnosed it instead of going enigmatic on me.

  Fray said Ricky thinks his mom is an angel, not that she is one. He then said she wasn't in Shadow. So I'll toss out the notion that Ricky is talking to someone who he thinks is his mom, but it isn't her. He's sure she told him not just to bring me here, but how things would go down once he did. Which might mean she was lying, but could mean she can see events before they happen.

  “Elza?” I whisper.

  Fray stays silent, but his head waves up and down.

  Elza. She came across a grieving child who had lost his mother and she subverted his desperation to have his mom back. Either whatever magic allowed her to be seen by someone who can't see other ghosts let her alter her appearance or she came up with a way to explain to Ricky that her face might have changed, but she was still Mommy on the inside.

  Then she convinced him Mommy really, really wanted him to drug a girl from school, drag her out into the middle of nowhere, and “save” her. What's going to happen to Ricky when he finds out how badly he's been duped? Do you get over that kind of thing or does it just drive you crazy?

  Squaring his shoulders, Ricky gives TOM a tight, sad, smile and latches hold under her shoulders. My pants scrape along the ground, through leaves and dirt and rocks. They're probably ruined.

  TOM's head lulls with the jerking of her body. It yanks to the side a few times as her eyes slit open. She's definitely awake, but she's saving her energy or waiting for her captor to get distracted rather than trying to battle him just yet.

  “When do we barge in?” I ask Fray.

  He gives my head one last pat and starts to stroll slowly after the pair without answering.

  “Fray,” I call after him, having to say his name twice before I get him to acknowledge me enough to stop walking. “I'm sorry.”

  With great deliberation, he turns to look back at me.

  “I got paranoid for a few minutes. I'm sorry.”

  His eyes track me as I cross to him.

  “I trust you,” I tell him. “But I was thrown off by the sociopath who appeared out of nowhere to point out things you really shouldn't have been hiding from me.”

  Fray lets out a long breath. Light bounces off of his hair as he moves his head from side to side. Under the sun, reds flare up like licks of flame. “I'm not angry, Drew. I'm sad.”

  My shoulders slump and my eyes go off to the distance. If he goes on to say he's disappointed in me, I need to decide if I'm going to curl up into a wad of misery or bellow until my screams echo off the mountains for eternity.

  “I'm going to miss you,” he whispers.

  Looking up at him again, I get a glimpse past the wall he has up to hide his emotions and the feeling I see is grief.

  He'll still be able to see me if I live today. At least for as long as I'm willing to stay in Pine Ridge. Which might not be too long if I don't remember I've almost started liking it. Or at least liking some of the people. But even if I remember the last month with perfect clarity, I'm going to lose Fray. I'll know he's there. I'll be able to talk to him if I want. But I'll never know what he wants to say back. And self-centered twit that I am, I hadn't even realized it before.

  My friend hugs me tight. “I'll miss you,” he repeats. “And if you remember any of this, I want you to remember I'll be looking out for you as best I can. No matter what.”

  Tears stream from my eyes as I bury my face against his shoulder and hug him back. “You're the best big brother I never had.”

  He laughs softly. “I'll pretend I think that's a compliment.”


  “Do that.”

  We trade an extra squeeze and shuffle apart.

  Fray runs his hands over my cheeks, smearing the moisture into my skin. “No tears, luv. We're going to get you your happily ever after.”

  I nod, wishing we could grab one for him while we're at it.

  Snaring my fingers with his, Fray pulls me into a trot, quickly catching us up to the other me and her kidnapper. Ricky's made it most of the way to the pool now. He alternates between saying smoothing things to TOM and calling for his mother's attention.

  “Where's Elza?” I ask Fray, who shakes his head and shrugs. “She's invested a lot of time in this, shouldn't she be here?”

  “She'll be here.”

  But she isn't now. Because I'm not the one she cares about, am I? It doesn't matter to her if I live or die. Not really. The only reason she wanted me dead was she knew it would rip Finn to shreds. And that's where she is, watching him. Getting high off his pain and desperation.

  “He's fine,” Fray says, breaking into my thoughts a second before I decide I need to go look out for Finn.

  “You sure?”

  His nods firmly. “She'll want him to see your death.”

  “Hmm.” Yeah. What would hurt Finn worse than going into school Monday morning and learning through gossip the girl he'd secretly loved was dead? Letting her spirit go back and tell him he could stop it, then having him fail. If I die today, he's a lot more messed up than he would have been before. No way Elza's going to let him miss it.

  We're still waiting on Ricky to get TOM all the way to the water when Bess pops up beside us. At some point she grabbed a pair of sneakers and she's hauling her hair up with a large scrunchy when she appears.

  Note to self: if she helps you get through this, buy the woman some thank you scrunchies. And if she gets you killed, make sure she never has access to hair ties again.

  She gives me a maternal smile as the new ponytail falls into place and graces Fray with a considerably less affectionate nod.

  Attention tuned to tracking Ricky's progress, she stands with one hand on her hip and the other tapping against her thigh. Though it's nonthreatening, something in her stance makes me think of a huntress. The sort of huntress who hunts with a bow, arrow, and flight of hounds. Artemis or Diana. Most men receiving the look she's giving Ricky would tremble under the intimidation.

  Fray accepts her continued lack of fondness for him with a melancholy lounge against the nearest tree trunk. His arms folded across his chest, he takes his eyes away from Bess Finnegan and sticks them back on the circus act by the pool.

  “That's the boy who's going to kill Drew,” Fray says, as though it wasn't obvious. “But Elza won't let that happen before Finn gets here.”

  “And you're just watching the foreplay?” Bess asks, contempt riding a sneer. “You know, if you'd kill the bitch instead of putting her in prisons she always escapes, my son wouldn't have to deal with her.”

  I expect anger in response to the goading, but Fray doesn't react at all. It's an argument they've had before. And I'm betting it's one that they're going to have again.

  “Why don't you kill her?” I ask Bess. She certainly looks scary enough to take Elza on.

  “I'm not strong enough,” she admits. “I have the heart, but not the ability. He's got the ability, but not the gumption.”

  Somehow, I don't think it's as simple as that. “I don't think he can kill her.”

  “Right. He-”

  “No,” I interrupt. “I mean, if he kills her, then she goes into the Spirit. But she can come and go from the Spirit, can't she?”

  “It doesn't work that way,” Finn's mom responds quickly.

  Yet, Fray gives me a look of astonishment blended with pride. Like a teacher who taught a preschooler to write an hour before the child scribbled out a sonnet.

  “That's why the fog kept following me,” I realize in a sudden burst of clarity. “She was following me, snickering over the way Finn was breaking down. It was tagging along after her.”

  “She can ride it,” Fray confirms, the cavernous depths of his voice sending chill bumps across my skin. “It's how she inevitably escapes those prisons we're always putting her in.”

  That last bit is said with a heavy dose of sarcasm and a mocking roll of the eyes.

  “But...” Finn's mom frowns furiously. “How is that possible?”

  “She was a Walker,” Fray says softly. “That's were you got it from.”

  Bess spends a second looking thoughtful before reverting back to her protective mode and striding up to the edge of the water, where Ricky has managed to get my feet wet.

  The Crusader's looking lost. He'd expected help by now. He turns TOM's body, moving her to lie lengthwise against the edge of the pool without appearing to care about her shivering. Maybe he thinks it's the demon quivering in fear.

  He winces as water hits his feet and halts with his eyes closed for several seconds, whispering what's likely a prayer as he fortifies himself to get deeper into the icy mountain spring.

  “He's not going to drown her,” Fray says as Bess inches forward. “She falls off the cliff.”

  She stops moving, but keeps her attention on Ricky's attempt at exorcism. Or Baptism. Or whatever he thinks he's doing. “How are we stopping her?”

  “I'm not sure,” Fray admits with no small amount of reluctance. “But The Shadow Lord's involved. He's her granddad.”

  A look of skepticism meets the assurance. She's not questioning my relation to The Shadow Lord, but she's not buying that it's worth anything either.

  The pool steals all of our thoughts as the living me launches into a scramble, trying to move away from Ricky while he's psyching himself up. Unfortunately, she's not quite ready to move yet. Her limbs flounder and the result of her escape effort is that she sprays mud all over the place before plunging back into the pool with a large splash and a loud shriek.

  Ricky chides her to be more careful with Drew's body, then pins her shoulders to the mud and kneels in the shallow water at her side. He makes a contorted face at the cold where a normal person would have been cursing.

  “Mom!” he calls out, putting his weight heavily onto TOM while his gaze casts around for Elza.

  “He's Teresa Woodman's son?” Finn's mom asks me.

  “Yeah, I guess.” Not that I know what his mother's name was. “That's Ricky Woodman. He thinks his mom came to him as an angel and ordered him to cast a demon from me.”

  “I see.” She starts to grind her teeth together while Ricky tries to figure out how to submerge a half-conscious and unwilling girl without hurting her or soaking himself, but when she notices what she's doing and reaches a hand up to grab her jaw for a second. “Sorry,” she apologizes, letting the hand move up to mess with her hair. The ponytail didn't need retying, but at least what she's doing now is quiet.

  “Guess I know where Finn gets that from,” I tell her, trying to smile when she looks over at me.

  She smiles back. “Tell him you're under orders to smack him next time he does it.”

  “Yes, ma'am.”

  Abruptly, Fray straightens and turns his face up the path. “Incoming.”

  Beyond the trees, a door slams shut.

  Seconds later, the sound of feet crunching over broken leaves carries across the mountainside.

  But something's wrong with the footsteps. They're too slow, too relaxed. Finn should be running. And if he's not, his steps should still be heavy and aggressive.

  By the time he comes into sight, I'm getting seriously worried.

  I take a look at his face and nearly weep.

  “Ah, shit,” mutters Fray.

  A heavy fog whirls in Finn's eyes as The Spirit looks out.

  Ricky's exorcising the wrong classmate. Cooper Finnegan's the one who's possessed.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Fray leaps across my vision, slamming into Bess and knocking her onto the ground. He forces her hands over her head, pins them onto the grou
nd, and snarls, “Calm down. Think. If we rip The Spirit from him, it'll take his mind with it.”

  Her struggles stop in an instant.

  Numb, I watch Finn stroll closer to us. He smiles at me with Elza's smile and my eyebrows draw together at the unsettling sight. Elza's hijacked The Spirit again, used it to commit an act that she's not capable of doing on her own. But what is that? Did she steal Finn's control of his body, or did she kick him out of it?

  The mist parts for just a second, allowing a flash of brown. For that one instant, I can see Finn in his eyes and it makes me want to cry. His personality's in there. But he's hurting.

  The urge to shed tears fades, lost in a tsunami of intense anger. My resolve gathers as my temper flares. No way am I going to stand by and watch that bitch torture him. No freaking way. You're going down, Elza.

  “Drew...” Fray cautions.

  “Yeah, I got it.”

  The Spirit's wrapped itself around the spark of life that's Cooper Finnegan. If we kick it out of the body without disentangling them, we kick Finn out too. The body becomes a vegetable and Finn gets to be just another nameless component of The Spirit. Not acceptable.

  Elza smirks from Finn's lips. Taunting. Trying to get us to do something rash.

  “Finn...” Ricky sputters as he notices that he isn't alone. “What are you doing here?”

  “I was guided by an angel.” The words are wrong. Not just phrasing that Finn wouldn't use, but wrong in cadence and accent. The voice they come in hardly sounds like his at all. But Ricky doesn't notice any of that. He just sags in relief. “Do you know what we're supposed to be doing?” he asks. “I can't remember any of the things she told me to say.”

  “That's alright.” Finn hops lightly into the water, ignoring the splash of cold. “It's not the words that are important, it's the intent.”

  “Right. Of course...” Ricky nods through a frown and steps away. He starts backwards, then realizes that it puts him in deeper water and makes a funny shuffle until he's back on the bank near TOM's feet.

  She's wearing the black boots with the Sharpie rose on them, but I try to ignore the detail and work on figuring out how to get Finn free from Elza's grip. His face is twitching like an allergy sufferer who just walked into a greenhouse filled with ragweed and I know he's trying to reestablish control of himself, but he needs help.