by C. C. Hunter
“No.” I sit up. “He’s going to meet us there.”
“Meet us where? Where are we going?”
“I found out where some of the Free Bloods hang out. Mr. Brooks is going to meet us there, too.”
“Why?”
“Just in case we need more help.”
Hayden looks offended, as if I don’t trust him to protect me, but the look of hurt slips off his expression faster than it appeared. “You’re right. We might need him.”
He leans in and kisses me. It’s sweet and sexy, and I savor it. Every second of it, because this morning has been a crash course in how fragile life is and how special love is.
“Did you stay in your body all night?” I rest my hand on his arm.
“Most of it. Then I went to meet Annie.”
I start the engine and look at him. “And?”
“And you’re right. We have to save her.”
A warm feeling enters my chest. I knew he’d understand, and it tells me I’m right about the moral character of Hayden Parker. “I like how you say ‘we.’”
“You promised not to go without me, remember?”
“That’s why I’m here.”
• • •
It only takes us twenty minutes to get to the rough side of town. Pawn shops, tattoo parlors, and bail bondsman agencies line almost every corner. I’ve never been on this side of town. A woman with a baby on her hip and holding hands with a toddler walks down the street. It hits me that while Dad and I have faced financial problems, I don’t think I really know what it means to be poor.
“Exactly where are we going?” Hayden’s leaning forward, looking out the window.
“I read online that there’s an apartment building where they hang out and sell drugs.”
“Oh, great.” His tone is edged with concern. “Do you have a plan?”
“I’m just going to ask to see Ramon Velez.” I realize I haven’t told Hayden what I discovered last night. “Uh. I also found out that he’s . . . he’s like the leader of the gang.”
His eyes widen. “Leader?”
“Yeah.”
He frowns. “And you’re just going to ask to see him. What? You think they’re just going to say, ‘Okay, let me get him for you?’”
“No. It may take more than one time.”
“So you’re putting your life in danger several times.”
I pull into the apartment parking lot and look at him. “It’s for Annie.”
“I know,” he says. “But that’s not . . . a plan. Crap. I don’t like this.” He looks up at the dilapidated building with a frown.
“Neither do I. But it’s not as if we have a lot of time. Mr. Brooks said Annie’s condition is getting worse.” I get out of the car and look around for Mr. Brooks.
A cold wind suddenly takes my breath away, and he appears beside me.
“Have you seen anything yet?” I hug myself.
Mr. Brooks shifts a few feet away from me. “There are a few guys hanging out around the front of the building. I’m guessing they’re Free Bloods.”
“Not yet.” Hayden moves in beside me, and I realize he thinks I was speaking to him. I still find it odd that the Bursteins could see each other and both Hayden and Mr. Brooks could see Bessie, but they can’t see each other.
I look at Hayden. “Mr. Brooks is here.”
“Oh.” He looks around. “Hello.” Then he glances back at me. “I should have known. I can feel the cold.”
I look at Mr. Brooks. “Hayden says hello.”
We start walking. Hayden’s on one side of me and Mr. Brooks the other. Maybe it’s a false sense of security, but I feel better, bracketed by a ghost and an almost-ghost who I know will both protect me to the best of their abilities.
At least I feel safe until we cut the corner of the building and the three guys standing on the corner glance over and spot me. They smile and start walking toward me as if I’m some toy they get to play with. They all wear black hoodies with burgundy hats.
“I don’t like this,” both Mr. Brooks and Hayden say at the same time.
Make that three of us.
I tell myself showing fear is a weakness, but I’m not sure it helps. I stand straighter.
“What do we have here?” the tallest of the guys says.
“Are you with the Free Bloods?” I manage to keep my voice calm when my insides are curdling like month-old milk.
“Who wants to know?” The guy with red hair pulls back his shirt to show me what looks like a gun sticking out of his pants.
“Let’s leave,” Hayden says.
“I’m looking for Ramon Velez,” I say.
“Maybe we should leave,” Mr. Brooks says.
“You still didn’t answer my question,” the guy with the gun says.
“My name is Riley Smith. And I’m looking for Ramon Velez. Can you give him my number?”
I pull a pad and pen from my purse and start writing.
“You’re pretty,” says the heaviest of the three, who has a tattoo of a bloody knife running along his neck. “Isn’t she pretty? You want to come to my apartment?” I feel him step closer. I step back and keep writing.
He reaches for me. Right then his phone starts ringing, and ringing, and ringing. Louder. Louder. Louder.
He reaches for it. It stops ringing. “What the hell.” He drops it, and I know why. It’s hot. I’ve seen this trick from Hayden before.
I hand the taller guy my number. “Ramon’s going to want to hear from me.”
“What’s this about?” a redheaded guy asks.
“Tell him to call me.”
“Not so fast.” Red grabs me. His hand wraps around my forearm. “Let’s go upstairs and . . . talk.” The sneering way he says “talk” tells me just what he means.
“Yeah.” The one who dropped his phone glares at me. “You need to learn a lesson about wandering out all alone in our turf.”
Red yanks me forward.
Fear bubbles up inside me. I start to scream when I feel a cold, ice-cold wall come against me. It’s both Hayden and Mr. Brooks, and they are standing between me and Red, who still has my arm.
Red’s phone starts ringing this time. His head is snapped back as if he’s been punched. The phone grows louder, like a dying animal.
“How are you doing that?” He pulls out his gun. Shit! I think I’d rather have been taken out by the eighteen-wheeler.
Mr. Brooks knocks the gun out of Red’s hand. It clatters to the pavement. Then Mr. Brooks hits him again. He falls back. I kick the gun.
Red jumps at me, but right then his phone explodes. Explodes in his back pocket. The guy screams, and I know he’s going to have a seriously burnt ass. The tallest guy jerks out his phone and throws it down.
“Bitch!” Red’s word sound like a growl.
“She’s a witch,” the short guy says.
“Run!” both Mr. Brooks and Hayden yell.
I do as they say. The two ghosts stay behind.
I’m in my car and spinning my wheels out of the parking lot when I see two more guys running around the corner. One of them has a gun out.
Hayden suddenly appears in the car, riding shotgun. “Faster!”
I slam my foot on the gas and dart into the street.
Hayden looks at me. “I told you that wasn’t a good plan!”
I’m shaking so bad, I can’t speak. A squeaky sound escapes my throat. I own the cold hard truth: I screwed up. Coming here was a mistake. I own the fact that I failed. I failed Annie.
Problem is, I don’t have a clue how to change that. I need to think. I need to come up with a better idea.
I drive home. It’s only two o’clock, but I feel like it’s bedtime.
Hayden follows me inside. “Are you okay?”
Okay? I feel like I just let a little girl die. “What am I going to do now?”
“For starters, I think you need to rest. You look exhausted.”
“I am, but . . .”
“We’ll figur
e it out,” he says. “You won’t be any good if you don’t get some rest.”
“But . . .”
“Look, maybe one of those guys will lead Mr. Brooks to his brother. Then maybe you can send someone else. Tell Annie’s adoptive father to find him.”
“Does she even have an adoptive father?”
“Yes, he was there earlier this morning.”
I consider what he just said. “But how am I going to explain knowing about this uncle?”
“I don’t know. Yet.” He coughs.
It sounds bad. Wrong. A spirit shouldn’t cough. A spirit shouldn’t be sick. But he’s not really a spirit. He is sick. He may look whole like this, but his body is back in that hospital where a machine pumps air into his chest. Where his heartbeats are slow and uneven. Where a tube down his throat feeds him. Shit, this hurts.
I touch his lips. “You okay?”
A crazy thought hits. Is helping me hurting him? Should he not be exerting himself?
“You should probably go back to your body for a while,” I say.
“Yeah.” He moves in and puts his hands on my waist. It feels so right. So easy. I remember Mr. and Mrs. Burstein. “Promise you won’t go back there alone.”
“I won’t.”
He looks me right in the face, and I look at him. I see it. The dark shadows under his eyes. The lack of color in his cheeks. And the hands on my waist are colder.
“I love you, Riley Smith,” he says.
“I know. I love you, too.”
He kisses me, then he’s gone. Gone. And I’m so afraid I’m going to lose him forever.
I go upstairs and fall into bed with my cat. After I have myself a pity party, I finally fall asleep.
• • •
A short nap later, I wake up from a dead sleep to the bone kind of cold that means the dead are here.
As soon as my eyes open, I close them. Tight. I keep them shut.
Knowing Dad has new clients, I’m afraid it might be someone new. And I’m just too tied up to take on another problem. A girl can only do so much.
Right then I’m aware of the scent filling the room. Wintergreen. It’s Mr. Brooks.
I open my eyes and sit up, worried he’s here with bad news. Worried he’s angry that my mission to the seedy side of town didn’t get us any closer to helping Annie. Annie who’s counting on her angel.
I’m so prepared for him to be upset that it takes me a few minutes to realize he’s smiling.
“You did it,” he says.
“You found Ramon? They led you to him?”
“No,” he says. “You helped Annie. They did some more bloodwork, and her bilirubin and albumin levels were so much better that they aren’t going to have to do surgery yet.”
“She’s well?”
“No, not well. But it means we have a little more time.”
I inhale and manage a smile. Something I haven’t done since I left Annie earlier. “That’s great. But you didn’t get a lead on Ramon from the guys?”
“No,” he says, and his good-news expression fades.
“Did they keep my number?”
“I didn’t see it. I think he put it in his pocket, but they were kind of embarrassed by the whole thing and I don’t think they’ll tell him.”
“Then we have to find another way to contact him.”
Nodding, he drops down on the edge of my desk. “But now we have more time. That’s good, right?”
“Yeah.” I recall what he said about me helping Annie. “What did you mean when you said I helped Annie?”
“She told her mom and doctor that the angel did it. Riley, the angel. She said that you helped her.”
My lungs suddenly feel too small, and I need more air. “I didn’t do it.”
“How do you know?”
“I can’t heal people.”
“Maybe it isn’t you. Maybe it’s whoever is behind you helping me and other spirits.”
Maybe, I think. And while I shouldn’t question it, I do.
I go to get up and I feel a pain low in my abdomen. A familiar, monthly kind of pain. I realize it’s that time of the month. At least that lie I told is not so much of a lie anymore.
It also explains my inability to stop crying today. Though all things considered, I’ve had a crappy day.
Right then, my phone rings. And instantly I think of leaving my number with Red. But he’s not the only one I gave my number to. I also left it behind the windshield wiper of the yellow Volkswagen.
I scramble to get up.
Chapter Ten
“Hello?” I answer without even looking at the number.
“Hey?” The male voice rings in my ear, and my hope’s dashed when I recognize it’s Jacob. “How are you feeling?” His tone creates an image of his puppy-dog eyes from this morning.
“I’m fine,” I say, unsure how . . .
“I saw Kelsey walking home, and Dex and I gave her a ride. She said you went home early.”
“Yeah, but I’m fine.”
“You feeling good enough to help me bleed my brakes?” he asks.
“Not feeling that good. Sorry,” I say, glad I have an excuse.
“Yeah.” He pauses, and I can almost hear his mind churning, trying to find a reason to keep me on the phone. And as bad as I feel about pushing him away, I know any more than auto tech buddy friendship—at school—would only encourage him.
We hang up. My phone dings with a text. It’s Dad checking in and letting me know he won’t be home until eight.
Ten minutes later, after eating the last Rice Krispies marshmallow treats, my go-to carb, I discover I’m down to one tampon. Considering I told Dad I was going to pick them up on Sunday, I decide to take care of that before he gets home.
I park at the grocery store and I’m starting toward the entrance when a distinct and somewhat familiar smell catches my nose. Lifting my face to breathe it in, I stop and look around. On the storefront of the art supply place, a woman is standing by an easel, painting. The smell is turpentine. The sharp, not-so-pleasant smell tickles my senses and brings with it feelings that aren’t unpleasant at all.
I move toward the blonde wielding a paintbrush. Her wavy long hair is stirring in the wind. When I get closer, I’m pulled into a memory. A Mom memory. She’s painting. She’s outside. She’s beautiful. I watch her dab her brush onto a palette and then sweep it onto the canvas. She holds her mouth a certain way as she studies her work.
You want to try? She looks down at me and smiles. I nod, and she picks me up and hands me the brush. Paint the flower red. With sunshine on my face, and feeling warm in her arms, I try to imitate her careful move. I even work to make my mouth purse like hers.
I blink, and all of a sudden the vision is gone. Why hadn’t I remembered this before? I can’t believe Mom loved art, too.
The woman turns and looks at me.
I’m a little surprised that she does look like my mom. I ease closer.
She sets her brush down. “You paint?”
“Uh, mostly draw. But I love art.”
“The paints and supplies are on sale, if you’re interested.”
I start to say no, but then I remember how drawing always calms me. And right now with my life in Crazyville, I could use some calm.
“Yeah.” I walk into the store.
She follows me. “The oil paints that are on sale are against the wall.”
I move over there and am staring at the colors. The red, the same shade my Mom was painting with, catches my eye. I reach for the tube.
“Here.” The woman moves beside me and hands me a shopping basket. She’s twisted her hair up and stuck in a pen to hold it. I suddenly realize who else she reminds me of.
The limited-edition lunch lady. It seems odd that I haven’t realized she looks like my mom.
“Thanks.” I take the basket and start picking out some paint. Then I grab a pack of two canvases. On my way to the cash register I see an easel for sale. Then just like that, I remember seeing
one in some boxes when we moved from Dallas. I was going to ask Dad about it, but it completely slipped my mind.
It had to have been my mom’s. A smile works its way to my heart. The thought that I can use something that belonged to my mom almost brings tears to my eyes. When I get home, I’m going to find that easel.
“You need an easel?” the woman asks.
“Uh, no. But where are your brushes?”
Five minutes later, I put my art supplies in my trunk and head to the grocery store.
With some chocolate ice cream and a thirty-six pack of unscented, flex-fit Playtex, I dart through the pharmacy, heading to the front of the store.
That’s when I see Kelsey. She’s wearing a sock cap with her hair stuffed inside, but I recognize her. I almost call her name, but considering the store’s crowded, I do the adult thing and start walking toward her. I’m thirty feet from her when I see what display she’s facing. And I see what she’s holding in her hand.
I have to shut my mouth to keep from gasping. Shit! Crap.
She puts that box down and picks up another one. Shitcrap! Shitcrap!
The half-gallon of ice cream I’m holding is freezing my boobs while I debate what to do. Should I walk over? Say “what the hell?” and ask her to explain?
Then bam. I remember her saying There’s stuff I don’t want to tell you, either.
I swing around and head to the cashier. Not because I want to. Nope, what I really want to do is confront her, hug her, tell her I’m here for you. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned about Kelsey, it’s that if someone pushes her, she pushes back. She only talks when she’s ready to talk.
But surely she’s going to tell me, isn’t she?
I pay for my tampons and ice cream. Head still spinning, I head to my car. While darting through the parking lot, I see Kelsey’s mom’s car. Realizing the opportunity, I go dump my bag in the front seat and call her.
She answers on the second ring. “Hey, I was just going to call you. Is your dad working late?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m at the grocery store getting the ingredients for my grandmother’s cramping remedy. Remember the ice cream concoction with bananas and nuts and stuff? I thought I’d bring it over to you.”
“That’s funny.” I tighten my hand on my phone.