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He smiled, straightening to stand in front of me. “Very well. Clearly this life you so desperately craved is everything you hoped it would be. It warms me through to see you this fulfilled and”—he leaned in, whispering right in my ear—“happy.”
I closed my eyes, clenching my jaw. If he thought he could swoop in here and start messing with my life again, he was wrong. “Look, just because—”
I opened my eyes to find myself utterly alone. The lamplight that seemed to glow before was now harsh, creating shadows and sharp lines but illuminating nothing. The darkness of the night pressed in on me from all directions, and my teeth started to chatter.
“What am I doing here?” I whispered. And then quickly corrected: “Out here. I meant out here.”
I walked back to the diner. Ignoring Grnlllll, I went straight upstairs, stripping off my filthy clothes and standing in the shower until the hot water ran out. Miserable and unaccountably sad, I wanted to call Lend. I never felt empty around him. But then I’d have to tell him about tonight, and he’d be worried that Reth showed up again, and I didn’t want him to stress out about it. Instead I told Arianna I felt sick, climbed into bed, and willed myself to sleep.
Things would feel better in the morning. They had to.
My brain and body finally disconnected and I drifted off to blessed sleep.
“Hey, stupid,” Vivian said.
“Oh, Viv.” I broke into tears. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
wrong?” Vivian asked. We sat on a hill overlooking the ocean, stars in the black night sky reflected on the water. She put her arm around me awkwardly and I leaned my head into her shoulder.
When she first started showing up in my dreams again after last April, it scared the crap out of me. She was so lonely, though, and I couldn’t help but talk to her. I still hadn’t forgiven her for killing Lish—I don’t think I ever will—but it was a topic we both avoided so that we could get to know each other. I understood now a little better where she came from, and I’d always sympathized with how deeply alone she’d been. Plus, being raised by faeries, she was bound to make bad choices. We treaded lightly around the hard topics, and somewhere along the way it felt like we really had become the sisters she always wanted us to be.
Except she never took my stuff, which was nice.
I wiped away tears. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m sad, and I don’t know why, and I shouldn’t be—and here I am, complaining to you when you aren’t even—” I stopped, unable to finish. Vivian wasn’t going to wake up, ever again. When I took the souls from her, she hadn’t had enough of her own soul to live a normal life. It was my fault.
“Hey, shush, don’t you worry about me. I’m fine.”
“You haven’t visited in a while.”
“Haven’t I?” She looked thoughtfully out over the water. “I’m here, or I’m nowhere, or I’m somewhere else entirely. It gives me a lot of time to think. But I never seem to get anywhere with it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know. Me, too. I try to make my life different in my mind, be the one who was strong enough to let go.”
“You were, though.” I nudged her with my elbow. “You didn’t take my soul.”
“That’s something, but it doesn’t really make up for the ones I did take, does it?”
No. No, it didn’t.
“Sometimes … sometimes I wish you had sent me with them.” She took my hand in hers, tracing the outline of the gate in the stars I had sent the souls through. Neither of us really understood what happened that night. We might both be Empty Ones, capable of opening gates between worlds, but that didn’t mean we had any idea how it worked. “I wonder what would have happened if the faeries hadn’t sent me after you, if they’d realized I had enough energy to open a gate myself. Lucky for us that my faeries were idiots, but I can’t help imagining it. I think I’d like to see what’s out there.”
I let out a heavy sigh. “Someday we both will.”
She laughed again. “Hey, stupid, it’s not a bad thing.”
“It’s another way of losing people,” I whispered. “I feel like I’m doomed to lose everyone, always. I can’t seem to keep the people I love.”
She squeezed my hand. “I know. On the bright side, I’m not going anywhere.” Her voice had that edge of irony I remembered so well; funny that what used to scare me about her was now comforting, familiar. Being together was like a little touch of home—a foreign concept for both of us. She looked down at my hand; I thought I saw a tiny flash of light, along with tingling. “What was that?”
I had forgotten about the stupid sylph. This was hardly the place to bring it up. Another thing to worry about. “I didn’t see anything,” I said.
“If you’re going to lie you really ought to get better at it.” She lay back on the grass to stare at the sky. “So, you’re sad. What’s the problem?”
Sighing heavily, I lay back, too. “I don’t know. I’ve finally got the life I wanted for so long. And it’s great, really, and Lend—”
“I like hearing about him.”
“I like talking about him. And he’s wonderful. But I haven’t … I still haven’t told him.”
“Yeah, I figured. You’re not really good with the honesty thing.”
“You’re one to talk!”
“Hey, I was always honest about what I was doing.” She flashed a wicked grin, reminding me that she wasn’t as innocent as I liked to pretend. “But that’s not what this new crying fit is about, because you’ve known about Lend’s immortal soul for a while now.”
I shifted uncomfortably. “Reth visited tonight.”
“Really? Wish he’d visit me….”
“Vivian!”
“What? A girl gets lonely in a coma, and faerie or not, he’s pretty.” I wasn’t sure if she wanted him to mess around with or to suck dry—and equally unsure which option creeped me out more. “Go on, though.”
“I don’t know. He implied that I’m not really happy with the life I chose.” I hated how he always seemed to see straight through me. If he didn’t have to deal with squirmy, unpredictable mortal emotions, why did he have to be so good at reading them?
“Well, are you happy?”
“Yes! I am! Of course I am. It’s what I always wanted.”
“But …”
“Nothing. It’s stupid.”
“Well, duh. You, my darling sister, are stupid about a lot of things.”
I glared at her. “Gosh, tender much?”
She shrugged. “Like I said, I’m honest. Go on. It’s what you always wanted, and?”
“And it’s not, you know? Lend’s gone so much, and even when he’s here I can’t help but worry that this isn’t the life he’ll choose when he finds out that he’s like his mom. And then Raquel showed up this week, which reminded me of how things used to be. They weren’t great, but I kind of miss …” I thought about what my life had been like at IPCA, how much I had dreamed of being normal, of this life I had now. What was it that I missed? It wasn’t the missions, the restrictions, the lifestyle.
It was mattering.
“I miss being special. With IPCA, I was special. They needed me. And in the real world, I’m … not.” Tears started streaming again and I wiped them away, embarrassed. “I’m sorry. How lame am I, whining my whole life about being different, and then hating being the same as everyone else.”
Viv pushed up onto her elbows, frowning at me. “But you’re not. You’ve never been the same. So I don’t get it—you haven’t changed. What’s the problem here?”
“I don’t know.”
“Get over it then. Do something.”
“What?”
She waved a hand dismissively. “Whatever you freaking want to. That’s the glory of being you, Evie. You’ve got a choice. I wouldn’t recommend going on a massive paranormal killing spree, though. It didn’t turn out so hot for me.”
I let out a strangled laugh. “You’re terrible.”
“Tell me about it.”
We were quiet then, both lost in our problems. Finally, Vivian took my hand in her even colder one again, pulling me up to sit next to her. “Well, enough with this pity party. If I’ve been gone for a while, there are important things we need to talk about.”
“What’s that?”
“Umm, hello? You need to catch me up on Easton Heights. I didn’t listen to a rundown of the first three seasons for you to leave me hanging now.”
I laughed. “Important, huh? Fine.” And I shared what little I could of the outside world, here in my dark dream-world where Vivian and I met.
Sometimes it felt more real than anything else.
When I woke up in the morning my hand was still curled like I was holding Vivian’s. I sighed. Viv nights always left me with the weirdest combination of well-being and regret. And then, of course, guilt over being friends with the girl who murdered my Lish, but Lish would understand. I hoped.
The faeries who raised Vivian never let her think she had any choices. She always felt like her life had been determined for her. I think she realized it wasn’t, now that it was too late. It made me wonder if I had connected with her sooner, if I could have stopped it all.
It was enough to make a person crazy, thinking about it.
In the end Vivian had made her choices and paid for them. Thanks to the faeries, she was out of options. But I wasn’t. I would make this life what I wanted it to be. Screw Reth—I’d be happy. I was going to have my cake and eat it, too.
Or rather, be normal and have my paranormal, too. I was special; why pretend otherwise? I needed to email Raquel. I was about to make her day.
up.” I laughed, closing my locker.
“No, really,” Lend continued. “Dead serious. Dude’s a leprechaun.”
“Your technical writing professor is not a leprechaun.”
“How do you know? This is why you need to ditch next week and come to class with me. You can confirm. Right now all I know is that he has red hair, red skin, is about four feet tall, and wears nothing but green.”
I rolled my eyes, knowing he couldn’t see it through my shiny, pink cell phone. “And why would a leprechaun have a PhD?”
“I don’t know. Hanging out at the bottom of rainbows got boring, he was tired of clovers, pots of gold lost their sparkle for him—take your pick. But I’m right. In fact, did I tell you that my lab assistant may or may not be a dryad?”
“Wait—aren’t they notoriously lusty?”
There was a pause at the other end of the line.
“Oh, you are not going to that lab again.”
Lend laughed and I closed my eyes, picturing how he would look in front of me. “Trust me, there’s only one paranormal I’d like to be notoriously lusty for me.”
I sighed. “Okay, but I don’t think I can find a hag on such short notice.”
He laughed again, almost covering the sound of the bell. I looked around, panicked. A stray paper drifted across the now forsaken hallways.
“Crap, I’m gonna be late! I’ll talk to you later, okay?” Flipping my phone shut, I ran for the locker room. At least it was gym and there was a little wiggle room.
Or so I thought. Miss Lynn, that hideous creature, was waiting outside the door, marking off girls as they came in. She looked up and smiled, pleased to have caught me in an obvious infraction. “That’s half your participation points for the day, Green. Another tardy and I believe you’ll qualify for in-school suspension.”
Where was Tasey when I needed her? It took all my willpower to suppress an eye roll as I skulked into the locker room. The faint aroma of sweat and mildew greeted me, and I passed girls in various states of undress to get to my locker. I wasn’t nearly as fond of this one.
Carlee pulled on her tennis shoes, already good to go. Honestly, how her boobs could be so perky in a sports bra I’d never understand. Or stop envying.
She shook her head. “You should be more careful. Miss Lynn really doesn’t like you.”
I sighed, pulling out my gym clothes. What school chooses yellow and brown for their colors? Gross. Just, gross. “The feeling’s mutual.”
“So how was your weekend?”
“Sucktastic. Lend had to go back to school.”
“Lame. I’m sorry.”
“How was yours?”
Her face lit up. “Great! So John and I got back together, right? And at first I was all like, awesome! But then Friday night he was supposed to call, and he totally didn’t, so then I was like—” My eyes glazed over as I tried to pay attention. I liked Carlee, and appreciated having a friend that wasn’t undead, but sometimes the effort it took to keep up girl relationships felt like too much.
“—and then he was like, ‘If you don’t want to’—”
A scream erupted from another aisle. I didn’t know whether to be grateful for the interruption or scared of what could be happening. Carlee and I both darted around the corner and found girls covering themselves and shrieking. “What is it?” I shouted, vowing to never again leave Tasey at home.
One of the girls pointed to the next row and I crept toward it, every muscle tense and my back to the wall. The aisle opened in front of me and I shouted, ready to spring at—
Jack.
Stupid, stupid Jack, standing up on one of the wooden benches that lined the middle of the aisle, hands on hips as he surveyed the empty row like some sort of bizarre conqueror.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, horrified.
He looked down at me. “Oh, there you are. I’m supposed to give you something.”
“And you couldn’t have given it to me somewhere else?” I looked around, exasperated and anxious. Girls were starting to trickle over, past their first shock and now curious.
“What’s wrong with here? Here seems plenty nice to me.” He patted his pockets, finally muttering, “Aha!” before pulling out a familiar white phone-like device. An IPCA communicator. I’d forgotten how boring they were compared to my supercute cell. He smiled and let it slip through his fingers. I gasped and lunged forward, but he bounced it up off his foot and snatched it out of the air. Grinning, he handed it to me with a flourish.
“Raquel wants you to call so she’ll know a good time to talk again, since she doesn’t want to disrupt your life.”
“And what the bleep do you think you’re doing right now?”
