Fourteen

WE SNUCK PAST THE night guard, who was busy reading Playboy in the lunchroom. Liz stayed with him to make sure he didn’t hear us. He didn’t. Luckily Tori and I had the good fortune to dress in dark clothes that morning—Tori in a navy American Eagle sweat suit and leather jacket, me in jeans and a green shirt. I only wished I had more than this thin jacket. With the sun gone it was freezing, made worse by an icy blast that had to be coming straight across the river from Canada.

Once inside the warehouse, we wouldn’t have to worry about the wind. Getting there, though, was taking forever. Liz was having trouble finding the Edison Group guard, so we had to go the long way around, scooting from hiding place to hiding place, to reach the real rendezvous point—the warehouse where Rae and I had waited for Derek and Simon.

As it had been the other night, the warehouse door was latched but not locked. Unless you knew a hot black market in cardboard boxes, crates, and wooden pallets, there was nothing inside to steal. All that worthless junk made it the perfect place to hide … and meant there were a million spots for the guys to leave a note.

After a few minutes of banging around in the dark, I gave up.

“We’ll have to wait until morning,” I said.

No response. I squinted around for Tori.

“This is my stop,” she said, somewhere to my left.

“Hmm?”

“This is where I get off.” Her voice was oddly monotone, like she was too tired to put any bite into the words. “My adventure, as fun as it’s been, ends here.”

“Just hold on until morning. If there isn’t a note, we’ll figure something out.”

“And if there is a note? I wanted to join your escape, Chloe, not your crusade to find Simon’s dad.”

“B-but he’ll—”

“Save the day?” She managed a sarcastic lilt. “Rescue us from the mad scientists, cure us, and take us to a land of lollipops and unicorns?”

My voice hardened. “Finding him might not solve anything, but right now, we’re a little short on options. What are you going to do instead? Go back to the Edison Group and say you’re sorry, it was all a mistake?”

“I’m doing what I planned all along. We needed each other to get out. But that’s all I wanted from you. I’d help you find the note, but I won’t stay until morning to do it. I’m going home, to my dad.”

That shut me up, if only because I was afraid I’d say something I’d regret, like ask if she meant her dad or her father. Did she know there was a difference? I doubted it.

“So your dad…. He’s human?”

“Of course. He doesn’t know anything about this. But I’m going to tell him.”

“Is that such a good idea?”

“He’s my dad,” she snapped. “When he hears what my mom did…? Everything’s going to be okay. My dad and me get along great. Better than him and my mom. They hardly even talk. I’m sure they only stay together because of us kids.”

“Maybe you should wait a day or two. See what happens.”

She laughed. “And join your band of superheroes? Sorry, but I’m allergic to spandex.” Her sneakers scuffed on the concrete as she turned away. “Say bye to Liz for me.”

“Wait!” I tugged off my shoe. “Take some money.”

“Save it. I don’t plan to ever get the chance to repay you.”

“It’s okay. Just take—”

“Keep you r money, Chloe. You’ll need it more than I will.” She took a few steps, then stopped. For a moment, she stood there, then she said quietly, “You could come with me.”

“I need to get Simon his insulin.”

“Right. Okay then.”

I waited for a good-bye but heard only the slap of her sneakers, then the creaking of the door as she left.

When Liz returned from patrol, she said she’d seen Tori leaving. I explained, then braced for a chewing out. Why had I let Tori take off? Why hadn’t I gone after her? But all Liz said was, “I guess she didn’t want to hang around,” and that was that.

We were both quiet for a while, then Liz said, “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. About me being dead.”

“I handled it wrong. I should have made it easier for you.”

“I don’t think there’s any way to make that easier.”

We sat side by side in the darkness on a piece of cardboard I’d dragged over. My back rested against a crate. I’d stacked more around me, like a play fort. A small, dark, cold fortress.

“Why’d they kill me?” Liz asked.

I told her about the experiment and the genetic manipulation and what the file said about terminating us if we couldn’t be rehabilitated.

“But I could have been rehabilitated,” she said. “If they’d just told me what was going on, I wouldn’t have been freaking out about poltergeists. I would have taken lessons, pills, whatever they wanted.”

“I know.”

“So why? Why?”

The only answer I had was that we didn’t matter to them. We were subjects in an experiment. They’d try rehabilitation because we weren’t animals, but Lyle House had been only a token effort, to prove to themselves that they’d made some attempt to save us.

They said they killed us because we were dangerous. I didn’t believe that. I wasn’t dangerous. Brady wasn’t dangerous. Maybe Liz and Derek, but they weren’t monsters. Derek had been willing to stay at Lyle House just so he wouldn’t hurt anyone else.

They played God and they failed, and I think what they were really scared of wasn’t that we’d hurt people but that other supernaturals would find out what they’d done. So they killed their failures, leaving only the successes.

That’s what I thought. “I don’t know” was what I said, and we sat quietly for a while longer.

Next time, I was the one to break the silence. “Thank you. For everything. Without you, Tori and I would never have gotten away. I want to help you in return—help you cross over.”

“Cross over?”

“To the other side. Wherever ghosts are supposed to go. The afterlife.”

“Oh.”

“I’m not sure why you haven’t gone. Have you … seen anything? A light maybe?”

A small laugh. “I think that’s only in movies, Chloe.”

“But you vanish sometimes. Where do you go?”

“I’m not sure. I still see everything here, but you can’t see me. It’s like being on the other side of a force field, where I can see— Well, I guess they must be other ghosts, but they seem to be just passing through.”

“Where do they come from?”

She shrugged. “I don’t talk to them. I thought maybe they were other shaman spirits, but I …” Her gaze dropped. “I didn’t want to ask. In case they weren’t.”

“Can you ask them now? Find out where you’re supposed to be?”

“I’m fine.”

“But—”

“Not yet. Just not yet, okay?”

“Okay.”

“When you do find Simon and Derek, I’m going to take off for a while. I want to visit my nana, see how she’s doing, and my brother, maybe my friends, my school. I know they can’t see me. I’d just like to see them.”

I nodded.

* * *

Liz wanted me to sleep. I closed my eyes to make her feel better, but there was no chance of drifting off. I was too cold, too hungry.

When she slipped out to patrol, I stretched and shifted. The chill of the concrete came right through my cardboard mat. I was crawling over to grab more layers when Liz reappeared.

“Good, you’re awake.”

“What’s wrong? Is someone coming?”

“No, it’s Tori. She’s in front of the warehouse. She’s just sitting there.”

I found Tori crouched between the warehouse and a Dumpster, staring at the rusty bin, not even blinking.

“Tori?” I had to touch her shoulder before she looked at me. “Come inside.”

She followed me without a word. I showed her the spot I’d made, and she settled in, crouching in her strange way.

“What happened?” I asked.

It took a moment for her to answer. “I called my dad. I told him everything. He said to stay where I was, and he’d come and get me.”

“And you changed your mind. That’s okay. We’ll—”

“I went across the street to wait,” she said, as if I hadn’t spoken. “I was in an alley, so no one would see me before he got there. The car pulled up and I started to step out and— and I didn’t. I kept telling myself I was being stupid, that I’d been around you too long, getting all paranoid, but I needed to see him first, to be sure. It was his car—my dad’s. It stopped right where I said I’d be. It idled there, all the windows up, too dark to see through. Then a door opened and …” Her voice dropped. “It was my mom.”

“She must have intercepted the call,” I said. “Maybe they switched cars. Or she got to his car first, knowing you’d be looking for it. He was probably on his way, in her car and—”

“I snuck away and called my house again, collect. My dad answered, and I hung up.”

“I’m sorry.”

More silence. Then, “Not even going to say ‘I told you so’?”

“Of course not.”

She shook her head. “You’re too nice, Chloe. And I don’t mean that as a compliment. There’s nice, and then there’s too nice. Anyway, I’m back.” She reached into her pocket, and pulled out something. “With food.”

She handed me a Snickers bar.

“Thanks. I thought you didn’t have any money.”

“I don’t. Five-finger discount.” Her sneakers squeaked on the concrete as she shifted farther onto the cardboard mat. “I’ve watched my friends do it plenty of times. But I never did. Know why?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Because I was afraid of getting caught. Not by the store or the cops. I didn’t care about that. All they do is give you a lecture, make you pay it back. I was afraid of my mom finding out. Afraid she’d be disappointed in me.”

A crackle as she unwrapped her candy bar, then broke off a piece. “Not really an issue now, is it?” She popped the chunk into her mouth.