“I’M DEAD,” I say, going back and kneeling beside her and Chris, whom she’s finally let sit up and lean against her. My heart aches. Saying the words out loud is harder than just knowing. Tears prickle behind my eyes, but I hold them in. Crying will make things worse, and tonight’s fight hasn’t ended.
God, this sucks. We can talk like this, maybe sort of be together, but how long can I have in this in-between state? And besides, it isn’t fair of me to linger. She’ll need to move on, find someone else, though that thought starts the rage roiling inside me again. I glance around, half expecting to see a white light, but nothing in the library changes. Maybe Gen can help me cross over, find peace, so she can have some too.
I take a deep breath, looking down at this representation of myself, marveling at the way my chest moves in and out. I’m exactly as I envision my body, what I expect to see if I look in a mirror: hair in a ponytail, favorite jeans, my Pink concert tee, work boots, and I wonder if people’s minds create the ghostly images they want others to experience. A glance at the well-dressed, well-groomed ex-wives seems to confirm my theory.
Closing my eyes, I make the decision to begin the separation now. Twinges in my neck, shoulder, and leg encourage that thought. My condition is deteriorating even as I sit here.
“He’s getting away,” I tell her, wanting to touch her cheek, her hair, but knowing I can’t. “I have to go. I’m assuming you two didn’t have time to find evidence.”
Her gaze drops, telling me I’m right.
My fist clenches around the revolver. “Then I need to stop him.”
“You need to listen, Flynn,” she says, surprising me by placing her palm against my face. It doesn’t pass through. Instead, the warmth of her skin banishes some of my chills.
“You can touch me.”
Gen shrugs. “I have a way with spirits.”
“Flynn’s here?” Chris asks, staring about like a blind man. His gaze lands on me but darts away. He can’t see me. I move the gun a bit, not pointing it at them, just getting his attention. He nods, and his lips curl up in that infectious grin. “No wonder he got his ass kicked.” The grin fades. “Wait. She isn’t—?”
Gen shakes her head, then winces at the pain it causes her. “No, she isn’t.”
“Gen….” Denial is one thing, but she’s completely delusional. I open my mouth to tell her so.
“She’s a walker.”
My jaw snaps shut.
“A what?” Chris asks. Good. I’m glad I’m not the only one in the dark, here.
“A walker. The strongest one I’ve ever seen, maybe the strongest the Registry has seen, if she can interact with the physical world the way she just did. I should have figured it out sooner. Her talent is the push. She can push with her spirit. It gives her an affinity for them. That’s why she can see ghosts, at least sometimes. It’s not because she has the Sight. She’s out of her body, Chris,” Gen says, speaking to her brother but staring right at me, “but she’s very much alive.”
“Like I tried to tell you,” Kat says from the doorway as I slump on the floor in shock. “But you never listened to me, even when we were together.”
Somehow I manage to give her the finger.
“You need to tell me what happened, Flynn,” Gen says, recapturing my attention. “You’re untrained. Trauma drives you to push. How did you get here?”
“I don’t know.” My voice comes out small and weak. I’m alive. Holy shit, I’m alive.
Gen’s shoulders rise and fall with a weary sigh. She leans forward, placing her lips against my forehead. Tingling sensations work their way beneath my skin. Magic. “Talk to me,” she mumbles, maintaining the contact. “You were with Leo, heading out to the lake to dive for the charm.”
And just like that, the memories snap into place.
I jerk upright, away from her, every muscle stiffening. “Snakes,” I force out, my breathing quickening and my free hand flying to my neck. “There were snakes. Water moccasins. Leo tried to fight them off… used some kind of green flash. He killed three, but the others….” I have to pause, the hyperventilating threatening to make me black out. I close my eyes and count to ten, striving for deep, even inhalations.
“Did you say green? A flash, not a beam?”
I open my eyes at her tone. Pure hatred like I’ve never heard from her before. And she’s wearier now, the shadows around her eyes deeper. Sparking my memory cost her. I nod once.
“He tried to kill you. That was a redirection spell. He purposely turned the remaining snakes from himself to you. He could have sent them away or destroyed them with another spell, but instead….”
Instead he tried to get rid of me, remembered he would still have Genesis to deal with, and decided to pull me out of the lake.
Gen once described me as an opportunist. The real opportunist in all this is Leo.
“What happened then?” Gen urges, holding my empty hand between hers.
I shudder with the memory. “They bit me. We already had the charm, we were on our way out, and—”
The blood drains from her complexion, the bruises stark against her white skin. The fingers wrapped around mine tremble. “Where? How many times were you bitten?”
“Three.” I point at my leg, shoulder, and neck. All of them ache in sympathy. “Leo got me to push some of the venom out. I remember that, then… nothing. I must have fainted.” I smile a bit sheepishly. “Woke up in the broom closet out in the hall.” I go on, telling her about Arielle, the useless phone, no ambulances. When I finish my brief recounting, she stands, pulling both me and Chris up beside her. Chris leans heavily on his sister’s shoulders. He isn’t doing well. I’m a lot steadier on my feet.
“We’ve got to get to the lake. Now,” she affirms when I open my mouth to protest. Letting me go, she helps Chris toward the door leading to the hall.
I shake my head. The room spins, and I clutch the back of an armchair for support. “Not until I finish with Harris.” I stare at the revolver in my hand. “Once I’m… back together… I won’t be able to do it.” At least not and get away with it. For what he’s done to Genesis and Chris, not to mention Kat, his second wife, and all the other victims of the pond, yes, I can kill him. I prefer not to go to prison for it. “I won’t have a better chance than this.”
Spirits don’t leave fingerprints. And I have no idea if I will be able to do this walking thing again and consciously find him.
“Let it go,” Gen says. “He could be anywhere by now.” We’ve made it to the hall and the front door. “We don’t know how much time you have. You have to be whole when I heal you.”
Chris shoots her a concerned look. I just stare.
“You can do that?” I ask.
“I can do a lot of things.”
Leo told me Gen has many skills she doesn’t advertise. Skills the predominantly null world can’t handle knowing about. Looks like I’m going to be the beneficiary of some of them.
“Get to the lake,” I tell her. “Ask Arielle to take Chris to a hospital. Max has a bullet in his leg. He can’t have gone far. I have to end this. I’ll join you as soon as I can.”
I lean down and brush a kiss over Gen’s lips, gentle since the lower one is split and bleeding.
“Be careful. And hurry,” she says, tears falling again. “You’re not dead, but I think you’re dying.”
I nod. There’s nothing else to say.
Behind us, Kat and the other ghost follow us into the hall. They offer a wave. They have their arms around one another, and I wonder if…. Nah. They’re just united against a common enemy. Even as I speculate, they fade from my view.