Ash and Darkness (Translucent #3) (2 page)

Eventually they would move on, they would forget about me, they would grow old, all sad and alone, and when I sobbed for them at their deathbeds, for them there would only be silence.

Emory.

A quiver passed through my heart. He would never know what happened. He would never know the truth . . . that I had killed Ashley, hidden her body, lied to him.

How long would it take? For how many decades would I follow him, screaming myself hoarse trying to repent to deaf ears before I finally gave up and died of guilt? At the thought, something broke inside me. I fell to my knees, gasping and blinking away tears.

My fingers knotted in the grass, sinking into the moist dirt. I ripped up a fistful of lawn, then watched dumbly as the green blades scattered to the breeze.

I blinked.

The grass . . . had I just touched the grass?

I jabbed a finger at my cheek. And nearly poked my eye out.

Almost reverently, I traced the contour of my wet cheekbones,
touching
them.

I was back.

“Megan, Megan!” I
shouted, banging on her bedroom door. I’d made it there by noon.

The door opened a crack, and she peeked out. “Who . . . who’s there?”

“It’s me! I’m back, but I’m fading in and out. Help me get it off.” I picked at my arm again, trying in vain to pierce the invisibility.

“Leona?” she said, glancing up and down the hallway.

“Please tell me you can hear me,” I said, fearing I’d already slipped away again.

“Uh . . . Leona?” A blank expression.

So she still couldn’t hear me. But I could touch things. I raised a finger and flicked her cheek.

She flinched back. “What the
fuck?
”

“Dude, it’s
me.
” I grabbed her hand and moved it to my face so she could feel who I was.

Her eyes pinched together. “Who is this? Wait, here—” her fingers moved to my mouth, “move your lips.”

“Lee-oh-na,” I mouthed against her fingers.

“Nope, didn’t get that,” she said. “Uh, how about you just tap my wrist.” She held up her hand. “If this is Leona, tap my wrist once, if you’re not Leona, tap my wrist twice . . . and if you’re not Leona, then, uh . . . ooh . . . that would be weird.”

I tapped her wrist once.

“Leona, phew . . .” She let out a sigh of relief. “Okay, okay, hold on. Let’s think. I’m thinking. So you can’t talk.
Can
you talk? Tap once for yes, two for no.”

I hesitated. I could talk fine, but she just couldn’t hear me. Very carefully I tapped her wrist three times.

“Three taps,” she said, narrowing her eyes. “So . . . none of the above. Okay, hang on, I’m thinking. You lost your voice. One tap for yes, two taps for—”

I grabbed her hand and pulled her into her bedroom to look for a pen and paper. My eyes darted from her bureau to her closet to her terrarium—looking oddly limp, Salamander the snake slithered sluggishly against the glass—but no pen and paper.  

I went for the closet, excavating the wadded T-shirts and crumpled homework along the back until I came out with a graded English essay (B-) and a purple mechanical pencil. Megan watched them float to the ground with wide eyes. My hand scribbled out,
I can talk OK but for some reason you don’t hear me. Dark matter making me invisible to ALL senses!!!

I underlined
ALL
.

She read the message and plucked the pencil from my hand to write back,
Why can’t you take it off?

I snatched the pencil back from her and put,
I can hear you, Megan. Just talk.

She cleared her throat. “Oh, right.”

It’s fused to my skin
, I added, my hand cramping up from writing so fast.
What do I do?

“I don’t know,” she said quietly, glancing roughly in my direction. “Maybe you’ll eventually shed it off naturally. Like Salamander.”

My gaze slid uneasily to the terrarium. The snake had stopped slithering, and instead it’s pale green head reared up and pivoted in my direction . . .
staring
at me. The snake was staring at me.

I shuddered.

It’s tongue flicked out.

Keeping one eye on the creature I wrote,
I don’t want to be like your demon snake, Megan.

It took all the fine motor control I could muster to force my hand to form the letters, fast becoming illegible.

The snake’s yellow eyes stayed fixed on me. Like I was prey.

Under its gaze, the back of my neck heated. I swallowed hard, caught in its reptilian stare.

Megan squinted at my scribbles, trying to read them. She frowned. “What’s wrong with Salamander?”

I tore my eyes off the snake long enough to scribble,
He’s STARING at me!!!

She peered at the terrarium and guffawed. “Come on, Leona. She’s watching the pencil in your hand because she thinks it’s a cricket.”

Whatever, forget the snake,
I wrote, feeling more and more anxious. My sweaty fingers slipped on the pencil.
Did you ever have to deal with this?

She leaned over the paper, shook her head. “I can’t read that.”

I took a deep breath, wiped my palms on her carpet, and tried again. The pencil quivered and refused to obey, like I was writing with my left hand. I could barely hold it. Letter by letter, I wrote the question again.

Did you ever have to deal with this?

It looked like a first grader’s chicken scratch. Why couldn’t I write?

She sounded it out. “Did you ever . . . hove? What’s
hove?
No, wait,
have!
Did you ever
have
to deal with . . . You mean with not being able to take it off?”

I nodded, then remembered she couldn’t see me and put,
YES
.

“Can you write normally please?” she said, exasperated. “I can’t read anything you’re writing.”

I leaned back, exhausted. One look at all I’d scribbled sent a chill down my back. From the top to the bottom, there was a clear progression from neat, perfect letters to gibberish. “What the hell?” I breathed. What was happening to me?

Why couldn’t I write anymore?

It won’t be long now, Leona
, said the voice in my head.

“Shut up!” I said, clutching my temple. “Shut up, shut up, shut up!”

Megan noticed the pattern too. “Leona, we need to get help,” she said, her face grim. “This is bad.”

Help . . . Suddenly, I remembered. Major Rod Connor with Air Force Space Command. When he’d decontaminated my bedroom—when he’d decontaminated
me
—he had this goo that ripped off the top layer of skin.

I began to write,
Call Maj. Conn
—

My fingers slipped through the pencil. It fell over and rolled off the paper. “No, wait,
wait
—” I gasped, fingers grasping at empty air.

I was slipping away again.

Megan stared at my last words and pressed her lips together, shook her head. “Sorry, I can’t read that.”

“C’monnn . . .” I tried to pick up the pencil again, tried to pinch it between my fingers, but only managed to nudge it a millimeter before it rolled back into a valley in the carpet.

“Leona?” she said, noticing I wasn’t writing anymore.

Heart teetering on a precipice, I reached for her arm. And felt nothing.

“Leona, you still here?” she said, oblivious.

I was gone. I sat there, feeling more alone than ever.

She held out her hand. “Tap my wrist if you’re still here.”

My finger passed right through her wrist. Nothing. I was a ghost again.

She appeared to be focusing hard on her hand, and her eyes scrunched together, then widened. “You can’t touch anything,” she murmured, “but you’re still here . . . you’re still here!” She leapt to her feet. “Don’t move. I’ll get the Ouija board.”

It won’t be long now, Leona
.

I began to shiver.

Megan came back with the Ouija board, which she laid out in front of me. Twenty-six letters, ten digits, the words
yes
and
no
, and a heart-shaped piece of wood to point to them.

My last chance to communicate.

“Leona?” she said, her eyes darting around the room. “Can you still hear me?”

I lowered my finger to the heart-shaped planchette and tried to push it. My hand went right through it. I took a deep breath and tried again, placing my index finger on the wood so it appeared to be touching. I could
almost
feel a hint of a grainy surface there. I pushed. The surface seemed to evaporate around my finger, morphing from a solid into air.

Focus Leona, focus.

One more time. Finger poised, I pushed ever-so-gently.

This time the surface held, briefly. The planchette slid an inch across the board before lodging in a tiny crack and getting stuck. My finger dipped into the wood.

“Here, I’ll help.” Megan placed her own fingers on the planchette and helped it over the crack, and together—our hands overlapping in space—we guided it across the board. I gave it a nudge toward the R.

“R,” she read from the board.

I licked my lips, redoubled my focus, and guided her to the next letter.

“O,” she said. “Got it.”

And then the final letter.

“D?” she said, confused. “R-O-D? Wait.
Rod
? Rod Connor. Major Rod Connor!” Her eyes flashed. “You want me to contact Major Rod Connor?”

I pushed the planchette toward
Yes.

Megan nodded slowly. “Okay . . . I’m going to call him. I’ll tell him what happened. He’ll know what to do. His number . . . I need his number. You have his number . . . on your phone. I should go to your house and get your phone. I’m going!” She jumped up, grabbed her car keys, and ran out the door, leaving me alone.

I sighed and sat back, exhausted but relieved. Done.

Now it’s my turn
, said the voice in my head.

On the Ouija board, the heart-shaped planchette began to move again.

Chapter 2

I stared in
horror as the wood pointer scraped across the board, spelling out another message.

It pointed to the letter ‘I.’

It pointed to the letter ‘A.’

But . . . but who was moving it?

It slid to ‘M’ next. I gaped in disbelief.
What
was moving it? I leaned forward to watch as it skidded over to ‘D,’ then ‘A.’

I tried to swallow, but couldn’t quite manage, could only stare in disbelief as it slowly crept to ‘R.’

Finally, it pointed to ‘K’ and stopped.

I AM DARK
.

My pulse rang in my ears, and a dry pressure built at the base of my throat. It was talking to me again—the creature, dark matter—like it had through my cell phone.

But this was different.

This time it had acted directly on the physical world, it had
moved
an actual object.

Something was wrong with my left arm, I realized belatedly. It felt wrong. Numb. Like it had been in a funky position for too long and the nerves had stopped responding. Perplexed, I lifted it up . . . and felt my hand lift up from the planchette.

The planchette.

Where it had been resting the entire time.

In a moment of sickening clarity, I understood.

My own invisible hand had moved the planchette, not something else. Dark matter had acted through me.

I was becoming its puppet.

As I faded, its presence grew stronger. Soon, all of me would be gone, and the only thing left would be . . .
it
.

How much time did I have left?

Emory.

My heart seized up. I needed to tell him. Now.

Before it was too late. I shoved off the floor and hurled myself straight through the walls into sunlight.

Since I couldn’t
drive a car, couldn’t even hold a key, I ran to his house at a near sprint. The pavement battered my heels, the blocks crept by—along with all the oblivious people enjoying their Saturday afternoons.

I cut through backyards and ran right through them, hoping for something.

It felt like running through light, flashes of warmth here and there, but otherwise nothing.

They were holograms, projections.

A reddish sun seeped across the sky, giving the afternoon the depressing sepia hue of an old photograph.

Like I was seeing the world through tinted glass.

I staggered up to Emory’s curb and keeled over, wincing from the stitch in my side.

I could still feel
that
.

As I hobbled up to his porch, a nervous twinge tightened in my chest.
I killed her.
What if those were my last words to him?
Ever?

I found Emory in his bedroom, asleep shirtless on his side, one big arm slung off the bed.
Seriously?
It was four in the afternoon. How late was he going to sleep in? God, how I wanted to curl up under that arm and never, ever tell him.

But I had to do this. He had to know.

If dark matter doomed me to wander the Earth as a ghost, I needed the Ashley affair off my chest or it would eat away at me forever. I had to set this straight.

“Emory,” I hissed, then louder. “Emory!”

He didn’t stir.

My eyes darted around his room for something like a Ouija board, a planchette, something to communicate with, wake him up.

Hanging crookedly on the wall, a painting—probably Ashley’s—showed a boy and girl lost in the woods. Not heavy enough.

A laser crystal paperweight on his desk caught my eye, a ghostly football floating inside a glass prism.

Focusing, I pressed my finger against the edge. It nudged a centimeter before my finger went through. I tried again, brow tight. The cube scraped another inch and tipped off the desk, landing with a loud thump.

He startled awake, instantly alert eyes scanning the room until they settled on the paperweight. He flung off the covers and stalked over to it, lifted it, turned it over.

I went to work on a pencil, made it jiggle.

His eyes flicked to the movement, and he reached out to stop it, eyebrows knotted. His hand brushed mine.

We both froze, fingers touching.

We were touching.
He can touch me!

“Emory, can you . . . can you hear me?” A knot tightened in my throat.

“
Leona?
” He traced my hand back to my wrist, his gaze searching the air where I’d spoken.

He
could
.

“Uh . . . Emory,” I gulped. “There’s . . . there’s something I need to tell you.”

“This is fantastic.” His hand reached my shoulder and moved to my face, my hair. “I thought you were exaggerating, but this . . . what are you . . . how is this . . . ?” His fingers brushed my cheek and lingered on the tears, and he frowned.

“I’m invisible,” I moaned, explaining nothing. I caught his hand and squeezed my eyes shut against his wrist, suddenly trembling all over. “It’s dark matter, I can’t get it off. I put it on, and it got under my skin, and now I can’t get it off, and . . . and it’s eating me alive, and I’m going to be stuck like this forever—” And then I broke down and wept like a four-year-old.

“Hey, hey . . . stop it.” He cupped the side of my head and angled it to look me in the eye. “It’s going to be okay. We’re going to tell my dad. He’ll know what to do. We’re going to get you out of this, alright?”

I nodded, and a little whimper rose in my throat.

“Come here,” he said gruffly. He pulled me into a hug, and I collapsed shivering against his chest, arms tucked between us. In his strong embrace, I became real again, flesh and blood, touchable. I didn’t care that I was naked.

He noticed.

His arms paused on my backside, and my skin turned molten under the imprint of his palms. “Did it eat your clothes, Leona?”

My face flushed. “It doesn’t go on over clothes,” I muttered, eyes still dripping. “It’s not like you can
see
me.”

“Right, because this leaves so much more to the imagination.” His palm skimmed up my spine, leaving a wake of goosebumps before it froze on the nick in my shoulder. His body tensed.

In about two more seconds, he found the scab on the side of my rib cage where Ashley had jabbed me with the fireplace poker—I winced at his touch—and then the wound on my neck. “What happened?” he growled.

“Stop it . . . nothing,” I lied, burying my face in his chest to escape his prodding.

“Leona,” he warned.

“Can you please not ask about that right now?” My voice came out muffled. “Or ever?”

We lapsed into strained silence.

“I love you,” I whispered into his chest, trying to shut it all out, my cheek slippery against his bare pecs.
Then I cringed, realizing what I’d just said.
Can you not be pathetic for five seconds?

He pet my hair, said nothing. His chest rose and fell under my face. Probably wondering how to deal with the crazy, desperate, naked, invisible girl who’d snuck into his bedroom—

He sighed and reluctantly breathed into my hair, “I love you too.” Like it was barely true, or only true now and wouldn’t be later, or he didn’t want it to be true.

But true.

At his words, my heart floated up inside me like a helium balloon . . . before it popped and my body went rigid in horror.
Uh-oh.

What the hell was wrong with me? What was I
thinking?

“No, no, you
can’t
,” I gasped, pulling away. “There’s . . . there’s something you need to know . . . about me. Before I fade away completely.”

“You’re not going to fade away. I’m not letting go, okay? As long as I can touch you—”

“Just listen to me,” I said. “Please. Just listen. You’re . . . you’re going to hate me.”

“Yeah, that’s what you said last time. I’m still waiting.”

I choked on a swallow and started breathing really fast. “It’s about Ashley . . . about what happened to her.”

“Uh-huh. What is it?”

The moment had come.

I stared at his waiting face, horrified. I couldn’t even hear myself think over my pounding heart. This was my chance. I was in his arms, he loved me, confessing would never be safer.

Or harder.

“What is it, Leona?” he said, his voice stern.

I killed your sister. I hid her body. It was me.
That was all I had to say. I opened my mouth, hesitated.

Now. Do it now.

“I . . . I can’t,” I whispered.

His arms passed through me and closed on empty air.

“NO!” I reached for him desperately, trying to feel him again, trying to cling to his touch. Just empty air. I lost my balance and fell through his torso, crashing to the floor behind him. The warmth of his body was suddenly gone, leaving only cold.

“Leona?” He glanced around the room, felt along the walls. “Leona, where’d you go? Leona!” 

“I’m right here,” I whimpered. “I killed your sister. I did it. I murdered her!”

“Leona, you just vanished. I don’t know if you can hear me or not, but I’m going to get my dad. We’re going to fix this, okay?”

I shook my head, horrified.

I’d missed my one chance.

“Shit.” He returned to the middle of the room and rubbed the back of his neck, face pained. “Shit, shit, shit.”

That was the last time ever, Leona
, said the voice in my head.

The room blurred out of focus.

Emory’s face melted
into a fuzzy blob, the windows smudged to the side, the glowing LED on his speakers bled into a splotch of red ink, like I was looking at everything through a steamed up glass. I watched it all fade, too scared to breathe.

I was going blind, too.

After a moment, it came into focus again. But not completely, not as colorful as before, not as vivid as before . . . still
foggy
.

Emory barged into the hall, shouting, “Dad . . . Dad!”

I followed him down to the kitchen, still reeling from my failure and furious at myself. My only chance to confess . . . and I’d missed it, possibly forever.

I couldn’t fathom what that meant.

I was going to burn in hell, that was what that meant.

“Dad, Leona’s in trouble.” Emory said, bursting into the breakfast nook.

John Lacroix set down an iced coffee. “Leona?”

“In my room, I heard her voice, I could touch her. She was
there
, Dad.” He planted his palms on the table. “She said dark matter made her invisible—
dark matter
—and then she just vanished, right out of my arms. Poof. Does that make
any
sense to you?”

His dad peered intently at him, and the corner of his lip twitched.

“My God, that’s a
yes
.” Emory leaned in. “Look, forget nondisclosure for five seconds. You know I respect all that, but I actually care about this girl, okay?”

I scooted closer so I wouldn’t miss a word, wedged myself right between them. The table seemed to sever me at mid-thigh.

Why had I never thought to shadow his dad while invisible? He had answers.

“Leona . . . Leona Amber Hewitt!” His dad snapped his fingers, breaking out of his trance. “The girl from the San Rafael site. I
knew
that name was familiar.”

“She was invisible . . . Dad, she was invisible!”

John cursed and scrambled for his cell phone. “She touch you, Em? Any contact at all? Anything feel sticky?”

“Dad, come on—”

“Emory, did she
touch
you?”

“Yes, she touched me. We hugged. Then she was gone.”

His dad squeezed his jaw. “Dark matter . . . it saturates an object, fuses to it, conducts light through it, eventually it just erases it completely . . .” He bit his fingernails, eyes shifting. “My God, I just realized . . . we had Leona over for dinner . . . she touched our food . . .
Ashley
—”

“Dad! Where did she go? How do we bring her back? How does she get it off? I swear to God, she was right here, she was literally right in my arms. She’s my friend, okay? I just . . . I need to know she’s safe.”

Guilt squeezed my chest.

Had I infected the rest of his family too?

John Lacroix licked his lips. “Listen, Em, that’s uh . . . that’s what Rincon Systems, NASA, and half the Air Force are working on right now . . . how to stop it from spreading. We encase it in concrete. It leaks through, though. We encase it in more concrete. It
crawls
out. We burn the stuff, we bury it, we dissolve it in acid. Nothing works. The whole thing’s a crap shoot.”

“And yet the Defense Department insists on weaponizing it,” said Emory, throwing up his hands. “Why am I not surprised?”

“No, no, no, we’re not weaponizing it, Em. God no. It’s already weaponized. What we’re trying to do—what I’m trying to do, what AFSPC is trying to do, what NASA is trying to do—is work out a scenario where we don’t lose
everything
. That’s what we’re trying to do.”

Emory pressed his lips together. “I was literally holding her in my arms. She was just about to tell me something really important.”

“I need to call someone.” John tapped through his contacts. “There’s an Air Force Major, Rod Connor . . . with the Security Forces, best we got. He’s going to come and clean up, okay? Strip the place down. Nothing else we can do at this point.”

Inside, I cheered.

Rod Connor was coming to clean up! I’d just camp out here until he came and stripped the stuff off me. I’d be invisible for an another hour, tops.

“And he’ll bring her back, right?” said Emory. “I mean, she can’t just be gone—”

Everything went quiet.

His clipped statement hung in the air, unfinished, like someone had hit the mute button.

I glanced between them, startled. Their mouths kept moving, but no sounds came out. I exhaled sharply, and the rough sound of air exiting my throat broke the eerie silence. I heard my heartbeat too, so loud it seemed to pound against my ear drum.

“Hell . . . hello?” I muttered.