I'd Rather Not Be Dead (31 page)

I look to Finn, who's still
busily processing current events. “I don't know.”

With a sound of frustration, she
yanks the scrunchy holding her left pigtail out and starts grinding
her teeth. She tears down the other side of her hair, then demands,
“Well, where's Fray?”

“Um...” Desperate, I give Finn a
beseeching look that he ignores. “He was at the hospital last time
we saw him.”

“With the living version of
you?” Finn's mom reaches behind her to pull all her hair into a
single rope and wraps both scrunchies around it. She meets my
gaping expression with calm. “I ran into her yesterday. After I...
Ran into you.”

She blushes a little at the
reference to seeing me yesterday, when she thwarted my plot to have
my way with her son, then rushes on. “Let's just say she thinks I'm
crazy now.”

“Okay,” I whisper, not sure how
all of this changes things.

“Of course,” Finn's mom
continues, “just about everyone who's ever met me thinks the exact
same thing.” Her eyes snap to the side. “I was wondering when I'd
see you.”

I follow the lethal glare to
find Fray standing frozen, like he's the one seeing a ghost.

After a few heartbeats, Fray
clears his throat and forces his shoulders to straighten. “You
would have seen me earlier, except you keep taking those
pills.”

Finn's mom snorts very
Finn-esque snort. “I'll take another as soon as we're done with
this.”

“You do that,” he says softly.
He walks closer to me, but I can't let his obvious hurt over his
great-granddaughter's reaction to his presence make me less pissed
at him. Because it's the fact she's his great-granddaughter that's
pissed me off in the first place.

“Why if it isn't Finn Finnegan,”
I grit between clenched teeth.

He sighs with defeat, eyes
flickering to Finn's mom in accusation. His eyes leave her to go to
Finn, don't like what they see, and come back to me. “Thought my
mother named me Fray, did you?”

Finn tries to grab me but he's
not fast enough to keep me from reaching out and slapping Fray as
hard as I can.

The crack of the contact zips
through the air.

Finn's teeth grit together. His
hands are in fists and I know that even though he tried to stop me,
he's standing there thinking slapping wasn't nearly enough.

“Finn Finnegan,” I repeat.

Holding his hands up with the
palms facing forward, Fray takes a step back from me.

Finn's mom watches us with
folded arms and an air of patience, not acting at all inclined to
intervene. In fact, I suspect she'd be more than willing to help
kick Fray's ass all over the mountain.

“Finn Finnegan,” I say a third
time, moving so that my hand can make another assault.

This time, he grabs my wrist and
holds the hand in place. “Would you stop doing that?”

I smack him with the other
hand.

“Drew!” he snaps. “I'm sorry.
You never asked what my given name was.”

Okay. That's true. But, still...
“You could have mentioned you happened to have the same name as my
boyfriend.”

One of his shoulders shrugs. “It
didn't really seem relevant.”

I can't help it. I hit him
again.

Finn puts his arms around me,
pinning mine before I snap and do actual damage. “It seems like a
hell of a coincidence.”

Taking a slow breath, Fray
shifts like a man who's hoping everyone will suddenly forget he's
present. For half a second, he looks at Finn's mom like he expects
her to jump in with an assist. “It isn't exactly.”

“How not exactly?”

Fray scratches the side of his
jaw. “Well...”

“Good grief, Fray,” Finn's mom
snaps. “You haven't changed at all, have you? Still allergic to
straight answers?”

Their eyes lock together.
“Bess...”

“Stay out of my mind, Casper, or
I'll have Fiona on you so fast your head'll spin.”

“What?” Finn asks. I don't think
he meant to, it's just the sort of question that falls out when
someone uses your sister to threaten dead people with.

Our elders ignore us to continue
glaring at one another.

“Remember Fiona's room?” I
whisper to Finn as the staring match goes on. “You said she didn't
have the sight, but could she be an exorcist?”

“Yes,” Fray answers for him.
“Takes after her father.”

My eyes fling wide. Whoa. Finn's
folks are a Shadow Walker and an exorcist? No wonder it didn't work
out.

“Elza was here,” I announce.
“She mentioned your son.”

There's pain in Fray's eyes when
they move to mine. His voice is as a quiet as a zephyr when he
answers me. “I never had a son, Drew. You know that.”

He believes it. There's no doubt
in my mind he believes it. And Finn's mom nods to show she believes
it too.

“What are you thinking?” Finn
asks.

Fray doesn't have to ask. Fray
can see my thoughts, see the things I can't make myself say. And I
know he's doing it because I can see his eyes. Any doubt I had that
he's related to Finn vanishes as the frolicking greens die,
replaced by a cold form of gold, like leaves succumbing to fall in
the space of two seconds. They darken until the gold is nearly a
black. And then they simmer.

“She's thinking I was killed by
my brother,” Fray utters in a voice molded by centuries in the
grave. “She's thinking maybe I wouldn't be fond of a child spawned
by my brother and my adulterous wife. She's thinking all things
considered, I could well despise the entire line.”

I swallow, trying to breathe
around the vice of emotion clasped around my ribs. I want to look
at Finn's mom, to gage her reaction to the words, but my gaze is
locked onto Fray.

“She's thinking if I wanted to
hurt the youngest member of that line, erasing the girl he loves
from existence would be a good place to start.”

Fray's deathly stare moves from
me to Finn but the anxiety gripping my body doesn't let up any.
“She'd be right about the last part,” Fray admits in an eerie
whisper. “And an attack that damaged you that much would just about
destroy your mom in the bargain.”

Finn's breathing has stopped,
his muscles locked together. His mom's shifted stance, but oddly
enough she's not looking angry. A new sympathy has taken over her
expression, a new softness lights her eyes. Her voice is gentle as
she steps up to finish Fray's speech. “Drew's wrong about who wants
to hurt us though.”

Fray glances at her with
surprise, but when he looks back to me his eyes just as chilled as
before. “My nephew was motherless because of me. His father
couldn't stand him, because he looked exactly like his mother and
nothing like either of us. I was the only thing the kid had. I
stayed at first for revenge, I won't lie to you about that. But the
last two hundred and fifty years, I've been doing my best to watch
out for his family. And fighting Elza every step of the way.”

My heart throbs in my ears.

“Why?” Finn asks, softly enough
I nearly miss the sound over that of my heartbeat. “Why would Elza
hate us so much?”

Fray shakes his head as he looks
back to the youngest Finnegan. “I don't know. She never tried to
kill the line. Just to murder any chance of happiness any of them
had. As if she doesn't think any of you deserve to have the things
she missed out on.”

The regret on Fray's face when
he looks at Finn's mom is heartbreaking.

“No,” I tell him, my breath
shaky and my knees barely holding me up. “It's because the child
really was your son.”

His eyes are squinted when he
gives them to me again. “No, luv. I told you already. He was my
nephew. I came to terms with that a long time ago.”

Finn's mom is frowning, looking
thoughtful. She's not taking either side yet, but I can see her
re-evaluating things she thought she knew.

“You're wrong,” I respond,
confidence mounting inside of me and making my voice firm. “She
just wanted you to think that. She wanted him to think that. She
wanted it to be true. But it wasn't. That's why she hates them all
so much.”

Tears poke at the edges of my
vision as I say the last sentence. What an awful thing to have to
tell someone, that someone he once loved despised him enough to
spend lifetimes getting back at a family for the sin of being
descended from him rather than someone else. And what an awful
blame to lay on his feet. Because while it's easy to step back and
say it's not Fray's fault, that Elza's actions are entirely her
wrong, it simply isn't in his nature not to feel guilt at being the
focus of her hatred.

I'm not sure if he believes me
or not. I almost hope he doesn't.

My hand squeezes Finn's arm,
then I wiggle out of his embrace so I can turn and face him. My
poor Cooper Finnegan isn't looking like he can handle much more
excitement today, but there's no way to call time out or postpone
events for a few days. “They're probably on the Parkway by
now.”

With a hiss of breath, Finn
snaps back to reality. “Shit. I have to go!”

“Wait!” his mom blurts. “Where
are you going?”

Oh. Right. Finn fills her in
with as few words as possible. “The other Drew's about to be shoved
over a wall at one of the overlooks on the Parkway.”

“Then what are we doing here?”
she yells in response.

Nearly a blur of sudden motion,
Finn's mother leaps through the open door of his truck and squirms
across to the passenger seat while Finn pulls me into a hug and
plants an extra goodbye kiss on my forehead.

“Be careful,” I say, my voice
cracking.

The words make him smile before
he gives my lips a swift brush and lets go of me. Shaking his head
with a quiet laugh, Finn backs away and turns to join his mom in
the truck. “The girl has front row tickets to her own murder and
she's telling me to be careful.”

“You wouldn't want to run off
the road and miss the show,” I point out.

“Yeah.” A hand on the door, he
gives me a long look. “I promise to survive if you do?”

“Deal.”

He flashes me a smile and shuts
the door.

My hands rub against the tops of
my arms as he starts the engine and pulls out of the driveway.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Fray and I arrive at the
overlook just as Ricky's aging sedan limps into the parking area.
The ghost folds his arms loosely and leans against a tree to watch
the curtain open on what may be the last scene of my life. I feel I
should say something, apologize maybe. But I don't know what to
tell him. And I'm sure he's picking up all of the confusion in my
mind from my mental broadcasts anyway.

Sitting by Fray's feet, I watch
Ricky get out of the car and look around for a while before opening
the door to the passenger seat. Somehow, he managed to get the
living me into it, but he looks clueless about how to get her
out.

Fray reaches down and strokes a
hand through my hair, petting me as we watch Ricky struggle to get
the living version of me where he wants her to be. He hooks his
arms under hers and drags her from the car with a groan of strain
followed by my body making a very noticeable thump.

After a series of deep breaths,
Ricky gears himself up to try again. He does a better job of
hefting the weight up to drag TOM along the ground, making it
several feet before stopping to rest. A few feet after that, the
other me wakes up enough to try to wrestle herself away from his
clutches, but she instantly slips on the foliage, falling to the
ground with a loud oomph.

“Careful!” Ricky cautions,
bending over her in what seems like honest alarm. “If you hurt her,
I'll... I'll...”

TOM shakes her head while Ricky
tries to think of a threat. “Wha eh 'ell er you tal-ing aba?” she
slurs.

I translate the sentence and
borrow it for my own. “Yeah, what the hell are you talking about,
Ricky Woodman?”

“I don't want Drew hurt,” he
states firmly.

Both Drews laugh at him.

“What does he think is going
on?” I ask Fray, who's frowning with a complete lack of amusement.
His hand has stopped stroking me, though his fingers are still in
place to comb through my hair with the movement of my head.

“He thinks she's possessed by a
demon.”

“Right...” He said something
like that earlier, didn't he? When he was talking to Tanya.

Speaking of... Ah, there's
Tanya. Propped against the back window with just the tip of her
head visible. I wonder if he thinks she's possessed too. Or maybe
just tainted by my demon. Does he consider demonic possession to be
contagious?

Back on the ground, TOM's
stopped trying to fight. I think she may still be conscious, but
she's given up on moving herself for the time being. Ricky kneels
down and puts his hands under her arms. His face reddens as he
struggles to lift her again.

“Come on,” I mutter. “I'm not
that heavy.”

“Mom!” Ricky pants. “You said I
wouldn't have trouble getting her there!”

Mom?

“His mom's dead,” I remind
Fray.

“Yeah. He thinks she's returned
as an angel.”

I turn my stare to Fray, who
shrugs in a way that claims zero responsibility for Ricky's madness
and starts to loop strands of my hair around the fingers of his
hand. “She's in Shadow?”

“No.”

He doesn't say anything else as
Ricky drags TOM to the edge of the concrete, nor while Ricky breaks
to catch his breath before tackling the job of getting a hundred
and twenty pound weight down a forest path.

“Mom?” Ricky calls again, still
not getting a response. Or at least not one I see evidence of. He
waits a few moments, looking around expectantly and sighing when
nothing happens.

“He really expects her to show
up.” I tilt my head in thought. “Are you sure she's not in
Shadow?”

“Positive.”

My eyes go to Fray, who
concentrates on not looking back at me. I wonder if he's noticed
how much faster his fingers are moving across my skull than before.
Finn's mom was onto something when she accused Fray of being
allergic to straight answers. But is he being an ass or is he
thinking solving the riddle will distract me from agonizing over
what I can't yet act to change? I know better than to expect him to
answer that.