Inbetween (Kissed by Death, #1) (17 page)

Chapter 22

Finn

The club I tracked Scout to was up on the mountain. It would have been about an hour’s drive past the reaping border, but it only took me a few minutes. One perk to being a dead guy—no traffic. Peak was the closest thing to a club you got in this part of the state, and it seemed like every drunken single person within a fifty-mile radius had made it out despite the crappy weather. I dreaded going in. The music was loud and the obnoxious drunks were even louder. It wasn’t anywhere close to where I wanted to be, but I had to do this. I had to at least see what Scout was up to. Not to mention find out what in God’s name he could possibly be doing with Maeve. I was almost afraid to find out.

I dissolved through the cold steel doors and into a smoke-filled room packed with bodies. The music was so loud, I could barely hear myself think. Where the hell was Scout? A better question—what was he doing here?

“Finn?” I stopped when I heard Scout’s voice next to the bar. Spinning around, I accidentally dissolved through a girl and came out the other side reeking of cigarette smoke and apple martinis.

I made my way over to him. He looked like the same old Scout, but something was different. His eyes…he looked…
alive
.

“Holy Hell, Dr. Death. I didn’t think I’d be seeing you again after that meeting. Seriously, what did you do? Balthazar looked
pissed
.”

“You know me. I’ve never been very good with rules.” I looked around, getting dizzy as my eyes flickered from face to face. “Can we go outside and talk?”

Scout smiled and I followed him, cutting through the crowd to an emergency exit, and slid silently through the door. The sleet had picked up, but it was so black outside, the only place you could see it was under the orange glow of the streetlights, tiny flickers of ice in a frenzy to coat the earth.

Scout leaned against the brick wall and crossed his arms over his chest. “What’s up?”

“You tell me. Why is Maeve saying I should come see you?”

“Probably because I told her to tell you to come see me,” he said.

Yeah, this was going nowhere fast. “Okay, better question. Why the hell are you talking to Maeve in the first place?”

Scout raised his hands defensively. “She came to me. I told you before—you and her, your girlfriend, the drama… Count me out, man.”

So much for loyalty. I blew out a long breath and leaned against the wall next to him. “What’s the big secret?”

“I did it.” The look on Scout’s face was nothing short of triumphant. “I found a way back in.”

“Back in where?”

“Back in there.” He pointed at a couple around the corner, laughing and kissing. I froze, paralyzed by a thousand different emotions: fear, disgust, but the most unsettling…
hope
.

“I can get into a body, Finn. I found a way.”

I shook my head. Back when he was just a newbie and I was dumb enough to hang around him, we’d tried a lot of stupid crap, this particular stunt being the most moronic by far. “You can’t. We tried, remember? It doesn’t work.”

“It does,” he argued, his blue eyes intense. “They just have to be inebriated. Alcohol, pills, sleep aids. Anything to lower their defenses, make them cloudy, and I’m in. It only lasts for a few hours, though, but that’s long enough to have some fun.” Scout bounced on the balls of his feet, smiling. “You have no idea how good the cold feels. You’d think it would suck as much as these yahoos complain about the weather, but it doesn’t. It’s amazing.”

“I don’t believe you,” I finally said. I didn’t want to believe him. If it was true, it meant way more bad than good.

“Seeing is believing, friend.” Scout winked and backed up, watching the couple he’d pointed to stumble around the corner, laughing. Idiots. They were going to freeze in this weather, but they were probably too drunk to notice.

“What are you doing?” Stepping away from the wall, I watched Scout approach the redheaded guy’s back. Something inside me twisted. This wasn’t about to happen. It couldn’t.

Scout took a deep breath and dissolved through the thick denim jacket of the redhead, who now had his tongue shoved halfway down his girlfriend’s throat. But that wasn’t the disturbing part. Scout didn’t come out the other side. He was…gone.

“No,” I whispered stumbling back against the wall, balancing myself on my heels before I went spilling through the brick wall. I clenched my jaw and focused. The shock of what was happening was making it hard to stay in one piece. “What did you do?”

The redhead backed away from the girl and cleared his throat before casting me a quick glance. “Baby, why don’t you wait inside? I’ll be there in a minute, just want a quick smoke before we go.” She smiled and nodded before heading inside, swaying her hips when the stream of music poured through the open door into the night air.

The redhead pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and shivered as he lit one up. The red glow from the end of the stick lit up the dark shadow he stood in. After he’d taken a long drag, he threw his head back and groaned, blowing smoke out the side of a grin.

“I forgot how much I liked smoking,” he said. “The last kid didn’t smoke. I lucked out this time.” He tapped his pocket where he’d shoved the pack, then strode over to me, smiling. “What do you think, Finn?”

I didn’t know what to say. This meant a lot of things, but the most important to me at the moment was that Maeve knew there was a way in, too. And if Maeve knew…son of a bitch! I gripped the back of my neck, trying to think.

“I pray to God that you weren’t stupid enough to tell Maeve about this.”

He frowned and took another puff of the cigarette. “I don’t get you, man. I’m standing here telling you I found a way in. A way to actually freeze from the cold, savor the sensation of a drink sliding down your gullet, feel the wind in your hair!” He ran his fingers through his short red spikes and frowned. “Well, not this kid. This kid doesn’t have the greatest hair for that. But that girl in there.” Scout lifted his chin and laughed, smoke sliding past his lips with the sound. “I’m going to feel that, too.”

I wanted to puke. In that moment I wished more than ever that I still had that human function so that I could expel whatever it was that I was feeling. The whole thing was disgusting. “And the girl? Or should I say ’girls,’ since it looks like you’ve been doing this a while. What do they think about it?”

“Trust me. They have a good time. It’s not like most of them know the guy they’re with any better than they’d know me. And the guys waking up next to a hot chick—you think they’re complaining? Nope.” He made a popping sound to exaggerate his “nope,” then flicked his cigarette to the ground and rubbed his arms.

“I’m telling you man, the cold hurts, but I can’t get enough. It makes me feel alive.” He laughed and the sound felt stale, leaving a bad taste in my mouth, just like the cigarette smoke. “You want to try it? I’m sure we could find you someone, too.”

This was sick. And I was screwed. I couldn’t help but wonder where the hell the real Scout had gone, because this wasn’t him. “Balthazar is going to let you burn for this.”

“Whatever, man,” he said. “Don’t tell me you haven’t been dreaming about this very thing for years. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t do it to be with Emma.”

“Not like this. This is wrong, Scout. These people don’t know you any more than they know what’s happening to them. It’s screwed up and you know it.”

“Bullshit. You are so full of—”

I cut him off, watching his breaths come out in foggy puffs of white that looked like clouds wandering into unfamiliar darkness. “Tell me you didn’t show Maeve. Please, Scout, just give me that.”

His eyes, which strangely enough were Scout’s eyes, stared back at me as if I should’ve already known the answer. “She’s known for a week.”

Stupid, stupid, stupid!
He knew what would happen. How could he… Something inside me broke in half, a dam breaking, flooding me with rage. “What the hell did you do? You knew what she’d try to use this for. You
knew
!” I pulled out my scythe and backed him into the bricks, not really sure what I was planning to do with it.

“I’m sorry! What do you want me to say? I thought if she could figure out how to use this maybe she’d give up on Emma.”

The sleet pelting the asphalt was the only sound to break the bitter silence that hung between us. It didn’t matter that he was sorry. It didn’t matter what he thought. It didn’t even matter that a lost soul like Maeve might not even be able to pull this off. I couldn’t take chances with Emma.

I backed away, losing my steam. “Good-bye, Scout.”

Chapter 23

Emma

Cash fiddled with the radio until he found the station that would provide the sound for the movie while I leaned out the window and snapped a picture of three girls sitting in the back of a pickup, blankets wrapped around them like cocoons. As crazy as it sounded, I almost liked taking pictures for the yearbook now. I could control the orb problem now that I knew what was causing them, and when people weren’t posing and acting stupid, I realized it wasn’t all that different from landscape photography. My shots were getting better, that’s for sure.

I took a few more pictures of random things that I thought might make a neat collage, and after I’d gotten what I needed, pulled off my coat and tossed it in the backseat. “Can we turn this down?” I asked Cash, messing with the heater.

Cash batted my hand away. “Are you kidding? It’s effing cold in here.”

I rolled down my window a crack and sat back in my seat. “Maybe for you.”

“So, are you going to spill, or am I going to have to force it out of you?”

I didn’t know what to say. I knew what he wanted to hear, but I wasn’t a very good liar, so it didn’t leave me a lot of options.

A couple of seniors I knew walked by on their way to the concession stand and I grabbed my camera to snap a picture of them. On the big screen, a hot dog in a top hat danced, while popcorn boxes sang in the background. I couldn’t help but wonder where Finn was.

“I just feel lost,” I finally said, letting the camera hang from my chest. It wasn’t the whole truth, but it wasn’t a lie. I felt lost in the impossible, in the way I was starting to feel about Finn. There was a silent tug-of-war ripping me apart inside. One side telling me to do what was sane, the other pulling me over the edge of reason where nothing made sense. “I feel like I’m coasting on fumes and I don’t know where I’m going to land and it terrifies me.”

“I think everybody feels that way sometimes.” Cash stared out his window. He drew the outline of a woman’s profile on the fogged-up glass with his fingertip.

“What happens when you
always
feel like that?” I asked. “What happens when you finally run out of gas?”

He sighed and leaned his head back on his seat to look at me. “Then you realize that I’m right behind you with a can of fuel and you stop worrying so damn much.”

I smiled and we both laughed a little. Cash turned down the heater and slid on his jacket as the movie started. It opened with a desolate street and a lone man walking through a city empty of living things. It didn’t take long for the dead to rise, though. Rotting and starving, they filled the alleys, consumed every hollow space, like cattle called to feed. Cash yelled at the screen, calling the man an “effing idiot” when he got himself cornered in an alleyway. I sighed. Whoever came up with this grotesque concept of living dead had obviously never met a soul.

“I’m back,” Finn said behind me. “Get rid of him. We need to talk. Now.”

Something in the tone of his voice made my chest constrict. I knew it wasn’t fair that I was sending him out into the cold so I could have a conversation with a nonexistent person, but hopefully whatever Finn had to say wouldn’t take long. “Cash, could you get me a Coke from the concession stand?”

“You have two feet last time I checked.”

“Yes, and I’ll kick your ass with one of them if you don’t get over yourself and be a gentleman.”

Cash frowned. “What’s a gentleman?”

I forced a laugh, needing him to leave. “Please.”

“Fine.” He nodded and grabbed my purse out of the floor to dig for my wallet. “But you’re buying.”

“Deal.” When he was gone, I spun around in my seat. Finn looked upset and, for the first time since we’d met, disheveled. Was that even possible for a soul? “What’s wrong?”

“Something’s happened. And I’m not sure…I don’t know how to handle it. But I don’t want you freaking out on me. I’m going to figure it out.” He braced his palms on the seat and stared at the floorboards like he was trying to calm himself. “I’m going to figure it out,” he whispered to himself again.

“Just say it,” I said, forcing the tremble out of my voice. “I can handle it.” It’s nothing I hadn’t been through before. Two years of this…was there really anything he could say that could surprise me?

“Emma, look at me.” He leaned close enough that I was enveloped in the warm scent of Finn, trapped in my own personal summer while the rest of the world battled the cold outside. I stared into his green eyes, churning with emotion. “It doesn’t matter. I’m going to keep you safe. There’s no sense in you worrying about something that you can’t do anything about.”

“But that’s just it. I
can
do something. I stopped her, Finn.” I grabbed the back of the seat. “At the house. I used a chant, and she left.”

Finn shook his head and looked away. “Emma…”

“No, I’m serious. I’m more than capable of—”

“She left because of me,” he said, softly. “The sage, the chant… They’re just as useless as the Ouija board. None of it works.”

My vision blurred as my gaze drifted to the window. Cash was making his way through the row of cars, a Coke in each hand. The colored lights from the movie screen reflected off the shiny black leather on his jacket, making him shimmer like Finn.

It hadn’t worked. Oh my God…it hadn’t worked.

“Just calm down. Breathe,” Finn whispered into my ear.

I closed my eyes, took a breath, and nodded.

Finn stiffened, peering out the back window into the night. “Emma…” he started, never taking his eyes off of whatever he saw out the window. “Stay in the car.”

A gust of wind ruffled my hair and before I could say anything, Finn was gone. He was gone, and Maeve could be anywhere. I braced myself on the dashboard. My breaths were coming in too fast, making me dizzy. I fumbled with the glove compartment and popped it open. Cash used to keep a utility knife in here.

Cash swung open the door, and I crammed the napkins and papers back into the compartment and slammed it shut. I felt stupid for even looking. A knife wasn’t going to stop Maeve. And the sage, the chants…none of that had worked. I didn’t have anything to defend myself. I felt like I was bobbing in open water, waiting for a shark to finish me off.

Cash shoved a cup into my hand and nodded at the glove compartment. “What were you doing?”

I grabbed both drinks as he shivered and shook like a wet dog once he was in the safety of the truck. “N-nothing. Just looking for a napkin.”

He grabbed his drink and looked me over. “You’re being weird tonight. What’s going on?”

“Nothing. I’m fine.” I took a sip of the Coke, letting the caffeine race through my system and chase away the violent, unraveling feeling inside me. Peering into the night and not finding a trace of Finn, I couldn’t stop shaking. She was here. She was here and Finn was out there trying to stop her.

Cash set his popcorn on the seat between us and stared at me.

I couldn’t look at him. All I could think about was Finn. What had he seen out there? Where had he gone? What if he couldn’t stop her?

“Em…”

I shook my head, knowing that if I didn’t get out of that truck within the next ten seconds, I was going to lose it in front of him. “I’m going to go to the bathroom. Be right back.”