Shine (42 page)

“Good girl.” He took a bite of cookie, then rolled up his eyes in ecstasy. “No, not a girl. A goddess.”

I wanted to crawl into bed with him, but instead shifted my chair so I could sit and hold his hand. “Aunt Gina’s flying back Sunday morning. Once she’s gone I can stay here with you longer. I feel like I have to take her sightseeing and shopping to make up for scaring her so bad.”

“When do classes start again at Ridgewood?” he asked without looking at me.

“Monday. I’ll see if they’ll let me take midterms long-distance. Maybe one of the teaching assistants at the college here can proctor my exams. Basically, watch me take the test and then sign a form that says I didn’t cheat.”

He traced my thumbnail with the pad of his finger. “And what if not?”

“Then I guess I’ll drop out. I aced the SATs and sent in all my college applications. They never care what you do the last semester of your senior year.”

Zachary frowned. “That’s no’ always true, and you know it.”

“I don’t care,” I said softly.

“I do,” he replied, even more softly. “Aura, you have to go home. Now that you’re safe from the DMP. Go back with your aunt on Sunday.”

“No.”

“You have to finish school.”

I gripped his hand. “But I promised I wouldn’t leave you.”

“No, you promised I’d never be alone again. And I’m not alone.
I’ve my friends, my parents.” He sighed. “My psychiatrist.”

“I know, but—”

“And I have you.” He raised his gaze to meet mine. “Now that we’ve been together—and I don’t mean in bed, though that’s part of it—we’ll never truly be apart again.”

I hated and loved that he was right. It would be so hard to leave him, especially knowing all he’d suffered. Not to mention what
we’d
suffered.

But knowing for certain that we belonged together—a matter I’d lost all doubt about the moment I fell into his arms at the Dublin Airport—would turn our good-bye into a see-you-later. We’d always find our way back to each other.

Without letting go, I sat on the edge of the bed. “I promise I’ll be back the second I graduate.”

“I know you will. And I’ll worry every hour. I’ll wish you were by my side where I could watch over you and fight for you and kiss you, a lot.” He touched the clear quartz stone at my throat, then drew his finger down, making my whole body tingle. “And other things.”

I ached with need for his touch, and with the knowledge that I’d lose it again so soon. “I’ll wish that, too.” I leaned in for a lingering kiss. “Especially the other things.”

As I pulled away, he looked to his right. His room wasn’t private, but no patient occupied the bed by the door. Only the most serious cases remained in the hospital, since no one would undergo (or perform) elective surgery during the holidays.

Zachary gave me a wicked grin. “Close the curtain, aye?”

All my life, whenever I’d traveled to a cool place like Italy or New York City or California, a part of me thought, “Hmm, I could live here.” But then as soon as I’d return to Baltimore and see the long, calm Chesapeake Bay to the east, or the green rolling hills and farmland to the west, I’d feel deep in my gut that Maryland was my home. I belonged here.

This time, flying across those familiar lands, I didn’t get that feeling.

Not that I suddenly hated my hometown. Just the opposite—being away reminded me of all the things I loved about Baltimore. The food, the football, the weird and friendly people.

But it was no longer mine. I’d become dislodged, restless, homeless. I felt like a tourist. Every waking moment—and many of the sleeping ones—I felt a pull across the ocean, to Ireland’s brilliant green fields and Glasgow’s dark, brooding beauty.

It would be provoked by the stupidest things: like the first time I did laundry after I got back, seeing the shirt I’d worn the day I arrived in Ireland. Or when I ate the last of the packaged cookies I’d brought home (and had to hide so Gina wouldn’t tell Grandmom).

But I had a job to do, and a story to tell.

Congress held public hearings on what SecuriLab had done in the name of promoting BlackBox. SecuriLab were the “other interests” Simon had referred to, and who Nicola had meant when she’d said someone else was “calling the shots.” As the sole manufacturer of BlackBox, they were more powerful than either the US or UK governments. And as Simon had put it, they had “both our countries by the bollocks.”

Hence, Flight 346. It was an inside job, but not by any government agency. Ex–Agent Timian’s testimony led to the uncovering of a horrifying truth. A Nighthawk masquerading as a baggage handler had slipped the bomb into the suitcase of the British post-Shifter boy, turning him into an unwitting suicide bomber.

The bombing had two missions: ramp up people’s fear of ghosts so they’d buy more BlackBox; and kill Ian Moore, who had pissed off the DMP and therefore SecuriLab—and therefore Nighthawk. I had a feeling their desire to eliminate Ian sprang from more than annoyance. Maybe he’d made these connections and had taken his discoveries back to the UK. Top secret spy maneuvers that even Zachary would never discover (not that he would want to).

Flight 346 also provided political will to get a DMP draft passed. Nicola had become a whistleblower, taking evidence to the media that the DMP had been secretly pushing for a draft long before Flight 346.
Now
the agency was on its knees.

In exchange for my testimony, Gina and her top-of-the-line criminal defense attorneys got me pardoned for obstruction of justice in speaking to ex–Tammi Teller, and the passing of information—none of which was illegally obtained—to foreign operatives.

In legal terminology, Aunt Gina saved my ass.

In exchange, I promised to quietly finish high school, stay out of trouble, and never, ever give her fuel for further heart attacks.

In late March—a few days after I turned the shades Malcolm and Mary back to ghosts—I received the e-mail I’d been waiting for.

Gina was still at the office, so I was able to tell Zachary first, just like I’d hoped.

He’d continued seeing his trauma counselor, now adding three new events to their conversations: his time in solitary confinement, his near death at the hands of the Children of the Sun, and his gunshot wound. He swore the nightmares came only once or twice a month now. I could tell from the absence of dark circles under his eyes that he was telling the truth.

But today on our video chat, his smile was strained. Something was wrong.

“Are you okay?” I asked him.

“Aye.” He focused on my face. “You said in your text you had good news?”

This would definitely cheer him up. “I thought about forwarding you the e-mail, but I wanted to see your face.” I held up the printed-out message from University of Glasgow admissions. “I got accepted! Woo!” I made the page dance in front of the camera.

His smile widened, then faded. “That’s fantastic. You’ve got, what, six acceptances now?”

“Yeah, but this is the only one that matters, right?” I lowered the paper. “Zach, what’s wrong? Is it your dad?” Ian’s cancer was no closer to remission, but no closer to the final stage, either. Zachary had come to an uneasy acceptance of his father’s approaching death, and simply appreciated the time they had left together.

“It’s not him. I got something in the post today.” He unfolded a white sheet of paper and held it up.

I squinted to see the bald-eagle logo of a US government agency. “The State Department? What do they want?”

He dropped his hands and the letter into his lap. “They say my
restrictions have been dropped, since I didn’t do anything wrong. I can apply for a student visa now.”

The world itself seemed to shift. “You mean, you can come back here? For college? When?”

“As soon as an American university accepts me.”

“Wow, it’s not that late—you might still be able to apply for fall semester at some of the state schools.” I stopped when I realized Zachary didn’t seem happy about this development. And honestly, I was disappointed, too. “Don’t you want to come here? I thought you liked it.”

“I loved America. It’s what I wanted for so long, to live there and to be with you. And now I can.”

I noticed he used the past tense:
It’s what I wanted.
Maybe he didn’t want that anymore. Maybe going home made him realize that Scotland was where he belonged, at least for now. The opposite of the way I’d felt returning to America.

“What about your dad? And your mom, doesn’t she need your help?”

The corners of his eyes drooped. “Aye, it would be hard, for all of us.” He set his hands on the desk and met my gaze. “But Aura, I’ll come if you ask.”

I shook my head. “I can’t ask you—”

“Don’t answer now. Take the weekend, or longer, and decide what you want for yourself. Then we’ll decide what we want for us.”

Us.
That entity we’d created, the one that craved a life of its own, the one that could only be nurtured by each of us equally. If Zachary or I—or both—put ourselves before the other, that Us would wither, until we were just another couple who met, fell in love, and grew apart.
We’d be ordinary. And after all we’d been through, all we’d overcome to stay together and alive, we were anything but ordinary.

“I’ll think about it,” I told him. “But there’s something I need to know.” I went to my dresser, opened my blue star-shaped keepsake box, and withdrew something that had lain there for almost exactly a year.

I sat before the computer again. “If you can apply for a student visa, you can get a tourist one, right? So you could come for a short visit?”

A slow smile spread across his face. “Aye, I could.”

I unfurled the note he’d given me at dinner on our second date, the date that had ended in disaster. I held it up to the camera:

Want to go to the prom? (With me?)

S
olstice is just a promise. But it’s a promise kept. Light always returns. Unlike people.

My mother was wrong. People do return. My dad did, if only for a while. Even though he hadn’t promised.

And I returned to Zachary. Because I promised, and because I wanted to.

A week after graduation, on the summer solstice, it seemed like all my extended family came to Philadelphia International Airport to see me off to Scotland.

Megan and Dylan made the trip up from Baltimore. They were still recovering from Senior Week at Ocean City, where they’d finally admitted that they liked each other. Like,
like
-liked each other. They both swore it was going to be a summer fling and nothing more, that they would amicably break up the day she left for Cornell. I was skeptical.

At the security gate, Megan hugged me so hard I thought my eyeballs would pop out of my skull.

“When we visit in August,” she said, “you better have your usual kick-ass summer tan. Scotland better not deprive you of your natural hotness.”

Dylan gave me a less lung-crushing embrace, then handed me a manila envelope. “This is for you to read on the plane. Or at the snack bar at the gate, whatever.”

I peeked inside the envelope, and the black spiral notebook I saw made my heart plummet.

Logan’s
Fame Journal, Volume 1
. The thoughts he’d started writing the night before he died. Dylan had let me read it last May, right before we made out on his floor.

“Um, thanks?”

“I know, you’re thinking, world’s most inappropriate parting gift. But you haven’t read all of it.”

His words confused me, but that was nothing new.

Gina touched my shoulder. “Hon, you better go through security now.” Her eyes were wet, and when she blinked, they overflowed. “I’m sorry.” She wiped her face. “Was that the tenth or eleven thousandth tear I’ve cried over this?”

“Eleven millionth,” I said, hugging her.

“I feel like I’ve barely started.” She rocked me back and forth. “You know I am proud of you, right? You’ve been so brave. I’m even proud of you for leaving.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re never afraid to explore.”

I hugged her tighter, holding back my confession that I
was
afraid. Afraid I’d get lost in a new city, afraid I’d fail all my classes, afraid I’d never learn to speak Scots. Afraid to look like an American idiot.

But not afraid enough to keep me from going.

“Thank you. I better hurry up and hug everyone else. There’s a ton of them.”

I went down the line, embracing cousins and aunts and uncles and in-laws, some I barely recognized. Grandmom tried to stuff more cookies into my carry-on.

With one final squeeze for Gina, I was off.

On the other side of the security gate, my dinner destination was obvious. Though Zachary had told me there was a Philly cheesesteak place in Glasgow’s West End, I had to get one last experience of the real thing.

I settled into the food-court booth with my meal, then opened Logan’s notebook.

There was a new entry, in Dylan’s handwriting, from a year ago: