The Awakening of Sunshine Girl (The Haunting of Sunshine Girl) (20 page)

Fury

“I don’t think you should come with me.”

We’re standing outside the coffee shop. My eyes narrow reflexively. I force myself to behave as though Nolan’s words don’t make my blood boil. “Why not?” I play with the hem of my sweatshirt. I can’t wait until this facade is over and I can go back to dressing in my own clothes again. These mass-produced clothes are functional, but they have no history, not like the vintage clothes I usually favor. The threads in this shirt, these jeans, these shoes might have been stitched just a few days before I bought them. They have no history.

“Because she’s never met you, and because I don’t know what kind of shape she’s going to be in when I find her. And because. . . .”

He trails off, but his meaning is clear:
because I don’t want to show up with another girl when I’m trying to rescue the girl I really want to be with.

Teenagers are infuriating.

“Nolan,” I begin, pretending the strain in my voice is because it’s cold out here rather than the true reason: I’m shaking with fury, “I really think
I should come with you. You don’t know what it’s going to be like when you get there. You don’t know how Aidan is going to react to seeing you.”

Now it’s Nolan’s eyes that narrow. “I never told you his name.”

“What?”

“I never told you Sunshine’s mentor’s name.”

Inwardly I curse. How could I make such an amateur mistake?

“Helena,” Nolan prompts, “How did you know his name?”

I try to look nonchalant. “It must have been in one of the professor’s files.”

Nolan shakes his head. “Even if Aidan was mentioned in the professor’s files, there couldn’t have been anything linking him to Sunshine. You couldn’t know he was Sunshine’s mentor.”

I don’t answer.

“Helena,” Nolan says finally. “Who are you?”

No point in pretending anymore. The boy is a protector, after all. I wouldn’t have been able to go on fooling him forever: protectors excel at putting the pieces of a puzzle together.

I stand up straight instead of slouching. I hook my curls behind my ears instead of letting them fall across my face. No more pretending to be less than half my age.

“I think you know who I am, Nolan.” I use my real voice, so much deeper and more powerful than the one I put on for his benefit. The boy takes a step back. “Or anyway, I think you have a guess as to what I am.” Nolan shakes his head in disbelief. “But why are you here with me instead of down there with them?”

“Let’s just say that Aidan and I had a falling out about sixteen years ago.”

I reach out and grab Nolan’s arm before he can step even an inch farther from me. “Get in the car.” I nod in the direction of my pale blue rented subcompact. “You’re driving me to Mexico.”

He tries to shake off my grip, but I hold tight. I laugh at the surprise on his face. “I’m a lot stronger than I look.”

“So am I,” he answers. “And I’m not taking you anywhere.”

“Don’t you want to save your beloved luiseach?” I spit. “What I told you about Aidan was true,” I add, before he can object. “He really did keep Sunshine from touching you.”

“How about what you said about protectors and luiseach? Is it true that they can fall in love and be together?”

“It’s rare,” I admit. “But don’t pretend you didn’t know that. You know that the only way to create a luiseach child is with two luiseach parents. If luiseach were constantly falling in love with their protectors, we’d have gone extinct long ago.”

“But you are going extinct,” Nolan says. “That’s what Aidan thinks.”

“And he’s right,” I answer huskily, dragging the boy away toward the parking lot. “At least, he’s right as long as the girl lives. But once she’s gone . . .” I trail off, setting my jaw. Of course I know our numbers were dwindling before the girl’s birth—we were limited by the fact that it takes two luiseach to make one—but at least we were still able to reproduce somewhat!

And some luiseach are better than none.

Without closing my eyes, I search for the strongest nearby spirit: what’s left of a high school athletics star. Its strength pushes Nolan along behind me. “I see it’s going to take a little bit of persuasion to get you to do what I need you to do.”

It doesn’t matter why he wants me at his side when he steps foot onto Llevar la Luz. I’ll be able to go with him even if the only reason he wants me there is to stop the pain.

It’s time to show him just how strong I am.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Focus

W
ith all this nervous energy coursing through my body, the last thing I expect is to fall asleep while I’m waiting for Nolan. But I do. And I dream.

I see Nolan and that girl again. The
normal
girl, with her frizz-free curls and her nonhauntedness. I see them from the back—she’s leading him across a parking lot, but wait . . . her fingers are digging into his arm so deeply that she’s clawing holes in his jacket.

That’s not
normal.
There’s nothing
normal
about that.

Now she’s pulling him down a pinecone-littered street that looks more like a path out of a fairy tale than an actual street in an actual neighborhood. She turns onto a long driveway, dragging him behind her all the time. I’m so far away—floating above them like a disembodied pair of eyes again—that it takes a second for her face to come into focus, like looking through the viewfinder of my old Nikon and adjusting the lens.

If my disembodied pair of eyes had a mouth, this is when it would gasp. If I had legs, this is when they would run to Nolan. If I had hands, they would wrap their way around her fingers and pry her away from him.

I’ve seen her face before.

It’s the face from my nightmares, the dreams that began the first night I slept in this house. This is the woman who stood over me as a helpless infant. The woman who tried to kill me.

When I wake up, I can smell her: lavender and spices.

I thought I’d never want to talk to Aidan again, but instead I’m banging on his door at eleven at night in the pitch-dark hallway. The wood splinters beneath my fist. When Aidan finally opens the door, I see that he’s still fully dressed, but his white shirt is wrinkled, and it looks like he hasn’t slept for days, maybe weeks. His eyes are bloodshot, and the dark circles beneath them are so dark, they look like bruises. How have I never noticed this before? Does he usually hide it somehow? I don’t wait for him to step out into the hallway before I ask, “Did Helena try to kill me?”

Aidan blinks. “What?”

“You said that you insisted that you be the one to eliminate me, remember? But before that—did she try to do it herself?”

“Why are you asking?”

“It’s important!” I try not to shout. I hear Lucio moving around in his bedroom nearby. “Please!” I beg, even louder now, more desperation in my voice.

Slowly, like his head weighs about a thousand pounds, Aidan nods.

“When you started to cry, Helena insisted that Victoria bring you downstairs. She held you close and you stopped crying—you must have smelled her milk. But instead of feeding you, she held you tighter. And tighter still. As though she thought she could squeeze you right out of existence.”

“What?” Aidan and I both spin around and see Lucio standing in his own doorway, wearing nothing but his shorts. “I thought I made that part up. I had nightmares about it for months.”

I should have put the pieces together sooner. Why didn’t I realize that every night I was experiencing exactly what Lucio thought he saw when he was there?

Aidan nods. “I know. Argi and I thought it would be better to hide the truth from you. You were so young.” He steps around me and puts a hand on Lucio’s shoulder. “I’m sorry I lied to you.”

“What happened after that?” I whisper. “How did you stop her?”

Aidan turns back to me. “I had to rip you from her arms.” His grip is tight on Lucio’s shoulder. “I pretended that I
wanted
to do it. That I believed it was the only way I could make amends for the evil I’d let into the world.”

“You thought I was evil?” I pant, no longer sure of what’s truth and what’s fiction.

“Of course not. But I had to convince your mother—”

I know I shouldn’t waste time with interruptions, but I can’t help myself. “Why do you insist on calling her my mother? My real mother has been there for me every day for the last sixteen years. That’s what it means to be a parent. That’s what matters. Helena is not my mother, just like you are not my father!”

Aidan takes a step back as though I slapped him. I ball my hands into fists and bite my lip to keep from apologizing. I shouldn’t feel bad for saying that, not after everything he’s done. I shouldn’t care that his Adam’s apple is working up and down, up and down, almost as if my incredibly composed, never wrinkled, and almost never rattled mentor/father is trying not to cry.

“She would have killed you if I hadn’t convinced her to let me do it.” Aidan’s voice is barely louder than a whisper.

“I know.” I shake my head vigorously, trying to hide the tears springing up in the corners of my eyes. “I saw it.”

“What do you mean?”

I explain that the nightmares started as soon as I moved into this house, as soon as I walked through these halls and breathed in these scents and slept under this roof. Finally I say, “I don’t think they were ever dreams. They were
memories
. Things that happened here, in this house. Which means that what I saw tonight wasn’t just a dream either.” Nolan is still in Ridgemont. Helena is holding him prisoner.

“What did you see tonight?”

“Helena has Nolan,” I answer hoarsely. My heart is pounding nearly as fast as it does when a spirit touches me. “We have to go back to Ridgemont.”

“You should have told me you were having visions.”

“I didn’t know they were visions until tonight. I thought they were just bad dreams!” The desperation in my voice shocks me. “It doesn’t matter anymore. All that matters now is saving Nolan.”

“Of course it matters! I’m trying to understand what your powers are, and now all of a sudden you discover you have a new power, and you think it’s beside the point?”

“It
is
beside the point! We have to save my friend.”

“We’re trying to save the
world
here, Sunshine, not just one person,” Aidan counters wearily. “Don’t you understand that by now?”

Doesn’t he understand that I don’t want to save a world that Nolan might not be a part of?
“Are you going to help me get to Nolan or not?”

“Absolutely not,” Aidan snaps. “I’m not about to hand you over to Helena.”

“Lucio?” I face the boy who said he was my friend. A lump rises in my throat.

“I’m sorry, Sunshine,” he answers. “I’m with Aidan on this one.”

“You’re with Aidan on
every
one!” I turn on my heel and run upstairs. I sit on the edge of my bed until I hear the sound of Aidan’s and Lucio’s bedroom doors clicking shut. Then I grab my bag and tiptoe down to the front door, begging it not to squeak as I pull it open and slip outside.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Trapped

I
t’s drizzling outside, but it’s so hot out that the rain feels like a warm shower. The sky above is covered in clouds, barely giving off any light at all, but I manage to feel my way through the darkness to climb behind the wheel of Aidan’s SUV first. Funny, just a few months ago I was scared to drive from my high school to the hospital, and now I’m prepared to drive from Llevar la Luz to Ridgemont. Or at least to the Mazatlan airport.

“What are you doing?” I look up. Aidan’s white shirt glows in the moonlight, turning see-through as the rain soaks it. His voice sounds tinny and far away through the metal and glass between us.

“I have to get out of here.”

“You
can’t
get out of here. It isn’t safe for you off the property.”

I laugh, but it comes out sounding like a cackle. “It’s not safe on the property either.”

“You won’t get far.”

“Why not?” I adjust my grip on the steering wheel, squeezing it so tightly, I think I could break it.

“Well, for one thing, you don’t have the car keys.”

I lean my head against the wheel. I can’t so much as turn the headlights on. “Fine.” I get out of the car, slamming the door behind me. I slip my backpack over my shoulders and drop my duffle bag on the ground—I can leave it behind. All I really need is my phone and my passport. I walk to Clementine and hop on. The keys are in the ignition.

But before I can turn on the engine, Lucio grabs me and lifts me off the motorcycle with one arm and shoves poor Clementine onto her side with the other so quickly it’s like he has night vision. Still holding me, he kicks in the metallic pipes on the side of the bike with all his might.

“What’s wrong with you?” I shout, struggling against his grip. The rain makes his skin slippery.

“I’m not letting you kill yourself.”

“I’m not trying to kill myself! I’m trying to save my friend.”

“What exactly do you think is going to happen when you come face to face with Helena?” Lucio pants as he kicks the metal at his feet. Finally he lets me go and doubles over, gazing at what’s left of his beloved motorcycle.

“You can’t leave, Sunshine,” he says, his breath ragged.

“I can’t stay,” I counter.

Once more, despite the heat, a cool breeze blows down from the direction of Aidan’s lab, so forceful that the rain starts to fall sideways.

“What’s got them so worked up?” Lucio’s voice is thick with worry.

Despite the darkness, I can see Aidan nod in my direction.

“What are you two talking about?” The wind is whistling now. I have to shout to be heard.

“I think your sensitivity works both ways,” Aidan shouts back. “The same way you feel their emotions, they can feel yours.”

“But I haven’t actually helped any of those spirits move on.”

“Sunshine, at least half the spirits in that lab have come into some sort of contact with you.”

“If that’s true, then how come it’s never happened before?”

The answer is so obvious that Aidan doesn’t have to say it: I’ve never been this upset before.

He turns to Lucio. “We have to get them to calm down before—”

Behind us the mansion seems to groan. I turn around and see that the vines climbing the walls are shifting in the breeze. They look alive.

“Promise me you won’t leave,” Aidan orders.

“I’m not promising you anything.” One of the vines rattles loose, waving in the wind like a loose power line surging with deadly electricity.

“We’re surrounded by the jungle,” Aidan points out rationally. “You wouldn’t get far without help.”

Finally I nod. He’s right about that much.

But that just means it’s time for me to call in reinforcements.

Behind the mansion the breeze whips the leaves from the trees; they fly through the air like snowflakes in a blizzard, sticking to my skin. For once there aren’t any mosquitoes; the wind seems to have blown them all away. It’s so cold, I have to blow on my
hands to keep warm. I shiver, hoping there isn’t anything waiting for me in the darkness: snakes and jaguars and other wild, hungry creatures.

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my
.

Dorothy was just trying to get home too. I pace the woods, using my cell phone as a flashlight, waiting for service to kick in. Mom said she would come and rescue me, but by the time she got here—by the time she booked a flight and switched planes and drove from the airport to Llevar la Luz and then drove us back and onto another plane . . . by then it might be too late. And I have no way of getting out of this godforsaken place myself. It’s not like there’s a highway close by where I can hitchhike my way back to the airport, and it’s not like I would actually get into a stranger’s car anyway—I’m desperate, not stupid. So I call the only friend I have within driving distance. The screen is slippery with rain, but I manage to dial.

“Sunshine?” Ashley asks groggily.

If she needs an express invitation to get here, then I’m going to give her one. “Hey, Ash,” I begin, shouting to be heard over the wind. “Remember the time you said you wanted to spend spring break in Mexico?”