The Lingering Grace (32 page)

It was partly true, which was perhaps why Tony was able to sound so convincing. Danny stared at Eva with a new interest as a bead of drool trickled out the corner of her mouth. An odd combination of relief and fear twisted in Alice’s gut. Tony had successfully diverted Danny’s attention, and she wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a very, very bad thing.

“A witch?” Danny asked, the interest in his voice thinly disguised with a nonchalant shrug. “What does that even mean? I don’t see a kettle. I don’t see a hat.”

With irritation that was definitely real, Tony said, “Don’t be dense. You know exactly what it means. She can do magic. She was trying to bring her sister back from the dead.”

Now Danny wasn’t even trying to act like he didn’t care. His head snapped up. “She can resurrect the dead?”

“How should I know? She didn’t get to finish.”

Danny chewed his bottom lip. He glanced behind him a final time, then leaned in and said quietly, “Look because you’re my brother—and because you’re his girlfriend—I’ll help you out. There’s no way the two of you are gonna be able to get this girl back to her house.”

Alice didn’t contest that, but Tony said angrily, “I can carry a one-hundred-pound girl. I’m not
that
weak.”

Danny looked at him pointedly. “I’m not questioning your manhood. Calm down. I’m just saying you’re not in any state … ”

Tony tried to stand up, failed, and pursed his lips.

Danny, his point proven, continued. “I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. I’ll help you get her home. You can tell her parents you found a kid passed out in front of their house. With any luck, her parents won’t suspect a Good Samaritan. They’ll be thanking you for finding her.”

“And what if they
are
suspicious?” Tony asked.

“What? You don’t look like a criminal. Neither do I.”

It wasn’t like Danny had chains dangling from his torn, baggy pants. In fact, he looked pretty normal—black shirt, dark jeans, tousled hair.

Nothing about him seemed dangerous, but there was a predatory gleam in his eye as he looked down at Eva and back at Alice.

Tony was pulling thoughtfully at his ear lobe, as though considering Danny’s offer. “I don’t want to owe you anything,” he said at last.

Danny’s hand curled; he dug his nails into his pant leg. “I already saved your life once today. Does that not count? You
already
owe me, big time. And all I’m asking is to help you again! If that doesn’t make me a good brother … ”

Tony’s eyes narrowed. “A
good
brother?”

“You heard me.”

Tony exhaled through bared teeth—it made a hissing noise, as though he had a snake in his mouth. “Do you know what makes someone a ‘good’ brother?
Being around to be a brother in the first place
.”

“I wasn’t ignoring you! I was in
jail
, for God’s sake.”

“
Exactly!
”

The brothers’ locked eyes gleamed in the dim light of the graveyard. Both of them were breathing hard. Finally, Danny rolled his eyes and looked away.

Tony muttered, “Jail was a choice.”

Danny made to lunge forward, his fist at the ready but pulled back at the last moment. Alice, who was starting to regain some feeling in her legs, pulled herself up. She swayed, putting her hand on Tony’s shoulder for support.

“Danny,” she said, “if you want to help us get Eva home, great. But I get to drive. If you’re not cool with that, we’ll manage without you.”

Tony looked at her with raised eyebrows, then gestured at Danny. “Alice … ”

She understood what he wasn’t saying. If they all piled into Eva’s car with Danny, he wasn’t strong enough to protect her. Danny could overpower both of them, kidnap Alice and Eva both, and drive them straight into the Seekers’ arms.

But she knew that they couldn’t run away. They couldn’t fight Danny now—alone—in the graveyard. If she were able to get behind the wheel of Eva’s car, even for a minute, she could drive them anywhere. Maybe she could drive them to a police station if she had to. And maybe they would get there before it was too late.

Danny smiled disarmingly. “Tony, I don’t know what you’re so worried about … ”

It was such a lie, such a blatant lie, that Alice finally snapped. What was the point of this ludicrous back-and-forth of thinly veiled threats? They all knew what was really going on. Danny knew that they knew what he really wanted. He knew they were afraid of him, and he knew he had the advantage. There was such a small chance that Alice was getting out of this that the lies were pointless, and, throwing caution to the wayside, she made a move that Danny wasn’t expecting.

“Oh, cut the crap—both of you,” Alice said sharply. Danny’s smile disappeared immediately. Tony had his mouth half open in protest.

“Danny,” she said, “I know you came here to kidnap me.”

He nearly dropped the dart gun. “
What
—”

“No point denying it. I know about your ‘Seekers.’ I know you want to find a way around death and somehow you’ve all gotten it into your crazy heads that I’m some kind of key. That’s why you tried to give me a ride home the other day. Who knows where you’d have taken me if I’d said yes?”

“That’s … insane,” he protested, working up a fairly convincing laugh.

“Alice, what are you doing?” Tony hissed. “You can’t—”

She cut Tony off. “So here’s the offer: You help us bring Eva home and I’ll answer your questions—all of them. I swear. You—the Seekers—whoever—can interrogate me, and then we’ll all go our separate ways. No one gets hurt. No one gets kidnapped because I’m going with you willingly on the condition that you let me go home when I’ve told you everything you know.”

Danny considered her carefully. At first, she thought he would shrug her off a second time and continue to deny everything, but then he thought better of it. In a low voice, he said, “Look. I’m not saying that anything you said is true. But
if
I were in a group like that, and
if
that group chose a location, you’re saying you would meet them there, no questions asked?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“No!” Tony butted in, grabbing Alice’s hand and using it to pull himself to his feet. He hung onto her shoulder and said into her ear, “Not a chance. Alice, if they just wanted to
talk
to you, they would have asked.”

“What are you saying?”

“Yeah, what
are
you saying?” demanded Danny, studying his brother’s face with new suspicion.

Tony turned to face him. “I’m saying there’s no way you and your ‘Seekers’ would just let her walk away.”

“Of course we would,” said Danny, waving off his brother’s accusation with a guffaw. “Where the hell would we keep her?”

“Oh, I don’t know … ” said Tony, with grating sarcasm, “Maybe there’s room at that haunted hotel your cult just bought.”

It took Alice a full ten seconds to process this comment. At first, she just stared blankly at Danny, wondering why his lips were going white. In a matter of seconds, his expression registered shock and anger and finally settled into a flat, pale rage.

Tony’s words replayed in her head as she watched the muscles in Danny’s face tighten and twitch, and in a flash she realized—
the
haunted hotel.
Elizabeth’s
haunted hotel.
Her
haunted hotel. This was the ‘purchase’ Danny had been waiting on, the one Tony had mentioned before. The cult had bought the hotel in Maine. Did they want to take her back there? Why the hell hadn’t Danny just tranquilized both of them already? If the hotel was purchased, then there was no reason for him to wait any longer to kidnap her. Tony’s presence must be the only thing keeping them both safe for the moment. As much as Danny wanted to take her, he didn’t want to shoot his own brother unless he absolutely had to.

She was glad to have Tony’s hand on her shoulder, even if he was relying more on her for support than she was on him. At least it kept her steady—gave her a good reason to stay on her feet. The muted sounds from the distant road made her feel even more isolated and helpless. No one knew she was here and no one was looking for her. A police car, sirens blaring, shot down the street, and Alice nearly cried out, though she knew it was futile.

However, the sounds had an entirely different effect on Tony. He exhaled heavily and straightened. His expression of thinly veiled fear morphed into muted confidence.

“Enlighten me,” demanded Tony, when Danny didn’t reply. “I don’t understand how recreating Alice’s accident would leave her in any condition to go home, but I’m no expert. Why don’t you explain?”

Danny didn’t visibly react to the question, but the words hit Alice like icy knives in her side. Clearly she hadn’t been the only one keeping secrets. How long had Tony known that the Seekers wanted to take her back to the hotel? Would they genuinely try to put her back into a coma? Or would they simply kill her in the course of experimentation?

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she muttered to Tony. If she had known all of this, she wouldn’t have tried to bargain with Danny in the first place. But then again, would she even have had the courage to leave her house if she had known the danger? Abduction was one thing. Murder another. But reliving the horrors she had experienced at that house … there were things she feared even more than death.

Before Tony could answer, Danny spoke, his jaw so tight that his mouth barely opened wide enough to make a sound.

“How long have you known my computer password?” His body was as still as a loaded spring.

“It’s been the same for years. Ever since Marcella. You should have known better than to use a name.”

Danny’s lips curled into a snarl. “You should know better than to pry. Do you have
any
idea what you’ve gotten yourself into?”

It sounded almost like a threat, but Tony was unrepentant. “Do
you
know what you’re into? The Seekers don’t just let people walk away. Once you’re initiated, you don’t turn back. Why do you care so much about living forever anyway? It’s not like your life has been that great so far.”

“
Everyone
wants to live forever.”

“I don’t,” said Tony.

In that moment, Alice was proud of him. She hadn’t thought about living forever before, but Tony had a point. Life was hard. Dying was more of a blessing than a curse—like going to bed at the end of a really, really long day. “Neither do I,” she said, and though her voice lacked his confidence, she meant it.

“You’re idiots, then,” Danny shot back. “No one in their right mind wants to die. I’m joining the Seekers. And I’ll be officially initiated if I bring Alice. You can’t stop me. Hell, maybe I’ll bring Alice
and
this Eva girl. After the last time, I realized I might need to be a little more forceful—” he gestured to the tranquilizer gun “—and I can see I was right. If you’d only gone with me the first time, it wouldn’t have come to this.”

Alice couldn’t believe that he was talking to her as if this were her fault—as if he’d been the kind one, the gentleman of the situation.

“You won’t be taking Alice anywhere,” said Tony. He sounded brave, even though he looked a lot more like a corpse than a force to be reckoned with. Alice didn’t understand how he could sound so confident when a stray gust of wind would probably topple him.

“Don’t be melodramatic. I’m not going to kill my own brother.” He lifted the gun and pointed it at Tony, looping his finger around the trigger. “Though I’m not about to let you stop me, either.”

Tony didn’t budge. Alice’s first instinct was to jump in front of him and shield him from Danny, but what was the point? Danny was probably planning to knock her out anyway and he certainly didn’t care who got a dart in the shoulder first. Tony’s grip on her shoulder was so tight that it sent ripples of pain down her arm. She was sure her heart was going to beat right out of her chest. She looked desperately at Tony, then back at Danny, and did the only thing she could think to do—begged.

“Please, you don’t know what it was like,” she pleaded, “At the hotel—you don’t understand. Being in between like that, not dead and not alive, it was awful. All I could think about was getting out. Even if you could find a way to get there, you would be miserable. I would know.”

Danny shifted and pointed the dart gun at Alice. “You don’t know how lucky you are,” he hissed, “to have a life you would miss. If I could get to your in between place right now, I’d do it. I’d go and I’d stay forever, never die, just be there.”

While Danny spoke, Tony leaned in to whisper in Alice’s ear. “It’s gonna be okay,” he said. She met his eyes and he nodded—not the apologetic nod of someone trying to make the best of a bad situation, but a steady, slow motion that comforted and confused her at the same time. He’d never been this fearless before; she didn’t know whether he had given up and was trying to make the most of things or if he was just delusional. There wasn’t much time to think about it, either way because Danny was continuing to rant, his voice growing louder as he did so.

“I’ve got nothing to live for and nothing to die for either. The in between is the only place for the Seekers and it’s the only place for me. I’m not going to let you hold me back.”