by Ami Urban
“I’m not a random stranger and that wasn’t a hallucination.”
“I was afraid of that…” She tottered on her feet. “There’s no way I’m getting out of this, is there?”
Chapter Twelve
“There’s no way I’m getting out of this is there?” I muttered to myself as I stared out the window of my last period class.
When I’d run into Katie that afternoon, my heart had almost stopped.
She looked so beautiful. Even more beautiful than I remembered. Her hair was shorter—darker. I knew she was the same sixteen-year-old girl, but somehow she seemed…older.
And what had just happened in the street was still reeling through my mind.
I’d seen it before—hundreds of times. People died. I helped them. It was the way of the world.
But when Serena stepped into the street in front of a bus, I felt sick. When the front end made contact with her fleshy body, all I saw were the red droplets spray across the yellow paint. I wasn’t sure if she’d gone under it or if the bus had completely eliminated her body.
And when one of her stunned friends screamed, I woke up.
Once time corrected itself, I watched Katie speak to her. Kevin came out, trying to be the hero, and then they all went inside.
I stayed put.
I wasn’t sure how long I sat there, just watching the segment of parking lot where blood had pooled only moments before.
“What the hell have you done, Martin?”
I turned to find Kevin Carter stalking into the classroom. I smirked and leaned against the empty teacher’s desk.
“What’s the matter? Did I cause your control to slip?” Somehow, he looked even angrier when I mocked him.
He shut his eyes for a moment. Maybe he was counting to ten.
When he opened them again, he sighed, pushing a hand through his hair. “I told you not to push her.”
It was my turn to get mad. I opened my mouth to give him a piece of my mind, but was interrupted by an unfamiliar voice.
“Don’t worry. He didn’t tell her who he was, Kevin.”
I turned and stared into the dark face of a stranger. He offered me a half-smile—the most sarcastic thing I’d ever seen.
I blew him off and looked back at Kevin.
“Who’s that?” I demanded. “And where did he come from?”
“He’s Julian. What did you tell Katie?”
I shrugged, blowing out a sigh.
“I welcomed her, and told her my name. You’re right, she doesn’t remember me.”
“Of course I was right! And I thought we decided the best way to keep her safe on her first assignment was that you go home and stay out of the way!”
“You decided that! I didn’t agree on anything!”
“So, what? You just decide to…influence the entire school into thinking you’ve been going here like a normal student?”
I turned somber. “Yeah. It was Irish Moses’ idea. I didn’t know how the school would react to two exchange students at once…for the same amount of time.”
“I can imagine this ploy is taking a lot of your energy.”
I turned toward the stranger again. How dare he butt into our private conversation! “Who are you again?”
“I told you his name already,” Kevin said.
“If I wanted his name, I would have asked. He’s the same guy I saw at the airport and I have a sinking suspicion he was spying on Katie and me this afternoon. I want to know what he’s doing with you guys.”
“Sorry, that information is classified,” Julian said. “All I can give you is my name; Julian no-last-name.”
Sucking in a breath, I eyed him hard, then glared at Kevin. “You think I’m an idiot, don’t you?”
He sighed, scrubbing a hand across his forehead as Julian suppressed a giddy cackle.
“Look, if you really want to help Katie, you need to stay away from her.”
“Says who?! You need to let me be with her. If I talk to her, she’d remember me. It might take some time, but I can make it happen.”
“Julian.” Kevin gestured to the stranger behind me.
“Of course.” He straightened himself as though he were a tie and cleared his throat. “If you don’t cooperate with us, I’m afraid I’ll be forced to tether you.”
I narrowed my eyes, huffing out a sigh. Who was this guy and why was he making threats he couldn’t possibly execute.
“Tether me? You couldn’t tether me if you tried. Only wraiths and one other being can tether people, and if you—” I shut my mouth, falling back against the desk. I looked around at my former teacher again, whose face was solemn. “He’s Death?!”
“Charmed.”
“What the hell is Death doing in this dimension? In this state?” I turned and poked a finger into his shoulder. He was very solid.
“Hey, now!” He rubbed the spot. “This body bruises like a peach!”
“You don’t say…” I eyed him with suggestion.
“Make him stop looking at me that way, Kevin!”
“Guys, enough,” Kevin said. “Martin, we don’t want to be forced to pin you to another dimension, so please just do this favor for us. Do it for Katie.”
“Before I agree to anything…” It was time I put my foot down. “You need to know that I would die for Katie. I would give up my soul in a second if I knew it would make her happy.
“I won’t push her, but you better not let your guard down, because the minute you step away from her, I’ll swoop in. I don’t care what Death incarnate over here thinks he can do to me.”
“Think?” Julian huffed. “I don’t think I can do anything. I actually can tether you.”
I smirked. “Not unless you want my guardian wraith to do the same to you.”
“Guardian wraith?”
“Martin’s soul is owned by a wraith,” Kevin said. “He sold it to save some woman he was involved with.”
I slammed my hand down on the desk. “Don’t even go there! You have no idea why I did what I did! I’d do it again, too, if I had the chance!”
He put up his hands in defense. “Sorry...I won’t mention it again.”
I shook my head.
“Martin…” My name sounded foreign coming from Julian’s mouth.
I didn’t like it.
“I could tether you to a dimension in which your guardian wraith you never locate you. Trust me; I don’t want to be forced to take those measures.”
I stared into his bluish-gray eyes that held nothing in them but mischief. But at that moment, they seemed sincere.
I sat on the edge of the desk and raked a hand through my sandy hair. “I have one condition.”
“Martin...”
“I won’t push her. I won’t even try to remind her of who I am. But I will not stay away from her. We go to the same school. You can’t keep us apart forever.”
Kevin swallowed. Then, he shook his head, sighing. “All right. But I’ll be keeping an eye on her. If you step out of line, I won’t hesitate.”
“She doesn’t need a guardian, you know. She can handle herself.”
Kevin stayed silent.
“In the meantime, what am I supposed to do about Serena? If he finds out that I haven’t even spoken to her, I could get in big trouble,” I said.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. If need be, I’ll find a way for you and Katie to take turns.”
“Man...I feel like a puppet.” I sighed.
“All the world’s a stage!” Julian lifted his arms dramatically.
Chapter Thirteen
“I was on a big stage...” Serena’s hands shook.
I felt so sorry for her. I wanted to go over and throw my arms around her, but I figured she probably wasn’t the “hugging” type.
Instead, I watched her from my station at the teacher’s desk in the front of the classroom, waiting for her to require said hug—which wasn’t very probable.
She’d hardly uttered a word since the incident
. Even when I sat her down and had given her time, the magnitude of her situation wasn’t going to be easy.
But when she finally said something, she was reliving the moments between dimensions.
And it all made sense.
And it all made me so very sad for her.
Her rendition of Purgatory was being on a big stage. She’d gone through hell with that flopped CD in England, and they made her relive it.
“Go on...” I encouraged her.
My heart wanted to go to her, but my feet refused to move. So, I just stood in the corner, watching her.
“It was huge. It was empty. No one was there. Whatever was beyond the stage was utterly black. I couldn’t see into the crowd, but I knew they weren’t there, anyway. All I could do was stand there in the center under the bright light, waiting for the music to start, but it never did. The speakers and instruments were silent...”
I felt a tiny pull of envy in my stomach. I didn’t get anything to play with when I was in Purgatory.
“That’s when it happened...”
I cleared my throat, releasing my daydreams to the wind. “When what happened?”
“Me mate’s guitar starting talking to me.”
I raised an eyebrow.
When I’d died, the afterlife beings had taken the form of an old friend of mine so I wouldn’t “go mad”—their words, not mine.
But seeing a guitar speak to me...I don’t know, I would have thought that would land me in the nearest institution by my own hand.
“You didn’t find that odd?” It was a dumb question, but sue me; I was new to the whole assignment thing.
When she shook her head, I almost judged her sanity right then and there.
“No. It happened to me once before when I took acid.”
I did my best to hold in my hum of disapproval. It came out as a half-cough instead. She didn’t seem to notice.
“But that was only once, and I never did it again. So, I knew something was weird about this. And then the things it was sayin’ was...not right.”
“What did it say?” I leaned a hip against the desk.
“Well, first it told me I was brown bread.” She snorted—kind of a half-sniffle, half-laugh.
“What?”
“Dead... It means dead.”
“Did you know you were dead?”
“Well, me heart wasn’t beatin’, so I assumed the worst, yeah?”
I nodded. “Same thing happened to me.”
“You?!” She twisted in her seat to look at me. “Come sit down, you’re makin’ me jittery.”
I obliged her, lowering myself into a chair.
“You’re dead, too?”
“It’s a long story. I’ve actually died twice. The first time, they gave me a second chance like they’re giving you. But the second time...they said they made a mistake. So, I’m alive,” I explained.
“Some of us get all the luck.” She crossed one skinny leg over the other.
I offered a polite smile.
“Keep going. What happened after the...guitar said you were dead?”
“Well, it told me it wasn’t really a guitar, which was sort of a dumb thing to say, because I already knew it wasn’t one. And when I asked it where I was, it said I was between existences.
“It explained this whole bleeding story about how when people die, they go onto the next dimension. They said souls go there, but the body dies. They told me people only pass on if they’ve achieved an ultimate goal.
“Do I look like some bleeding git who hasn’t achieved anything?” Her gray eyes were ablaze.
I wasn’t sure if the question was rhetorical, so I stayed silent.
She sighed and pulled one hand through her hair. Shaking out her blond locks, she adjusted in her seat.
“Of course they had an answer to that, too. They said there was something I needed to do to pass on.”
“How much time did they give you?” I’d finally dredged up enough courage to place a hand on her arm. She was shaking like crazy, pulling away in an instant.
“Only until Saturday!”
“That’s it?” I sputtered before I could suppress the words.
“Why, how long did they give you?”
“Uh...a month...”
She straightened her back, her eyes rolling toward the ceiling.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” After shaking her head, she reached down for her purse, plopped it in her lap, and fished around.
“I can’t believe this is happening to me! After all I’ve done! I was half-expectin’ them to tell me I was goin’ to hell!”
“There is no hell.” I said.
“Yeah, now they tell me! If I’d have known that growin’ up, I woulda done a lot more stuff, I’ll tell you!”
“It’s kind of ironic, isn’t it?” I watched her become more flustered as a package of tissues fell out.
“If you’d have known there wasn’t a hell, you may never be in this situation—needing a second chance, I mean.”
“If I’d only been so lucky. Where the bloody hell is my prescription?!”
“Can I help?”
“Doubtful. I’ve got anxiety. Somewhere in this bottomless pit, I’ve got a prescription,” she said.
Part of me couldn’t help but wonder if the prescription really was for anxiety, but I kept my thoughts in a neat pile at the back of my brain. This was no time to judge her. After all, she had less than a week to live!
At last, she pulled an orange bottle from her purse, popped the top in record time, and shook two pills into her hand.
Then, without a second thought, she tossed back her head and downed them without water.
“That’s better...” She sighed, allowing her heart to slow before she continued. “They told me about you.”
I gave her a look. “Really? What did they say?”
She studied my face as if it were the first time she’d seen it.
“They just said I’d be helped by a friendly stranger. They said you’d tell me everything I need to know.”
“Well, that was uncharacteristically nice of them. They didn’t tell me anything about the person who helped me. I had to find out the hard way.” I submitted to a tiny chuckle at hazy memories still trying to sort themselves out in my brain.
“What’s the hard way?” She leaned her elbows on the desk.
“I spent two weeks on my own—without a guide. I didn’t find out who he was until Christmas—”
“Wait a tick! You got a bloke? That doesn’t seem fair! Oh...but I bet you had quite a time with him, yeah?” She winked.
My face flushed. “No! He was my teacher!”
“So?”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Wait...don’t tell me you died a...virgin?” She seemed disgusted and intrigued at the same time.
I wrinkled my nose. “When did this conversation become about me?”
“You did?! Bollocks, that’s terrible.”
She sat back against her seat and crossed her arms. “At least I won’t have that under me. How old are you?”
“Sixteen.”
“Ah, you’re still young—” so was she… “—But I imagine you’ve done it since, right?”
“Can we get back to you, please?”
Her eyes widened. “Ooh-kay. Consider it logged. I won’t ask you about your nonexistent love life again.”
“Anyway...” I gave my head a gentle shake. “I am here to help you. Now, they told you that you can’t tell anyone, right?”
She nodded.
“Okay, well, I know this sounds like a crappy deal, but I have to go everywhere with you to make sure you don’t.”
“Nuh?!”
“Sorry, it’s true. I share all your classes, and we have to convince your friends to like me.”
“Yeah, that’ll go over well,” she said.
“The other thing is... I want to go over this with you so you know what to expect. There are these things called wraiths.”
“Wraiths? I heard of them before. They’re real?”
I sucked in a breath. “It’s a hugely convoluted story...”
From there, I explained everything to her. I went over wraiths, their quest for rare souls, what rare souls were, and that I had one. She was super polite through the whole thing, just listening and nodding at the right moments. When I was done, she had her chin resting on her knees—she’d pulled them to her chest while I was talking.
“So, does that mean I’m a Siren or a Banshee?” she asked.
“Not all singers are Sirens or Banshees. I doubt you have a rare soul, because I’m told I’d be notified in that case. And there probably won’t be tons of wraiths after you.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well... Don’t take this the wrong way, but pure souls and rare souls are worth a lot. I only had a couple of wraiths after me, but they tried really hard. A few may come after you because you’re more willing to give them your soul—seeing as you’re going to die. But, I wouldn’t be too worried.”
She actually laughed at that. “Yeah, I’ve lived pretty hard. Just another reason why this whole thing seems...ironic, as you say.”
A knock sounded at the classroom door, startling us. I shot her a don’t-worry-it’s-okay smile and stood.
When I opened it, Kevin and Julian poured in. They looked as if they’d been talking about something, and then clammed up as soon as they saw me.
Everyone knows the look: awkward glances at the person being talked about, then an exchange between the two who had done the talking.
“Where have you guys been?” I folded my arms over my chest. “I had to explain everything to Serena myself.”
Kevin’s gaze slid from me to the desk where she sat.
“Sorry, we lost track of time.”
He swept past me, leaving Julian sporting that suggestive smile at me.
I rolled my eyes and went back to the desk, where my former teacher was coddling Serena.
“Are you all right, Serena?”
She nodded.
“Sorry to run out on you before. I’m here to help you and Katie.”
She stood, dropping her chin halfway to her chest and eyeing him through her lashes.
“Really?” She inspected him in detail. “So you’re the hunky guide Katie’s been talkin’ about?”
