“She’ll be comparing what it’s like with him with how she thought it would be with you. Be honest, Damien—some part of you is just loving that.”
“No.”
Riley looks over at me, watching my face, like there’s even any chance that Pete’s right.
The elevator reaches the top floor. The doors stay closed, and this is it—Pete’s going to drop us again, only I don’t know if he’ll catch us this time, or if the brakes are even still intact enough to save us if he did.
Pete makes a buzzer sound, like when someone gets something wrong on a game show. “Try again. You know the rules—give me the truth this time.”
“You think I’m enjoying this?!”
“The truth, Damien, or you both die!”
I glance over at Riley.
He looks so miserable. He practically spits the words, “Just tell him.” And I hate the way he says it, like he thinks I’m lying.
“I don’t care what you want to hear, Pete! I’ve already told you the truth! And you can kill me if you want, but let Riley go.”
“But just look at his face,” Pete says. “It looks kind of like yours did when you walked in on me and Kat. And I sure as hell enjoyed that—that was pure gold. I wish I’d had a camera.”
I wince at the memory. “That’s you, not me.”
“If that’s your final answer...”
I shut my eyes. I brace myself, even though I know it’s pointless. Thoughts race through my head, of all the things I should tell Riley before we die. But there are too many, and I don’t know what to say, only that if we’re going to die, I don’t want it to be with him hating me.
But then there’s a ding, and the elevator doors slide open.
“Congratulations!” Pete says, in a fake announcer voice. “You’ve made it to our last and final round! And, Damien, I do mean final. Everybody ready? There’s no going back now. You’ve got about five seconds before I drop this elevator. If you want to keep playing, I suggest you get the hell out.”
We dive through the open doors, into a hallway on the top floor, right before the elevator falls.
That could have been us. I glance over at Riley, trying to convey how glad I am that we’re not dead—something I’m pretty sure he can relate to—but he’s too busy taking in our surroundings to notice. Or just pretending to, because he’s ignoring me, since he hates my guts now.
“Welcome to Round Three!” Pete says. “Some of our contestants might remember a little incident that took place here a few months ago. And by some, I mean you, Damien.”
Something twitches on the ceiling. I look up and see a weapon aiming at us.
“Um. Perkins.”
Riley pretends like he doesn’t hear me.
I elbow him.
“What, X?! What do you—” He sees what I’m looking at and shuts up.
“After that ‘little incident,’” Pete goes on, “the building owners decided to up security. Someone died here, after all. They couldn’t look like they didn’t care and do nothing. So they had these little babies installed.”
There are some whirring sounds as a couple more weapons spaced out across the ceiling move to point at us.
“They’re just supposed to burn a little, but that’s not how this game is played. So I cranked them up. Way up. Now, I’m not saying that a blast from one of these will kill you”—he laughs a little as the weapons charge up—“but I wouldn’t want to get hit with one. If I was, you know, still alive.”
Crap.
A green laser suddenly shoots at us.
I duck just in time. Riley turns invisible. He doesn’t cry out or anything, so I assume he also got out of the way.
“Invisibility, huh?” Pete says. A couple of the lasers aim toward what looks like empty space. “Good thing these security cameras can see IR.”
“Perkins, watch out!”
The lasers fire. Riley turns visible again as he scrambles out of the way.
“What the hell, Pete?!” I shout at the ceiling. “What are you—”
I jump to one side as another laser fires at me. I look over at Riley, and this time he actually makes eye contact. Neither of us has to say anything. We just start running.
Pete’s voice follows us down the hall and into the main room of the office, playing across intercoms and out of computers on people’s desks. “See, now, I’m such a good friend that I remembered how much you hate stairs. Think you can get down all seventy-six flights? Think you can get down even one?”
A laser barely misses us, singeing the wall next to me instead. And no, there’s no way in hell I could get down that many flights of stairs, even on a good day. One where I hadn’t just been dropped in an elevator, and where I didn’t also have lasers flying at me. I mean, maybe there aren’t lasers in the stairwell, but I kind of doubt it. Pete sounds way too happy about all this for that to be true, like he’s got me right where he wants me.
“Oh, and, Damien? The police are here. They’re only on the first floor, but even if you make it that far in one piece—which, let’s face it, you won’t—they’ll be waiting to arrest you.” He laughs like that’s the funniest thing ever.
Riley shoves me out of the way as another laser almost hits us. We duck behind a wall that separates the main part of the office from the bathrooms, resting for a second as we try to catch our breath. My arm kind of hurts where Riley shoved me, and even though he saved me from getting burned by a laser, I think maybe he didn’t have to push so hard.
He looks me over, like he’s summing me up and I’m coming up short. “That’s a lot of stairs,” he says.
What he means is, there’s no way I can make it. Not like I needed him to tell me that. I shake my head. “We’re not... Pete wants us going down them.”
“So he can shoot at us the whole way. And if we don’t get killed, we get arrested.” Riley scowls at me, as if he can’t believe I got him into this.
Technically, he’s the one who said we should come down here, but I don’t bring that up.
Pete’s voice echoes out across all the computers. “When are you going to get it? You can’t hide from me.”
Lasers blast against the wall right next to our heads.
We keep running.
“We can’t do what he wants,” I tell Riley. “We’re not going down those stairs.”
“And you want to do what? Stay here?!”
A laser grazes the edge of his coat, leaving a singe mark.
“The roof,” I whisper, in between breaths. Just the thought of it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. “We’re going to the roof.”
“We’re what?!”
“Believe me, it’s the last place I want to go. But it’s—”
“No whispering!” Pete shouts. A laser hits the heel of my shoe and sends me sprawling. It doesn’t hurt—the laser doesn’t, anyway; my chin hitting the floor is another story—but it leaves my foot way too warm.
I roll out of the way of another blast that’s aimed at my face. It all happens really quickly, and then Riley’s grabbing my arm and pulling me to my feet.
My heart’s racing. I could be wrong about this, and if my plan doesn’t work... “Think about it,” I tell Riley, trying to keep my voice down. “He talks to us through speakers. He sees us with the security cameras.”
Understanding washes across Riley’s face. “There won’t be any of those on the roof.”
And no lasers. At least, I hope not. “Either we get a break, or—”
“He’ll have to show himself.”
I mime blasting someone with my hands. Not that I’m crazy about actually seeing Pete, or about having to face him head on without knowing if I can really zap him or not, but at least then we’d have a chance. Running for our lives is getting old, and it’s only a matter of time before one of us gets blasted for reals. And I didn’t survive that night here seven months ago just so Pete’s freaking ghost could come back and finish the job.
“What’s that?” Pete says. He must have
noticed my hand gesture. “What did you just say to him?!”
We turn a corner into the hallway with the roof access door. I don’t know if Pete’s figured out what our goal is, or if he’s just still trying to kill us in general, but four lasers fire in a row at the ground ahead of us, forcing us back.
“It’s not going to work,” Riley says. “He knows.”
If that’s true, it means Pete doesn’t want us going up there. And that’s a good enough reason for me to make sure we do. “Look, Perkins, this is our—”
Another blast separates us, aimed to try and get us to turn around.
“This is our only chance, so come on!”
I make a run for it. I don’t look back to see if Riley’s coming with me.
A laser hits the doorknob right as I reach for it. I pull my hand back, but then, before Pete can fire again, I grab the knob. It’s too hot, and for a second I think it’s not going to turn, that it’s locked.
Riley grabs my shoulder, pulling me out of the way of a blast to the head. I grab the knob again, and this time it turns.
We hurry through the door, shutting it behind us, and I don’t think I’ve ever been this glad to see a flight of stairs.
Chapter 7
IT’S WINDY AND RAINY and dark up on the roof. After running for my life, I was getting too hot, but now I pull my sleeves down over my hands.
It took me way too long to get up the stairs, even though there weren’t that many of them. And maybe I wasn’t too sorry to have a break between getting shot at and possibly fighting a ghost, but Riley being mad at me didn’t make it any easier. It kept seeming like he was going to say something, only he didn’t, and finally he stomped up to the landing at the top of the stairs to wait for me, like he didn’t even want to be near me anymore.
And yeah, I probably deserved that, but it still sucked. Riley came here with me because he’s my friend—because he was, anyway—and all he got for it was having that friendship thrown in his face. Not to mention that there’s still a pretty big chance we’re both going to end up dead.
“Well, Pete?!” I shout at the empty rooftop. “Show yourself!”
We stand there, waiting, but nothing happens. My eyes adjust a little to the darkness, but I don’t see anything. Nothing besides the roof, anyway. And the housing for the stairwell we just came out of. The same one Pete had Kat tied to that night. I shudder and try to push away the memory, but my mind goes there anyway. Was this the spot I was standing in when Pete handed me that knife? When he wanted me to hurt her? And the ledge on the far side, behind us... That’s where I jumped from.
“X,” Riley says, his voice hard to hear over the wind, “are you okay?”
And over there is where Sarah pushed Pete. He fell off the roof, but he caught himself, and I was still under mind control. He was going to make me save him, and then he was going to kill us all. If my mom hadn’t gotten here, if she hadn’t stopped him...
“This is where it happened,” I tell Riley. “Pete died here.” And no, I’m definitely not okay. Besides reliving everything that happened that night, I feel like my feet are frozen in place, like if I take even one step in any direction, I’m going to go hurtling to my death. “Ghosts are supposed to return to the scene of the crime, right? So where is he?”
We’re silent for a second. Cold rain whips my face and soaks into my hair and my sweatshirt.
“I don’t think he’s going to show,” Riley says. “Maybe he can’t.”
“Come on.” The rain speeds up and the wind howls right as I say that, drowning out my words.
“What?!” Riley shouts.
“Come on!” I motion for him to follow me back to the stairwell. My stomach twists up as soon as I decide to move, and suddenly I feel like I’m falling. I’m still on solid ground—I know that—but my body remembers what it was like to plummet through the air from up here. The way the pavement rushed up to meet me, and—
I flinch as Riley grabs my arm, bringing me out of it.
We make it to the stairwell. I lean against the wall once we’re inside, keeping to the far side of the landing, and suck in my breath while Riley pushes the door shut. Cold water trickles down the back of my neck and under my shirt.
“What now?” Riley says.
I look around, double-checking that Pete can’t see us. If there were lasers or speakers in here, Pete would have used them already, and I don’t see any cameras.
I get out my phone.
Riley’s eyebrows come together. “What are you doing?”
“Calling Sarah.”
He glares at me.
“Maybe she can help.” It’s not like I’m calling her to have phone sex, which, judging by the look on his face, is what he must be assuming.
Sarah answers after a couple rings. She sounds a little out of breath. “Damien, this better be an emergency. I was in the middle of hanging up all the spider webs.”
“It’s, um, not an emergency,” I lie.
“Then I’ll— Wait, where are you? It sounds kind of echo-y. Where’s Riley?”
“He’s here. Look, Sarah, this isn’t an emergency, but it’s really important. We need you to settle something for us.”
“Whatever it is, we can talk about it later. At seven fifteen. I still have a bunch of stuff to do, so—”
“Sarah. Don’t hang up.” It’s hard to convey how serious I am about that without also sounding like our lives are in danger. Which they are, of course, but I figure Sarah doesn’t need to know that part. “Say there was a ghost. How would it, uh... How would it exist?”
“It wouldn’t. Ghosts aren’t real.”
“I know, but hypothetically.”
“If it was controlling an electrical system,” Riley adds.
“Controlling an electrical system? Hmm.” Sarah considers that. Then she says, “What’s this for again?”
“Trivia night,” I tell her.
“Aren’t those usually at bars? You guys don’t even have fake I.D.s like I told you to get. And how is this trivia?”
Riley holds out his hand for my phone. I hesitate, but I guess the trust thing works both ways. I hand it to him, and he puts it on speaker phone. “We’re playing an RPG. A tabletop one. There’s a ghost that’s haunting Damien, and we’re trying to figure out how to get rid of it.”
“And it’s controlling an electrical system?”
“Of an office building,” I say.
“What rule system?”
“Reality,” Riley says, wincing at how stupid that sounds.
Sarah’s skeptical. “Reality? As in, real life?”
“Yep,” I tell her. “It’s one of those weird discount ones Zach got at that used book store.”
“Well, in reality ghosts don’t exist.”
“Okay,” Riley says, “but if one did? I mean, maybe someone who experienced a violent death or something?”
I can practically hear her rolling her eyes. “That’s only on TV. There’s no scientific basis for that to happen.”
I take a deep breath. “But there is a ghost here. And he—it—died a violent death. And now it’s messing with the electrical system of this building.”
“You guys are taking this game way too seriously.”
“But just, hypothetically, if that was the situation...”
Sarah’s quiet for a few seconds. “Okay, maybe—and this is a really big maybe—if someone had a superpower like Pete’s—”
“Whoa, Sarah. Who said anything about Pete?” I exchange a nervous glance with Riley.
“I did. It would make sense. Pete could broadcast signals, right? So if someone had a power like that and they were using it when they died, then maybe it would be possible for, like, an echo of them to be imprinted into the electrical system. Not in real life, of course, but hypothetically, for this weird game you’re playing... it could work.”
A tiny bit of relief washes over me, even though I still have no idea how we’re getting out of this alive. “Great, Sarah. An
d how would we defeat it?”
“Well... If it’s in the electrical system, you need to burn out the wiring.”
“So, what? I can just zap a coffeemaker, and we’re home free?”
“Zap?” Sarah says. “Are you playing yourself?”
“Kind of.”
“The whole point of a role-playing game is to play a role.”
“When you’re already perfect, why change? And anyway, Riley’s the one who still chose invisibility.”
He smacks my arm.
“You guys have no imagination,” Sarah says. “You’re like when people go as themselves for Halloween.”
“Uh-huh. So, we’re sitting here playing this game as ourselves, and the rules of reality apply. How do I burn it out?”
“If it’s in the whole building, then you need to burn out the whole building. But zapping it isn’t going to work. You’d have to draw a bunch of power through a main line.”
“Okay, that’s— Wait, I can do that?”
She sighs. “It’s your game, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Oh, my God. Do you smell that?”
“Through the phone? No.”
“My cookies! They’re burnt! They were supposed to look like little ghosts with cute expressions, and now they look like they all died in a fire. And are really happy about it.” Her voice fades a little as she shouts away from the phone. “Dad! You were supposed to be on cookie duty! Now is not the time to take a shower!” And then, back to us, “I have to go. I’ll see you guys later.”
“But, Sarah—”
She hangs up.
I slip my phone into my pocket. We should probably get going, now that we have some idea of how to stop Pete. We should at least, like, discuss our plan. But neither of us says anything, or moves to leave, and Riley’s got that look on his face like he’s pissed at me and has something to say about it. His fists are clenched, and he opens his mouth, then closes it again, like he doesn’t even know where to start.
“Let me make it easier for you, Perkins. I’m a selfish, manipulative bastard, just like Pete said, and you hate me and can’t believe you were ever even friends with me. Does that about sum it up?”
The Haunting of Renegade X Page 5
