by Eden Maguire
Summer, it's going to be OK,' I whispered, until Hunter bent over us, his wings spread wide like a shelter, and made me release her.
You have to fol ow him!' he urged. 'Go, Darina!'
Angel-me eased Summer on to the floor, took a second to lift her hair clear of her shoulders so as not to get it bloody, and to smooth her skirt. Then I was up and running after the kil er, who sprinted past the music store towards the exit, past dozens of cowering shoppers. I saw his back
view - the slight frame, the dark clothes, and one time a glimpse of his thin face with the aviator shades when he glanced over his shoulder to check if he was being fol owed.
This time he was, though he didn't know it.
I flew after him down the marble slope, out through the main exit.
He was on the street, sprinting towards the car park next to a gas
station, looking over his shoulder. I was faster, gaining on him though he couldn't see me. I could hear the soft thud of his sneakers on the sidewalk, his dry, grating breaths.
People took one look at the gun in his hand and pressed themselves to
the wal , and this was when Hunter stepped in. I felt him overtake me in a rush of beating wings - they were more powerful than the kil er's fastest 1 55
sprint. Soon Hunter was ahead, blocking his way. He put out one hand to stop him in his tracks.
The gunman ran smack into the invisible barrier and went reeling backwards. He lost his gun as he sprawled on the ground, then rol ed and tried to get up.
Hunter stood back and left the rest to me.
I grabbed the gun from the sidewalk. I stamped hard on the kil er's wrist, pinned him down and heard him yelp. Then I fel to my knees and ripped off that white cap, took off the shades and flung them aside.
His hair was the colour of straw. There was a bruise-coloured birthmark under the left eye.
JakB had hung himself in theJanitor's storeroom. He left a note, which I found folded neatly and propped against the seat of the grass-cutter.
Not so much a note more a picture of a heart with an arrow through and initials at either end: SM and JB. The drawing was intricate, in the style of a tattoo artist, so that the heart looked 3-D, with a velvety sheen. Underneath the drawing he had scrawled a spidery, almost il egible message, as if al his attention had gone into making the drawing and
now he was out of time. Reunited, it read. Then something that sounded
biblical: In their deaths they were not divided.
My hand was shaking, I was ready to throw up as I backed out of the store.
The memory of JakB's dead face, mottled and distorted, wil stay with me for ever.
'Darina?' Ezra's voice was growing louder. Three figures came running Ezra, Parker and the janitor.
From outside the storeroom the janitor saw the bottom half of JakB's hanging corpse. He reached for his cel phone and cal ed nine-one-one. Parker turned away, he bent forward and threw up on the grass. Ezra let out a gasp, like someone had punched him in the stomach.
Hunter had dragged angel-me back here from my time travel. It felt 156
like I had a hand around my throat, choking me. I struggled for breath, my head was stil in that dark tunnel, my body was stil on the rack. The last thing I remembered clearly was staring down at Summer's kil er's face and seeing the purple birthmark behind the aviator shades.
'We need paramedics, we need the cops,' the janitor jabbered into his phone.
Parker was stil retching loudly.
The swinging rope rasped against the metal bar from which the noose was suspended. JakB's feet were splayed out like a fish tail.
As Ezra lifted his hand to tip his glasses further up the bridge of his nose, I reached out and took them clean away.
'What ...?' He tried to grab them back.
I hid them behind my back, twisted them and snapped them in two.
Ezra's eyes widened as they met mine. What did he see there? Did he know right then that I knew?
Sorry, I don't know what I was thinking,' I gasped, showing him the
broken shades. Events were racing on the paramedics and the cops were on their way, Parker had finished retching and the janitor was saying for us not to touch a thing. 'I have a spare pair of shades. They're in my bag. I left it in the theatre.'
He took his wrecked pair from me, looking like he might cry. You never saw Ezra without his shades, never saw that disfiguring mark that Rorschach blotch that, to me, had a weird, angel-wing similarity.
'I can get them for you,' I volunteered. 'I'l show you.'
Don't go anywhere,' the janitor warned me. 'You're the main witness.'
'I'l be five minutes,' I promised. 'Come on, Ezra.'
He fol owed me across the car park, in through the main door of the theatre. I reckoned correctly that, to him, covering his birthmark mattered more than anything.
We were in the empty auditorium, minus daylight, feeling our way down the broad central aisle and up the steps on to the stage. Dimly lit signs above the doors showed the side exits. 157
'I guess it was the shock,' I explained. 'Maybe I was trying to grab your hand for something to hold on to.'
'Whatever,' Ezra mumbled. He seemed calm and in his element, up on the stage with me, surrounded by snaking cables, microphones and lights. With the toe of his sneaker he clicked a switch on the floor which brought on a solitary overhead spot.
My bag is in a locker next to the girls' dressing-room.' Keep a grip, don 't look scared. I faked a smile - I actual y managed to do that.
'Honestly, Ezra, I like you better without your glasses.'
His hand went up to the purple mark.
'You don't even notice,' I assured him. 'Believe me.'
'You say that,' he muttered. 'But people stare.' 'Not in a bad way.'
'Yes, in a bad way. Kids in kindergarten used to point or sometimes they total y freaked out.'
'Not now we're older.' Dipping into my pockets, I acted out a search for the locker key. Failing to find it, I stopped by the water fountain to fil a plastic cup. 'Everyone has something they're ashamed of. Take Logan he hated that he had curly hair.'
Mention of Logan's name made Ezra put his hand up to cover the mark he real y couldn't stop himself.
I took a sip of water, inched forward with the pressure. Don't freak him out, push him slowly, slowly ...
'And Logan hated that he was jealous.'
'What about?' The hand dropped from the mark. Ezra looked hungry for more.
'About everything.' I shrugged. I was doing it - putting on the act, hiding my terror. 'I'l tel you something - Logan had a huge crush on me. He was jealous of everything and everyone who came within half a mile.'
'Do you miss him?'
'Some.' Forgive me, Logan. I hope you understand. 'He was jealous
of you, Ezra. Did you know that? Yeah, course you did - you two had 158
that fight.'
We stood under the spotlight, Ezra and me. I carried on fly-fishing, casting my line to hook him.
'Logan said for me to back off,' Ezra admitted. 'He said no way would you notice me.'
'Like I said - he could get crazy with jealousy. But honestly, I never
felt that way about him.'
'So he was wrong? Should I have let you know the way I felt?'
Look Ezra in the eye. Light-brown, honey-coloured eyes set shal ow in their sockets with drooping upper lids, the dead-straw hair spiking straight up from his forehead, thin cheeks, a heavy underlip mis-matching the thin, wide upper one. His bottom lip was pulpy and moist.
'Yeah, 'cos what am I - a mind-reader?' I actual y joked. But then again, I guess I picked up the signals. So there was total y no need for you two guys to fight.'
'Logan acted like he was Mr Big and he made me mad.' Suddenly Ezra was feeling safer with me, walking across the stage to tidy some cable into a neat coil, then coming back under the light. 'He said I should back off, you were too good for me. Why did he need to say that?'
'How come?'
'You did back off. In fact, I heard you cal ed me some mean names.' Another sip of water, another step towards gaining Ezra's trust.
'Sure - that was because I didn't get you like I'd planned. But I got him.'
'You got him?' I know, I absolutely know what you're about to tel me!
The light was hot and intense. It narrowed the pupils in Ezra's staring eyes until they were al honey-coloured iris. 'They told me there would be payback time with Logan, even if it took a while. They said it doesn't matter how long you have to wait there wil come a time.'
His soft red lip shone with spittle; beads of sweat appeared on his
forehead and cheeks. I listened without even asking what he meant by 1 59
'they'.
'They're always right. I mean - they see things from the outside, they employ a perfect rationality, which a guy like me appreciates. They figured sooner or later Logan would put himself in a position where he was vulnerable, where I wouldn't have to do hardly anything.'
I had stopped breathing. I struggled to suppress a scream rising tip into my throat.
'It happened. The night of the storm out at Foxton. Logan said something else that made me mad like, I had to quit even thinking about you, Darina.'
'Oh!' I sighed. Ezra misinterpreted it as a signal to move in close. He
put his arm around my waist and stepped me back out of the circle of light like two dancers about to waltz.
'Logan had no right,' he whispered in my ear. 'That's when I made my plan to get out of that cabin and lie in wait. Sure, it was dark, but that was good. Plus the rain and the wind al good.'
'You waited for Logan to leave the cabin?'
Ezra put his cheek against mine. He gripped me tighter around the waist so that I lost hold of the cup and water spil ed down the front of Ezra's T-shirt. 'It was more than luck that he came out and drove off in his car it was meant to be.'
'They told you that?' He stepped me across the stage in the dancehold, breathed me in, swung me round.
'Fate, they said. I fol owed him as far as the track went. Logan didn't even see me, something crazy was happening to him out there in that storm.'
He was taking care of me. He gave his life. My legs went weak. I
relied on Ezra to hold me up.
'A11 good, al good,' he chanted, his lips on my cheek. 'Wind and rain. No moon or stars. Christ knows what he was searching for.'
Me! Me!
'So easy,' Ezra breathed, relaxing his hold. 'Logan reached a ledge, the edge of the world. -Push!" they told me. And I did.'
160
I needed to sit down. My legs col apsed under me and I dropped to the
lfoor. I was in an empty theatre with a double kil er. The guy fol owed
voices inside his head.
'It's OK, Darina,' Ezra soothed. He sat beside me, knees crooked under his chin. 'This doesn't need to go any further, it stays between you and me.'
'I hear you, Ezra.'
' I mean, I shouldn't even have told you. I may get into trouble for that.
'I hope not.'
'I'l tel them you're to blame. You made me talk. That's what you
do.'
' What do I do?'
'You look at me a certain way. Al girls do that.' 'But it's a secret. I won't tel anyone.'
'Because you love me?'
The stage tilted, the whole place shook we were on a geological fault line, an emotional earthquake was taking place inside me. 'Because I love
you,' I confirmed with what felt like the last breath in my body as the
familiar framework of my inner world col apsed.
Ezra sprang on to his haunches and spun me round to face him. 'Say that again.'
My voice was lost in the after-shock. I shook my head.
'You love me!' he echoed. Then he gripped both my wrists. ' But they said you didn't. Even after Logan died, they said you stil couldn't love me.
'Let me find those shades.' I made an enormous effort to speak and make him let go.
'I don't care about the shades,' he argued. 'Be quiet they're helping me to figure something out. Yes Darina, I think you're lying to me.'
'No, real y-'
'You are. That's another thing you do. I'm learning al the time about how you use guys. You never say what you truly mean.' His face changed, setting into firmer lines. The fleshy lids almost closed.
I pul ed away from him, but he was too strong. Instead of letting me 161
break free, he stood up and dragged me after him, towards the smal booth at the side of the stage which housed the lighting board and the sound system. He leaned on the glass door and we half fel inside. The door swung shut after us.
We need to go back,' I gasped. The cops, the paramedics ...'
'No. They're saying for us to stay here, not to trust you, you're the same as Summer Madison.'
I groaned from the pit of my stomach.
Yeah,' he smiled. To look at Summer you'd say she was pretty near perfect. And guys were always fal ing in love with her, like that loser hanging at the end of the rope, for example.'
'But you're not JakB,' I argued hopelessly. ' He was total y out of
control.'
'Right. His trouble was, he didn't apply logic.' 'I never saw anyone so desperate.'
'To get the backstage pass. I know. I was never like that with Summer
- I always knew where my boundaries lay. When she told me to back off,
I could do it, no problem. In fact, it's them I have to thank - they didn't even let me get close to sharing with her how I felt because they knew how she'd laugh in my face. They just said for me to forget her, or deal with her so she couldn't get to me any more.'
'Summer never knew how you felt?'
Ezra pushed me back against the lighting board. He stood with his back to the door, not seeing the figure who had walked down through the auditorium and slowly up the steps on to the stage.
'What was the point? Was I going to join a line of a dozen other guys in school and a thousand mindless fans? They said forget Summer or deal with her.'
I recognized the figure. It was Parker, come looking for us so I could talk to the cops. Walk this way! I pleaded silently. It's confession time.
Listen to what your buddy has to say!
'How?' I asked Ezra. 'How did you deal with the Summer problem?'
His eyes flashed open. 'It's OK I won't share with her,' he promised 162
his voices. 'I know I already said too much.'
Parker chose the wrong direction. He walked off into the wings at the far side of the stage. I tried to draw breath.
'No problem,' Ezra muttered as if he was under fresh pressure. He sounded angry with his voices, or with me. 'I know what I'm doing.'
OK, no more questions,' I gasped as he moved in on me. I looked for
a weapon in his hand a gun or a knife.
Think it through with me, Darina. Is there any clear reason why you should walk out of here?'
'Yes. You want me to love you? Give me time, Ezra.'
You mean, don't give up on you? So where do I come in line? Is it after Logan Lavel e, after Phoenix Rohr? Are there any guys who are not dead that I should be aware of?'
'No one,' I murmured. He was standing so near I could feel the heat of his body through the damp shirt.
He raised his left hand to his birthmark. 'You made a big mistake,' he said cool y. You said you liked me better without my glasses. So I knew you were lying, right from the start of this conversation.'
I gave up the pretence, pushed him backwards with both hands. 'And I knew about what you did to Logan!' I cried. And now Summer. I know it al !'
Knocking him off balance, I reached the glass door before he hooked his arm around my neck and dragged me back, half choking me.
He kept up the pressure against my throat with the crook of his arm. I struggled, knowing that he planned to kil me with his bar
e hands - no gun, no high ledge to push me from. He put pressure on my throat, bending me backwards and sticking his knee in the smal of my back until it felt as though he would snap my spine. My eyes rol ed upwards and I
could see his thin, vicious upside-down face.
I kicked. I did fight back.
And then there was a burst of white light inside the booth.
One second it was me fighting Ezra alone, the next Phoenix appeared, 163
radiating light.
He fil ed the room. He blinded us with his beauty and his strength.
Phoenix as I'd first seen him when he returned to the barn - stripped to the waist, broad-shouldered and narrow-hipped, pale as death.
Ezra stared at him, total y shocked. This time his voices didn't help
him compute what was taking place.
Phoenix reached out and took hold of a thick cable leading to the
lighting board. He wrenched it free like he was snapping sewing thread and held the raw end above his head.
Ezra saw the arc of yel ow sparks crackle from the wire, knew the current should have fel ed Phoenix on the spot. He let go of me and got ready to burst out of the booth. I dropped to the floor.
Phoenix swung the heavy cable around his head like a lasso. It sparked and fizzed when he threw it, wrapped itself around Ezra's neck, connected with the wet shirt and let the volts shoot through him.
Ezra's head jerked back. His hand shot up to wrench himself free of
the cable, but the muscles in his arm locked, the current gripped him and his heart juddered to a halt.
Phoenix turned towards me before his knees buckled and he dropped to the floor beside Ezra. He gave me the ghost of a smile.
I bent over him, begging him to open his eyes.
He lay with his head turned towards me. His light was fading, his power was draining away.
I'd seen this before - the Beautiful Dead flee from lightning storms,
they can't be near electrical current of any kind. If it happens, they fade and dissolve.
They never come back.
'Why did you do that?' I sobbed, raising his head clear of the floor and
stroking the hair back from his forehead. I kissed the smooth, pale skin, wil ing him to stay with me.
