Shine

by Jeri Smith-Ready

  I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Pander much?

  He clicked on the recorder, and I cut to the chase:

  “Logan got his body back during the concert. At the moment of the solstice.”

  Ritter nodded—he’d obviously seen the online videos. “Did you anticipate this?”

  “No.”

  “Then why was the concert held at that date and time?” He checked his records. “Ten thirty p.m. is very late. Was it a coincidence that the concert began just before the ten fifty-one solstice?”

  “Not at all.” I kept my focus on the agent, feeling my confidence grow. “We scheduled the concert for that time in case something bad happened and Logan freaked out. We thought if he shaded near the solstice, he could turn right back to a ghost.”

  “Why did you think that?”

  I pressed my lips together to seem like I was revealing a big secret, though the DMP had probably figured it out. They were annoying, but they weren’t stupid.

  “It happened before. Logan became a shade in January and was gone for months. But then just after midnight on March twenty-first, he came to me.”

  “As a shade or as a ghost?”

  “A shade, but then suddenly he was a ghost again. The next day I realized he’d changed at the moment of the spring equinox. It couldn’t have been a coincidence.”

  I still got a pang of longing at the thought of that night. Logan had taken on human flesh for seventeen short minutes. His skin had been warm and sweet, and his eyes shone blue as they gazed into mine.

  Ritter leaned back in his chair, which squeaked at the shift in weight. “Interesting.”

  “Logan and I hoped he could make this change on the summer solstice, too.”

  “Were you worried about him shading again?”

  “A little. He thought you guys might end the show early.” I softened my voice. “His music and his band meant everything to him. Taking that away might’ve made him mad enough to turn shade.”

  The agent sounded genuinely sympathetic. “Miss Salvatore, what were—”

  “You can call me Aura.” I gave Ritter a slight smile. This interview was going so smoothly, it was making me nervous.

  “Aura, what were the plans for the end of the concert?”

  “The plan was for Logan to go backstage before the finale. His older brother, Mickey, would come out dressed like Logan, with his hair bleached and a fake tattoo of my name on his chest. We thought it would be fun to pretend Logan had come back to life. He said it would make people remember him after he passed on.”

  “Which he planned to do when?”

  “That night, after the concert, with his family and close friends.”

  Ritter nudged the recorder an inch nearer to me. “And did he?”

  “You know he didn’t. Your agents were there. Nicola Hughes helped us come up with a cover story for the media. She said the most important thing was to keep people from believing that ghosts could come back from the dead.”

  “Yes, our public affairs folks are very experienced at calming the public.” His smirk faded. “Aura, when did Logan pass on?”

  I squirmed, pretending it killed me to reveal the truth. If they thought I was making a huge sacrifice, they might be less suspicious of what I was still hiding.

  “He passed on last night with me, alone in the cemetery near his grave.”

  “What time exactly?”

  “About nine o’clock.”

  “And you’re certain he’s gone?”

  “He’s gone for good.” Even though I was happy for Logan, it hurt to say it aloud.

  “Hmm.” Ritter hoisted a briefcase from the floor beside his chair. “Let’s confirm that, shall we?” He lifted the lid with a flourish, then pulled out a small disc of clear quartz.

  Gina pointed at it. “Who’s the summoner for?”

  He set it on the table and tapped its shiny surface. “Logan Keeley was tagged before last week’s concert, so he could be retrieved in the event of a disruptive incident.”

  I was 90 percent sure that Ritter was bluffing. Logan would’ve told me if he’d been tagged, the way he’d been before testifying at his wrongful death trial. The summoner devices allow ghosts to be called to a place they never traveled in life, such as a courtroom.

  Ritter watched my face. He didn’t believe my claim that Logan was gone. Even now, I wondered: If Logan could cross the boundary between shade and ghost—and between the dead and the living—maybe he could also cross the boundary between dimensions, or whatever it was that separated this world from the true afterlife.

  Ritter slid his thumb under the disc and clicked it on. The clear quartz glowed with a pure white light.

  My pulse pounded, waiting for Logan to manifest in the room the way he had at his trial, looking around with a bewildered grin. My breath quickened at the warring fear and hope of seeing him again.

  Then the crystal’s light dimmed, its signal unreturned. Logan was truly gone.

  “Did you think I was lying?” I asked Ritter, my voice hard with emotion.

  “I was curious.” He placed the summoner back in the briefcase and snapped the lid shut. “Logan Keeley seems—seemed, rather—to be able to do a number of extraordinary things.” Ritter counted off on his sunburned fingers, his fake sympathy dwindling. “First, Logan turned shade temporarily on the winter solstice. Yes, we knew about that, though you didn’t bother to mention it today. Second, after being a shade for weeks, he turned back into a ghost on the spring equinox. Before Logan, no one had ever un-shaded, so to speak.”

  I gave the slightest of nods.

  “Third, last Friday night, on the summer solstice, he had a solid body for an unknown period of time.”

  I knew how long: seventeen minutes. The same amount of time it takes the winter solstice sunrise light to trace the floor of the chamber at Newgrange. I hoped the DMP hadn’t made that connection yet.

  “And finally, last night, Logan Keeley appeared to a pre-Shifter.” The agent placed his palms on the table. “To your new boyfriend, Zachary Moore.”

  My heart stopped, then lurched forward, as if making up for lost beats. I could feel the blood drain from my face.

  “That’s impossible,” Gina said. “Zachary can’t see ghosts. No one born before the Shift can.”

  Ritter answered her, but kept his eyes trained on mine. “We have a witness, a fourteen-year-old post-Shifter, who saw them speaking in the airport.”

  My mouth was too dry to release the words of protest piling in my throat.

  “Impossible,” Gina repeated. “The witness is lying.”

  “I’m afraid the witness cannot lie. She’s a ghost.”

  “Ghosts can’t see other ghosts,” she scoffed.

  “The witness was not a ghost before the flight took off.”

  Gina’s face froze. “This girl died in the plane crash?”

  “Yes. Along with two hundred and fourteen other people.” Ritter aimed a sharp gaze at me. “So you’d better start talking.”

  “Absolutely not,” Gina said. “My client has been completely forthcoming about the incidents of last Friday night. She knows nothing of this alleged meeting between the two boys.”

  He ignored her. “Aura, when Logan passed on in the cemetery, did he mention his conversation with Zachary Moore?”

  I didn’t need Gina’s advice to know what to do: shut the hell up.

  “The more information you give us,” Ritter said, “the less we’ll have to extract from Zachary.”

  A chill zipped among my internal organs. “What do you mean?”

  “The FBI has transferred him into our custody.”

  No. I wanted to beg and scream, but could only emit a feeble “For how long?”

  “Aura.” Gina’s voice held a warning.

  “As long as it takes to get answers.” Ritter looked at Gina. “His parents are being released today, and they’ll be home tomorrow.”

  “They’ll leave their son behind?” Gina asked.<
br />
  “They have no choice.”

  My mind whirled. What would the DMP do to Zachary? I’d heard of people being detained for weeks. How would he feel knowing his parents had been forced to abandon him?

  “Can I see him?” I asked. “Please?”

  “Aura, do not speak. Agent Ritter, let me get this straight.” Gina was in full-on lawyer mode. “You’re detaining a minor based on the claim of one fourteen-year-old ghost? Even if Zachary could talk to ghosts—which he can’t—since when is it a crime to do so?”

  “It’s not a crime, it’s a curiosity. Zachary Moore is a pre-Shifter. We want to know how it happened.”

  Aunt Gina slammed her hand on the table. “It didn’t happen. This ghost witness can’t lie, but she can be mistaken. I demand you set Zachary free.”

  “Sorry.” Ritter peeled open another folder. “He didn’t help his case by threatening the officers who searched him at the airport.”

  “Threaten how?” I reached for the file, which Ritter snatched away.

  “Apparently he said, quote, ‘If you touch my mum or dad, I’ll punch you so hard you’ll have eyes at the back of your head.’ ”

  I would’ve laughed if I weren’t so close to throwing up.

  “Charming fellow.” Ritter shut the file and pushed it aside. “You certainly know how to pick ’em.”

  Right then I could’ve punched someone myself.

  “We began to speculate,” Ritter continued. “Perhaps it wasn’t Logan who was special. Perhaps it’s Zachary. As the last person born before the Shift, maybe he’s some sort of pre-Shifter/post-Shifter hybrid. Do you know?”

  I folded my hands and straightened my back, then put on a blank look that said, I can keep my mouth shut all day.

  “Know this, Miss Salvatore,” Ritter growled. “We’ll find out if Zachary Moore is extraordinary. One way or another.”

  “Did Logan tell you about meeting Zachary?” Gina asked once we were in the car with the doors shut.

  I’d used the long walk out of the DMP headquarters and across the visitors’ parking lot to decide how to answer. It was an easy choice—I’d promised Zachary I’d never reveal his power, much less the fact that we could exchange powers with a kiss.

  “Logan couldn’t tell me about something that didn’t happen. Ghosts can’t lie.” I jerked the seat belt across my chest.

  “But the DMP has a witness.”

  “You’re the one who said their witness was bull.” I checked my phone for messages so I could avoid her eyes. “The DMP is making stuff up.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past them.” She turned the ignition with a quick wrist snap. “But if this post-Shifter witness could be real, you need to tell me.”

  “There’s nothing to tell.” I started answering a text from my friend Jenna. She’d known Zachary was leaving last night and was wondering if he’d been on Flight 346.

  HIS FLIGHT WAS EARLIER, I Replied. HE’S FINE, THX!

  Gina kept talking as she drove out of the complex and onto the tree-lined parkway. “This is a whole new can of worms. If Zachary can talk to ghosts, they’ll want to know why. They’ll want to know if it has to do with him being the Last. Which leads back to you, as the First.” She plucked the phone from my hand. “Listen to me when I’m talking.”

  I swallowed my anger, though it burned my gut. If Gina got too annoyed, maybe she wouldn’t take me to see Zachary’s parents at the deportation center. I needed to see the Moores myself. If they’d survived questioning unharmed, maybe Zachary had, too.

  “I don’t know anything about a meeting between Logan and Zachary,” I told Gina in a calm, firm voice. “But Logan is definitely gone now, and I’m really, really scared for Zach.” The second sentence was the absolute truth.

  Gina’s shoulders sagged. “I’m sorry, hon. This must be hard, and I’ve made it worse by riding you all morning. I’m just trying to protect you.”

  “I don’t know if you can anymore.” I turned toward the window so I couldn’t see her pain when she realized I was right. “I don’t know if anyone can.”

  Aunt Gina’s lawyer friend Cheryl, who specialized in immigration cases, met us in the lobby of the deportation center in downtown Baltimore.

  “You’re just in time,” she said. “We’re leaving for Dulles in fifteen minutes.” Cheryl led us to a nearby hallway, which smelled faintly of floor wax. “As their attorney, I have to make sure they catch their flight without further detainments.”

  “How are the Moores?” Gina asked her.

  “Ian’s a fighter. So’s his son, I hear.”

  “You haven’t seen Zachary?” I tried not to shout. “How do we know he’s alive?”

  “I’ve seen the surveillance tape of his arrest. If you ask me, his detention is extremely suspicious.”

  “Suspicious how?” Gina asked.

  “Usually when a minor doesn’t board a flight, the airline sends a security officer to search for them, not the FBI. And Zachary was arrested mere minutes after the explosion, before they officially suspected a bombing.”

  I could barely believe my ears. “So he never should’ve been detained in the first place? Will they let him go now that that kid confessed to the suicide bombing?”

  “I’m afraid it’s not that simple, hon.” Cheryl touched my shoulder briefly. “Now that he’s in DMP custody, I have to go through a whole different process. They claim they have cause to hold him, and I have to prove they don’t.”

  A ball of rage began to form in my core. Zachary had been set up. The plane crash was just an excuse to get him back in DMP hands.

  “They can’t make Zachary disappear,” Gina said, “even if he is a foreigner. We’ll get him out, Aura.”

  “When?”

  “Hard to say.” Cheryl sighed. “The DMP keeps putting up roadblocks in the court system. It’s like they planned this.”

  They probably had, before grabbing us last week. It could be him and me stuck in there.

  We entered a warmly decorated office, with plants and a sofa and a calendar with photos of dogs—those gray bird dogs, whatever they’re called. Not the harsh, prisonlike atmosphere I was expecting.

  Ian and Fiona sat across a desk from a heavyset immigration officer in a yellow shirt and blue tie, who gave me a welcoming smile.

  “Aura.” Fiona swept me into her slender arms and clung tight. “I’m happy you came.”

  Happy. It was so like her—so like Zachary—to gloss over the worst hurt. Though he’d acquired his dad’s Scottish accent, charm, and bluster, his mother had bestowed her endless English patience.

  “Are you guys okay?” I realized my question’s stupidity. “I mean, are you hurt?”

  “We’re fine, Aura.” Ian stood unsteadily, gripping the back of his chair and looking much older than his fifty-eight years. It seemed like he’d aged since I’d seen him yesterday. “It’s no’ us you should be worrying about.”

  “Have you seen Zachary?” I asked him.

  “Aye, too briefly.” He looked past me at his wife. “I dunno how we walked out of there. How could we leave our son behind to be—” Ian coughed twice, lowering his head and putting out a hand to stop us from helping him. “He’s a brave boy, Aura. A very brave boy.”

  “I know.” Zachary had stood up for me after we first met, when I was harassed by my classmates about Logan’s death. He’d stepped between me and an armed DMP agent when we were detained last week. And he’d caught me when I almost fell off a cliff racing to escape, though I could’ve easily knocked him off with me.

  It was my turn to be brave for him.

  “What can I do?” I glanced at the immigration officer, wondering how much we could say in front of him.

  “Just keep yourself safe.” Ian pressed his hand on my shoulder to emphasize the last word.

  The sadness in his eyes made my own feel full and hot. “I can’t believe they’re making you leave him behind.”

  “Don’t worry about us. Here.” He pulled me close
and patted my back. I put my arms around him, gasping at how frail he felt.

  Then Ian whispered, “Someone will be contacting you shortly.”

  I hoped he meant someone from MI-X who would not only help me, but also get Zachary released.

  “We’ll call you the moment we arrive,” Fiona said.

  “Can’t MI-X do something?” Gina asked. “They’re DMP’s counterpart. You’d think there’d be a mutual respect or agreement that—”

  “Respect?” Ian’s rough voice rose again as he let go of me. “The DMP thinks we’re their servants, not their partners. But they’re frightened bairns shrieking at every bump in the night. I should know, I—”

  He grimaced, then erupted into a hacking cough, longer and stronger than before. Fiona helped him sit while he fumbled in his pocket for a handkerchief. The immigration officer drew one from the pocket of his own jacket slung over his chair.

  “I’m sorry.” The officer held out the handkerchief.

  “Sorry?” Ian’s green eyes filled with fire. “ ‘Sorry’ doesn’t give us our fuckin’ son, now, does it?”

  “Darling . . .” Fiona touched his shoulder.

  “Ach.” He bent over, elbows on his knees, hands clasped at his forehead. Slowly he dragged his thumbs over his salt-and-pepper brows to calm himself.

  My heart crumpled. I’d seen Zachary make that exact gesture a hundred times since his dad had been diagnosed with lung cancer. Sometimes in history class I’d catch him doing it and have the worst desire to stroke the angles of his face, smooth every worry line until his eyes filled with peace.

  I knew it destroyed Ian to not be able to provide for his family—and worse, to be the one who needed caretaking. Despite the power he once wielded in MI-X, he was helpless to protect his own son.

  If Zachary wasn’t released soon, this ordeal would surely hasten Ian’s death. And if Zachary couldn’t be at his father’s side at the end, my kindhearted boyfriend would be consumed by misery and rage. Like a living shade.

  I’d do anything to stop that from happening. Anything.

  Chapter Seven

  Aura.” On the phone, Megan sounded like she’d been crying. “Sorry I’m running late.”