Dylan groaned and dragged his fingers against the building’s rough surface. “So it’s our fault.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Then it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have let him try to pass on if he wasn’t ready.”
“It was his choice, so stop it.” I pushed Dylan’s arm. “Logan would be pissed if he heard you blaming yourself.”
“You know what? Fuck him.” He slammed the heel of his hand against the brick wall. “Fuck you, Logan.” Dylan pounded with the sides of his fists, like a child having a tantrum. He punched the building in time to the words. “Fuck. You. Fuck. You. Fuck. You. Fuck you!” The last one came out as a long howl.
I didn’t look to see who might be staring. I just took Dylan’s hand and folded it inside my own.
He stopped, panting, his forehead still pressed against the wall. I rubbed his knuckles and felt his blood smear warm against my palm.
Finally Dylan angled his head toward me, a wave of brown hair falling over his eye. “What do we do now?”
“This time we don’t listen to Logan.” I dropped his hand. “We wait.”
* * *
I rid my room of red. I dumped the flannel sheets onto the Goodwill pile in the basement and replaced them with the purple-black ones, though they weren’t as warm. I gave my obsidian necklace to Megan for safekeeping. Like Aunt Gina said, I would want it one day, but not today.
Two nights after the trial-the night before school started again-Gina dropped me off outside Zachary’s apartment building while she went to pick up takeout for dinner. I didn’t want to have this conversation in history class or the cafeteria, or over the phone. I owed Zachary that much.
When he answered the door, I handed him a shopping bag containing two white boxes-a long one and a square one.
“Which should I open first?” Zachary said as he showed me in, holding the door wide for my crutches.
“The small one is cookies. My grandmom sent me a bunch for New Year’s.” I glanced around at the small apartment he shared with his dad. The living room was sparse and neat. I could see into the kitchen, where a teakettle rattled on the lit front burner of a gleaming white gas stove.
“You didn’t have to do that, but thanks very much.” He set the small box on the square dining table, then opened the long box. “Oh.” He touched the red roses, their dried petals rustling under his fingertips. “You’ve decided, then.”
My heart twinged at the disappointment in his voice. “You were right.”
He pressed the lid back onto the box. “I hate being this sort of right.” A low whistle came from the kitchen, quickly building in pitch. “Do you want tea?”
I shook my head. “I can’t stay.”
He went in long enough to turn off the stove, then came back to stop at the edge of the kitchen. “What was I right about, exactly?”
“You were right when you said he’d take a piece of me with him when he left.”
Zachary nodded and gave a sympathetic scoff. “Especially the way he left.”
I glanced into the dark hallway leading to the bedrooms. Zachary had said we’d be alone, and I trusted him. “I think I can bring Logan back.”
He looked at me sadly. “I know you want to believe that, but-”
“It happened before.”
Zachary stared at me, then snatched up a set of keys and led me into the apartment building’s hallway. He didn’t speak as he guided me down the corridor to an unmarked door. He inserted the key in the knob and ushered me inside.
In the bright laundry room, a washer churned. Next to it a dryer hummed and thumped, like it was tumbling a pair of sneakers.
“Why is this room locked?” I asked Zachary.
“Keep the folks from the next building from using our wash, I suppose.” He leaned back against the wall, crossing his arms. “This is where my dad and I come to talk about anything important. We assume the DMP bugged our flat.”
Standing close so he could hear me over the noise of the machines, I told him everything. About that night at my window, how Logan had shaded in reaction to my obsidian pendant (and my breaking up with him), how the DMP agents had warned me to warn him, and finally, what had happened Friday night at the Green Derby.
Zachary listened with furrowed brows, tapping his heel against the wall. When I finished, he examined me for a long moment.
“Every post-Shifter in that pub saw Logan turn shade,” he said. “If you brought him back again, it could bring hope to a lot of people. And fear to a lot of other people. It could change everything.”
“I know.” My hands were close enough to touch him, but I kept them wrapped around the grips of the crutches. “That’s why it’s not just for Logan.”
Zachary’s eyes softened. “It starts with him. He needs you.”
“I know I can’t save him, and I can’t change him. But maybe I can give him the strength to change himself.”
“By believing in his light.”
I wanted to hug him. “You really, really get it. You’re so amazing.”
“I just pay attention.” Zachary slid his hands into the pockets of his gray Ridgewood sweatshirt. “You’re no’ going back to him. As a girlfriend, I mean.”
I blinked in surprise. “How can you tell?”
“Same way I could tell it wasn’t over when you were in hospital. You couldn’t look me in the eye when you said his name. And now you can.”
He saw me so clearly, I wanted to back away-run away, even. “I can’t be with anyone right now. If you get sick of waiting, I’ll understand. Like you said, you’re no’ a bloody saint.” I tried to replicate his accent to relieve the tension.
“Something tells me I won’t need a saint’s patience.” His smile verged on a smirk, then faded back to sincerity. He reached out and covered my hand on the grip of my crutch, giving me plenty of time to shift away. “I noticed there were only five red roses in that box, not six.”
My thumb curled over his. “I kept one. As a reminder.” I pictured it in its vase on our dining room table, dried to a deep burgundy.
“Of the past?” Zachary held my gaze. “Or the future?”
Heat rushed to my face and fingertips. “Both.”
I pulled my hand out of his before we could go any further. A moment later the dryer buzzer went off. We both startled, and I almost lost my balance. He steadied me as the room quieted except for the shush-shush of the washing machine.
I gave a nervous laugh. “I guess our time’s up.”
“It is.” Zachary let go of me and opened the laundry room door. “For now.”
Days turned into weeks as I waited. I played every bit of music Logan loved. Band after band, the dozens of playlists he’d built for me over the years, stretching back to the mix CD “Songs to Skate Your Ass Off (To),” from when we were thirteen. I even tried the Black Angels’ Directions to See a Ghost, thinking he might find it funny (plus, I read online that the song “Never/Ever” resonates at a dead-friendly frequency).
I begged. I threate�
�ned. I cried.
No one saw him, in any form. The Keeleys used their multimillion-dollar award from Warrant Records to buy a new, fully BlackBoxed house in the same school district. There was no point in moving far away, since as a shade, Logan could go anywhere.
January brought mockery and midterms, but I survived both. February iced the streets, sidewalks, and trees, pouring on layer after layer of silver, thawing each day only to freeze again, thicker, each night. Still I waited.
Until, on the first night of spring, when March had melted the silver into goopy gray slush, I had no music left. I’d played it all.
So I stood in silence by my open window, watching the cars drift by, their tires swishing through dirty puddles.
Finally I couldn’t take any more waiting.
“Logan, where are you?” I banished all fear and anger and pity from my voice. “I know you don’t want to be like this. I know you want to come back. So please come back.”
And then it hit me. My hands turned cold on the windowsill, though the breeze through the screen held more than a hint of spring warmth.
“Are you happy this way? Do you want to stay a shade?” My voice broke. “If you want me to give up on you, just say so. Show me a sign.”
I closed my eyes, expecting more of the same. Expecting nothing.
The shriek came from a distance, quiet at first, then spiking in volume like a song cranked up at a party.
“No…”
The blast of black shot through my window, straight through my body. My knees gave way. I collapsed on the floor, every muscle quaking. My stomach twisted and folded.
“AURA!!” Logan’s voice crackled like feedback in a microphone. “I TOLD YOU NOT TO WAIT!!”
“I don’t-listen-to shades.”
Logan’s scream slurred his response. The room seemed to roll and pitch. I clutched the edge of my bedroom rug to keep from sliding into oblivion.
With all my will, I wrapped my mind around the DMP’s photograph of him-his eyes lifted to the stage lights, his hand stretched out to the world that adored him. His face full of the future.
Logan wailed, squeezing his light from my memory. But I would never let go.
“You can’t fool me.” My jaw locked up, but I forced out the words. “You burn too bright for this.”
The sudden silence was more deafening than the screams. I kept my eyes closed, afraid they would show me the same dark, empty room I’d seen for three months.
But beyond my lids, a violet glow emerged.
I opened my eyes.
In front of me, clear and crisp as a cold night sky, stood a pair of checkered high-top Vans.
Then, soft as a prayer, Logan whispered one word.
“Wow.”
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Shade 01 - Shade Page 28
