by Sarah Wynde
“Stronger? Like by getting her angry?” Joe reached out and poked at one of the wisps of fragmented Nadira. He pulled his hand back when it dissipated even more. “Okay, not that way.”
“I know, I know.” Misam wiggled in Joe’s arms until Joe set him down on the floor. He stood in front of the gathering cloud and lifted his chin, eyes looking up toward where Nadira’s face should have been.
“If you do not put yourself back together, Mama, I will ask Noah to take me to the place with the ladies in sparkly clothes.” He waited, but the particles didn’t start coalescing into his mother. “To lots of places with sparkly ladies, all the sparkly ladies!”
“Bound to be strip clubs in Florida, right?” Joe added with a jocularity that didn’t match the grim look in his eyes. “Maybe Noah could take us to Miami. Lots of hot girls on the beach, right? And those thong bikinis, they’re pretty close to naked.”
Maybe the cloud solidified a little, but if so, it was so minor that it was barely noticeable.
“Mama, if you do not put yourself together, I will… I will…” Misam’s lip wobbled. “I will be very angry with you. I will take Joe’s side in all the arguments. I will say that The Jungle Book is the best movie, and that football should be called soccer, even though that is a stupid name, and that the Hulk is a better superhero than Iron Man.”
The cloud hummed, but the pieces did not start reassembling themselves into Nadira.
“Than Iron Man, Mama,” Misam said plaintively. “I am saying that strong is better than smart! Do you hear me?”
“Let me try to do the energy thing,” Dillon said. He concentrated on Nadira, trying to focus the way he did when he sent a message to a phone. He tried not to remember all the electronic devices he’d killed while trying to learn how to send messages. Too much energy wouldn’t hurt Nadira. It would probably help her. A good zap somewhere to the center of her might drag all those floating bits in like iron filings jumping to a magnet.
Except… it didn’t. Dillon closed his eyes and tried harder, trying to push his energy into the amorphous cloud. But it wasn’t like a phone. There was nothing to receive the energy, nothing to do with it. It felt like the energy just streamed straight through her and splashed against the wall on the other side of the mist.
He opened his eyes. More of the particles were gathering, but he didn’t think it was because of anything he’d done. Noah was standing still next to them and the pieces of Nadira were collecting near him.
“Should we try, too?” Joe asked. “Like the TV remote, right?”
Joe had never managed to switch the channels on the television but Misam had. Dillon glanced toward the little boy. He wished he could see energy the way Akira could. Misam didn’t look like he was about to open a vortex and their surroundings were unchanged, nothing getting fuzzy. How much energy did he have? Enough to safely give some to his mother without turning into a fader himself? Nadira would never want to be restored if it harmed Misam.
“What’s happening?” Noah asked, voice tight, fists clenched.
“I don’t know how to transfer energy to another ghost,” Dillon said. “Rose does, but…” But Rose wasn’t with them. And even if she had been…
“She’s already faded,” Joe said for him.
“Mama. Mama, please come back,” Misam said in a tiny voice.
Joe grabbed his hand. “We can do this. You learned how to use the remote, we can figure this out, too. We will bring her back. You and me, buddy, we got this. Together, right?”
Misam lifted his chin and nodded, but Dillon could see how hard he was trying not to cry.
“Stronger,” Noah barely breathed the word. “Stronger.” He turned to the door next to them and rattled the handle. “This is medical supplies, right?”
Dillon tried to remember which room was which. He’d followed along on Noah’s security rounds more than once, but he hadn’t bothered to pay close attention. But it was the right location for it, near Nat’s office and scanner. “Yeah, maybe. I think so.”
“Medical supplies, gotta be a fail-safe lock,” Noah muttered, before directing his words toward Dillon again. “Can you zap the passcode reader on this door? If the electricity goes out, it should unlock.”
“Um, sure.” What good were medical supplies going to do a ghost? But Dillon didn’t ask questions. He just concentrated on the electronic lock until he heard a satisfying sizzle, followed by a thunk.
Noah shoved open the door and disappeared into the room. Dillon turned back to the others.
“We concentrate,” Joe was saying to Misam, “and just, I don’t know, think power. Power to your mom. Like all that power Sophia made before when she was really sad and mad.”
Misam sniffled. “I said I would be angry, but I don’t feel very angry.”
“Forget angry,” Joe said. “We don’t want that vortex thing, anyway. We want… think love. Think lots and lots and lots of love, all your love, pulling your mom back together again like Super Glue.”
Dillon had never tried loving a cell phone. That wasn’t how he’d made his energy transfer happen. But he wasn’t going to argue with Joe. It wasn’t as if his approach was working.
He tried again to send energy in Nadira’s direction. Akira had said maybe it wasn’t energy after all. She’d mentioned aether, which as far as Dillon knew was some old drug that they used to knock people out in medieval times. Or maybe it was during the Civil War. Same difference, right?
But maybe she meant aether like essence, like the core substance a spirit was created from. Not molecules and cells, but memories and emotions, dreams and fears and hopes, personality and temperament — all of those intangible elements that added up to a human being.
No, not a human being — human beings were composed of matter and substance, too.
But a soul. An identity.
And Nadira’s soul needed help. It was humming again, a sound more like a swarm of bees than words. Could she be trying to tell them something?
Before Dillon could decide what it could be, Noah was back, standing in the middle of the hallway.
“Where is she?” he demanded. “Is she here?” He must be hearing the hum, because he’d managed to find a spot almost directly in the middle of the cloud of particles.
“Yes,” Dillon answered him with a frown. Noah looked disturbingly fey, eyes searching the hallway as if he could find them if he looked hard enough. But his mouth held a resolute line and he was rolling up his left shirt sleeve.
“What are you doing?” Joe let go of Misam’s hand and took a step closer to Noah.
“Get back,” Noah ordered, voice harsh. “This isn’t for you.”
“What isn’t?” Joe didn’t step away.
Noah opened his left fist. Dillon didn’t recognize the sealed packet he held. But Noah turned it over and ripped it open, sliding the scalpel it held into his right hand.
“Blood makes ghosts stronger,” he said simply. “Rose showed me. So I’m going to give Nadira some of mine.”
“Whoa!” Joe protested. “Hold on.”
Noah didn’t pause. He took a deep breath as he poised the scalpel above his wrist, then with a quick, sharp strike, sliced his forearm from wrist to elbow.
34
Noah
Blood spurted immediately.
And it hurt like hell, a deep pain that Noah hadn’t expected. He grimaced, gritting his teeth. Dropping the scalpel to the floor, he pressed his hand against his inner elbow and turned his arm, letting the blood pool on the floor.
He’d done a good job. No hesitation, no half-hearted thin scratches, he’d managed to go deep into his arm, cutting straight through his own flesh without pause.
It probably helped that the blade was so sharp.
But he’d definitely hit the vein. The blood was gushing, not just oozing or trickling to the surface. The spray had hit his face, warm sticky drops on his cheek, and the puddle on the floor was growing wider quickly.
Maybe he’d done to
o good a job. If he’d wanted to die, he would have gone for his carotid, bending his neck and coming in from the side so that he didn’t get stuck on his larynx. Or his leg, aiming for the big vein behind the knee. He’d seen a guy bleed out from a thigh wound once, and it had happened so quickly that there’d been no way to stop it.
“Is it working?” he asked over the ghosts’ reactions. Joe was yelling at him, Dillon objecting less loudly, and Misam squeaking, alternating orders to his mother and to him. But he couldn’t discern any words from Nadira.
He lifted his hand off his arm, releasing the pressure, letting the dripping blood flow freely.
More blood would help.
It had to.
It was running down his arm, trickling through his fingers. It was different when it was his. It looked redder somehow, deeper and brighter.
God, but there was a lot of it.
His stomach twisted.
The smell was different, too. Cleaner, he realized. Still that warm, sweet, metallic scent, but every time he’d smelled it before — really smelled it, the times when the odor was overwhelming, pervasive — it had been mixed with smoke and guns and sweat and fear.
This was just blood.
But his legs felt wobbly. He tried to concentrate on the real blood, his blood, but the memories were bubbling up. Joe’s face, his eyes, the glazed look. The kid. Had he seen the kid? A glimpse of color — blue stripes — and then red.
So much red.
Noah dropped to his knees. The jolt of pain as they hit the hard tile floor was almost enough to distract from the pain in his arm and the worse pain of his memories.
Almost.
He hadn’t tried to avoid the blood. It would seep into his jeans. The denim would absorb it, turning dark and stiff.
Brown, saturated, ruined, gone.
His hands felt cold. It was too soon for it to be blood loss. Just reaction, that was all.
“What the hell?” It was a female voice, but not Nadira’s.
Noah glanced up, tearing his eyes away from the blood on the floor.
“Don’t do anything drastic, I said!” Grace’s cheeks were flushed, her green eyes snapping. “How is that not drastic?” She pointed at the blood.
It wasn’t funny, but Noah wanted to smile anyway. She was so damn pretty, even prettier when she was mad. And she was definitely mad.
“He’s losing a lot of blood,” Joe said, sounding worried.
“It’s working, though, isn’t it?” Dillon said.
“Mama? Mama, can you hear me?”
“Is she getting stronger?” Joe said. “I think she’s reforming. I can see her shape in the cloud.”
“We need to stop that bleeding.” Grace crouched next to him.
Noah shook his head. “Not yet. It’s working.”
“Working?” Grace’s hands were poised in the air above his arm, as if she wanted to put pressure on the slice he’d made but wasn’t quite sure how.
“Nadira, she’s coming together.” A cold sweat broke out on the back of Noah’s neck. Was it the ghosts, creating a chill in the air? Maybe it was just him. His arm was throbbing in time with his pulse and nausea was settling in, his mouth both dry and gushing with saliva.
“Good for her,” Grace said, a grim line to her mouth. “She’s just going to have to do the rest on her own.” Gingerly, she placed her hands on his arm.
Noah pulled it away from her, shaking his head. “I owe her. Owe them. It’s fair.” He swallowed, trying to hold the nausea back, along with the memories.
Joe had been dying, maybe dead already, and the emotions — the frustrated helplessness, the surge of red hot rage, the despair — were as real as they’d been then.
But he didn’t want to see the rest, didn’t want to remember. What had he done?
“You don’t owe them your life.” Grace grabbed for his arm. She didn’t get a good grip on the cut, but her hands were already covered in blood. He was getting it on her skirt, too, smears of bright color against the blue. And on her shoes.
His lips curled into a smile. “Ruining another pair of heels. Sorry about that.”
She made an exasperated noise. “They don’t matter. You’re already pale. You need to let me help you.”
She pressed her hands on his arm. He tried to tug free, but she didn’t let go.
“You don’t understand. I’ve got to help her.”
“Not by killing yourself. She’s a ghost!”
“Yeah, because I made her one. Because I killed her.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know why you think that’s true, but I’m pretty sure it’s not.”
Noah closed his eyes. He didn’t want to share the details. He’d never told anyone about that day, never had to. By the time he’d woken up from his coma, the investigation was over.
And they’d given him a medal.
“Not to mention that I don’t think that’s how ghosts are made. Damn it.” Her last words were muttered under her breath, her hands squeezing Noah’s arm.
“We were out in the desert,” Noah started. “We’d just passed through a village.”
“You’re still bleeding,” Grace interrupted him. “The blood’s not stopping.” Blood was oozing up through her fingers, dripping down his arm.
“We came under fire,” Noah tried to continue.
“No,” she corrected him. “First there was an IED.”
How did she know that? Noah stared at her. She was looking around the hallway, as if hoping a medic would miraculously appear.
“I know the whole story,” she continued. “I’ve read all the files. The 15-6 report, the award recommendation forms, the commendations, all of it.”
“What?” Noah blinked.
“I’ve got good sources. For a priority security clearance, I can get full access from the DOD.” She grabbed his right hand and pressed it against his inner elbow. “Hold that,” she ordered. “Hard.”
She let go and began unbuttoning her shirt.
Noah blinked again, then shook his head. The hallway swam around him.
“Yeah, an IED.” He licked his lips, his mouth dry. “I didn’t spot it.”
She frowned. “You and thousands of other people.”
“Not thousands.”
“Well, not then, not that day. But if IEDs were so easy to spot, Iraq would have been a much safer place, right?” She was folding her shirt, not neatly, but quickly, almost rolling it up and turning the fabric into a pad, letting the sleeves hang loose.
Noah might be bleeding out, but he wasn’t so far gone that he didn’t appreciate the sight before him. Her bra was midnight blue, trimmed with a delicate bow of cream-colored silken ribbon. It was probably ornamental. But it made his fingers itch to tug at the trailing ends, to see if untying its knot unwrapped her curves. Her really nice, soft, smooth, gorgeous curves.
He closed his eyes again.
“And you can’t say you killed them because you missed spotting a bomb,” Grace continued, as she placed the pad on his arm. “I mean you could, but that would be stupid. The person who made the bomb, the people who planted it, they’re the ones responsible for its consequences.”
Noah winced, part the pain as she tugged the sleeves of her shirt around his arm, part from the hard truth in her words. Maybe it was stupid to blame himself for Joe’s death. But that had always been easier than acknowledging the others. As long as he was seeing Joe’s eyes, he wasn’t seeing what came later, what happened next.
“And unless a whole bunch of people told a whole lot of lies,” Grace said, drawing the sleeves tighter, “you didn’t shoot anyone.”
“No,” Noah agreed. Maybe he would have. It might have been instinct. If he’d had his weapon in his hands, would he have fired at anything that moved? But it hadn’t happened that way.
Grace sat back on her heels. “So what did you do?”
“I grabbed the wheel of the truck. Joe had been driving. And I…” He stared down at her shirt on his arm, at the
blood seeping up through the cloth. “I stuck my foot on the gas pedal and I steered it off the road.”
He looked at Grace, meeting her eyes. “Into them,” he told her. “I drove into them. Over them.”
She took a breath. “The woman and the kid.” She said it as a statement, not a question, but Noah nodded anyway.
“Ouch.” Her expression didn’t judge him. If anything, she looked sympathetic. “They gave you a medal for clearing the road. Valor under fire. Despite grave injuries, you made it possible for the rest of the convoy to get out of the ambush.”
She sounded like she was quoting from some paper she’d read, but he nodded again.
“So you saved lives?”
He shrugged.
“And that doesn’t make up for it?”
He shook his head. “I killed them. Nothing I do can ever change that. I’ll blame myself forever.”
“Aw, man, you shouldn’t feel that way,” Joe said, his voice low, worried.
But his words were almost drowned out by a sharp, “Piffle!” from directly above Noah.
“How ridiculous you are,” Nadira continued. “On what planet does a hijab protect one from an explosion that shatters vehicles? Do you really think Misam’s t-shirt was more armor-plated than that stupid truck you were in? We were dead the moment that bomb went off. You could have driven over us with a dozen trucks and it wouldn’t have made us any more dead than we already were.”
Noah froze.
“Mama, mama, you’re back!”
“I was never gone,” Nadira said, sounding irritated. “Just not quite all here.” She sniffed. “And really, the idea that blood would be good for me is revolting. I’m not a vampire.”
Noah wasn’t sure whether he wanted to laugh or cry.
Grace tilted her head to the side. “Are you okay?”
“You blamed me, too.” The words rasped out of Noah’s throat. He knew Nadira did, had. She’d said so, often enough.
“Of course I did! I blame all of you American soldiers. What were you doing there, anyway? Some Saudi terrorists attack your country so you invade mine in response? Pure stupidity and greed.”
