Touch

by Michelle Sagara

  Eric glanced at the side mirror. Allison Simner, in a puffy down coat, head bent into the wind, walked through the crisp November air beside another classmate. “And Michael.”

  “Stop the car and let me out.”

  “Chase—”

  “What? She took notes.”

  * * *

  Allison walked Michael home after school, as she had done for most of their mutual school life. It wasn’t that he needed the company or the implied protection of another person, although he might once have. Now it was just part of their daily routine, and it was almost peaceful.

  But Emma usually joined them. For the past two days, she hadn’t. She’d explained her absences to Michael, and Michael—given his natural difficulty recognizing subtle social cues, such as white lies—accepted her yearbook committee excuses at face value. Allison tried. She wasn’t her mother; worry was not her middle name, maiden name, or, on bad days, her entire name.

  But her mother’s best friend hadn’t developed the ability to see the dead. She hadn’t been targeted by Necromancers. She hadn’t almost died in a fire that no one else could see, let alone feel, in an attempt to save a child who was already dead.

  Allison’s best friend, Emma, had. And it wasn’t just that Emma could see the dead; if Emma touched ghosts, everyone else could see them, too. They’d learned that the hard way, at the hospital: Emma had grabbed onto her father’s ghost because she didn’t want him to leave.

  And who could blame her? She hadn’t seen her dad for the eight years he’d been dead.

  But Allison had seen him, that night in the hospital. Michael had seen him. Emma’s mother had seen him. And Eric. Eric had seen him as well. It had been disturbing, but—being able to see your dad, when he wasn’t dangerous and he didn’t look much different from the last time you’d seen him—wasn’t inherently scary.

  All the stuff that had happened after was.

  Well, not Andrew Copis, the child who had died in the fire. And not his grieving mother, because if Emma wanted or needed to see her dad, Maria Copis was a hundred times worse: She needed to see her son. Emma was willing to walk through fire—literal fire—to help that happen, and Allison got that. She understood why.

  What she didn’t understand were the parts that happened directly afterward: the Necromancers. Two men and one woman, armed, had stopped their car outside of the house in which the child had died, gotten out of it, and pulled guns. Allison had been carrying Maria Copis’ youngest child, a son. They had pointed the gun at the baby, and they had dragged Allison to Andrew Copis’ burned-out house—in order to threaten Emma.

  To threaten Emma, and to—to kill Eric and Chase.

  Eric and Chase had survived. The Necromancers hadn’t. But it had been so close. And the death of the Necromancer in charge, Merrick Longland, if he hadn’t lied about his name, had been anything but fast. Chase had been covered in blood before he’d stopped stabbing and slashing at him.

  Allison didn’t watch horror movies. She found the violence in most of them too intense. She knew people who loved them, and she’d never understood why. Now she felt as if she were living on the edge of one. Predictably, she hated it.

  She hated it because Michael was trapped on the same edge, and Emma was at the center of it. Allison could step away. She could turn her back. She could hide under the figurative bed with her hands over her ears. But if she did that, she was walking away from Emma. And Emma was no better prepared to be the star of a horror movie than either of her friends. Allison’s fear was intense, and it made her feel so guilty.

  Michael didn’t know how to walk away. Michael didn’t talk about the Necromancers—but Emma had asked him not to. Allison didn’t talk about them because to talk about them, she had to think about them.

  Then again, when something wasn’t actively distracting her, it was hard not to think about them.

  There had been no new Necromancers, but Chase had made it clear that it was only a matter of time—and at that, not a lot of it.

  * * *

  Allison usually walked Michael to his door, where she would wait to say hello to his mother. As a much younger child, she would then give his mother a report of the school day; as a teenager she’d continued more or less out of habit. She filled Mrs. Howe in on the positive or outstanding things, upcoming field trips, or perturbations in Michael’s schedule.

  Allison had avoided that at-the-door conversation for the past couple of weeks.

  Michael’s mother, being a mother, was worried about her son, because she knew there was something wrong. Michael didn’t lie, so he’d told her he couldn’t talk about it. His mother was not an idiot; she was pretty certain that Emma and Allison had some idea what was going on.

  Allison wasn’t Michael; she could—and on rare occasions did—lie. But she’d never been great at it, and it left her feeling horrible about herself for weeks afterward. She did the next best thing—she avoided the questions.

  It was only as she was scurrying away from Michael’s driveway, like a criminal, that Chase caught up with her.

  * * *

  Chase was almost a head taller than Allison.

  Allison had never been tall. Emma was taller and more slender, with straight hair that fell most of the way down her back. On bad days, Allison envied her and wondered what Emma saw in her. Emma had a lot of friends.

  Stephen Sawoski, in eighth grade, had answered the question. “Pretty girls don’t want to have pretty friends—they hang around the plain girls ’cause it makes them look better.” He’d sneered as he said it. Allison could still see his expression if she tried. She didn’t really avoid it, either, because of what happened next: Emma had taken her milk, in its wet, box container, opened it, and then poured half of it into Stephen’s lap.

  The expression on his face then was also one Allison never forgot.

  “If I wanted to hang around ugly people just to look better,” Emma had said to Stephen, while Allison gaped like a fish out of water, “I’d spend more time with you. Come on, Allison, Michael’s waiting.”

  Allison was plain. It was true. Emma offered, every so often, to help her change that if she wanted to do the work. But she didn’t. No amount of work would make her look like Emma. Stephen was obnoxious, but he wasn’t wrong—about the being plain. He was wrong about the friendship. She held on to that.

  She glanced up at Chase.

  He smiled. “You took notes,” he said.

  “I did. I can email them, if you want them. Biology?”

  “And English. You’re heading home?”

  She nodded. “I have a pretty boring life.”

  “Not recently.”

  “I like having a pretty boring life.” She started to walk. Chase shortened his stride and fell in beside her, hands in his jacket’s pockets. Fire had singed his shock of red hair, and he’d been forced to cut it—but even short, it was the first thing anyone noticed.

  “You really do,” he replied. “Look—things are going to get crazy.”

  She didn’t miss a step. “When?”

  “Does it matter? You’re not cut out for this shit. You, Michael, the rest of your friends—you’ve never lived in a war zone.”

  She had a pretty good idea of where this conversation was going: straight downhill. Allison didn’t like confrontation. She didn’t like to argue. Usually, there wasn’t a lot to argue about. “None of us are cut out for this.”

  “Eric and I are.”

  Allison nodded agreement and stared at the sidewalk. She was three blocks away from home.

  “Emma’s part of this.”

  She shoved her hands into her pockets, which weren’t really built for it, and lowered her chin. Chase had saved her life. She had to remember that Chase had saved her life. He’d almost died doing it. What had she done? Nothing. Nothing useful. �
�Emma didn’t choose to be part of it.”

  “Choice doesn’t matter. She has none.”

  Allison started to walk more quickly, not that there was any chance of leaving Chase behind if he was determined. He was.

  “But you do. You’ve got the choice that I didn’t have.”

  She stopped walking, her hands sliding out of her pockets to her hips. “And I am making a choice.”

  It was clear, from his expression, that he thought it was the wrong choice. “You think you can just duck your collective heads and the bullets will miss.”

  “No, I don’t. But I know Emma.”

  “Really? I haven’t noticed she’s spending a lot of time with you recently.”

  That stung. “I’m her friend, not her cage.”

  “You don’t understand how Necromancers work. You don’t understand what they become.”

  “I understand Emma. Emma is not going to become a monster just because you’re afraid of her!” Straight downhill. Like an avalanche.

  “Why don’t you ask her what she’s been doing the past couple of days?”

  “Because I trust her. If she wants to tell me, she’ll tell me.”

  “And will she tell Michael?”

  She could see him switching lanes. She let him do it, too; she was angry.

  “If you’re capable of making the decision to put your life on the line, is he? Are you willing to let him make the same choice?”

  “Michael. Is. Not. A. Child.”

  “That’s why he needs an entire clique of babysitters?”

  “If Michael hadn’t been at Amy’s party, Emma would already be lost. In case you’ve forgotten, Merrick Longland had us all ensnared. None of your party tricks saved either you or Eric!”

  “. . . Party tricks?”

  “Training. Whatever. Michael wasn’t affected by Longland—but you were. And Michael knows it. We all know it. I get that you don’t understand how we work—but if you try to break it, I’ll—”

  He folded his arms across his chest and stared pointedly down at her. “Yes? We’re finally getting to the good part. You’ll what? Scream at me? Cry?”

  She wanted to punch him. Sadly, she’d never punched anyone in her life; if she’d thought she had any chance of landing one, she might have tried.

  Chase saved your life. He almost died saving your life. “Probably both.”

  He looked down at the top of her head, and then he laughed. It was almost rueful. “You understand that I don’t want to see you hurt, right?”

  She did. But she also understood that there were all kinds of hurt in life, and he didn’t count the one that she was most afraid of: losing her best friend. “I have to go. My mom’s staring out the window.”

  “And she’s not going to be happy that her daughter’s shouting at a stranger?”

  “No.” She took three deep breaths, because deep breaths always helped. Chase made her so angry. She’d never met anyone who could make her so angry. Stephen Sawoski had made her feel ugly, invisible, unwanted—but never angry. Not like this. He’d made Emma angry though.

  And maybe that made sense. Allison wasn’t much good at sticking up for herself. She never had been, not when it counted. But she could stick up for her friends. She trusted her instincts where they were concerned.

  “Your mom just disappeared,” he told her.

  Allison exhaled. “You might as well come to the house,” she told him. “Because if you don’t, she’s going to come out.”

  “I really don’t need to meet your mother.”

  “You should have thought of that before you followed me home.”

  * * *

  Chase could be friendly. He could be charming. Allison had seen both. He had a genuine smile, a sense of humor, and a way of turning things on their side that mostly suggested a younger brother. Someone else’s younger brother. Allison, however, was full up on younger brothers, given Tobias, the one she had. She searched the windows of the upper floor with sudden anxiety. If he embarrassed her in front of Chase, she’d have to strangle him. No Toby was visible from the street.

  Allison headed toward her front door. Chase lagged behind, losing about three inches of height at the top of the driveway. She looked back at him. “Don’t even think of running.”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “You smile when you’re facing armed Necromancers. You charge into green fire. Compared to that, meeting my mother is terrifying?”

  “I don’t meet a lot of mothers.”

  “No, you don’t, do you? Mine doesn’t bite. Mostly. I’d suggest you drop any discussion of Emma, killing Emma, or abandoning her, though. I come by my temper honestly.” She put her hand on the doorknob and added, “She also approves of Michael.”

  “Everyone does.”

  “Not really. But Michael’s a kind of litmus test. People who see Michael as a person are generally people you can trust. People who dismiss him or treat him like he’s a two year old, not so much.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “People who treat him as if he’s a child see what they want to see; they don’t see what’s there.”

  “Me being one of those people.”

  “Not sure yet. You might have been trying to be manipulative.”

  “And that’s not worse?”

  “It’s bad—but it’s not worse. Not really. I know how to handle guilt.”

  Chase laughed as she opened the door. Her mother was buttoning up her coat. “Mom, I’d like you to meet Chase Loern. Chase, this is my mother.”

  Her mother held out a hand; Chase shook it. “I’m one of the new kids,” he told her. “Allison finds me when I get lost between classes. I’d have built an impressive late-slip collection without her.”

  “He’s lying,” her daughter added cheerfully.

  “Lying? Me?” The slow smile that spread across his face acknowledged a hit with a wry acceptance and something that felt like approval.

  Allison’s mother took her coat off as Allison removed her scarf. “Chase is behind on assignments,” she said. “And he hasn’t figured out how to use the electronic blackboard—yet.” The last word was said in a dire tone. She took off her coat as well, reaching for a hanger to hand to Chase. He stared at it.

  “You’re not wearing that jacket in here—my mother will turn the heat up twenty degrees if she thinks you’re cold, and the rest of us will melt.”

  He slid out of his jacket. Allison noticed that his eyes were sharper; he surveyed the hall—and the stairs and doors that led from it—as if his eyes were video equipment and he was doing a fancy perimeter sweep. She should have found it funny. Or annoying. She didn’t.

  She wondered, instead, what Chase’s life was actually like. She didn’t ask; her mother had headed directly for the kitchen, and Allison was about to drag Chase up to her room, which was the one room in the house in which her younger brother was unlikely to cause too much embarrassment.

  Chase followed, looking at the staircase the same way he looked at the rest of the house: as if it were alien, and hostile at that. She didn’t know a lot about Chase. Except that he made her angry and that he’d saved her life.

  She headed straight for her desk when she reached her room and counted her pens. “I don’t really need a brother, do I?”

  Chase laughed. “What did he do?”

  “He seems to think that he’s working in an office, and stealing office supplies is a perk. This,” she added, pointing to the penholder, “would be the office supply depot.”

  “He’s younger?”

  “Yes, or he’d already be dead.”

  “None of you seem to use pens much.”

  “It’s the principle.”

  He laughed again. He had an easy, friendly laugh. Hearing it,
it was hard to imagine that he’d killed people. But she didn’t have to imagine it; she’d seen it. She took her tablet out of her backpack and plunked it on the desk, plugging it in before she opened it. “Biology and English. You’ll actually get these? I notice you didn’t bring your computer with you.”

  “I’ll get them. I don’t have much study time in the queue tonight.” And there it was again: the edge, the harshness.

  Wouldn’t you be harsh? If your entire life was devoted to killing mass murderers, wouldn’t you? But . . . he’d come to kill Emma, and Emma was not a mass murderer. And maybe he was staying to find proof that she would never become one. That was the optimistic way of looking at it. The pragmatic version was different: He was staying until she did, at which point he’d kill her.

  Which meant he’d be here a long time.

  She turned around; Chase was standing in the middle of the room, staring at the walls. The walls in Allison’s room were not bare. She had posters, pictures, and one antique map, which had been a gift from her much-loved grandfather, covering everything that wasn’t blocked by furniture. Even her closet door was covered; the one mirror in the room was on the inside of the door.

  “This is a scary room,” Chase finally said, staring pointedly at the Hunger Games poster to one side of the curtained window.

  “Scary how?”

  “If that bookshelf falls over, it’ll kill you in your sleep. Who thought it was a good idea to bolt it into the wall above your head?”

  She raised a hand.

  “Have you read all of these?”

  “Yes. Multiple times. I don’t keep everything, just the ones I know I’ll reread. My brother knows better than to touch my books,” she added, as he reached for the shelf.

  He grinned. “I’m not your brother.”

  “No. You’re a guest, so you get to keep your hand.” She smiled as she said it, but he wasn’t looking at her; he was looking at Beauty.

  “So . . . you come home, you do homework, and you read a lot.”