I'd Rather Not Be Dead (35 page)

They look suitably unimpressed,
though more than vaguely amused. And I laugh. “I'm not in Shadow
anymore.”

“Nope,” Finn tells me, putting
an arm over my shoulder. I can smell the leather from his coat
alongside the comforting scent of his skin. It's a combination I
doubt I'll ever get tired of.

“I can still see Fray,” I tell
him.

“Yep.” He doesn't look quite as
thrilled as I am with the news. “Welcome to Club Shadow
Walker.”

I laugh, feeling high on...
well, life I guess. Who'd have thunk?

“The Shadow Lord's called us all
to The Mountain for a lecture,” Fray says.

Finn snorts. “Is that what
Elza's in for? A lecture?”

Shaking his head, Fray sighs
softly. “We can't kill her.”

I meet his eyes and try to
broadcast sympathy. She can't be killed without being given too
much power over The Spirit. But Fray specifically couldn't kill her
anyway. Bess seems to think that's a weakness. I think she's
wrong.

Fray drops his gaze from mine to
continue addressing Finn. “She's locked up in The Mountain now.
She'll be moved to a prison in Shadow soon.”

“That's bullshit,” Finn tells
him.

“Don't I know it.” Fray shoves a
dark expression behind a guise of affability. He might not have it
in him to kill Elza, but he's got hating her down pat. “See you
kids around.”

He gives me a long look, then
winks before vanishing.

“We can't kill her,” Finn
mutters. “Can we kill him?”

I move to smack him, but he
knows me well enough to anticipate it. His hand grabs my wrist,
holds my arm immobile as his eyes flare in every shade of
green.

There's a crack of a branch
followed by a quick, “Shoot!”

I return the promise in Finn's
look before turning to smile at his mom. She was trying to move
past us without interrupting. She waves a wallet through the air to
explain why she came back at all. “I dropped this...”

Finn's hand slides from my wrist
to wrap our fingers together. “Hey, Mom.”

They look at each other, both
shuffling a little in discomfort.

“When did-” he starts, just as
she goes, “I always-”

They laugh together, the same
laugh in different pitches.

Bess smiles. “I always knew you
were like me, sweetheart. But I also knew you didn't want to talk
about it.”

He takes that with a stoic
nod.

“And I've known about Drew for a
while too. Although I didn't figure out she was being written into
the family saga until yesterday.”

Again, he nods. Bess's eyes
flicker to me, swarming with emotions I can't name.

“You okay?” Finn asks her.

Her jaw drops. She shakes her
head. “Am I okay?” she repeats. “Me?”

It wasn't an unreasonable
question, but she laughs anyway. “Yeah, honey. I'm fine.”

She hugs him, moving an arm to
snag me as well when I try to move away and give them space.
“Welcome back, Drew.”

“Thanks,” I whisper.

Bess smells like jasmine and
sandalwood. How long it will be before I stop marveling over the
return of my sense of smell? People are going to think I plunged
straight off the deep end if I walk around sniffling the whole
town. Of course, people are going to think that when they see me
with Cooper Finnegan anyway. Or they'll think it of him.

“Let's find that Woodman kid.”
Bess pulls away and directs a purposeful stride to the path.
Suddenly she doesn't seem sweet and easygoing. Suddenly she looks
like she should have her hair back in a stiff bun and a firm ruler
smacking against her palm.

Ricky's spared her anger for now
though. The sound before really had been his car pulling off. He
left Tanya laying on the edge of the concrete and well away from
where cars would pull in. Her breath is shallow, but steady, and
when Bess kneels to take her pulse, she nods at the findings
without alarm. “I'm going to take the truck and get this one to the
hospital.”

“Okay,” Finn acknowledges. “Want
us to come with you?”

“No,” she answers with a small
smile. “We'll leave you two out of this if we can. You get Drew
home. I'll call you when I know anything.”

Finn nods, but he's the one who
lifts Tanya from the ground and moves her into the tiny backseat of
the truck cab. He kisses his mother's cheek, then she's driving
away.

I sigh. “I never am going to get
to ride in that monstrosity, am I?”

Finn's face twists as he looks
at me. “Not if you're going to be like that about it.”

I grin. I move to kiss him. And
I groan as we're interrupted again.

A familiar figure on a lavender
bicycle swoops into the parking lot, peddling furiously toward us.
“Drew!” Rain yells. “Get away from here!”

She really doesn't like that I
start laughing.

“You have to leave!” She crashes
a stop next to us, tossing the bike to the ground as she leaps from
it.

I throw my arms around her,
still laughing, but crying too. “You missed the fun, kiddo. It's
all over.” I kiss the top of her head, glad that she's still short
enough I can do that. “I'm fine.” I give her an extra squeeze. “I
missed you.”

“Missed me?” Pushing back, she
stares up at me. “What happened?”

“I was pushed off a cliff.”

Her eyes go to Finn, who gives
her an easy smile. “Sort of. She actually did the pushing if you
want to be technical about it.”

“I did not!” I argue.

He gives me a look.

“Okay, maybe I did.” I grin at
him. “But either way, you lied to me, Cooper Finnegan.”

His eyebrows go up.

“You said you wouldn't save
me.”

Laughing, he shakes his head,
pulls me away from my sister, and then - finally! - tries his best
to kiss me senseless.

Chapter Thirty

Finn's sitting on his porch
steps, his backpack at his feet, when I make it back to his house.
I used to try my best to ignore it as I walked by, although I still
walked that way every day rather than cutting down a different
street, but this morning my eyes were anxiously awaiting the first
glimpse of its tower. Finn trots up to fall into step beside
me.

“Ready to shock all of Pine
Ridge?” he asks.

My stomach rolls. “I don't know.
Why don't we hop a flight to Europe or something?”

“Grand Tour sounds nice.” He
flashes that infamous grin of his. “But the ferrets would be
heartbroken.”

Shaking my head, I take hold of
his hand. “Yes, we must think of the children.”

His fingers squeeze mine, his
grip firm as we get close enough to the school for there to be
people to notice us.

The whispers start immediately.
And the stares. The gasps. The quick drawing of cell phones,
snapping of images, and tapping out of text messages. No one else
knows I've been gone longer than the weekend. From their point of
view, we were enemies two days ago.

Tanya breaks out into tears when
she sees me, throwing her arms around my neck and sobbing
apologies.

“Hey, it's alright, ” I tell
her, dropping Finn's hand to hold onto her shoulders. Thick lines
of purple circle bloodshot eyes. I'm not sure she should be in
school today, but the hospital released her last night with the
assurance she'd be fine. “The asshole drugged you too.”

“But, I knew,” she whimpers. “I
knew what he was planning and how it was going turn out. I just
wasn't brave enough to say his angel was really a demon.” She takes
a very shaky breath. Her hands goes to her cross, pressing it
against her skin with enough force to leave a mark. “I see things.
Before they happen. Sometimes.”

“A lot of saints could do that
too,” I tell her.

“Really?” Her eyes fly open with
hope that maybe her talent doesn't make her damned.

Sympathetically, I nod. “It
seems to me that if you have a gift, God gave it to you.” Letting
go of her, I give her a little smile. “It all worked out this time,
but I bet He'd like it if you didn't ignore His gifts in the
future.”

“Yeah.” Her smile is like the
sun coming out after a storm. “I won't. I'll... I'll go pray and
tell Him!”

“God gave you a gift?” Finn
teases, sliding his arm around me with a fond smile.

I laugh at myself. “Obviously,
I'm full of shit. But it made her feel better.”

“And you suddenly care?” There's
a grin waiting on the edges of his lips, an almost proud look in
his eyes.

By the time we make it to our
lockers, the whole school seems to know about us. No one says
anything to me since the only person who ever really talked to me
is still in the hospital, but poor Finn can't go three seconds
without someone stopping him. I used to think he thrived on
attention. It was one of the many things I couldn't stand about
him. Now he just seems harassed, though maybe it's not that so many
people want to talk to him but what they want to say. And that they
all think they need to say it loud enough for me to hear them.

“I heard something about you and
Drew McKinney. They meant Bobbi McKinney, right?”

“Yo, did Billy Joe really see
you with that freak girl?”

“Please tell me you aren't
hooking up with Drew.”

“Drew? Dude, what are you
thinking?”

“You know, just because you want
to do her, doesn't mean you have to be seen with her.”

And my personal favorite, “She a
freak in bed too? 'Cause that's the only excuse I can think
of.”

Finn slams his locker shut and
glares at the last guy. “You're talking about my girlfriend,” he
states, his voice so calm it send chills up my spine. The other guy
seems to get the message too, backing off with lightening speed and
vanishing down the hall.

My arm snakes around Finn's.
“See, me, I would've just answered the question.”

He tilts a smile toward me.
“Sorry. Didn't mean to damage your reputation with my lack of
customer feedback.”

There's a loud silence in the
half-filled English room as we stroll in. Finn gives me a quick
peck on the temple before we settle into seats. I take the one next
to him, forcing the row to shift over by one. No one says a word
about it, though even the teacher looks astonished.

I glare down a girl who's
looking at me like I'm the anti-Christ and wonder how long we have
until someone openly accuses me of using witchcraft. Not long, as
it turns out. Leaving calculus, I pick up a thread about how Cris
didn't really OD, but is in the hospital because I used too much of
his blood working a Satanic rite to snare Finn's affections.

“Watch out,” I tell the guy I
caught spreading the tale. “I need a new donor now.”

Finn gives my hair a light tug
as the kid blanches and starts to back away. “For a completely
different spell, of course.”

“Obviously. I have you, but now
I need to train you.”

“Probably need more than one
donor.”

“Probably.”

We drift through the day,
trading glances during class and walking together through the
halls. We eat lunch alone, in the place Cris and I usually eat.

In movies, when the popular kid
starts dating the unpopular kid, the unpopular kid always gets
promoted. And then faces moral dilemmas involving his or her old
friends, who may have been losers or geeks or freaks, but were at
least genuine in their friendship.

In real life, or at least at
Pine Ridge, it looks like this isn't going to be the case. Since
this morning, people have slowly stopped talking to Finn. They
aren't ignoring him, exactly, but the attitude seems to be, “Just
leave him alone and he'll come to his senses.”

The cheerleading squad is a lot
more militant than that, filling the day with jeers, sneers, and
assorted other minor attacks that Finn pretends not to notice. I'm
torn between hating them for being so bitchy to him and respecting
them for sticking up for Bobbi.

No, my issue isn't with Bobbi's
friends. My problem is with all the people who aren't upset that my
sister was hurt by Finn hooking up with me, but are acting like
jerks anyway. Not that I should have expected better from any of
them. I knew all along this school was filled with shallow and
judgmental idiots and Cooper Finnegan turning out not to be one
doesn't mean everyone else is secretly awesome.

There's an announcement at the
end of the day, a few minutes before dismissal, and the start of it
makes me go completely numb. “It is my very sad duty to inform you
of the passing of a fellow student.”

My mind screams a name, but it's
not the name the principal says. “Richard Woodman passed away this
morning following complications from an accident off the Blue Ridge
Parkway yesterday.”

Guilt washes over me on the
heels of relief. I glance at Finn, then follow his gaze to where
it's moved while Ms. Pauler explains Ricky arriving at the hospital
in a coma yesterday and never regaining consciousness. This
afternoon, she tells us, his family made the decision not to keep
him on life support. Tanya's fingers twine around her crucifix as
she stares at the speakers, looking pale and fragile. But not
surprised.

Fray said Shadow wouldn't want
to lose a death. It must have substituted Ricky for me. I'd feel a
lot worse about that if he hadn't been trying to kill me when it
happened.

Tanya rushes from the room as
soon as the announcement ends and the teacher doesn't try to stop
her. I think about going after her, but what would I say?

My attention goes back to Finn.
He gives me a soft, understanding, smile. He's not happy to see
Ricky dead. Ricky was, after all, as much a victim of Elza as I
would have been. But given a choice between who would live and who
would die, he'd keep things as they are.

I call Cris's mom as soon as the
bell rings. She tells me Cris woke up and wants to see me, lets me
know which room they'd moved him into. Standing in the hallway
outside of it, I feel dread gnawing at my insides. Finn pushes my
hair back behind my ear and smiles.