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“I have to tell him something.” I didn’t meet Dylan’s eyes when I added, “It’s for school.”

“Riiight.”

“So have you seen him?”

“You want something to eat? They have these awesome chips, I think they’re crab-and-ranch flavored.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“I know that sounds gross, crab and ranch? But it works.” He adjusted his tie again, maybe noticing he was rambling. “They also have plain chips.”

“I said I’m not hungry.” I bit my lip at the sound of my crankiness. “Sorry. I’m a little distracted.”

He seemed to come to a decision. “You know, I saw Kilt Guy go through there.” He pointed to the door leading to the boys’ locker room.

“Be right back. Promise.” I handed him the punch cup and scurried off.

Walking down the locker room hallway, I heard nothing but the clack of my heels and the soft thump of bass. For some reason I recalled a science lesson that said lowest frequencies travel the farthest. I imagined the sound waves rolling out from the speakers, curling around the corners, and finding me here alone, like a victim in a slasher film.

I hesitated at the outer door, but only for a second. Maybe it wasn’t too late not to lose Zachary.

The bleachers of Ridgewood’s athletic field gleamed a dull silver in the moonlight. Since there were no ghosts, I figured Zachary had to be nearby. But the stands were empty.

I sighed, feeling stupid for my impromptu wild-goose chase. Could Zachary have left the prom entirely? Not with Becca—she’d never leave before they crowned the king and queen. Maybe they’d had a fight.

I couldn’t give up. I pulled out my phone to call him.

That’s when I heard Becca’s low, sultry laughter.

I inched behind the bleachers, staying in the shadows and softening my footsteps. Soon I saw Zachary standing against the small wooden snack bar with his back to me. Two silver, high-heeled shoes appeared around his calves, along with two hands on his back, descending lower.

I was too late. Becca had drowned him.

I shrank back, afraid to watch and even more afraid to be discovered. The thought of Becca directing her victorious laugh at me shot spikes of fear across my shoulders.

Then I heard Zachary’s voice, soft and low, which gave me hope. If he was using his mouth to speak, it wasn’t doing anything else.

I peeked at them again. Becca was seated on the snack bar’s condiment counter. I couldn’t hear Zachary’s words, but the tender way he held her face said it all.

Finally he lifted her from the shelf and set her on her feet. She dusted off her butt, then his, though his didn’t need it. Then she took his hand as they headed back toward the building. He looked down as if surprised, but didn’t pull away.

I stumbled to the front of the stands and sank onto the bottom bleacher. My lungs seized up, but if I cried, my mascara would turn my face into a muddy mess. So I swallowed my sobs until my stomach ached.

A familiar whisper came from behind. “Aura.”

I gasped and turned. Sitting on the top bleacher, glowing violet in the night, was Logan.

R
emember how we used to sit up here freshman year,” he said, “at football and lacrosse games? Far enough we could pretend we were too cool to care whether Ridgewood won?” “Somehow we always cheered anyway.” I got to my feet and resisted the urge to run to him, knowing I’d break my ankles in these heels.

“This is where I first asked you out.” He put his hand on the seat beside him. “You were eating an ice-cream sandwich. It was dripping down your wrist, and I had the worst urge to lick it.”

“I don’t remember you asking me out here.”

“I asked you to come to our first gig. Where we kissed for the first time.”

Now
that
I remembered like it was yesterday. Though Logan had been full of fire onstage, his kiss was soft and sweet, almost shy.

“That doesn’t count as you asking me out. I would’ve come to your show anyway.”

“Just because you didn’t know what I was asking doesn’t mean I didn’t ask.”

I grinned up at him, then realized my neck was getting stiff. “Can you come down here?”

He didn’t bother walking. In a flash he was next to me. “Wanna dance?”

“Let’s go closer to the school so we can hear the music.” I looked at the assortment of ghosts on the athletic field, going through the motions of their respective sports, unable to act as a team. “And be alone.”

“You look amazing, by the way.” He touched the tail of his open shirt as he walked beside me. “I’m way underdressed.”

“I don’t care.”

He beamed at me. “So how much are you hating prom night?”

“Let’s see, Megan and Mickey aren’t speaking, Dylan keeps stepping on my toes, and—” I cut myself off, not wanting to reveal the worst part.

“Let me guess: Bagpipes and the Bitch?”

“Good guess.” I told him what I’d overheard in the girls’ room and then seen at the concession stand.

“I don’t remember Becca being that desperate,” he said. “Aren’t guys usually throwing themselves at her, not the other way around?”

“She wants Zachary because he made her chase him. Looks like she finally caught her prey.”

“Did you actually see them kiss?”

“No, but they were—”

“What, talking?”

“While glued to each other,” I said. “They could’ve been kissing before I walked up.”

“Or she tried to kiss him and he had to talk her down from her horn-doggedness.”

I snorted. “If Becca could hear you say that, you’d be twice dead.”

We stopped off the side of the front courtyard, close enough to hear music floating from the gym’s high windows. It was a song from last year, one that Logan and I had danced to at Homecoming.

He held out his hand, palm up. I placed mine in it, willing my fingers to feel his. He drew me close, and I clasped my hands behind his neck. To any pre-Shifters watching, I had my arms wrapped around nothing, but I didn’t care what anyone thought. I was at home in Logan’s ethereal embrace.

“Look,” he said, “I don’t know this Zachary guy, and I don’t want to know him. But if he was really into you—and it sounds like he was—I don’t see how he could like Becca, too. Maybe as friends, but not in a hookup way.”

I wanted to believe him. After all, Logan had zero motive for making me think well of Zachary. He could have told me to surrender the fight. But he spoke as if he only wanted me to be happy, and as if he realized he might not always be the source of that happiness.

“Who wouldn’t want Becca?” I asked him, still insecure. “She’s gorgeous.”

“She’s scary. Something about her always made my balls wish they were internal organs.”

A much-needed laugh burst out of me. It was rare that Logan said the exact right thing.

We swayed in the shadows, and when I closed my eyes, I could pretend the other ghosts weren’t watching me, maybe remembering when they’d danced at their own prom. I could pretend I felt Logan’s arms around me.

“You have
got
to be kidding.”

We broke apart at the sound of Dylan’s voice. “Dude, what’s up?” Logan said. “Hey, my tux looks awesome on you.”

Dylan descended the front stairs and stalked toward us. “What’s up,
dude
, is that I didn’t say you could dance with my date.”

“I don’t need your permission.”

Dylan brought his face within inches of his dead brother’s. “Why can’t you just leave her alone?”

“I would if she wanted me to.”

“How can she know what that’s like, when you won’t let her find out?”

“She had a life without me when I was a shade.”

“When you were a shade, none of us did shit but sit around waiting. There was no life-without-you.” He scowled at the space between me and Logan. “Obviously there never will be.”

“What’s the big deal?” I asked Dylan. “Logan’s been a part of our lives, even after he died.”

“I thought for one night he could leave us alone.”

My neck prickled as I realized the reason for his anger. “Dylan, do you mean all of us, or—”

“I mean you and me.” He jerked at his tie to undo it. “But there’s no such thing as you and me.”

“Holy shit, you like her.” Logan lowered his head like a bull as he moved between us. “My own brother. You couldn’t wait until I’d passed on to make a move on my girlfriend?”

“I’m not your girlfriend,” I said.

“And I didn’t make a move,” Dylan added. “
She
asked
me
to the prom.”

“As friends,” Logan said.

“We didn’t feel like friends when we were slow-dancing.”

Logan turned his head toward me. “What’s he mean by that?”

I covered my face, too cowardly to see the hurt in Dylan’s eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to give you the wrong idea. I was just—”

“Trying to make Kilt Boy jealous. Yep. I should’ve known I’d never have a chance with you.”

“Only because it would’ve been like hooking up with my own brother. You don’t like me that way. You just think you do because I’m safe.”

“
I’m
playing it safe?” Dylan shouted. “You’re the one dancing with a ghost. You’re the one who asked your dead boyfriend’s brother to the prom because you were too scared to be with the guy you really wanted. A guy who is probably right now getting blown by the prom queen.”

My insides curdled at the image. “She’s not queen yet. And there’s no way they’re—they went back inside.”

“Good idea.” He grabbed my hand and started to pull me toward the door.

“Wait!” Logan said. “Where are you going?”

“Anywhere you’re not!” Dylan yelled.

“Aura!” Logan shot forward, then hissed and leaped back. “Fucking BlackBox.” He shifted to the side, as if searching for an opening. “Aura … stay with me.”

My heart felt like it would rip in two. “Give me a minute,” I said to Dylan as I slipped my hand out of his and walked over to Logan. “I can’t just leave your brother after the way I’ve treated him.”

Logan wavered. “Okay, but—maybe we can meet up later?”

“We’ll be out late. I came with them.”

“With my family. You’re more a part of them now than I am.” He shoved his hands in the pockets of his baggy shorts and looked up at the school’s clock tower. “I loved Ridgewood. I wish we never moved out to the County. The teachers here were amazing, and we actually learned stuff that mattered, instead of obsessing over state tests all the time.” His gaze fell on me. “What if I pass on and forget all this? What if I can’t even remember what it was like to touch you? What kind of heaven is that?”

I clutched my purse, running my fingers over the silk and sequins the way I once stroked his skin. Behind Logan, the other ghosts crowded closer, blending into a giant violet mass, unable to sense one another.

Logan noticed my shifting glance and looked over his shoulder. “I’m not the only ghost here, am I?” When I shook my head, he groaned. “God, I’m so pathetic. Hanging around my old school on prom night. I need to get a life.”

“Logan—”

“Scratch that. What I really need is to get a death.”

He vanished.

Dylan came to my side. A prom couple passed us on their way to the courtyard for a cigarette break.

“They must be seniors,” Dylan said as we watched them light up in the midst of the ghosts.

We turned and went inside, stopping in the school’s stone foyer. “What did Logan mean by ‘his tux’?” I asked Dylan.

He passed a self-conscious hand down the pin-striped jacket’s lapel. “He picked it out before he died. Showed me last month.” He thumbed the black silk vest’s bottom button. “I knew that anything I picked would be dorky or boring.”

“Logan was right about one thing. You look awesome.”

Dylan gave a half smile and glanced at his feet. “Forget what I said outside, okay?”

“So you don’t like me?”

“What’s the point?”

“There doesn’t have to be a point. I want to know how you feel.”

He took a couple of steps away, then turned to face me without meeting my eyes. “You asked me to the prom. I figured it was as friends. But I thought maybe …” When I didn’t interrupt, he continued. “Since we were kids, we always had the ghosts. We could see them and no one else in my family could. And after Logan died …” He scraped the side of one shoe against the other. “You were the only one I could talk to about it.”

I should have sensed Dylan’s feelings sooner. Maybe I had, but just couldn’t deal. “I know what you mean,” I said. “No one else missed Logan like we did, even though he was still here.”

He nodded. “The rest of my family could be sad. But I couldn’t, not with his ghost around.”

“Like it would’ve insulted him. Like he wasn’t enough anymore.”

“Exactly! I feel like an asshole for saying this, but … I wish he would go. Now that he’s not a shade and we know he’s okay.”

“He’ll go soon.” I frowned. “Here we are, together at the prom, still talking about Logan.”

“What else do we ever talk about?”

“Nothing. But maybe we should start.” I fumbled for something to say, then spied what Dylan was holding. “Are you going to put your tie back on?”

“Nah, it took half an hour to tie it the first time. Here, hold out your hand.” Dylan looped the tie around my right wrist, the one without the corsage, and tied a double knot. “So you’ll remember who you’re leaving with tonight.”

His fingers brushed the back of my hand as he let go. My breath hitched at the sudden zing of connection.
Whoa.

Applause and cheering burst from the gymnasium.

“They must be crowning the royalty,” I said.

“Lame.”

“Totally.” I shifted my feet. “Although I am kind of curious.”

Onstage, Justin Harlow and Christina Wilkes raised their fists like they’d won the heavyweight title instead of prom prince and princess.

Dylan helped me stand on a chair to get a better view. From the back of the gym I could see Zachary’s and Becca’s profiles, touched by the edge of the stage light’s glow. The smile plastered on her face couldn’t cover the terror. He brushed his hand over her back in a soothing gesture, and she eased her body against him.

Principal Hirsch opened the envelope in slow motion, drawing out
the fake suspense. “Your prom king and queen are … Tyler Watson and Becca Goldman.”