really do that? Ditch me, Alona Dare, for her, some random girl who just happened to be a ghost-talker?
Oh, I don’t think so.
Yes, I could make it out of here on my own just fine, but that wasn’t the point. We were in this together. Period. End of story.
“Hey.” I snapped my fingers in front of his face. “Wake up. We need to go.”
Finally, he nodded and we started hurrying in the direction of the car. Thank God.
But that didn’t stop him from looking back after her every ten seconds, or me from noticing it.
Crap. This would have to be addressed.
3
Will
“Ow!” I jerked out of Alona’s grasp and away from the tweezers she wielded with maybe just a little too much enthusiasm. “Are you trying to make it worse?”
“You have, like, half the bedroom floor back here,” she said with no sympathy. “Besides, even if I was, you’d deserve it,” she said.
She’d been beyond cranky with me since we’d left the Gibley Mansion grounds, and admittedly, she might be justified in that…to an extent. After the girl just left us standing there, it had been Alona who’d pulled it together and led me out, through the backyard and to the next block over, where I’d parked the Dodge. I’d been reeling still, torn between trying to follow the ghost-talker girl and just getting out of there before I got caught.
Alona had had no such qualms. She’d dragged me to the car and then, on the way to my house, made me tell her everything she’d missed while she’d been gone.
Unsurprisingly, none of those details — the silver that had been stolen and then restolen, Mrs. Ruiz’s attack on me, the weapon the girl had used against Mrs. Ruiz and almost Alona — had improved her mood.
Now in the bathroom at my house, where first aid was supposed to be happening, she was evidently still mulling over everything and blowing things way out of proportion, in my opinion. Thankfully, my house was currently empty. Mymom was at the movies with Sam, her semiboyfriend/boss from the diner where she worked.
“So, she could have killed me with that thing, whatever it was, in her hand?” Alona demanded. “Just wiped me out of existence because she didn’t like the way I was looking at her or something?”
I hesitated, beginning to reconsider the wisdom of this conversation when I didn’t have enough — or any — facts…and when Alona was obviously pissed and in a position to cause me pain. “I don’t know,” I said finally. “I don’t know what the device does exactly, but it definitely did something to Mrs. Ruiz.”
Alona removed another splinter from my back with brutal efficiency, and I winced.
“I stopped her before she hurt you,” I pointed out through gritted teeth. “It’s fine.
“Oh, yeah, I’m great.” She waved the tweezers around. “Your new best friend is a homicidal maniac with mysterious weapons and hair that could be used to remove rust off a bumper.”
At least she had her priorities straight. I resisted the urge to point out that since Alona was already technically dead, it wouldn’t really be homicide. I do have some sense of self-preservation.
“Look, she didn’t know,” I said. “As far as she knew, you were another ghost who was going to try to hurt her.”
“So quick to take her side,” she muttered. She bumped past me to wash her hands at the sink.
I stared at her. “What is wrong with you?”
“You know nothing about her, why she was there, even what all that stuff she had with her does.” She scrubbed her hands ferociously under the water. “Do you even know what happened to Mrs. Ruiz? Where she ended up after your friend made her vanish?”
“I—”
“No, you don’t,” she answered for me. “This girl just waves around her cool toys, and you’re hooked. No questions asked.” She shoved past me to dry her hands on a towel.
“I don’t think it’s really an issue since I’ll probably never see her again,” I said. “She wouldn’t even give me her name.” Which sucked. Maybe I could figure out some other way to track her down, just to talk, exchange some information.
She turned to face me. “Seriously? You’re not actually falling for this, are you?”
“What? Why?” I felt like we were in two completely different conversations…or on two different planets.
“First of all, not telling you her name is a form of manipulation. It only makes you want to know it more.” She shook her head at me in disgust. “Classic girl move. How do you not know this?” She paused and then said, “Never mind. I forgot who I was talking to.”
Nice. Just because I’d spent most of high school avoiding social contact…
“Or, it’s possible she really didn’t want me to know,” I pointed out.
“Then why not make something up? How would you know?”
I opened my mouth and shut it without saying anything. That was kind of a good point.
She flipped her hair behind her shoulders and ticked another point off on her fingers. “Second, another ghost- talker, a rare and endangered species according to you, just happens to show up at the same place at the same time as you?” she asked.
“Well, yeah,” I said. “It’s possible.”
“Please. Do you have any idea of what the odds would be on that?”
“No, but it doesn’t matter,” I argued. “She would have had no way of knowing that I would be there tonight.”
“Uh-huh.” She sounded less than convinced. “Because no one knew about the demolition tomorrow and Mrs. Ruiz’s
Apparently, none of us had known the extent of Mrs. Ruiz’s issues, but her haunting the place was fairly common knowledge, and the impending demolition — as well as the Decatur Historical Society’s doomed efforts to prevent it — had been in the local news for weeks.
I shook my head. “This is crazy. You think this is some kind of elaborate scheme? To accomplish what?”
She threw up her hands. “How should I know? Ask your new girlfriend.”
I frowned at her. “She’s not my—”
“Anyway, it doesn’t matter now whether she meant to find you or not,” Alona continued.
“It doesn’t,” I repeated.
“No. The fact is, she did find you. And if there are so few ghost-talkers out there, do you think they’re going to let an opportunity like this pass them by?”
“Who?” I was beginning to wonder if one of us had experienced brain damage tonight. Honestly, I wasn’t sure which of us was the more likely candidate at this point.
“The people she’s working for,” Alona said with exasperation. “Weren’t you listening? ‘This was my third chance at a containment.’That’s what she said.”
I gaped at her. “We don’t even know what that means.”
“I can tell you it means someone else is judging her based on whatever she did or did not do with Mrs. Ruiz tonight. And I don’t think it’s an international committee of former figure skaters.”
She folded her arms over her chest and waited for me to respond.
“Do you think this hard about everything?” I asked, not even sure what else to say. It was distinctly possible Alona had missed her calling in life as a conspiracy theorist. Albeit a better-dressed one than most.
She leaned closer to me. “Homecoming Queen, three years in a row,” she said. “Do you think that happened by accident?”
She did have a good sense of people, I would give her that. Most of the time, she just didn’t give a shit unless it affected her. Which, in this case, I suppose it did, indirectly.
I waved her words away. “Okay, fine. If she shows up again, I’ll make sure to ask her all the dark and mysterious motives behind her appearance.”
“Good.” She nodded, satisfied.
