Intertwined

John babbled about Chloe while Aden considered his options. He couldn’t speak out loud, not even in a whisper. He didn’t know sign language, and even if he did, John might not. He couldn’t leave the classroom; because of his past, he wasn’t allowed to roam the halls during class time. What option did that leave him? A note?

A note! Of course. He lifted his pen and began writing. When you were alive, did you have a—how should he word this? — superpower? He swirled the paper around and slid it toward John.

John continued speaking, oblivious.

Aden tapped the page, keeping his gaze on the teacher.

“What? Oh. You want me to read that?”

He nodded.

A moment passed in silence. Then, “Nah. Not really. I mean, I could sense other people’s emotions, which really freaked me out, but that isn’t a superpower. It was just me being too sensitive. Like a pansy, as my dad would say. That’s why, I, you know, self, uh, medicated.”

An empath. John had been an empath. Aden knew about them only because he’d met another boy with a similar ability in one of the institutions and that boy had studied the ability in an effort to stop feeling so much, so strongly.

“What does my pansy factor have to do with anything?” John asked. “Never mind. Don’t answer that. It doesn’t matter. I need you to talk to Chloe for me. I want you to tell her what I can’t.”

He could have resisted. He still didn’t know what would happen if he failed, or even if he succeeded. But right now he was John’s only link to the living, and he knew what it was like to want something desperately but be unable to have it. Okay, he wrote.

John sucked in a breath. “Really? You’ll talk to her?”

He gave another nod.

“You swear?”

Another nod.

“Today?”

Nod. What do you want me to tell her?

“If you’re lying…” John balled his fists and slammed them against Aden’s desk. The intensity of his emotion must have given him some solidity, because Aden’s desk rattled. As the students around him jolted, John said, “I’ll follow you. I swear I will. I’ll haunt you until you do it.”

Aden tapped his finger against the question.

John’s anger melted, dejection taking its place. “Tell her I’m sorry. Tell her I didn’t use her, that I…loved her. I did.”

Aden’s brow creased in confusion.

Shame coasted over the boy’s face. “We didn’t hang with the same people, but I asked her out on a dare. I never expected to like her. But I did. Her emotions are so pure, you know? Not overpowering. Then she overheard my friends teasing me about her. They wanted her to hear. Planned for her to, I think.”

John stared down at his wringing hands. “God, man. Her devastation…I can still feel it. It’s like I soaked it up and it became a part of me. I tried to talk to her, to explain, but she wanted nothing to do with me. I was desperate to forget, to feel nothing, you know, and did something stupid. Now, here I am.” His voice trailed off, perhaps too shaky to work past his throat, and he coughed in renewed embarrassment.

“—Mr. Stone?”

Aden straightened in his seat. The teacher was holding out a piece of chalk. “I’m sorry, what?”

I’ve been listening to him, Eve said, always the one to his rescue. He asked you to conjugate the verb run in Spanish.

“Never mind,” Aden muttered, pushing to his feet. He approached the head of the class with trepidation. “Sí, señor” was the only Spanish he knew.

Good luck, Caleb said. I could tell you the color underwear the blonde to your right is wearing—rojo. That means red, by the way. But that’s all I know.

“I’ll help,” John said, keeping pace beside him.

Thank God. With John telling him what to write, Aden managed to impress the teacher for the first time. He didn’t feel guilty about cheating, either. As he’d listened to John and written what he’d heard, he’d learned.

Halfway back to his seat, the bell rang. Crap. He wasn’t finished talking to John. He quickened his step, swiped up his backpack, then lifted the pad and pen and wrote, Since I’m helping you with Chloe, will you help me? I need a bottle of nail polish.

John barked out a laugh. “Are you kidding me? I didn’t peg you as the type.”

He shook his head as kids filed past him, jaw locked together, cheeks heating. It’s for a girl. Last night after Victoria had left him so abruptly, he’d started to think. She had to paint her fingernails with that metal to protect herself from…he couldn’t recall the name of the liquid in her ring, but she could paint her toenails and she loved color, so…

Still laughing, John asked, “Any particular color?”

Doesn’t matter, he wrote. As long as it’s not black. If you can’t, I’ll—

“Oh, I can. I’ve learned a few tricks these last few months. And I happen to know where Mr. White keeps all the bottles the teachers confiscate from the students.”

Has to be unopened, never used.

“Mr. Stone. The bell rang,” the teacher, Señor Smith, said impatiently. “You need to leave.”

“Never used won’t be a problem,” John said.

Aden crossed the room to the door. John remained beside him until he hit the hallway, then disappeared.

Time to hunt for Chloe. It was now lunch, so she should be in the cafeteria. He’d planned to sneak off campus and into the forest for an hour—searching for Victoria rather than Riley this time—but that would have to wait. He’d given John his word. And he wanted that nail polish.

Something slammed into his shoulder, and his bag went flying. Suddenly Tucker loomed in front of him, scowling, pure menace. Determined. “Watch where you’re going, Crazy.”

He ground his teeth. “Get out of my face, Tucker.” He didn’t need the threat of Tucker now, on top of the threat Ozzie still presented. Not to mention all the creatures newly arrived in town.

“What’ cha gonna do about it, huh? No one’s here to save you this time.”

The world around him faded, another taking its place. This one was an empty alleyway, redbrick walls colored with graffiti. There was a Dumpster and rats ran along the edges. In the background, he could even hear the wail of a police siren. What the hell?

“It’s just you and me now,” the jock said, smug.

Aden saw the way Tucker’s eyes were swirling, the gray laced with sizzling silver. This had to be an illusion, he realized grimly. Tucker had tried before, but it hadn’t worked. This time, Mary Ann wasn’t standing next to him. This time, there was nothing to negate Tucker’s power. Except…

Riley somehow always negated Mary Ann’s negation, allowing Aden’s companions to talk and act even in her presence. Tucker had tried the spider thing when both had been around him, yet had failed. Shouldn’t that mean Tucker simply couldn’t use his ability against Aden, no matter who was or was not with him?

Lost in thought as he was, he was unprepared when Tucker shoved him and went flying backward. He tripped over his own feet and fell to the ground. Though his eyes told him he’d hit a brick wall, that wall jumped away from him with a curse. Had he actually hit a person?

Tucker grinned, and there was an evil edge to it. “This is gonna be fun.”

As Aden popped to his feet, Tucker launched forward. Back to the ground he went, but this time he rolled, pinning Tucker’s shoulders. He drew his knees up, straddling Tucker’s waist, holding him down.

“I don’t want to fight you,” he snarled.

“Chicken?” Tucker jerked his arms free, grabbed hold of his shoulders and tossed him aside.

Just determined to stay here. He stood, fingers curling into fists. “Why can’t you