A soft rain starts to fall, but no one makes a move to leave, and when the lights from the next train beam in the distance, everyone’s heads turn toward the chug-chug-chug.
Eli steps forward and stumbles a little. Without saying anything, he positions himself on the tracks with his arms folded across his chest.
“Dude, get down,” says Hunter.
Eli just smirks and continues to stare down the train, which is still about a minute away from where they’re standing.
“Should I try it?” Leo’s voice booms as he looks to Reena, and she smiles at him, the glow of her face lighting up the darkness around her.
“Doesn’t it only work if we have Callie to draw from?” asks Norris.
Anger surges through me. They’re talking about using my energy, just like Thatcher said.
“We’ve taken a lot of energy from her already,” says Reena. “Let’s see what happens when she’s not here.”
Immediately, Leo moves in. He positions himself behind Eli, standing with him.
I keep my distance, but the muscles in my legs tighten, ready to spring, and I lean forward to see more clearly. What is Leo doing?
As the train draws closer, the engineer sees Eli’s shape on the tracks. He blows the horn in warning, but Eli doesn’t move.
“Come on, man,” says Hunter, moving closer with Brian. “You’re drunk.”
Brian reaches out for Eli’s arm, intending to pull him off the tracks, but Eli swats him away.
“Get off me,” he says. “You called me a wuss after the bonfire, but y’all are the real pansies.” He stretches out his arms like he’s yawning, and he smiles at the train’s headlights, which are getting closer and closer.
The bonfire. When Reena scared him with her tricks. Thatcher’s right—even joking around with them can have dangerous after-effects.
Eli’s making no move to get down—he’s drunk and full of bravado. He has something to prove.
The train is closing in now. The engineer has started to hit the brakes, and they’re sparking on the rails.
Leo is still standing at Eli’s back, very close, and he raises his arms to his sides slowly. He looks menacing, almost wild, like when I first saw him in the barn at Middleton Place.
“Eli, we all know you’re not a wuss; now get off the tracks!” shouts Molly, her eyes widening. The rain starts to fall harder, in big fat drops.
Eli laughs and relents. “Okay.”
But when he moves to step down, Leo’s massive arms encircle him, holding him captive.
Leo’s eyes close—he’s using all of his concentration to physically keep Eli in place. My phantom heart pounds in my throat. Should I scream?
And Eli starts to panic.
“I can’t get down,” he says, his voice breathy and clipped. Eli is flailing now, his legs lifting off the ground as he tries to escape the hold on him. Then, a crackle zags through my body and that sharpness is followed by a blind rage, because I know what’s happening—they’re using me, taking my energy. In the next moment, I see something straight out of another world—Leo’s glowing figure moves inside Eli, taking over first one leg, then the other, then his arms, and finally his face. Inside Eli’s smile, I see the glow of Leo. A shot of icy cold dread blasts through me—they’re not just trying to scare Eli. This isn’t a game of exhilaration. They’re possessing him.
Just like Carson.
“Stop messing around, man,” says Hunter, his voice rising with every word. “Get off the tracks!”
Brian is shouting now, too, and Gina has started crying. Molly screams, and Hunter rushes up to Eli and tries to drag him to safety, but Leo stands strong, and a wide smile slowly spreads over Eli’s overtaken face.
The poltergeists are watching with rapt attention. Reena’s grin, the one that drew me in with such warmth, makes her face look evil in the rain, which is now pouring down on us all, soaking the Living.
“Stop!” My cry pierces the night even above the metal brakes screeching and all the frantic yelling.
Eli-Leo looks in my direction then and releases a laugh, a deep, angry chortle.
This time, I don’t call for Thatcher. I’ve done so many things wrong—I have to make this right on my own while he regains his strength. I have to save Eli. The thought clicks in my brain like a bullet locked and loaded in a gun, and then I’m pure action. Energy pulses inside me, coming from the very core of my soul, catapulting me forward as if I’m propelled by an engine. It rumbles in my feet, like I’m standing at the center of an earthquake, and flies through my legs and into my chest—driving me, pushing me, as I rush at Eli’s form. If I don’t get there in time, he will die. I race up to Eli-Leo at what seems like the speed of light.
I collide with him in the split second before the train can take his body, and he flies off the tracks, into the woods. I know we’re moving at a velocity that would be hard for the human eye to even comprehend, but to me, time has gone into slow motion. We fall together onto the forest floor, and when I stand up, Leo steps out of Eli like he’s a snake shedding its skin. He stumbles as the wind of the slowing train rushes past us. The engineer is yelling and cursing, and Eli is crouched on the ground, coughing and sobbing. His face is stricken, shocked, but he’s alive. Beautifully and gloriously alive. I feel a jealous sting at the thought that he came so close to this line, the one that I’ve crossed into death, and has a second chance on the other side.
Time returns to normal, and I shake out the excess energy that was occupying my body.
The Living rush up to Eli, asking him what happened, trying to figure out if they just witnessed a terrifying paralysis or the best train dodge in history. I stand close to them and hear Eli quietly repeating, “I’m okay. I’m okay.” Then I turn and face the poltergeists—I came for Reena.
But what I see is her retreating, moving quickly. Is she afraid of me? As I watch, she creates a portal, and Norris and Delia vanish into it. Then she helps Leo, who’s crawling toward her, looking as beaten down as Eli does. As she’s about to step through, she turns and meets my gaze with a defiant smile.
“No!” I run at her, fast, forcing my way into the portal behind her—and then I plunge into darkness.
Twenty-Four
WE TUMBLE THROUGH TOGETHER, but this isn’t like any portal I’ve been in—it’s faster, more violent, twisting and turning and echoing with blackness punctuated by flashing white light and the sound of ghostly howls. I train my eyes on Reena’s long dark hair, whipping around in front of me as she remains just out of my grasp. I reach out to catch her—I’m afraid that they’ll be able to lose me and I won’t know where they end up—but she eludes me. Still, I keep up, bumping and colliding with the edges of this celestial wormhole, a portal that feels like it’s a bucking horse trying to throw me.
And then we stop falling. We’re on the ground, on the side of a highway. The sky is clear and dark now, but the asphalt is slick from the summer rainstorm, and the puddles flash with an eerie light when a car passes by, spraying water in our direction.
The four of them stand quickly, and Leo motions for them to walk along the road. I think they might be trying to get away from me again, but when I move toward Reena, she opens her arms like she wants a hug.
Is she insane? Judging by the expression on her face, she very well may be. Does she think that using me for my energy—taking over the bodies of the living—is okay? That I’ll go along with them while they nearly extinguish a life? Out of everyone in existence, ghosts should understand that causing a death is the worst wrong imaginable—we know what it’s like on the other side of life, watching our loved ones’ anguish.