Right?
Fuck, I didn’t need this. I needed to know who to trust. Maybe I couldn’t trust any of them. Maybe I really was alone in this. I grabbed the sides of my head to try to make the thoughts slow down. They wouldn’t. They just spun Tilt-A-Whirl circles in my skull over and over until they crept down my aching throat. Into my clenched fists.
Everything went black. A blinding, screaming black.
And when it was light again I was standing in front of a broken mirror. My fist was bleeding. My cheeks were wet. But at least the thoughts were gone. Everything in my brain was horribly blank, replaced by a hurt that wouldn’t go away.
The bathroom door swung open and I turned away from the broken reflection of my face in the mirror. Finn stood gawking at me, his green eyes sweeping over the bathroom like he was looking for who could have done this. Like he couldn’t believe that I’d done it myself.
“What happened?” he asked, walking over. Slow. Cautious. He pulled the gray sweatshirt he was wearing over his head and wrapped one of the sleeves around my trembling, bloody hand.
I didn’t know what to say to him. I still wasn’t ready to tell him about Noah, not when I didn’t know whose side he was really on—or what side I needed to be on, for that matter. What I did know was that
Finn was keeping something from all of us and I wanted to know what it was. Seeing the hard look in his eyes as he talked about Balthazar that night in Emma’s room was enough to tell me that he knew exactly what this Balthazar guy was capable of.
Swallowing a lump of pride down my throat, I stared at my replacement. The guy who had everything I used to have. Emma. A life. A future. I wanted to hate him for it, but I couldn’t. Not when him having all of those things meant Emma being happy. Even if that meant I didn’t get to have them anymore. Finn took another hesitant step forward and laid a hand on my shoulder. I wiped my bloody hands on my jeans and shuddered out a breath full of want and loss and fear. Then I said three words I never thought I’d say to Finn.
“I need help.”
Chapter 19
Anaya
I stood outside Cash’s house in the sunshine. It felt right, here in the light. In the sun. Its rays clung to me, caressed my hair and skin, whispering goodness into my ears. I missed when this was all there was. Before I made this mistake that I’d give anything in the world to take away. I could feel Cash inside the house, his hurt and uncertainty tugging on the invisible threads between us. I finally gave in and stepped through the warm, wooden front door and into the empty hall.
There weren’t any voices to follow. Just the sound of memories being packed away into boxes. The rip and press of tape sealing it all away. I found them in the den. Cash sat in a pile of books.
Surprisingly, Finn was with him, taping up a box, as if he belonged there.
“You’re sure you want to pack all of this away? Now?” Finn said, standing up. “We could wait, you know, until…”
Cash looked up when he trailed off. “Until what?” he said. “He’s not coming back. You should know that better than anybody.” He tossed a book into a box with a little more force than necessary and sighed. “Look, you said you wanted to help. So stop treating me like a fucking fragile little girl and help me already.”
Finn nodded and unfolded another cardboard box for a pile of jackets that were stacked on the big oak coffee table.
“Besides.” Cash ran his hand over the cover of a thick red leather-bound book. “I don’t want Em or her mom to have to deal with any of this when…”
“I told you nothing’s going to happen to you,” Finn said, voice tense. “We will think of something.
So just stop talking like that, okay?” His shoulders sagged with the weight of the lie. Cash just shook his head and opened another book.
I took a deep breath, feeling myself fuse together cell by cell until the warmth was so intense it consumed me.
When the room came into focus, Cash was staring at me, jaw clenched, fingers stretched tight and white around the binding of a book. I’d left things badly between us. Refusing to let him see his father, then disappearing and leaving him alone with no explanation. I touched the spot on my chest that ached with guilt.
“I need to talk to him.” I spoke to Finn but didn’t take my eyes off this boy who sat in front of me.
His eyes trained on my face, filling me with something so familiar it stole what little breath I was allowing myself to take.
“No.” Cash turned his attention to Finn, lips pressed together as a look of understanding passed between them. “I want him to stay.”
I sighed. “Suit yourself.”
Finn settled onto the arm of a shiny brown leather sofa. Cash stayed where he was, huddled in a pile of books that smelled like his father.
He shook his head, gaze fixed on his hands. There was a battle going on inside him. I could feel it.
See it written all over his face.
“What’s going on?” I sank down onto the floor in front of him. “Did something happen?”
“Do you know what I am, Anaya?” His brown eyes connected with mine and they looked so tired.
“Because I do.”
Shock fizzled through me. “H-how do you know?”
“How long have you known?” Cash growled. “How long have you known that I’m a shadow walker and how long have you been keeping it from me?”
Finn looked confused, but I could only shake my head. “I haven’t known the whole time,” I said in a panic. “I spoke to Easton and he…he showed me. I swear to you, Cash, I had no idea until a few days ago. I wasn’t even certain until the lake, after you crossed over with me.”
How did he know? Who had he been talking to who would have known, because I was certain he hadn’t found this in one of his books. This kind of information wasn’t even widely known in the afterlife, let alone the living world.
“Did you know?” I asked Finn, who was staring at Cash in disbelief.
“No way,” he said. “How the hell would I have known?”
“Tell me what it means,” Cash said.
“You’re a soul caught between life and death. It’s the only thing that would explain you being able to cross between worlds and force me into corporeality.”
“And why, exactly, does that make me so important?”
I shuddered, remembering the boy shoving souls over the cliff in Umbria. “It means you can be used to collect lost souls. At least that’s most likely what Balthazar wants you for. As for the shadow demons…”
“Yeah, I know,” he sneered. “I’m up next on the buffet line. I get it.”
“Cash,” I stopped him. “No. They wouldn’t want you for that. I mean they would, but you’re too valuable. They’d use you as a poacher, rounding up lost souls to deliver to the weaker ones below.”
Cash’s brows furrowed together and he shook his head mechanically. “No…he would have told me,” he whispered.
“Who would have told you?”
He ignored me, wringing his hands to ease the way they were shaking, if I had to guess. “Don’t lie to me about this, Anaya. If you’re just trying to scare me, to get me to side with you—”
“I’ve seen it,” I said.
Cash gritted his teeth and looked away. Someone had gotten to him. But who? And what kind of lies were they filling his head with?
“How did I become like this? Why me?”
I swallowed, uselessly. “When I brought you back. Didn’t take you. It must have triggered it. I thought…” I stopped and looked at him, bundled up in a black sweater, a burgundy scarf wrapped tight around his neck. A knit cap shoved over his raven-black hair even though it was obviously a warm spring day. His skin was pale. His eyes tired and dark. He didn’t look alive. He looked like Easton had said. Straddling the line.