Ohhh, he’s jealous. Feeling ditched. It might be the wrong time, but we were going to run out of cornfields eventually. I didn’t want to spend the day with Ace when it was Shoe who was in danger. “Uh, do you think you could take us to Shoe’s house?” I asked, and Ace leaned forward past Nakita to see me.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Ace said in disgust. “This is to get to him, isn’t it? You girls are all the same. You see a fancy car and you think I’m dirt.”
“No!” I exclaimed, my pulse jumping into play. Sensing it, Nakita looked at me. “Ace, Shoe is in danger,” I said, and seeing his anger, I blurted, “I know all about the virus he wants to upload to the school. It’s going to kill people.”
The truck swerved and Ace looked at me, shocked.
“Watch the road!” I shouted as I remembered going into the ravine. My hand slammed against the dash. But he wasn’t listening to me.
“Computer viruses don’t kill people,” he said, angry. “How did you find out about it? Did he tell you? Did Shoe tell you, and then get mad at me for telling you about some stupid music we lifted?”
His voice hurt my ears, and I glanced from him to the road, glad no one was coming. “He didn’t tell me,” I said. “It’s my job to know stuff.”
Ace laughed, but I breathed easier when he looked back at the road. Nakita sat still between us, fingering her amulet and staying out of it, but her frown told me she thought I was making a mistake.
“It’s your job, huh? And who are you, silent girl? Her muscle?”
Nakita dropped her hand to steady her little purse on her knees. “Yes.”
He laughed bitterly again, shaking his head as he muttered, “I’m a crazy-chick magnet. Crazy-freaking-chick magnet.”
A flush of anger lit through me. “I don’t care if you believe me or not,” I said sharply, “but that virus is going to escape the school and get into the hospital. People are going to die.” I shifted my tone, pleading. “You’ve got to help me convince Shoe not to do it. He won’t listen to me, but you’re his friend.”
Ace looked at me, his eyes holding a heady anger. “Screw you,” he said suddenly. “And screw Shoe. Why should I give a crap about him?”
Frustrated, I let go of the dash. Shoe was going to college, and Ace wasn’t. He was afraid he wasn’t good enough to keep up, and it was easier to hate Shoe than try and maybe fail.
“We’re not going to Shoe’s?” Nakita asked.
“I’d sooner go to hell,” Ace said, and Nakita moved.
“Hey!” Ace shouted as Nakita suddenly turned in her seat and grabbed his shirt.
“You are not going to hell. You are going to take us to Shoe’s house,” she demanded, and the truck swerved.
“Nakita! Let go!” I shouted as we crossed the yellow line, then swerved back, our tires going right off the road.
“Let go of me, you crazy chick!” Ace shouted, one wheel still off the road as we continued at a fast sixty miles an hour. Slowly he brought us back on the pavement, and only after all four wheels were on the road did he use his brakes and we lurched to a stop.
“Get out!” Ace was shouting. “Get out of my truck, you freaks!”
I was more than ready to, and I shoved the door open and slid onto the hot pavement. I was shaking, sick almost, at the reminder of the car accident that had killed me.
“I told you to take us to Shoe,” Nakita said from inside the truck.
“And I told you to get out!” Her purse sailed into the air, landing by my feet. “I’ve never hit a girl, but you’re pushing it, babe. Why is it that the sexy ones are all nuts?”
Babe? Had he really called her babe?
Nakita was ready to lose it, and I reached in to pull on her arm. “Come on, let’s go.”
I yanked her out right as Ace hit the gas, accelerating with his tires hiccuping on the pavement. The door wasn’t even shut.
“Crazy chicks!” he shouted, leaving a pall of oil smoke and the fading sound of his engine.
Nakita stood beside me, shaking in anger. “I am not crazy,” she said as she scooped up her empty little red purse, and I silently agreed with her. The sound of Ace’s truck quickly faded, and I looked up and down the deserted road, wondering where Barnabas was.
“That didn’t work out the way I wanted,” I said, starting to walk in the direction Ace had gone. The town couldn’t be too far ahead.
Nakita fixed her sandal, then started to follow, click, click, click on the hot pavement. “You told him too much. Marks never believe. That’s why we scythe them.”
There was a silent accusation in her tone that I was being stupid even to try to change several thousand years of tradition. Pensive, I watched the straight rows of tall corn slowly shift as we walked. At least Barnabas was watching the right person.
“Shouldn’t we find Barnabas?” Nakita asked, looking unsure at my continued silence. “I tried calling him when I was in Ace’s truck and couldn’t reach him. He’s not dark enough yet. You might be able to get a hold of him, though.”
“Me?” I squawked, embarrassed even though she already knew about the weeks of failure when Barnabas and I had sat on my roof and tried. “My amulet is too far from his, too. Light reaper, dark timekeeper…You know,” I said, glad I had my phone. If worse came to worst, I’d call my dad and tell him I was doing something with Josh. He’d cover for me. I shouldn’t have told Ace all that. No wonder he thinks we’re nuts. I’d think we were nuts.
Nakita’s steps became silent as she walked straight down the middle of the road, following the broken yellow line. “Barnabas’s amulet resonance was the red of a light reaper the last time you tried,” she said, and I glanced over at her, thinking we looked quite the pair. “It’s shifted to a grim reaper’s neutral green since then. I can’t reach him, but your timekeeper amulet is more fluid than mine, and he’s the one you’ve been practicing with. I can hear his amulet resonating in the ether, so he hasn’t shielded himself yet. I can carry you, but it would be easier to find Barnabas if we knew exactly where he was.”
I sighed, my hand going up to touch my amulet. Every time I tried to use it, either nothing happened or I made a mistake.
“What will you lose by trying?” Nakita coaxed. “Barnabas should know what happened. For all his insufferable know-it-all attitude, he’s part of our…team.”
She had said that last word like it tasted bad, and a slight smile brightened my mood. She was trying. “Okay,” I said agreeably, “but if I can’t reach him, we’ll find him by air.”
She nodded, and I felt a quiver of anticipation. It would be great if I could do this. My amulet was the same deep, glittery black that it had been since I claimed it, but Barnabas’s had shifted down the spectrum. Nakita was right: It just might be possible.
Excited, I turned to the tall cornfields, then the empty road—listening to the sound of the wind. Either nothing would happen, or I’d make it work. It wasn’t as if I didn’t know the theory inside and out after countless nights on my roof trying. Stopping, I sat right down on the edge of the road, shifting until the pebbles didn’t grind into my ankles.
Nakita understandably stared at me.
“I’m not good at it,” I explained, embarrassed. “I need to sit down.” Closing my eyes, I took three slow breaths—my way of inducing a feeling of calm. My shoulders eased, and I exhaled.
In my mind’s eye, I tried to imagine my aura. It wasn’t really my aura, since I was dead, but the amulet’s resonance acted the same way. Because I had the dark timekeeper amulet, my aura or resonance was a violet so dark as to be off the visible spectrum and basically black. Eyes shut, I reached up to hold the glittery black stone cradled in a silver wire and looped around my neck with a simple cord. As long as I had it within twenty feet of me, I had the illusion of a body. If I got too far from it, black wings would sense me and swarm to eat my soul—twenty measly feet between me and utter death. It looked a lot like a reaper amulet, but it was more powerful and yet—as Nakita had said—more flexible. Claiming it from my predecessor hadn’t blown my soul to dust like my trying to claim a reaper’s amulet would have. Most people didn’t even see it unless I pointed it out. I could take it off, but I was reluctant to do so.