I shook my head.
He fished his keys out of his jeans and held them out to me. “You can have the keys. I just want to talk to you. You owe me that at least.”
I glanced at the water bouncing off the hood of his car, wishing my porch were covered. “Okay.” I took the keys. “But I need to go in soon.”
He lost his balance when he turned to pull me by the hand, but managed to stagger to the car. I got in the passenger side as he all but fell in behind the steering wheel.
“What can I do to prove I’m serious?” Zak asked, turning in the seat to angle toward me. The streetlight over his car made the water drops on the windshield sparkle golden against the dark blue night—like the flecks in his eyes.
“I know you’re serious, Zak. It’s not you, it’s me.”
I’m a freak who hears dead people.
“At Last Concert, I thought things were really good between us. What happened after that?”
I found out who I really was. What I really was.
I tucked my fingers between my knees. “Nothing. I just . . .” He’d never understand. I bit my lip.
He brushed my wet hair behind my shoulder. “You’re still cold. Why don’t I start the car and turn on the heat?” He pulled the keys from my lap, and after several tries, the motor turned over. Heat blew from the floor vent. I pushed my feet closer.
“You’ve gotta give me a chance, Lenzi.” It was a demand, not a request. “I can make you happy.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Yes, it is,” he said through gritted teeth. The hair on the back of my neck prickled as my fight-or-flight instinct kicked in. “You’ve gotta give me a chance to prove it. I’m right for you. He’s not.”
I should never have gotten in the car with him in this condition. “I’ve gotta go now.”
He reached over and grabbed me before I could reach the handle. Headlights flashed across the windshield as a car turned the corner onto my street.
“You can’t do this. You and music are the only good things I’ve got.” The acrid odor of alcohol mixed with his warm cologne. I squinted as the headlights of the approaching car got closer. It was Alden’s Audi. “Give me a chance, Lenzi.”
I heard Alden’s car door slam. “Let me out,” I said. Alden tugged on my door handle, but it was locked.
“I won’t let him have you. He doesn’t love you like I do.” Zak jerked the car into gear, and Alden jumped back as we pulled away, barely missing Alden’s bumper.
“Don’t do this, Zak!” I screamed. He took the corner so fast the back end of his car fishtailed, barely missing a fire hydrant. “Let me out!”
He wiped a tear from his cheek with the back of his hand. “Nobody ever gives me a chance.” The ancient engine of his Delta 88 sounded like it was going to rattle apart when he floorboarded it. “Not my old man . . .” He ran the red light at the entrance of my neighborhood. “Not my mom—”
“Zak! Stop! You’re gonna kill us!” If he’d only slow down, I could jump out. At this speed, I’d never survive a jump.
“But you’re going to give me a chance.” He swerved and nicked the curb at the base of the freeway entrance ramp.
I tugged on the seat-belt buckle at my shoulder, but it was stuck and wouldn’t pull out. If he wrecked, I was through the windshield. I had to calm him down. “We can fix this. Just pull over, and we’ll work through it.” A driver in the right lane slammed on his brakes as Zak forced his way onto the freeway. I gave the broken seat belt another futile tug.
I was going to die tonight. Even Alden couldn’t help me.
The rain hammered down so hard as we crossed the bayou overpass, I couldn’t make out the lane dividers. “Zak, please.”
He slammed the palm of his hand into the steering wheel. “Why
that
guy? Why not me?” I looked over the backseat at the car following us off the freeway. If it was Alden, there was nothing he could do to help us unless he’d called 9-1-1. Maybe it was a cop and he’d pull us over before Zak killed us both.
We skidded through the U-turn and headed back toward the bayou. The rear wheel rubbed the curb, and I was thrown to the side, shoulder smacking the window.
“Zak, you’re hurting me. Stop!”
“You hurt
me,
” he said, blowing through a stop sign. He took a hard right onto the road that followed the path of the bayou and I was thrown into him, causing the car to swerve. He overcorrected and slid back and forth until we sideswiped a streetlight. The car slowed enough for me to jump out without killing myself. I had to get out.
Now
.
I shot across the car, pulled up on the lock, and ripped up on the handle. The door swung open, but as I scrambled to escape, Zak screeched to a halt and yanked me back by the leg.
“No, babe. For the first time, I’m going to get a second chance.”
Headlights sped toward us from behind.
“Damn!” Zak pinned my thigh under his palm as he stretched across me to slam the door shut. The smell of his warm cologne filled my nose. There was a time when I thought it was the most wonderful smell in the world. “He’s not gonna win,” he growled.
“Please,” I said. “You’re acting crazy. Let me go.”
“No, babe. You’re the one who’s crazy. That’s why you need me.” He looked out the back window at the approaching car. “I can’t let you go.” He shifted into drive. “I won’t.”
I braced myself on the dash as he launched toward a twolane bridge that crossed the bayou. “Zak! You’re too far to the right. You’re going to crash.” If he didn’t pull back onto the road, we were going to hit the metal bridge rails head-on.
I closed my eyes and braced myself for impact.
Zak yelled as if he were in pain. He slammed on the brakes and turned hard right, barely missing the bridge. I screamed as we slid sideways through the mud at the edge of the ravine sloping down to the bayou. The car slogged to a stop and stalled. He grabbed his head and yelled a string of profanities. Then, as if a switch had been thrown, he fell silent, breathing hard. Somehow, the silence was even more terrifying—like waiting for the eye of a storm to pass and the raging to begin again, not knowing if it’ll be better or worse.
He looked around the back of the car, eyes wild. “What the hell?” he whispered. “Who are you?” Zak twisted to look around his car. “What do you want?”
It wasn’t a Malevolent or Hindered because I’d have heard it. I didn’t hear anything except Zak freaking out. He had to be hallucinating.
“Get out of my head!” He bumped his head on the ceiling of the car as he flung the door open. “Leave me alone! . . . Do what? . . . Hell, no!” Zak trembled all over and whimpered.
“Walk away,” Zak whispered as he stared over his shoulder toward Alden’s car. It was parked under the streetlight several blocks back, where I’d tried to jump out.
“Oh, God. Lenzi! Oh, God. I’ve screwed up. I’ve screwed up bad.” His eyes were full of tears. He grabbed his head and groaned, then got out, staggering around the front of the car. “Shut up. I’m doin’ it,” he said to no one as he pulled my door open.
“Go,” he said, pointing at Alden’s car. “Go back to him.”
I couldn’t move—couldn’t breathe—as if the fear had caused complete paralysis. Zak pulled me out of the car. He cradled me in his arms as if I were the most precious thing in the world to him and lowered me gently to my feet on the muddy bayou bank, whispering, “Don’t hurt her, there’s hope until the last second, walk away, don’t hurt her, second chance, walk away . . . .”
Afraid he’d snap out of it and pull me back to the car again, I shook myself out of my stupor and bolted toward the road, cold air stinging my lungs.
“Leave me alone,” Zak shouted in the direction of the bayou. “I pulled over and let her go like you said. Now leave me alone.” He staggered a few steps toward his car. “Like hell I’m going to call a cab. Screw you!”
I had no idea who or what he thought he was arguing with, but no way was I going to hang around so he could change his mind. Once on the paved road, I sprinted to Alden’s car. He was belted in, staring straight ahead. When I banged on the window, he gasped a deep breath.
He flung open his door and took me in his arms, clinging to me like he’d never let me go. Zak’s car roared to life and after spinning his back tires in the mud, he finally pulled back onto the road and drove over the bridge away from us.
I was safe.
“I tried,” Alden whispered in my hair. “I really did.”
“There’s nothing you could have done. I’m just glad you’re here,” I said. “And really glad he decided to pull over and let me out.”
I pulled away enough to look at his face. The rain had stopped, but he was drenched from trying to open my door before Zak took off—and pale. Almost ashen.
“You okay?” I asked.
He pulled me to him again. “I almost lost you. I couldn’t bear that again.”
“Hey.” I ran my hands under his shirt and up the smooth skin of his back. “I’m okay. It’s over now.”
After a deep, shaky breath, he pulled away. “Yeah.” He leaned down and showered light kisses all over my face and neck, as if memorizing the smell and feel of my skin. My knees became liquid, and I leaned into him, finally whole.
I was awakened by an unfamiliar, high-pitched beeping. My clock showed eight o’clock.
Dang
. I’d been having the best dream.
Dream. Wish. Oh, man.
I realized the beep was coming from Alden’s watch, which was on his arm draped across my body. He had driven me home and dropped me off, saying he had to go take care of some things. He must have climbed in through my window during the night. I turned to face him. His unearthly gray eyes met mine.
“Hey, Lenzi. How are you feeling?” he murmured.
His neck was still bandaged, and he looked tired. “Probably better than you,” I said.
He pulled me closer, so that the entire length of my body pressed against his.
“When did you get here?”
“I’ve been here all night.”
I started to sit up. He tightened his grip and kept me close. “Alden, my mom—”
“Has gone to work. She decided you needed more sleep when you only rolled over when she flipped on the light. She called the school and told them you were sick. She left a note for you.”
“Oh, my gosh! Does she know you’re here?”
“No.”
“Well, how—”
“You really need to clean out your closet, Lenzi.”
I laughed. “I’m a slob.”
“You always have been.”
There was an intensity about him I hadn’t experienced before. I stared into his eyes, and then it dawned on me. “Something happened, didn’t it, Alden?”
“Shhh. Let’s pretend for five minutes it didn’t.” He buried his face in my neck.
“Alden, what happened?”
“Please, Lenzi. Just let me hold you.”
“What happened?”
He rolled me under him and kissed me. It wasn’t a gentle kiss like at the beach, or a romantic, passionate kiss like the one that happened in his room. It was desperate. Desperate and hungry and sad.
A good-bye kiss.
He released me and sat on the side of the bed to put his shoes on, keeping his back to me.
“Lenzi, Zak was going to kill you last night. I couldn’t let him do it. My job is to protect you, so I saved you the only way I knew how. I put my soul in his body and threatened him.”
It made sense now. “That’s the reason he pulled over. It’s
you
he was talking to.”
There were tears in his eyes when he turned to me. “You’ve come back this cycle fresh, with a new life and so much promise. I couldn’t watch you die again. Especially like that. I’d rather die myself.”
The truth hit me like a head-on with a truck. He had broken one of the primary IC laws. He had entered the body of a human outside an exorcism. Breaking primary laws resulted in discontinuance.
Oh, no.
They were going to execute him.
“No. Alden.” I climbed out of the bed and faced him. I took his beautiful face in my hands, avoiding the cut on his cheek and the bandage on his neck. “No, Alden. There has to be a way out.”
He shook his head. “There’s no way out. The rule is absolute. I knew what would happen when I broke it. It’s just a matter of time, Lenzi.”
“No, but if you—”
He stood. “Stop. It’s over. Fighting it will only waste our remaining time together. I don’t want to leave this earth scraping and clawing for life. I’ve had a good life—lots of them, actually. I’m grateful.”
A glimmer of hope warmed my chest. “Lives. That’s right. We’ll be together again in the next cycle.”
He flipped his hair out of his eyes. “No, Lenzi. I’ll be discontinued, body
and
soul. They’ll destroy my soul brand before I die. I won’t come back. Ever.”
Cold chills danced up and down my spine as I processed his words. Never come back . . . ever. I wouldn’t even have the hope of being with him in the next cycle?