The Lost Boys (45 page)

“Take it easy. Sit still for a while,” he said, wiping the sweat off my face. Seth’s hands appeared at my side, holding a glass of water for me to drink. I took it with shaking hands and drank a few gulps.

I looked at both boys. There was so much fear in their eyes.

“I’m sorry to scare you like this,” I murmured. I was feeling so tired, like I had just run an entire marathon. I have never been sick like this before. This was the price for staying in the desert place for too long. Heavily taxed and duly collected.

“What happened, Joe?” Tristan asked, frightened.

“You’re going to be mad at me,” I began, and then, sitting there on the cold, tiled bathroom floor, I told him everything about my visit with Sky. I cried the whole time. When I’d finished telling him all that had happened, he hugged me close to him, and rocked me softly with his body, saying that everything was going to be all right. But how could he say that? We had lost our only hope! Sky couldn’t, or wouldn’t, save him.

“We will figure something out, Joey. Please, stop crying. It hurts me so much to see you crying,” he whispered in a heartbreaking sob as he held me in his arms. “I still have hope. There is always a way. You can’t lose faith like that.”

His words kept bouncing in my head. It was the same thing I’d said to Death in the end.
There’s always a way.
Perhaps it was only a lie we kept telling ourselves to keep going. Or was it a real possibility? Whatever it might be, all I knew was that I wasn’t done fighting yet. Tristan was right. I shouldn’t be upset like this, like I had just giving up on everything. Giving up on him. So I stopped crying and hugged him back. I could feel his relief seeping through his arms into me.

“I’m so sorry, Tris. I don’t know what came over me.” I lifted my head to meet his eyes. “I will never lose faith in us. You’re right, there’s always a way.” I repeated his words and smiled at him. “I would kiss you right now, but I don’t think it’s a good thing, cos, you know, the barfing and all …” I mumbled in embarrassment.

He laughed quietly at my silliness. “Okay. We can leave the kissing for later. Just promise me you won’t try that stunt again,” Tristan pleaded.

“Oh, I don’t plan on doing that ever again, if I can help it! It was brutal. And it’s not like I planned it; it was totally an accident that I ended up there tonight!” I said, trying to get up but stopping, cringing, when pain still shot through my body. Tristan grabbed me and carried me to my bed, laying me down carefully like I was made of crystal.

“Try to get some rest now, Joey,” he said, brushing his fingers slowly through my hair, and I drifted almost immediately into a blessedly uninterrupted and uneventful sleep.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Graduation

The next day I woke up feeling like a freaking train had hit me. Twice. My body ached all over; I think even my hair hurt, if that were actually possible. Tristan didn’t let me get out of bed. He told me we were calling in sick today. I raised my eyebrow at the “we” part, but he said he was staying to take care of me. And he wasn’t
asking
, he was
telling
me, he said with quite the imperative voice. He was kind of sexy when he got all bossy like that. I was too weak to contradict him anyway, so I snuggled back under my blankets.

I spent the whole day drifting in and out of sleep, and my stomach still hurt a little whenever I was awake. Sometimes Tristan would wake me to give me something to eat, or one of the boys or Tiffany would come and check on me between classes. At the end of the school day, Harry came in and sat by my side, hugging me for a long time. I guess Seth had pretty much scared him to death with his tale of my desert expedition. When I woke up, Harry wasn’t there any more, and instead Sammy was in the room, sitting on the floor and leaning by my bed, reading a book. Every time I turned over on my bed, I caught one of the boys around the room, doing something and keeping me company. Tristan was always a constant. Always there, always vigilant, never leaving my side.

It took me two days to get back on my feet. My little “adventure” had taught me a hard lesson: you don’t overdo time in Death’s domain and leave unscathed. I was lucky I had walked out with merely sore limbs and a weak stomach. It could have been so much worse.

By Wednesday, I was feeling normal again and insisted on going out despite Tristan’s protests. School routine would make me feel more normal too, helping me divert my mind from grim future predictions and depressing thoughts.

I talked with my mom a lot during that week too. I guess I was feeling a little homesick, and hearing her voice helped me get better and heal faster. I told her about the grim news on Tristan’s deadline. I bet hearing all that terrible news had her really worried, but she never let it show, keeping her voice calm and reassuring as she tried to keep my spirits up during the whole time we talked.

Weeks passed and graduation loomed. Tristan, the boys and I talked endlessly between classes and rehearsals, trying to come up with a way to allow Tristan to remain living past the next New Year. But we were dealing with the unknown – it wasn’t as if you could Google “How to keep a ghost alive permanently”! All our research so far had proved futile, including Miss Violet’s occult leads. I tried to remain positive, though: after graduation, we’d still have half a year left before New Year.

We only had a few more weeks before we would get our final results, and then we’d have to start thinking about what came next. I had no idea whatsoever. I only knew Tristan’s problem was top priority now. And if I had to put my studies on hold until everything was sorted, then so be it. I couldn’t think of university applications or any plans for the future besides trying to find a solution for Tristan’s deadline. I was glad my mother wasn’t pressuring me about my studies and career choices.

All of our new original songs for music class were finished and practiced to exhaustion. We still needed to perform them one last time for Professor Rubick, and then wait for our grades, but we were confident we’d score the highest marks: we had worked very hard on those songs. Rehearsals were the only time we saw Tristan truly happy, so we practiced as often as possible, even though we didn’t really need to. Playing was the one thing keeping us all sane during this madness of magic deadlines.

Exams passed in the blink of an eye. We were constantly busy, rehearsing even more now because now we’d been booked for our first ever gig, as the band playing at graduation! So we spent all our time focusing on our show for the closing ceremony celebration and working on our stage performance. We didn’t worry about our outfits, since Tiffany was in charge of that and we trusted she would ace them. I wasn’t over-anxious about my exam results, but the show was worrying me.

Before I knew it, the day of the concert was upon us. Graduation had been really emotional, especially for our parents, who cried openly during the entire ceremony. My mother had managed a front seat and smiled at Tristan and me so proudly it almost made me start crying as well. I got to see all the boys’ parents and family, too, after the diplomas were delivered. It had been exciting, exhausting and overwhelming all at the same time.

I was heading to my room to start getting dressed for the show, when I saw Tristan talking with a short, middle-aged man in the hallway. Tristan was speaking calmly, while the man replied excitedly, waving his hands a lot, clearly impressed by Tristan or what he was saying. I tried to sneak closer to catch what they were talking about, but before I got halfway there the man waved Tristan goodbye and took off fast. Tristan turned around, saw me approaching and walked towards me.

“Hey!” I greeted him.

“Hey, Tangerine!” he said with a smile. Tangerine was his nickname for me when we were in public. He only called me Buttons in private. Before I could ask what the guy had wanted, both of our cell phones rang with new messages.

“Tiffany,” we both said at the same time as we checked our phones and discovered we each had the same text:

get your @$$es up here ASAP!! need 2 get U ready 4 the show! @ your room! XoXo.

We ran to our room as fast as we could, passing a few students who waved at us, excited about our upcoming show.

“So who was that?” I asked as I ran, panting at Tristan’s side.

“What? Oh, yeah. That was Lisa’s father. You know Lisa? She’s been in all our rehearsals, remember? She has that weird spiked blue hair, kinda hard to miss,” he explained when he noticed my puzzled face. “She must talk about us all the time, and her dad was curious about us.”

I grunted under my breath.
“Us
.” Right. She must talk about
Tristan
all the time, was more likely! She probably had their wedding planned already! The Lost Boys were starting to attract groupies!

When we arrived at our room, Tiffany was bustling with clothes and face paints everywhere. She’d done a tremendous job with the outfits; they were all amazing! She was really talented!

Tristan didn’t allow much customizing on him, so he ended up the most “normal” looking of all of us. He had on his jeans and T-shirt, all black, and Tiffany had managed to convince him to wear some more beaded wristbands, mostly in gray and black. He had a short necklace string on his neck with a black stone, too. It looked sexy on him.

Josh was dressed in black jeans too, but with an olive T-shirt and ragged vest, and lots of necklaces and cloth wristbands. He looked tough and dangerous. Sammy and Seth wore gray jeans, brown-and-green shirts and vests. They also had beaded wristbands, and leather necklaces threaded with twigs, stones and feathers. They looked like a collection of wild adventurers!

Tiffany had created different “war paint” on each of our faces, mostly in black, gray and olive green; only Harry and I had orange and red marks. He wore his customary olive baggy shorts and his chest was bare save for a ragged vest, showing off his green and red tattoo. He was wearing lots of cool necklaces and wristbands, too.

And then there was me. Tiffany had chosen olive shorts for me, just like Harry’s, a red tank-top and my well-worn black boots. I had the coolest necklaces and wristbands of them all, because Tiffany was a tad biased and had picked the better-looking ones for me, the only girl in the band.

She’d insisted I leave my hair down, but had made lots of thin braids with tiny sparkly beads tied all around them. Then she made small marks with orange paint on my arms, my nose and cheekbones. It looked so cool! I beamed proudly at my reflection. I had never been much into dressing up, but I was having the time of my life with this! After she was done accessorizing, Tiffany left us to go in search of the best spot in the front row to record us playing. Then it was show time!

We all high-fived each other and headed to the auditorium, everybody cheering, feeling excited and a little nervous as well. The tension built up the closer we got to the stage door. There wasn’t any sound coming from inside, though. Weird. We opened the door a little and peeked inside. The lights were all on, but the room was empty. There wasn’t anyone in there. We all entered, our shoulders hunched. We looked around, trying to at least find our instruments. We had made a last soundcheck the previous night, and left our guitars, bass and drums all ready in there, but we couldn’t find any of them anywhere.

“Maybe it’s cancelled? And they forgot to tell us?” Harry suggested.

“Maybe they have changed the day? Maybe it’s tomorrow …” Sam added.

“I’m sure everything is fine,” Tristan reasoned, “We should find Professor Rubick. He’ll know what’s going on.”

We were huddled in a circle, discussing where to look for Professor Rubick first, when Tiffany bustled into the room, flushed and out of breath.

“There you are! What’s the hold-up, people? There’s a show to do, and you’re all here, chatting like you have all the time in the world! Come on!”

“Uh, Tiff? What’s going on? Why there isn’t anyone in here?” I spoke on behalf of the band.

“Because the show is
outside
!” she said, exasperated.

“What? Nobody told us!” Seth exclaimed in surprise.

“There were too many people wanting to see you guys, and there wasn’t enough room in the auditorium! And the crowd is getting impatient! Hurry up! Let’s go!” she said, clapping her hands urgently as she dashed out.

We all ran after her, with wide eyes and shocked faces. As soon we started to get near the west wing of the building, we could hear the noise of the crowd. All the boys looked nervous, except Tristan, who was smiling like he was having the time of his life. How could he be so cool about it? The noise was getting louder and louder by the second. And I was getting more anxious by the second too.

“Professor Rubick’s been freaking out at the amount of people that showed up to see you! It’s not just kids from our school, too.” Tiff chuckled, gazing at the distance. “Okay, then. I’ll be right at the front, recording the show! Rock on, Lost Boys!” she cheered, then kissed Seth hard and gave a quick peck on the lips to all the boys, including me at the end of the line. Then she darted outside.

“Did you all see that? She just kissed Joey on the lips!” Sam said, all excited.

I turned to see all the boys staring at me with glazed, dreamy expressions. “Huh. Only boys could get hung up on that, with all this happening right outside!” I said, nervously gesturing towards the noise coming from the entrance. That seemed to snap them all back to reality.

Tristan turned to look at us, smiling broadly. “Come on! This is going to be great! We have nothing to worry about! Let’s just go and have some fun!” he said, all cheerful.

“How are you not freaking out over this?” I asked, a little scared.

He shrugged calmly, still smiling. “I’m just not. I just enjoy each day as if it were my last, that’s all. It takes the edge off, you should all try it!” And then he looked intently at me. “And you are Joe Gray! You don’t scare easily, remember?” he said with a wink.

We all stared at him still with worried faces.