Velveteen (33 page)

“Yeah, you’re totally tweaking. Are you sure you didn’t snack on some leftover meth in one of those bodies?”

Nick chuckled and rushed back to her side, head lolling on his shoulders. “You’re hilarious.”

His smile was infectious, and she found herself studying his face, the way the skin around his eyes crinkled, the depths of his dimples, the pale blue of his eyes. Even in the transparent, Nick was insanely gorgeous. And despite it being completely irritating, Velvet found herself returning his grin.

So she punched him.

“Ow,” he said, rubbing his arm. “What’d you do that for?”

“Seriously, let’s get moving.” As they descended toward the barn, she quickened her pace, grazing the damp grass of the hill like a bullet. Nick had fallen behind, and when he spoke, she stopped dead in her tracks.

“I’m infatuated with you. Is that the word? I think that’s what I mean, like you’re all I think about.” He was rambling, and the deep baritone of his voice played across her ethereal form like the ripples of a stone skipping across a crystal lake.

She would have blushed, had she been a real girl, but instead she spun on him. “Who says things like that?” she demanded.

He spread his arms out and shrugged. “I guess I do.”

“Yeah?” Her thoughts were racing.

Unreal. He’ll never let up
.

Still …

There was something about Nick that she had been drawn to immediately. Why else would she have gone to him like that on his first night? Even in that first moment back at Madame Despot’s Fortunes and Favors, she’d noticed something in him, all the while calling him “ass” and “douche bag” in her mind and, sure, sometimes to his face. But there was something there. She wasn’t sure what it was, because she’d never been that close to a guy before. She’d had boyfriends. Jakub and Greeley, specifically, but she hadn’t really been “into” either of them. Not emotionally.

Jakub Chesel was hot in a pierced punk kind of way. He always wore band T-shirts—the Ramones and the Buzzcocks were his favorites—and sneered at people when they got too close. And sure, she’d made out with him, because that’s kind of what you do, but Velvet had never really felt anything more than a physical attraction, and he could kiss really well.

Greeley Franks was a different sort.

She’d adopted him and let him hang out with her, much to the chagrin of her few friends. He was gangly and had the most enormous nose, but his hair was long and really amazingly soft when she’d run her fingers through it. He never talked all that much, but she could tell he was into her. And she’d even let him feel her up a few times. Under the shirt, too, for what that was worth. But one day he just didn’t come to school anymore. Left home and disappeared.

Not quite in the way Velvet had, but, you know, gone, like a runaway or something. He’d probably end up in the porn industry, if he wasn’t rotting in one of the forensic graves.

She scanned Nick’s face and found sincerity lurking in his eyes. And something else. It wasn’t lust exactly, though that was lurking just under the surface of every boy. This was different.

“So you think you care about me or something?” she asked, wincing at her own words.

“I know it.” Nick ran his fingers across the sheen of her arm. Where hairs might have prickled, she felt something else rustle beneath the surface.

A longing.

It came over her all of a sudden. As they stood there in that field surrounded by the dead. She wanted him. More than anything she’d ever wanted in her life—or death, even. And it surprised her that she hadn’t been thinking it all along. A fire burned through her, ignited by her desire and coursing inside her, consuming her.

Nick reached out for her then and pulled her close, already masterful at the delicate art of touching another spirit, his focus so intent. He pressed his lips to hers, and she nearly collapsed.

His kiss weakened her, made her legs feel like rubber bands, like overdone spaghetti, like Aunt Sylvia’s flavorless gelatin jiggling on a plate.

Her last resolve melted away and she threw her arms around his neck and let him press his body close to hers.
She collapsed against him, relishing his soft kisses, the way he parted her lips gently with his tongue, his hands stroking the hollow of her spine.

In the end, it was Nick who pushed away first.

“I’m so happy,” he said. “I know it sounds ridiculous, but all this”—he swept his hand out toward the grave mounds—“is worth it just to spend time with you. Death is worth it.”

She stepped back, shaking her head. “Don’t say that.”

“It’s true. I—” he started.

“Don’t say it,” Velvet interrupted before he could finish.

Their position flooded back into her mind. She was his team leader. She couldn’t be emotionally involved with him. It would never work.

“I love you. And I won’t take that back, because it’s true,” Nick said.

“It’s Stockholm syndrome,” she snapped, pulling the term from a paper she’d done for her Intro to Psychology class back at New Brompfel Heights High.

Nick cocked an eyebrow, unimpressed. “What’s that supposed to mean? Did you give me a Russian virus or something?”

“Stockholm’s in Sweden, dork. Besides, it’s not about the city. It’s a phenomenon where prisoners fall in love with their captors. It’s really weird.” She glanced up at him. “Like you.”

“I’m weird? Me? Okay. Yeah. But not you. You’re not weird at all.”

She flipped her hair. “Of course not.”

“Well, you’re not my
captor
.” He wrapped the words in
air quotes. “So it doesn’t really make sense to me. I’m not a prisoner, Velvet. I’m just a ghost. Just as dead as can be. And so are you. And we’ve got all the time in the world to spend together. So don’t try to make it weird.”

She turned toward the crack and sighed.

He didn’t get it. How could he?

“It’s because I saved you, Nick! You feel like you owe me this. Would you really be attracted to a girl like me if we were in the halls at your high school? Would the basketball star really be caught dead with the dark mopey Goth girl?”

“It could happen.”

She shook her head. “Not likely.”

Velvet felt his hand on her shoulder. His lips close to her ear. “We’ll keep it a secret. No one needs to know. That’s what you’re worried about, isn’t it? Manny? Miss Antonia? The rules?”

It was against the rules, for sure. The way Velvet figured it, she was breaking enough rules as it was, almost daily. Though if she thought about it, that was almost an excuse to go through with Nick’s suggestion.

Rules seemed to be a waste of time in purgatory anyway.

Most rules were created to keep people from hurting themselves in some stupid way or other. “Don’t touch the stove.” “Don’t stand too close to the edge.” “Don’t ride on the roof of a moving car with reins around the hood ornament like it’s a rodeo bull.” Blah, blah, blah. None of those were even valid anymore.

Take “Don’t steal.”

The Collectors did that daily. It was a part of the afterlife.

The Golden Rule? If Velvet didn’t do the kinds of stuff “unto” others that she did, whether they did it back or not, where the hell would she be? Apparently gold fades away when it’s covered in ash.

As far as rules go, “Don’t fall in love with the hot boy who needs to follow your orders” seemed to be on par with “Don’t wear white after Labor Day.”

What was the purpose?

Who were they hurting?

Velvet was starting to think that that rule had been established specifically for leaders who were girls. Whoever thought that crap up must have believed that the girl couldn’t wear the pants in the relationship. Ridiculous.

Everyone wears pants!

She knew she was rationalizing and that there might not be enough fate left to tempt, but she needed it. She needed this distraction.

Upon their return, the courtyard was packed with souls, and Velvet left Nick to the endless interrogation of Luisa and Logan and sought out Miss Antonia. The woman was in her quarters, penning a letter to someone with a big feather pen when Velvet knocked on her open door.

“Miss Antonia?”

The woman looked up, a hopeful expression on her otherwise somber face.

“He’s going to work out perfectly,” Velvet said.

The woman nodded and returned to her work. “I knew
that somehow. In fact, I’ll just confirm that in this memo for the Council of Station Agents. Manny will be so glad to hear it.” She jotted a few extra lines, folded the paper into thirds, and slipped it into an envelope before returning her gaze to Velvet.

“He was way better than I’d hoped. Quentin could barely get the zombie moving his first time, but Nick just jumped in and drove the body like a motorbike or something. And he was really strong.” Her voice rose with excitement recounting the story.

Miss Antonia’s eyes widened. “Really? All that? You sound quite enamored of the boy.”

“Oh, no!” Velvet was mortified. “I’d never. I mean—”

“Calm yourself, child. I know you’re a consummate professional and would never overstep your bounds or compromise your authority in such a way.”

“No.” Velvet had never been gladder that souls didn’t sweat. “Has Kipper returned from Vermillion?”

“Not yet.”

“I wish I could have gone.”

Miss Antonia didn’t make a sound. She was lost somewhere in her thoughts about Aloysius Clay and his disappearance, most likely, thoughts that her long-lost love—allegedly—could have been involved in the departure. It must have hurt desperately.

“Are you all right, Velvet?” Miss Antonia stood and reached her hand out to Velvet.

She nodded quickly, suddenly embarrassed to be the one in need of a supportive touch.

“I’m fine.”

“Good.” Miss Antonia pulled a familiar box from a drawer in her desk, and Velvet cringed.

The story lottery.

“Run on and get ready for salon,” Miss Antonia said. “You know I’ll be telling my story shortly, and you don’t want to miss that, do you?”

Velvet smiled. “No. Absolutely not. I can’t wait to hear about your adventures.”

“Then run.”

Velvet hugged the woman and turned to leave, but stopped. The appearance of the box had forced a memory into the front of her mind. “Miss Antonia?”

“Yes?”

“Were you going to call my name the night of the shadowquake? Was I next?”

Miss Antonia’s expression didn’t change. She simply shook her head briefly. Velvet stared at her a moment, and when it became clear that the woman had no intention of responding further, Velvet turned and trod out of the Salvage mother’s office and down the stairs into the courtyard.

Nick’s grinning face was the first she saw amid the crowd, handsome as always. That he liked her seemed like some kind of miracle.

“You guys are meant to be together.” The voice came from her left, Luisa tugging at her sleeve.

“Shh!” Velvet chastised, and immediately felt awash in pesky guilt. “You know that can’t happen.”

Luisa shrugged. “Who says? No one needs to know. It’s a stupid rule anyways.”

Velvet glanced across the space and found Nick searching her out in the crowd. When their eyes met, his face lit up and he gave a little wave.

“See?” Luisa said.

“He’s just horny.”

“Well, yeah,” Luisa said, and shrugged. “But that’s just basic boy science. Two boobs plus one snootch equals boner. But there’s something else, too. It’s the way he looks at you when you don’t even notice. Even Logan’s said something about it, and he never picks up on anything that’s not about bashing skulls.”

This was what it was always like with Luisa.

“Did you see him in the antechamber of the Shattered Hall?” Luisa asked.

Of course she had.

“He glows like no one else I’ve ever seen,” Luisa added.

Velvet nodded.

“And in all the right places,” Luisa said saucily.

She was right on the money. Nick seemed to be perfect. And now there he was, smiling and chatting with Logan and … Isadora.

Isadora!

Velvet rushed forward into the crowd, rudely pushing people to the side to get at the girl who was clearly flirting with Nick, batting her eyes and clutching her fist to her chest in a totally unsubtle attempt to draw attention to her abnormally large cleavage. She and that evil mother of hers had undoubtedly uncovered a cache of push-up bras in some warehouse somewhere, because those breasts were altogether wrong.

Weapons-grade boobage.

As Luisa sat down at their table, she sneered at Isadora.

“Isadora?” Velvet said, stumbling the last few feet to plant herself directly between Nick and the other girl.

“Hello, Velvet. So good of you to join us,” Isadora said with a brilliant grin. Her teeth even sparkled.

Velvet wanted to knock them out and watch them tinkle to the ground like a broken strand of pearls. If only she could scream and pounce on the monster without anyone noticing, or thinking her completely insane. Instead, she just balled up her fists and nodded as pleasantly as she could, though it probably appeared she was barely choking down some horrible food at a family dinner just to be polite, something nasty like gefilte fish.

“It was nice of you to invite Isadora to sit with us,” Nick said, eyeing Velvet skeptically.

She shrugged, not really caring to make a scene just then. “Heh. What can I say, I’m a people pleaser.”

Luisa spat with laughter and even slapped the table.

Logan followed suit, and before long they were all laughing. Even Velvet, though her chuckles were forced and completely fake. She wasn’t certain she could keep it up long. The more she looked at Isadora, with her high-fashion dress tight against her body like a sausage casing, the more she wanted to punch her. Luckily, the gaslight dimmed and the stage curtain opened to reveal Miss Antonia beaming uncharacteristically.

“Welcome to salon, ladies and gentleman!” she shouted, and the crowd hushed to a barely audible whisper in response.
“We’ve quite the spectacle for your consumption this evening, including the marvelous and harrowing adventures of … well … me!”

The crowd broke into wild applause and whistles of approval.