Inbetween

Chapter 23

Emma Cash fiddled with the radio until he found the station that would provide the sound for the movie while I leaned out the window and snapped a picture of three girls sitting in the back of a pickup, blankets wrapped around them like cocoons. As crazy as it sounded, I almost liked taking pictures for the yearbook now. I could control the orb problem now that I knew what was causing them, and when people weren’t posing and acting stupid, I realized it wasn’t all that different from landscape photography. My shots were getting better, that’s for sure.

I took a few more pictures of random things that I thought might make a neat collage, and after I’d gotten what I needed, pulled off my coat and tossed it in the backseat. “Can we turn this down?” I asked Cash, messing with the heater.

Cash batted my hand away. “Are you kidding? It’s effing cold in here.”

I rolled down my window a crack and sat back in my seat. “Maybe for you.”

“So, are you going to spill, or am I going to have to force it out of you?”

I didn’t know what to say. I knew what he wanted to hear, but I wasn’t a very good liar, so it didn’t leave me a lot of options.

A couple of seniors I knew walked by on their way to the concession stand and I grabbed my camera to snap a picture of them. On the big screen, a hot dog in a top hat danced, while popcorn boxes sang in the background. I couldn’t help but wonder where Finn was.

“I just feel lost,” I finally said, letting the camera hang from my chest. It wasn’t the whole truth, but it wasn’t a lie. I felt lost in the impossible, in the way I was starting to feel about Finn. There was a silent tug-of-war ripping me apart inside. One side telling me to do what was sane, the other pulling me over the edge of reason where nothing made sense. “I feel like I’m coasting on fumes and I don’t know where I’m going to land and it terrifies me.”

“I think everybody feels that way sometimes.” Cash stared out his window. He drew the outline of a woman’s profile on the fogged-up glass with his fingertip.

“What happens when you always feel like that?” I asked. “What happens when you finally run out of gas?”

He sighed and leaned his head back on his seat to look at me. “Then you realize that I’m right behind you with a can of fuel and you stop worrying so damn much.”

I smiled and we both laughed a little. Cash turned down the heater and slid on his jacket as the movie started. It opened with a desolate street and a lone man walking through a city empty of living things. It didn’t take long for the dead to rise, though. Rotting and starving, they filled the alleys, consumed every hollow space, like cattle called to feed. Cash yelled at the screen, calling the man an

“effing idiot” when he got himself cornered in an alleyway. I sighed. Whoever came up with this grotesque concept of living dead had obviously never met a soul.

“I’m back,” Finn said behind me. “Get rid of him. We need to talk. Now.”

Something in the tone of his voice made my chest constrict. I knew it wasn’t fair that I was sending him out into the cold so I could have a conversation with a nonexistent person, but hopefully whatever Finn had to say wouldn’t take long. “Cash, could you get me a Coke from the concession stand?”

“You have two feet last time I checked.”

“Yes, and I’ll kick your ass with one of them if you don’t get over yourself and be a gentleman.”

Cash frowned. “What’s a gentleman?”

I forced a laugh, needing him to leave. “Please.”

“Fine.” He nodded and grabbed my purse out of the floor to dig for my wallet. “But you’re buying.”

“Deal.” When he was gone, I spun around in my seat. Finn looked upset and, for the first time since we’d met, disheveled. Was that even possible for a soul? “What’s wrong?”

“Something’s happened. And I’m not sure…I don’t know how to handle it. But I don’t want you freaking out on me. I’m going to figure it out.” He braced his palms on the seat and stared at the floorboards like he was trying to calm himself. “I’m going to figure it out,” he whispered to himself again.

“Just say it,” I said, forcing the tremble out of my voice. “I can handle it.” It’s nothing I hadn’t been through before. Two years of this…was there really anything he could say that could surprise me?

“Emma, look at me.” He leaned close enough that I was enveloped in the warm scent of Finn, trapped in my own personal summer while the rest of the world battled the cold outside. I stared into his green eyes, churning with emotion. “It doesn’t matter. I’m going to keep you safe. There’s no sense in you worrying about something that you can’t do anything about.”

“But that’s just it. I can do something. I stopped her, Finn.” I grabbed the back of the seat. “At the house. I used a chant, and she left.”

Finn shook his head and looked away. “Emma…”

“No, I’m serious. I’m more than capable of—”

“She left because of me,” he said, softly. “The sage, the chant… They’re just as useless as the Ouija board. None of it works.”

My vision blurred as my gaze drifted to the window. Cash was making his way through the row of cars, a Coke in each hand. The colored lights from the movie screen reflected off the shiny black leather on his jacket, making him shimmer like Finn.

It hadn’t worked. Oh my God…it hadn’t worked.

“Just calm down. Breathe,” Finn whispered into my ear.

I closed my eyes, took a breath, and nodded.

Finn stiffened, peering out the back window into the night. “Emma…” he started, never taking his eyes off of whatever he saw out the window. “Stay in the car.”

A gust of wind ruffled my hair and before I could say anything, Finn was gone. He was gone, and Maeve could be anywhere. I braced myself on the dashboard. My breaths were coming in too fast, making me dizzy. I fumbled with the glove compartment and popped it open. Cash used to keep a utility knife in here.

Cash swung open the door, and I crammed the napkins and papers back into the compartment and slammed it shut. I felt stupid for even looking. A knife wasn’t going to stop Maeve. And the sage, the chants…none of that had worked. I didn’t have anything to defend myself. I felt like I was bobbing in open water, waiting for a shark to finish me off.

Cash shoved a cup into my hand and nodded at the glove compartment. “What were you doing?”

I grabbed both drinks as he shivered and shook like a wet dog once he was in the safety of the truck.

“N-nothing. Just looking for a napkin.”

He grabbed his drink and looked me over. “You’re being weird tonight. What’s going on?”

“Nothing. I’m fine.” I took a sip of the Coke, letting the caffeine race through my system and chase away the violent, unraveling feeling inside me. Peering into the night and not finding a trace of Finn, I couldn’t stop shaking. She was here. She was here and Finn was out there trying to stop her.

Cash set his popcorn on the seat between us and stared at me.

I couldn’t look at him. All I could think about was Finn. What had he seen out there? Where had he gone? What if he couldn’t stop her?

“Em…”

I shook my head, knowing that if I didn’t get out of that truck within the next ten seconds, I was going to lose it in front of him. “I’m going to go to the bathroom. Be right back.”