Inbetween

Chapter 30

Emma Cash walked into my room holding a mug of hot chocolate. I could smell it from here, sweet and rich, mixing with the cool scent of peppermint.

“How you holding up?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” I said, setting down the book I’d been reading. “You don’t have to keep checking on me, you know. I’m a big girl.”

“Hey, you’re lucky I don’t set up a cot and move in after what happened the last time I left you alone.” He was trying to joke, but he wasn’t pulling it off. I knew he was serious. That he felt responsible. And I hated myself for making him feel that way.

I cured my fingers around his arm. “It’s not your fault.”

He shook his head. “You were upset. I shouldn’t have just let you run off like that. If I’d come after you sooner, that guy wouldn’t have had the chance…”

My throat closed up. More lies. I’d had to tell him the same thing I’d told the cops. That some guy on drugs had attacked me in that bathroom and gotten out through the window. If I’d told them the truth, that it had been Maeve, I’d be in Brookhaven right now. I was getting so tired of the lies. Tired of Finn’s. Tired of my own.

Cash sighed and set the steaming cup down on my nightstand. “I thought it might feel good on your throat.”

“Thank you. That was really sweet.” I smiled. “You get bonus points for that one.”

He stretched out across my bed while I took a drink. “Bonus points?” He raised a brow. “Can I use them now?”

I slapped his leg with my book. “Gross. The hot chocolate’s not worth that.”

He flashed me a lopsided grin and winked. “Hey, don’t knock it till you try it.” His words didn’t quite match the worry written all over his face. The dark circles under his eyes. The way his hair stuck up in every direction like he’d run his hands through it a hundred times.

“Enough. What’s up? What do you want?”

Cash propped himself up on his elbow and squinted at me, like he was trying to unravel all of my secrets. I hated it when he did that, because he usually could. “Who’s Finn?”

Heart thudding, I asked, “Who?”

“Don’t give me that crap. You said his name right before…” A guilty look flashed across his face as he messed with one of my pillows. He cleared his throat. “Right before you passed out at the theater.”

“He’s…no one,” I said, my hot chocolate suddenly leaving a bad taste in my mouth.

Cash sat up, brows pulled together. “Seriously? I tell you everything. I tell you shit you probably don’t even want to know about, and you’re going to hold out on me now? Come on, Em. Are you dating the guy? If you are, I want to meet him. Does he go to our school?”

“You can’t. He’s…” I paused searching for the right thing to say. “He’s out of reach. He’s always out of reach.”

“So does that translate into it’s a long-distance thing?”

“Yeah, I guess you could say that. An extremely long-distance thing.” He was dead. I was alive.

Long distance was an understatement.

“How did you meet him?”

I couldn’t say anything. I didn’t want to lie to him anymore. And I didn’t want to talk about Finn.

Not yet. There was still too much anger and hurt there. Yes, he’d given me this life. Kept me safe. But at what cost? I didn’t know whether to be grateful or angry. Love him or hate him. I couldn’t balance all of the feelings inside of me and it was making me nuts.

When I didn’t answer, Cash went on, “Please don’t tell me you met him on the Internet. Have you even met the guy in person? They never look like their pictures. He could have a mullet. He could have a third nipple or something—”

“Oh my God! I did not meet him on the Internet.”

Cash laughed and I was grateful for it. “Calm down. I’m just messing with you.” He snagged my hot chocolate cup out of my hand and took a sip. “But if you’re going to continue to be a dirty little secret-keeper, I’m taking this back.”

“If it will get you to leave me alone, take it.” I picked my book back up and peeked at him over the top.

Cash reached across the bed and pulled the book out of my hands. “Hey, why don’t you come over?”

“Seriously? I look like a zombie.” I spread my arms, feeling like something out of a Tim Burton movie. Black and blue and stitched all over. There was no way I was hiking across the yard to his house. “I’m not even supposed to get out of bed. Besides, I really don’t feel like watching you and your skeevy friends get wasted and pretend you know how to play guitar.”

Cash threw my book across the bed and frowned. “I can play.” I raised a brow and he laughed.

“Okay, I can play a little. Come on. It won’t be as fun if you’re not there to laugh at me. I could carry you? You wouldn’t have to walk at all.”

My battered reflection in the vanity mirror caught my eye and I looked away. “Even if I could, I’m not going anywhere looking like this.”

I also wasn’t going anywhere until Finn came back. There were still too many things left unsaid. He still owed me answers. Cash sat up on my bed and nudged my foot.

“You don’t look that bad, Em,” he said. “Believe me. The guys I’m having over will still totally hit on you. I don’t think a few bruises and stitches will deter their inappropriate behavior.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“I just…” The humor drained from his voice. “I don’t want to leave you alone, okay?”

The guilt in his voice made my heart hurt. I couldn’t stand him thinking any of this was his fault.

“I’m fine. I swear. Besides, Mom’s home. I won’t be alone.” I grabbed my book from where he’d tossed it onto the pillows. “I just need a quiet night. No drama unless it’s the fictional kind.”

“Fine.” Cash ran his fingers through his messy hair. “Have your nerdfest. But I’ll call you later to check on you.”

“One of your famous 2:00 a.m. drunk calls?” I smiled. “Can’t wait.”

Cash disappeared out the window, shimmying it closed behind him. I listened to the cold November wind pulse against the walls of the house. Just the sound of it made me shiver. I tugged my red cardigan around my chest to hold in the warmth and burrowed into my covers, flipping the pages of the book I was reading.

I’d made it through three more chapters by the time Finn came back, stumbling through the wall like he’d been shoved into the room. He braced himself on the sill, pulling back the parts of himself that had seemed to melt right through the Sheetrock and cursed under his breath.

“You’re not very good at that, are you?” I asked, feeling relieved and upset all at the same time.

He glanced at me over his shoulder, then cast a haunted look back out the window. His eyes flickered with the movement of whatever he was seeing. Snowflakes, probably. Even from my bed I could see the eerie ballet of white dust against the black velvet sky outside.

“Were you…” I hesitated, searching for the right word. “Were you collecting a soul?”

“Where’s Cash? I thought he’d be with you,” Finn said, carefully deflecting my question. He didn’t have to answer, though. I could see it written all over his face. The pain and regret. The mask of horror that death brands into a person’s eyes.

I turned my attention back to my novel, pretending to read so I wouldn’t have to look at him. “He’s drinking with some of his buddies. They’re forming a garage band,” I said. “Not my thing. Besides, you and I never got a chance to finish talking.”

Finn didn’t say anything right away. He didn’t even look at me. But after a few moments of silence, he sat down beside me on the bed. The mattress didn’t give. The blankets didn’t shift. So close and still so far away.

“If you’re waiting for me to tell you I regret it, that’s not going to happen,” he said, his voice sounding tight and uneven. “I don’t. I wouldn’t take it back even if I could. You deserve to be here, and you sure as hell didn’t deserve to be cast off as the scum of the underworld for the rest of eternity because I made a mistake. If that makes me a bad person, if it makes you hate me…then I guess it is what it is.”

I opened my mouth, then closed it again. I was afraid of what would happen if I let the words out. I didn’t hate him. I…loved him. He’d risked everything for me. He was still risking everything for me.

How could I hate him? I was just angry, and no matter how hard I tried, it wouldn’t go away.

“I am sorry I lied to you,” he whispered. “I’m sorry I got in the way of who you were supposed to be. If I had just left you alone that first day…”

“Don’t say that.” I moved closer. “I want to be here, Finn. I want to be alive.”

“You could be in Heaven if it wasn’t for me. Do you realize that? You could still have that if I could just let go.”

“I don’t want Heaven. Not yet anyway,” I said. “I want…this.” I reached out, but Finn jerked away like I’d burned him.

“I can’t…I don’t trust myself with you right now.”

“What’s wrong?”

Finn scrubbed his hands over his face. “Nothing. Okay, not nothing. But I’ll get over it soon.”

I bit my lip and watched him. “If it helps, I don’t hate you.”

“You should.”

The lights flickered above us, the wind outside waging a war with the power lines. Without thinking, I leaned across Finn to grab a candle and a lighter from my nightstand drawer. My arm sank through his shimmer and dissolved through his arm. He inhaled sharply and I froze. My hand glittered like silver dust beneath his.

“I’m sorry,” I said without moving. I could feel his warmth against my cheek as I hovered over him.

“Emma…please,” he said breathlessly. He shut his eyes, like he was trying to get some control over himself. “No. I should go.”

“Please don’t.” The lights flickered again, so I pulled away to light the candle, then set it on the opposite nightstand beside me. “Talk to me.”

He watched me for a moment, his gaze jittery. His hand moved across the mattress between us, but he yanked it back before it got to me. “I don’t…I don’t deal very well with, um…” He swallowed.

“Fire.”

“Is that where you were? A fire?”

He nodded. “A lot of people died. You’d think I’d be used to it by now.”

“That’s how you died, isn’t it? A fire made your plane crash?”

He looked away, a pained expression on his face. “How do you know I was in a plane crash?”

“I researched your name on the Internet.”

“Why?” He still wouldn’t look at me. I wanted to make him. It felt necessary to life that he look at me at that moment.

“Because I care,” I said. “And because I feel like I should know these things, considering what you are to me.”

“And what am I to you?” Finn asked just as the lights gave a final flicker and went out. The candle glow made him look ethereal in the dark, his skin like caramel, his eyes the deepest shade of jungle green.

“I…I feel something when I’m with you that I’ve never felt before,” I whispered as if anyone else were there to hear. “Like we’re two halves of a whole.”

“You feel that way even after everything I did?”

“Yes. Don’t you feel it?”

He finally rested the back of his head against the headboard and stared at the ceiling like he was looking into a nightmare. “I was a fighter pilot in World War II. My plane was shot down at the Battle of Midway. I was only eighteen. I didn’t even finish high school,” he said in a flat voice. I had a feeling it was the first time he’d ever said it aloud since his death. “My mom begged me not to go, but I went anyway. At the time, it seemed right. I remember thinking I’d come home and show them all when I was a war hero.” He laughed, but it sounded bitter. “I did come home a war hero. Or at least the letter and medal that represented me did, all wrapped up in a pine box. I really showed them, huh?”

“I’m sorry.” It sounded so inadequate but it’s all I could think of to say.

“It’s okay. Ancient history, right?”

“And they made you a reaper right away?”

“Yes.”

“Did you hate it?”

“Not always,” he said. “Not until I had to take you.”

I shifted so that I was close enough to feel the warm energy coming off of him. “Tell me what happened.”

“You were with a boy. His truck went over a guardrail into a river.” Finn dropped his head and stared at his clenched fists in his lap. “I’d never doubted what I had to do. Never gave it a second thought. But after seeing you lying there in the snow, knowing you’d dragged yourself out of that river and died alone…for the first time in over forty years, I hated what I had to do. I hated myself.”

He stopped to rub his hands over his face again. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say to this boy who had seen me die. This boy who was doing everything in his power to make sure it didn’t happen again.

“When I came back the next day, you were at the gates, waiting,” he went on. “I thought for sure you’d hate me. Most of them did. Not at first, but after they realized how trapped they really were, what kind of fate waited for them, they always hated me.”

“But I didn’t.” Hesitantly, I met Finn’s intense gaze. “I didn’t hate you, did I?”

“No.” He shook his head. “No…you loved me, I think.”

I nodded and forced myself to look away. I already knew that part. I knew because it was still inside me, filling up my heart, making it feel like it was ready to explode being this close to him.

“Anything else?” His voice sounded gruff.

“Why me?” I finally decided to ask. “What made me different?”

“Before you, there was only dark.” He stopped, but his voice was still unsteady when he started again. “You lit up my whole world, like the sun bursting through the clouds on a stormy day. You made me remember what it was like to feel alive. You made me believe I was something more than death. You made me believe in something that I didn’t think existed anymore.”

My heart pounded in my chest, a steady beat that thudded harder with each passing second that he wasn’t touching me. I’d never wanted anyone to touch me as badly as I wanted Finn to in that moment. “Could you touch me right now if you wanted to?” I asked in a shaky voice.

He raked his hands through his hair and tugged. “Don’t ask me to do that. Not now. I’m too messed up to think straight and there are rules…”

He sounded torn, but for once, I didn’t want to think about what was right—I wanted him. Whatever that meant. There were too many memories in my mind. I didn’t want memories. I wanted the real thing. Here. Now. Finn jumped off the bed and started to pace, his jaw clenched in restraint, the muscles in his forearms flexing. I hauled myself up behind him, heart in my throat, but pain throbbed through the stitches in my neck and leg. I gave up and leaned against the bed.

“Don’t leave. I won’t ask again. I pro—” I stopped when I heard it. Static electricity seemed to crackle in the air between us, then the floorboards under Finn’s shoes groaned with his weight. He took a deep, shaky breath, and his gaze…

His gaze looked reckless. And then-He kissed me.

I froze as his warm, solid lips pressed against mine. This…this couldn’t be happening. Finn was kissing me, really kissing me. My lips parted in surprise, my neck stinging, but the pain was worth it.

He moaned against my mouth, and the sound ran through my body like fire in gasoline. One of his hands slid down my jaw, cradling my face to deepen the kiss. The other hand brushed down my ribs to touch the bare strip of skin where my shirt rode up. My arms wound around his back to close any space left between us.

His weight made me stumble against the bed and I winced, pain shooting up my leg as though I’d been stabbed all over again. Finn jerked away, but his hands held me in place. “Oh God…did I hurt—” I pulled him back to me and sealed our lips, trapping the rest of his words inside. It did hurt.

Everything did, but I didn’t care. Finn’s lips worked against mine and he shuddered, his hands careful of all the places that hurt.

“God,” he groaned resting his forehead against mine, shaking. “I want to feel this, Emma. I want to feel you, and I can’t.”

I frowned, but he kissed me again as if he could will himself to be alive and held my head in place, giving my neck the support it needed. I wanted him to be able to feel me, too. Wanted him to feel the fire in his veins like I did, and didn’t understand why he couldn’t.

All at once, there wasn’t room for any of the anger or the hurt over the lies. There was only room for Finn. The memories of this might have been good, but they were nothing compared to the real thing. His hands settled on my hips, gripping my flesh like he wanted more of me than he could get.

“Finn,” I whispered against his kiss, needing so much. Too much. I never wanted this to end. My hands slid around to his back, and his body slowly softened. Melted into a cool vapor against my skin.

A burst of energy ripped us apart and he scattered into a thousand particles before he managed to pull himself back together. Once he was solid again he reached for me, but his hand turned to vapor against my skin.

“Damn it,” he said, dropping his hand. “I can’t…I can’t keep it together.”

Pain seared my neck and my need for Finn took my breath away. I reached for his shimmering form, needing to feel him again, but all that was left was a translucent version of the boy I loved. I clutched my chest where it hurt, and a choked sob ripped its way out of my throat.

“Emma, stop…don’t cry,” he pleaded. His gentle fingers, their breathy warmth touching my face, only made it worse.

“It’s not enough,” I cried, unable to stop myself. “This will never be enough.”

It hurt, loving him like this. It hurt knowing everything about our past, but knowing we didn’t have a future. I wanted to go to sleep and wake up to find it all a dream, because this kind of pain was going to kill me long before Maeve ever could. I wanted so many things I couldn’t have. I wanted him to be alive.

His eyes raked over me, a desperation in them that I’d never seen before. “Did you say Cash was drinking tonight?”

I nodded. Finn hopped up and went to the window. “If Cash comes to your window, let him in.”

I could barely see the fading shimmer of his outline in the moonlight. “What are you going to do?”

He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. “Just let him in.” With that he dissolved through the wall and into the darkness, leaving me aching and alone.