Only the Good Die Young

24

When I came to, I saw stars.

And I’m not talking about cartoon character stars that circled my head—I’m talking purple haze and glowing celestial bodies that were suspended around me in a cluster.

Real bodies.

White and hazy, lying flat on their backs, just like they were hanging from invisible strings, sleeping with their eyes open. Men, women, boys, girls…

I realized I was dangling in the air, too, with a true body that was just as pale and glowy as the rest of them. But it didn’t freak me out as much as it should’ve. The lack of sound was peaceful in a way. So was this watery-spacey sensation, like I was in one of my hallucinations, lifted by the purple ocean, made lazy by the warmth of a dark sun.

Even the memories of the monstrous night I’d had were subdued, like they were in the process of being buried. I could recall what’d happened, like Farah grabbing Noah and going over the railing, Wendy screaming, Gavin trying to get to them even if it was too late. But I didn’t feel anything.

I just rested, breathing slowly with my star-place body.

It was all going really well, too, until I saw the last entity that I wanted to see.

Fake Dean, sauntering to my side with his chin-razored surfer blond hair, hands shoved in his jeans pockets, and a shit-eating grin.

But of course.

“You’re awake,” he said in that voice that made me want to touch him, run my fingers down his arm. “You gave me a scare.”

I laughed sarcastically, and it took a hell of a lot of energy. And why not when I’d possessed Gavin and, as a consequence, had started to fall into a time loop?

“This isn’t what I remember happening when I was an imprint,” I whispered.

“That’s because you’re not in a residual haunting phase, thanks to me.”

Fake Dean put his hand on my leg, and tendrils of heat coursed through me, just like searing blood blasting through veins. I stifled a soft breath of pleasure, because those tendrils were inching up to a place I didn’t want to get warmed up.

He seemed to know it, because that grin only got cockier.

“Stop that,” I said, talking a little louder.

“What?”

“That.”

“It’s good for you,” he said tauntingly. “My touch makes you color up and get strong.”

“I don’t need what you have to give.”

“Is that so?” He laughed, sexy and low. “Darlin’, is it too soon to remind you that I saved your ass?”

“I didn’t ask for any favors.”

All right, in spite of my feistiness, I was kind of glad he’d been there. Why did he have to gloat about it, though?

He slid his hand over my knee, and my belly tightened even more.

Crap.

“Jenny, you already know I’ve been watching you. And you know that I would’ve considered it an epic waste if you’d fallen back into a loop.”

“So you brought me here? To ‘hang out’?”

“See? You’re in a better mood already. Before you know it, you’ll be making good puns.”

“I’m not up for this.”

“No,” he said softly. “I don’t guess you are. You went through some heavy stuff tonight.”

Damn it, the Edgett memories had almost faded, and here he was, bringing them back: death, destruction, innocent people stained by what’d gone on at James the pool guy’s.

“Just so you know,” he said, “Farah, Noah, and James are without a doubt dead. James and Noah were shaken up so bad that they’ll be time loops in that house.”

Oh, that sucked. Not so much for James, but I felt bad for Noah, even if he’d been an accessory to murder.

Fake Dean read the emotion in me. “There’s nothing you can do about it, Jenny.”

That’s right. I remembered how McGlinn’s uncle died on a regular basis in his house and the partying ghosts couldn’t bring him out of it.

“It might interest you to know,” he continued, “that Farah moved on.”

“What?” I was still weak, but his touch was doing wonders to revive me. “Why does she get to do that and not the others?”

“When she went over that rail, she’d already planned to die, so there wasn’t much shock for her. But after she realized she was dead, a wrangler showed up, and her shade was screaming bloody murder as she moved on. I can’t tell you what that means, exactly, but I don’t think it’s good.”

“How about Wendy and Gavin?” The alive ones. “What’s happening with them?”

“Wendy’s in a state of shock, but your Gavin’s got her covered.”

Your Gavin? Jealousy again? His words were tight, so I guess he was a little green.

“The cops are still in the house with them right now,” he said, “but Gavin and Wendy aren’t revealing everything. They had to come clean about James’s body and how Farah killed herself and her brother, but Wendy asked Gavin not to tell anyone about Farah murdering Elizabeth, because it would implicate Noah.”

That’s right. Farah hadn’t told her siblings all the details about how Noah had aided her, but she’d said enough. And I couldn’t blame Wendy for protecting her brother. Even if they’d fought like cats and dogs, she was probably making excuses for him, thinking of Farah’s hold on him, especially at the age of fourteen.

Besides, Farah had paid for her crime, and I was pretty sure Elizabeth—and Amanda Lee—would be satisfied with that.

Fake Dean and I didn’t talk for a beat—I was trying to get the memories out of me again—and I side-glanced at the closest body. She had long curls that had gone white from the star place’s glow, and they spiraled down from her head. Her gaze was fixed above her, and she had a slight, fizzy grin on her face.

“A keeper, not a reaper,” I said to fake Dean, changing the subject. I just wanted to leave the night behind me.

He quirked an eyebrow, clearly knowing just what I was up to, then letting me get away with it. “All of these bodies you see are willing, if that’s what’s bothering you. And when they want to go into the light, I let them.”

The light. I remembered that glowing pool of lotus leaves I’d seen during my first visit.

“If they came willingly,” I said, “why did you try to get me here unwillingly before?”

“It’s not about how you got here. It’s about how long you want to stay.”

“Stay?” He was delusional. “Let me consider that for a sec. Staring into space, not moving around. Yeah, that really seems like the life.”

“You’re getting even peppier. Good.”

He skimmed his hand from my knee to my lower thigh, and for some stupid reason, I let him stay there. As always, it was so easy to remember the real Dean and how he’d looked at me when he wanted me.

The same way this Dean was looking at me now.

“Anyway,” he said, jerking his chin toward the nearest star woman, “don’t knock what they have until you try it.”

“Wasn’t I just trying it before I woke up?” I didn’t recall anything that’d happened after I’d almost time-looped back at James’s house and then ended up here.

“You’ve been healing.” His fingers were playing along the inner seam of my jeans, making me liquid again. “You got a lot taken out of you when you possessed Gavin, and I was magnanimous enough to put it all back into you.”

As he coasted his hand up my leg, to the front of my thigh, he watched his progress, like he was appreciating my body. Almost like he was the true Dean, remembering it.

“Do you want to know why all these souls stay with me?” he asked.

Sure, why not?

“In their minds up here,” he said, “life is perfect. They don’t have to constantly amuse themselves on the earthly plane. They don’t have to deal with humans. This is a certain paradise for them, and they don’t have to go into the light and take a chance that there’s no heaven, no nirvana. It’s right here.”

“What kind of dope do you give them?”

He laughed, squeezing my leg. I bit my lip, then stopped, hoping he hadn’t noticed.

He had, but he did me the favor of not mentioning it.

“I just touch them,” he said. “In case you haven’t noticed, I can do things with a touch.”

Slowly, he eased his hand up and over my hip, to my waist. I was toasty inside. Perfect. Almost paradise. He wasn’t just bragging about his talents.

“Why do you collect, though?” I asked, trying not to sound affected. “What’s in it for you?”

As he toyed with the bottom of my shirt, he sighed. “I’m old. Living eternally is a long haul, you know. If you don’t find new spirits to enjoy—ones who’re a little different from everyone else—then time becomes a slog.”

He’d already told me he liked my get-up-and-go attitude, that most ghosts didn’t have it. Even though it was nice to be liked, there wasn’t a Dean in the universe who could make me consider hanging out in the star place forever.

“I don’t know what you are,” I said. “But I know you’re never going to tell me. Needless to say, I can’t deal with that kind of relationship.”

“We all compromise somewhere down the line.”

“Not me.” Not anymore.

I wanted to get back down to the earth to see how Wendy was doing with her fully realized gift of sight. I wanted to introduce her to McGlinn so they would know they weren’t alone. I wanted to see the ghosts who’d already grown on me. But most of all, there was an even bigger murder to solve down there.

Mine.

Fake Dean had slid his hand over my stomach, and I reached up, putting my palm over him, even though the warmth rayed through me, giving me more strength.

“No compromises,” I said, pushing his hand away. “Ever.”

He smiled, amused by my challenge. Beings like him probably thrived on those.

Then, out of nowhere, he changed.

It was a subliminal fraction of a second that I wasn’t even sure was real, but I saw a ghostly image of a man—only an impression of dark compelling eyes and cheekbones to die for—then…

Bam. A flash of an angry, roaring beast.

I bolted up and averted my head, but when I glanced back at fake Dean, he’d shed that awful last image, and he was my old boyfriend again, grinning as if I’d imagined everything.

“What was that?” I was floating in midair still, like I was on an invisible pallet.

“What?”

Damn, he liked screwing around, and I knew asking more about that image would go nowhere.

“I think I want to go now.”

“Come on, Jenny. You have me at your disposal. Don’t you want to know anything else? Like how I know all about Dean?”

“You’re not going to tell me.”

He shrugged, like he still thought I’d change my mind about staying. “You know that I watch everything that goes on. Time doesn’t exist for me like it exists for you. I can go back and forth at my leisure.”

Dean used to say that. At my leisure. The sound of it tweaked me.

“I was watching when the two of you met at the beach,” he said. “A summer’s day with your friends, lying on a blanket in your Lightning Bolt swimsuit. He was coming out of the water with his surfboard and a couple of buddies, and they were camped nearby. You liked him right away, and after you got to talking, you found out he was educated, cool, and had his whole life together. You weren’t far out of high school then, and you admired where he was going.”

“I wanted to go there, too, wherever it was,” I said.

“You still can.”

His gaze locked on mine, and he reached out, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. Then he pulled a dirty trick that he’d used before to great success.

He assumed my Dean’s personality, not just his appearance.

“When I pulled away from you in my car that day,” he said, “driving off to college, I almost turned back around. What if I had, Jenny? Where would we be now?”

I shook my head, shying away from his touch.

But he captured my chin between his thumb and forefinger. “You could find out right now.”

“By lying back down and becoming one of your collection?”

“Don’t think of it that way. Just think of how I’m waiting for you if you’d just relax and close your eyes. Why don’t you give it a try, and if you don’t like it…”

He nearly had me. I mean, why not when Dean was waiting for me? The Dean of my fantasies. The guy I’d lived for and died without.

He must’ve sensed that I needed more of a push, and he bent his head, his hair getting darker, his entire body transforming…

When he looked up, he’d become my mom, looking as she’d looked on the day I last saw her: tanned, with the same blond-red hair I had except short and windblown. She was still young enough to have freckles across her nose and cheeks and not have anyone mistake them as age spots.

“I’m there, too, Jen,” she said. “So is Suzanne. You haven’t seen her in years, and she hasn’t changed a bit.”

Suze. I’d visited her just after Amanda Lee had pulled me out of my time loop; she was old before her time, weary. I wished I’d never seen the present-day Suze, and here I was, being offered a chance to forget that one ever existed.

Next thing I knew, my dad was touching my cheek. My Brawny Paper Towel Man dad, with his mustache and carefree light brown hair.

“What’s down there that’s better than up here?” he asked. “Don’t you love us enough to be with us?”

I couldn’t look at him and not feel. He was the one who would always sneak me out of the house to get me chocolate-dipped ice-cream cones at Foster’s Freeze. He was the one who’d tried to be all tough and not to get emotional when Brad Shea had picked me up for my first date to homecoming.

I’d been a daddy’s girl, and to hear him ask if I didn’t love him anymore? It was too much to resist. Just imagine—a place where no one ever died or left you behind. A spot where I could forget what I’d experienced tonight with all the pain and blood. A haven where I’d never been killed.

What was our existence, anyway? A mirage? One big hallucination caused by the hugest spirit of all?

I almost allowed this entity to lure me into his star collection right then and there, but then something odd happened. In the quiet of the star place, I heard a voice echoing. Two voices.

And they sounded like Randy and Louis.

Immediately, my dad disappeared and fake Dean came to take his place, chuckling, obviously knowing that I wasn’t deaf.

“Looks like you’re strong enough to hear them now,” he said. “I was hoping I’d have enough time to woo you before that happened.”

“Why do I hear them?”

“They’re a part of the air, and they’ve been calling for you nonstop. Louis summoned Randy, and they’re with Amanda Lee, worrying about how long you’ve been away without reporting in. It’s an hour away from sunrise down there.”

I heard the concern in Randy’s and Louis’s voices as they faded.

Randy, who could have been knocking over bottles in bars instead. Louis, who could have been spending his time with his nose in a book.

I got off the invisi-pallet and stood, knowing that, if I left, I wouldn’t have this body anymore. I wouldn’t be able to feel the real Dean’s fingers on my face or my arms or legs unless I encountered him in a dream. And I wouldn’t see my mom and dad again unless I someday moved on, too.

I could have all that here, but was it what I really wanted? My old life?

“This sounds funny,” I said, “but I actually have too much to live for down there. Does that make any sense?”

I could see that I’d only ratcheted up fake Dean’s interest in me with my resistance. I could see it in his eyes.

“Nothing about you makes sense,” he said. “And everything, too.”

Cryptic, but what was new?

I had to get back. I didn’t like that Randy and Louis were worried. “Thanks for the save.”

“You’re welcome, but you realize one thing, don’t you? Someday you’re gonna come back to me.”

His words were playful but dark. He said this like he was only letting me go right now because he knew where the line between seduction and force was.

“Don’t hold your breath,” I said.

I started to walk away, and this show of independence would’ve been awesome except for the fact that I didn’t know where the exit to this damned place was.

As I put my hands on my hips, fake Dean laughed, but then got serious pretty quickly.

“One more thing,” he said. “Keep an eye out for what you call the ‘dark spirit.’ It’s still out there, and it’s just as interested in you as I am.”

That gave me the brrrs in my star-place body, but I wasn’t about to let him see that.

“Thanks for the warning. It’d help if you told me what it was… ?”

He only lifted that eyebrow, and I knew he was just like any spirit, finding amusement where he could because, otherwise, time was an emotion killer.

As he stood there, the invisible ground started to fall away below me, like ice cubes dropping out of a tray. Fake Dean grinned, enjoying his little jokes.

The floor opened up and I plunged back to earth, zooming like a comet, feeling my celestial body transform, taking me away from coma-paradise and back to the weirdness of life.

After I performed a very ungraceful landing in a strawberry field that spread under the starry sky, I realized that I’d dug a ditch from the force of my entrance. It smoked as I stood to check over my essence.

Colorful and uninjured. But why wouldn’t it be after fake Dean’s attentions?

Feeling like myself again—the ghost self I truly was—I looked up at the stars, wondering where I’d been hanging.

And why fake Dean had been so cocky about thinking that I’d be back someday.