After Ever (23 page)

“I can count on one hand the number of times I have apologized for my actions, Win. But I will say I am sorry now. Immensely so.”

“Sorry f-for what?” My teeth are chattering again. I clench my jaw. Beneath the snow my hands bunch into fists.  

“For killing you,” Ellie says simply. “Or rather drawing you to your death, to be precisely accurate,” she amends.

“B-Brian?”

“Brian never left the hotel that morning. He was in the restaurant’s kitchen eating pastries the entire time.”

“The kitchen,” I repeat dully.

“The one place you did not look,” Ellie says, shaking her head. The blue hat wobbles. Reaching up with both hands, she tugs it lower. “I truly am sorry.”

“Oh, well as long as you’re
sorry
.”   

Ellie’s eyes grow dark. “I thought you would be pleased to know your brother came to no harm.”

It’s weird, hearing her voice come out of the body of a five year old girl. “Change back,” I demand. “Change back now.”

“But I rather like–”

“NOW.”

“Fine, fine,” she grumbles.

I blink, and Ellie is how as she first appeared to me in the Solace Room: flawless skin, black hair shorn to her skull, and a model’s face, all sharp angles and lines. The red snow coat and blue hat are gone, replaced by a funky pair of bell bottoms and a loose flowery blouse. Hoops swing at her ears and rings dance on her fingers as she clasps her hands and looks down at me.

“Better?” she says.

“You look like a hippy.”

“The sixties were one of my favorite decades.”

“Aren’t you cold?”

Her mouth tilts at the corners. “Aren’t you?”

“No.” My anger is keeping me warm. “Why did you do it?”

Ellie’s gaze passes over the top of my head. Her eyes eerily vacant, she says, “Wrong question, my dear.”

I struggle out of the snow, brushing it off my jeans and digging it out in clumps from underneath my shirt. “Then what is the
right
question?” I have never wanted to physically hurt someone as badly as I do right now. I imagine tackling Ellie to the ground and raking my hands across her face. Bringing her arm up over my knee and cracking it in half. Picking up a chunk of ice and smashing her in the side of the head with it.

 Beating up on Craven would be small potatoes compared to what I want to do to Ellie. My thoughts are violent, my imagination ugly, but I don’t recoil from it. This is the person who
killed
me. Ellie
ended my life
.

“Why me?” I ask.

Kneeling in the snow, Ellie makes a snowball. Squinting one eye, she aims for a large pine no more than five feet away. The snowball sails through the air… and misses the tree by a mile. “BINGO!” she cries.

There is a stick on the ground next to my feet. I could pick it up and use it to gouge out her eyeballs. My stomach squirms in protest, finally telling my active imagination that it has gone a little too far. Fine. No eyeball gouging. But I could definitely—

“There is more to death than what you see, Winnie. Oh, that rhymed! How delightful.”

“Ellie…”

“So impatient.” She sighs. “Very well. I used you as I would a chess piece. I needed a knight, as it were, and you were the pawn that had to be sacrificed.”

“A chess piece,” I repeat slowly.

“Yes, precisely. Did you think death would be simple, Win? That the After is some kind of eternal playground?” Abruptly serious, Ellie grabs both of my arms and yanks me forward. Her breath fans across my face. It smells like peppermint. “It is a
war
, you foolish girl. And in war, generals must lead their troops to battle.”

“But why me?” I repeat, genuinely at a loss as to what could have possibly attracted Ellie to me in the first place.

Visibly distraught, Ellie releases one of my arms and skims a hand through her short hair. Eyes flashing, she says, “I needed someone brave, someone who would sacrifice their life for another. Do you know how hard that is to find nowadays? You weren’t exactly first on my list.” She sighs again. “I did not kill you, Win. I gave you a choice. You believed your brother’s life was in danger and you risked your own to save him. You played the odds, and you lost. Am I truly to blame for that?”

Well, when she put it that way… “Yes! Yes, you are to blame. Of
course
it’s your fault. I didn’t ask to die!”

“Ah, but did you not?” she says solemnly.

“I was trying to save Brian.”

“I know.” Like a mother would a child, she tries to cup my face. I yank back, baring my teeth like some sort of feral dog.

“Don’t touch me,” I snap.

Hands raised, she takes a step back.

Overwhelmed, I begin to pace a trench in the snow as I try to comprehend what Ellie is telling me. That my death was not an
accident
. That I was some sort of
pawn
. That she hand picked me because I was
brave
. I barely contain my snort. Brave and I don’t exactly mix, so I suppose the joke’s on her.

And then another thought occurs to me, so horrible I can barely wrap my mind around it. Snow flies as I whirl around to face her. “And Sam? What about him? Did he… does he know about this?”

Curiosity flickers in Ellie’s gaze. “Would it matter if he did?”

“I – I don’t… No.” I jerk my head to side. “No, it doesn’t matter.”
Liar
. 

“Then why ask the question?”

“Because I just want to know, okay? I like to keep track of who was in on the whole ‘Let’s Kill Winnie’ scheme.”

“As far as Sam is concerned, you are merely his first assignment as a guide. He does not know I picked you for him.”

“But he said he chose me.”

“Yes, yes. Just like you chose to go out onto an unstable lake to save your brother?” Her eyes roll. “Sam could no more
not
have picked you than you could have stayed on the shore. Some fates are simply meant to be intertwined, no matter the distance that separates them.”

I rub my arms. Goosebumps have broken out, but they are not from the cold. “If you planned all this, why would you put Sam in danger? Why would you let Craven attack him?” I am trying to add things up, but I keep getting five when I put two and two together.

“
Let
Craven attack him? Dear girl, I all but led Craven right to you. I did give you a warning with the bell. Quite generous, if you ask me.”

“WHAT? Why would you DO that?” My jaw sags in disbelief. Ellie’s lucky I don’t have another gun handy.

Ellie tugs on one of her oversized hoop earrings and purses her lips. “How else was I supposed to get you to that awful bar?”

Realization hits me like a ton of bricks. I waver under the weight, stumbling back until I come up against the rough bark of a tree. “Sam wasn’t the one you wanted me to save,” I whisper.

“Correct.”

“Francesca. The entire time, you wanted me to rescue Francesca.”

“Correct.”

Fury bubbles up, fury the likes of which I haven’t known since my dad sat me down and told me he was sending Brian away. “Why couldn’t you just say that to begin with? I would have helped her! You… You hurt Sam. You
hurt
him. You didn’t have to do that.”

Ellie’s head tilts to the side. She studies me as a scientist might a particularly fascinating test subject, looking for any twinge of emotion. I fight to keep my face blank. “You fight fiercely for those you love,” she says at last. “You crossed a lake to save your brother and you followed Craven across the After to get to Sam. For your brother you risked your life, and for your Guide you risked your soul. Would you truly have done the same for a girl who meant nothing to you?”

“I… I don’t know,” I admit honestly.
Would
I have helped Francesca escape if Sam’s very existence wasn’t on the line? Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, it should have been
my
decision to make.

Ellie clasps her palms together, as if she is resting her case. “Now you see why I did what I did,” she says calmly. “I set out a series of choices, Win. That is how it has always been done in life and in death. You chose to cross the lake without testing the ice first, Craven chose to go after you and Sam, Sam chose to sacrifice his body for yours, and you chose to rescue Francesca because you believed she would help you find Sam. I can lay your options at your feet, but I cannot make your decisions.”

“Why Craven?” I ask.

Ellie regards me steadily and says, “I think you know.”

I think I do as well. It is something I suspected from the first moment I told Francesca which Unknown had switched places with Sam. And then, in the storage closet when she told me what had happened the night of the fire, I knew for certain. Craven and the man who burned down the bar with over one hundred souls trapped inside are one and the same. Ellie must have been betting on the fact that when she put Craven on our trail he would take down one of us, and knowing Sam’s ridiculous need to protect me she assumed it would be him Craven switched bodies with. Then it was just a matter of time before Craven returned to the bar, and Ellie brought me to the Solace Room. The rest, as they say, is history. Except for one thing.  

“So what has Francesca done that’s made her so important?”

“It is not what she
has
done, it is what she
will
do. What all three of you will do, I think. You have surprised me, Winnifred Coleman. That is not an easy thing to accomplish.”

“Well you sure surprised the hell out of me,” I mutter under my breath. Sweeping my hair to one side of my neck, I absently comb the individual strands, noticing yet another lock has begun to come unraveled.

I wonder at my lack of emotion. Shouldn’t I be shrieking? Crying? Cursing? Doing anything other than standing calmly in front of Ellie combing my hair? Ellie, who has been manipulating me from the beginning. I don’t buy her “laying out choices” crap. If she hadn’t given Craven the choice to enter the school, he never would have found Sam and me to begin with.

Still, I suppose everything worked out in the end. Besides my being dead and Sam being forced to live in the rotting body of a murderer, everything is peachy keen. Or so I tell myself.

“What happens next?” I ask.

Ellie shrugs. Her eyes dart to the left, past the trees. Now that she has told me what she came to tell me she is impatient to move on. To go back to… well, wherever she goes back to. “Now you will return to Sam and Francesca. There is still much about the After you have to learn, and they will both guide you.”

“That… that’s it?” I say incredulously. “You’re just sending me back? What about the whole thing about it being a war and chess pieces and knights?”

“Oh, yes, well, that all still stands. But not today. Today, my dear, you have a very important function to attend.”

My eyes narrow. “What sort of function?” I ask suspiciously.

“Why, your funeral of course. And you are welcome, by the way.”

“For
what
?” I sputter.

Her lips curve mysteriously. “You will see.”  

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

This time Ellie sends me back through a Jump Door instead of forcing me off the edge of a cliff or making me disappear. I appreciate her thoughtfulness.

Sam is waiting for me in the tree house. I all but tumble into his arms when I come through the other side of the Jump Door, and he clutches me tight to his chest, one hand cupping the back of my head while the other digs in my side.

“Where did you go?” he says, his voice unnaturally shrill. “Did an Unknown take you? Did you see Craven? Is he after you again?”

“What? I – no.
No
Sam,” I say firmly when I see his stricken face. Freeing my arms, I wind them around either side of his neck and draw him close. “Craven is gone. He’s gone, Sam. I’m safe. You’re safe. We’re all safe.”

“Safe.” He repeats the word twice, as if he can’t wrap his mind around the idea. My fingers tighten, tugging at the ends of his hair.

“Safe,” I say firmly. “Do you want to sit down?”

Sam’s eyes are still a little wild, the muscles under my hands still a little rigid, but the sheepish smile he offers me is as reassuring as it is familiar. “Uh, yeah. Sure.”

We break apart awkwardly, neither of us looking at the other. Rubbing my palms against my jeans I sit cross legged on the cot while Sam perches on the edge of the rocker. 

“You have snow in your hair,” he says after a tense pause.

“I do?”

“Here, let me get it.”

I lean towards him, ducking my head down. I feel a faint pressure and then Sam sits back, staring at his fingertips where three tiny snowflakes are quickly melting. For some reason it reminds me of the morning Sam and I walked around the resort. And how much I wished I had followed my instincts and held his hand, or given him a kiss on the cheek. Even if I do those things now they will never be the same as they would have been then, because then I was alive, and now I am dead.

“Win, are you listening?”

“Huh?” I lift my head. Our eyes meet, mine bemused, his vaguely annoyed.

“I was asking you why you have snow in your hair. Where did you go? What happened to you?”

“Well, it’s kind of a long story…” I tell Sam everything, leaving out only the fact that Ellie hand picked him for me. I repeat myself more than once as he questions me about this and that, his expression alternating between disbelief and absolute awe.

“I just can’t believe it,” he says when I am finally finished.

“Well, believe it.”

Sam runs his hand across his forehead, pinching the sides of his temple. “All this time we were meant to rescue Francesca,” he says softly.

I sit up a little straighter on the cot and swing my legs to the floor. “Um, not we.
Me
. Ellie picked me, remember? I was the one who rescued Francesca from the big bad evil bar and I was the one who shot Craven.”

Sam flinches when I say the Unknown’s name, but his gaze is steady and slightly amused when he lifts his chin to look at me and says, “Do you want a medal or something?”