Touch (28 page)

Allison swallowed. “My family—”

“Most of your family is unharmed. They weren’t concerned with your family; they wanted
you. And the hunter, when they realized he was present.”

Most.
Most
of her family.

Longland shook her and then let her go. He stepped back. “I don’t understand you,”
he said. “You survived. There was
nothing
you could do there but die.”

She glanced at Chase. “There are worse things than death.”

“If you’re dead, there’s no chance at all that you can make people pay for what they’ve
done to you.”

Allison turned to Longland, but before she could answer, he lifted a hand. His expression
was hard to read. She didn’t try for long. Instead, she turned to Chase. He hadn’t
moved. His shoulders had relaxed, but he was watching Longland; he made no move to
retrieve his weapons. Allison did; Longland didn’t tell her to stop.

“I told you to run,” Chase said, voice low.

“I know.”

“Why didn’t you do it?”

“Because I couldn’t make myself believe there was nothing I could do.” She lowered
her gaze. “But you were right. There was nothing I could do. I couldn’t—” She bit
her lip. “I couldn’t kill him. I couldn’t just stab him without warning. I—”

He exhaled. “You’d better clean up before you see Emma again, or she’ll kill me.”

“You? Why?”

“You are covered in blood, and she’s going to assume it’s yours.”

“But that’s not your fault—”

“No, it’s not. Fault isn’t going to matter much.” He reached out then and pulled her
into his arms; he rested his chin on the top of her head, emphasizing the difference
in their height. “I didn’t tell you to kill and run. Not even I would be that stupid.

“You’re not a killer. You’re not Eric. You’re not me. You’re halfway Emma and your
ridiculous friends.”

“But not Amy?”

Chase chuckled. “Amy could have killed him.”

Allison didn’t laugh. “I don’t think even Amy could have just slit his throat.”

His arms tightened. After a moment he said, “No, probably not.”

“You could have.”

“Yes. I learned. I don’t want you to have to learn what I did. I don’t want you to
need it the way I needed it.”

“Why?”

“Because if it didn’t break you, it would change you. I happen to like who you are
right now.”

“Even if I do something stupid.”

“Even then. Maybe especially then. And you were right, for the wrong reasons. I’m
not dead. They are.”

“Chase—”

“We need to find the old man. We need to get back to Eric’s.”

“I want to go home.”

He released her. “Old man first. I don’t know if there were other Necromancers.”

“There weren’t,” Longland said, in a tone that implied he should have asked. “But
I wouldn’t say it’s safe. If I didn’t think she’d go with you, I’d send you.”

“I wouldn’t let him go alone,” a familiar voice said.

Allison turned, as Eric stepped around the trunk of a tree. He was carrying a gun.
Not surprisingly, it was aimed at Longland.

* * *

Allison was shaking. It wasn’t the cold. “He saved my life,” she said.

“I heard.”

“So please don’t kill him.”

He looked past Allison to Chase, and her gaze followed his. Chase grimaced but nodded.

“Amy is not going to like this.”

“We don’t have to tell Amy,” Chase countered, which made clear just how little he
knew about Amy Snitman.

“No problem,” Eric said. “But she’s at our place.”

“. . . Our place? The old man let her in?”

“I think he’d’ve been happier not to, but she’s Amy.” Eric glanced at Longland. “You
have somewhere you need to be?”

Longland shrugged. “I have someplace to go. It won’t last.”

“Were they sending reinforcements?”

“Not yet. The two you killed a few nights ago weren’t high in the hierarchy; the two
you killed tonight were more significant. She’ll call them home.”

“The way you were called.” It wasn’t a question.

Longland nodded. He watched Eric for a long moment as Eric turned back to Chase. “Emma
and Michael are also at our place.”

“What the hell?”

“Allison’s wasn’t the only home hit.”

Allison froze. Had this been the nightmare she desperately hoped it was, this is the
moment that horror and adrenaline would have forced her to wake. Her heartbeat was
a physical sensation, it was beating so quickly, but she was still standing in the
snow in a ravine that was now up two corpses.

“Was anyone—was anyone hurt?” Allison managed to ask.

“We don’t know,” Eric replied. “But we know who their actual targets were. You’re
not going home,” he added. “I’m sorry. Amy apparently packed a suitcase the size of
a small freezer; we’re leaving town.”

“But our parents—” Allison swallowed. Her parents. Gunshots. Guns.

Chase slid an arm around her shoulder; she couldn’t tell if he meant to hold her up
or not. “I’m sorry.” His voice was soft at the edges. It was cold at the core. “Their
best chance of survival is your absence. Even if they worry. Even if they go out of
their minds with worry. Even if they call the police and report you missing—it’s better
than going back. For them.”

He didn’t add,
This is why I told you not to get involved
. She was grateful for that. To her surprise, he said, “It’s not your fault. Never
believe it is.”

“You warned me.”

“Yes.” He surprised her. He smiled. His teeth were slightly red—with blood. His. He
didn’t seem to notice. “But a question for you, and I want an honest answer.”

“I’m not a liar.”

“Not a good one, no.”

“What’s the question?”

“Knowing what you know now, what would you do differently?”

She was silent.

“Think about it in the car,” Eric told her. “If these are the last two Necromancers,
we’ve bought ourselves a bit of time—but not a lot.”

* * *

The car was warmer than the air, but not by much, at least not for the first few minutes.
Longland sat in the back—beside Chase. Chase had opened the front passenger side of
the car and all but pushed Allison into it. He didn’t trust Longland, but that was
fair; Eric didn’t trust him either. Allison was surprised that they’d chosen to take
him along with them.

But she knew what Chase would say if she asked: Better to know where he is and what
he’s doing. Better to have him in easy reach; if necessary, we can kill him at any
time. Even if, she thought, what he’d said about being dead was true. He didn’t look
dead to Allison; he didn’t sound dead.

She met Chase’s steady gaze in the mirror and looked down at her lap. What could she
have done differently? If she’d known about the break-in, she could have started a
fire and forced her family out of the house in time. Maybe. But that wasn’t what he
meant, and she knew it. She couldn’t control what the Necromancers chose to do. She
couldn’t control what they wanted.

The only thing she could have done differently was take his advice at the very beginning.
Walk away from Emma. Abandon her best friend.

She hadn’t. She didn’t know if all of her family was unharmed.
Most of your family is unharmed
.

Had she traded one of their lives for her friendship with Emma? Is that what she’d
done? And if she had, and she could somehow go back, would she preserve that life
and turn her back on friendship?

If a man had held a gun to her mother’s head and offered her the choice, in
that
moment, she could have done it.
Speak to Emma again, and your mother is dead
.

She closed her eyes.

* * *

And opened them again. “No,” she told Chase. “I wouldn’t.”

He was silent.

“Love is a weapon.”

“Yes. In other people’s hands. It’s a weapon. It’s a weakness.”

“But, Chase—without it, what’s the point? If love can be used to force us to abandon
everything we value, what do we become, in the end? If we turn our backs on our friends,
on our beliefs, on anything else we also love—what does that make of us? Cowards?”

“Survivors.”

She was silent, thinking of the Necromancer—the man she couldn’t just kill. Cowards,
she thought, and survivors. “It’s a stupid question.”

“They’re my specialty.”

“I can’t change the past. I can’t change my decisions.”

“I only wanted to know if you would.”

“Why?”

He shrugged and looked out at the passing night. And then he smiled. He looked tired.
He was always pale, but his eyes were dark, and his skin looked slightly sunburned.
Or windburned. “Because I don’t want you to give up on me.”

“We were talking about Emma.”

“Yes, and I was thinking about hypocrisy. I’m—I’ve been—angry at her for putting your
life at risk. But if she didn’t—if she hadn’t—I wouldn’t have met you, either. I don’t
want any more regrets. But I don’t want you to be saddled with regrets like mine.”

“People have regrets all the time, Chase. It’s just—it’s just a people thing. People
who regret nothing have probably never tried anything. In their lives. Does this mean
you’ll stop hating her?”

“I won’t hate her any more than I hate myself.”

“So that’s a no?”

Eric chuckled. “Hold out for something better than that,” he advised.

“Pay attention to your driving,” Chase shot back. “Or the entire discussion will be
moot.”

“It might be moot anyway. Amy wasn’t happy.”

This time, Chase didn’t ask why Amy’s happiness was a concern.

E
MMA WAS ALREADY ON HER FEET when she heard the front door open. Ernest was seated;
he glanced up at the sound, but not in a way that made it a threat to anyone in the
room.

She held her breath; if Ernest didn’t rise to greet whoever was making an entrance,
she couldn’t; it wasn’t her house. But she listened for the sound of voices. She heard
footsteps instead.

And when Allison—when Allison, spattered in blood—walked into the living room, she
almost wept with relief. Margaret was in the middle of saying something to a less
and less happy Ernest when Emma cut her off and ran across the room.

Allison said, “I’m
fine
.”

And Emma replied, “Yes, but are you okay?”

Allison laughed. “No, not really.” She let her forehead drop until it rested on Emma’s
shoulder, and then, she shook. She might have stayed that way for a long, long time,
but Michael had come to stand to their left, and he was agitated—if silent—while he
waited.

“It’s not my blood,” Allison told him, without lifting her head. She knew him well
enough to know why he was panicking. She also knew him well enough to know her brief
comment wouldn’t stop him.

“If the two of you could have your huddle someplace other than the door, the rest
of us could enter the room,” Chase told them.

“I’m not sure that would be a net positive,” Amy replied. She started to say more,
then sucked her breath in; the sound had so much edge it might have killed a lesser
person. Emma looked up and met the eyes of Merrick Longland.

Allison disengaged. “He saved my life,” she said, with a trace of defiance, knowing
what had caught Amy’s attention. She caught Michael’s arm. “A Necromancer was about
to kill me, and he—he killed the Necromancer before I died.”

Michael was blinking. Emma sympathized; she was blinking as well. But she caught Michael’s
other arm, and she and Allison retreated to the fireplace, taking him with them. There,
she took a deep breath. “Ally, come let me help you clean up?”

Allison glanced at Michael, but nodded.

* * *

You’ll need to tell Allison about her brother.

Emma wondered, as she walked up the stairs at the side of her best friend, if this
is what Nathan’s mother had felt when she’d phoned Emma to tell her about Nathan’s
accident. She knew only what her father had told her: that Allison’s brother had been
shot. She didn’t know if he’d survived. And she knew it would be the first question
Ally asked.

But Allison said, “Chase knocked on my window. He practically broke it. I was studying
with headphones on.” She was watching her feet. “I opened the window; Chase was on
the roof. Well, the part of him that wasn’t in front of the window. He told me we
had to leave—and we had to leave now. He didn’t tell me why.” She swallowed. “I didn’t
even grab my phone. I climbed up on the desk and he dragged me up to the roof. You
don’t want to know how we came down.” They reached the second floor and made a beeline
for the bathroom, where Emma picked up a face cloth and soaked it in hot water.

“Stand still,” she told Allison, who obliged. Mostly. “You came down the old tree?”
She began, carefully, to wipe the blood from her friend’s face, pausing to dump her
glasses into the sink; they needed at least as much cleaning.

“I almost missed it. I saw them from the tree,” she added, her voice dropping again.
“I saw them open the front door. I heard shouting.” She closed her eyes. “We climbed
down the tree—I was better with that—and Chase started to move us.

“I heard a gunshot. I tried to go back.”

“Chase wouldn’t let you.”

Allison shook her head. “I was so afraid. So afraid. For my family. For myself. I
don’t know who was shot—” she stopped, meeting Emma’s eyes in the vanity mirror. After
a long pause, she said, “You know.”

Emma swallowed. “Toby.”

“Tobias was shot?”

“Yes. I don’t know more than that. We were leaving Mark’s mother’s house—I promise
I’ll tell you all about that later—and Amy called.” She ran hot water again to rinse
the towel out. Steam rose in silence, like mist. “People broke into her house. Her
father was shot. He’s alive and he’s mostly fine, according to Amy. Amy was enraged.”

“And you—”

“She couldn’t reach my phone; I’d turned it off. She couldn’t reach yours either.
And when Eric said you weren’t answering—” Emma closed her eyes. Opened them again.
“I asked my father to go to your house and tell me—tell me—” Her smile broke. “And
tell me whether or not you were alive. He told me you were. But he said your brother
had been shot, that emergency vehicles—and the police—were on the way.”

Allison’s hands were like ice as Emma set the cloth down and caught them in hers.
“Amy has a car, a suitcase full of clothing from various members of her family, credit
cards and keys to a number of her family’s various cottages. We’re leaving with her.

“Ernest thinks, if we disappear, our families will be more or less safe.”

“Have you—have you talked to your mom?”

“Yes. Before you arrived. There was a break-in at Amy’s house; Amy’s father was shot.
They mostly missed him—I don’t know how. Amy staged a breakdown.”

“Staged?”

“She pretty much came up with a reason that most of us can skip school for a few days.
Or more. She flipped out and told her mother she was so terrified she couldn’t be
in the house.”

Allison snorted, and they both managed a smile; parents could be so naive.

“I phoned home to tell my mother about Amy’s break-in and Amy’s subsequent breakdown.
I said I was at Nan’s, with Amy, and that Amy was hysterical.”

“Your mother bought that?”

Emma nodded. “Enraged people are often hysterical; I didn’t mention the rage part.
My mother assumed she was justifiably terrified. I told my mother I needed to be with
Amy and that I probably wouldn’t be coming home for a couple of days.”

“She was okay with that?”

“Not the first time—but she talked to Mrs. Snitman, and that seemed to help.”

“Michael’s mother?”

Emma bit her lip. “I’m going to phone her when Michael’s sleeping, because I have
to lie to her, and he’s already so wound up it’ll be messy.” She exhaled. “It’s your
mom that we can’t get around. Amy’s terror at armed men showing up in her house makes
perfect sense to all of the parents who
didn’t
deal with the same.

“But your mother—”

Allison swallowed.

“I can ask my father to check in on Toby. I think he can do that from wherever it
is we’re going. But it won’t be the same as being able to see him for yourself, and
we won’t know—” She stopped and closed her eyes. “We won’t know how bad the injury
was. We won’t know. If he’s—if he’s dying, you won’t be able to be there. Not with
him and not with your mother.”

Allison closed her eyes. Eyes closed, she said, “It’s my fault he was shot. It’s my
fault any of my family was in danger at all.”

“Funny, I was thinking the exact same thing. It’s
my
fault that your brother was shot. It’s
my
fault that any of your family—even you—were in danger at all.”

Allison’s eyes snapped open. Emma wasn’t smiling.

“They’re not going to kidnap us. If you choose to stay home, Chase will have a coronary,
but no one’s going to knock you out and dump your unconscious body in Amy’s car. My
dad didn’t tell me how bad Toby was—but it’s bad. If it weren’t, I’m sure he’d’ve
said so. Amy wants us all to leave—but she understands what’s at stake for you. We’re
going to one of Amy’s getaways. Chase and Eric will come with us; I’m sure Amy’s telling
them that right now.

“And Michael’s okay with this?”

“He’s as okay as the rest of us.”

“Which means no.”

“Which means mostly no. But none of us are exactly calm. I think you’re about as clean
as you’re going to get if you can’t take a long shower. Here, have a comb—there’s
dried blood in your hair; I think I got most of it. I can head downstairs if you need
time to decide—and I can make sure people give you that time.”

“Even Amy?”

Emma didn’t smile. “Even Amy.”

Allison fished her glasses out of the sink. “Can you ask your father to check now?”

“He’s not here right now.”

“No,” a familiar and beloved voice said. “But I am.”

Emma turned toward Nathan.

* * *

“Em?” Allison said; she had taken a dry towel to the surface of her glasses before
she deposited them across her ears and nose.

“Nathan’s here,” Emma replied. Her voice came out as a whisper. Allison couldn’t see
him. Emma lifted a hand and held it out to Nathan—and Nathan dropped both of his hands
into the pockets of his jeans, shaking his head. “Allison can’t see you if I don’t
touch you.”

“I know.”

There was so much finality to those two words Emma let her hand drop to her side.
“Ally,” she finally said, “can you give us a couple of minutes?”

Allison nodded, opened the door and walked into the hall. Then she walked back in
and said, “You might want to have this conversation in a room that isn’t the bathroom,
given the number of people in the house.”

“Good idea.”

* * *

Nathan was never a person to fill a silence, even when it had gone past the point
of awkward into nearly painful. Emma could—but not with Nathan. She knew how to find
small, daily things interesting when she needed to. But days when she could cheerfully
do this didn’t generally including two shootings and the near death of her best friend.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“Back,” he replied. “To the City of the Dead.”

She nodded, as if this made sense.

“If I stay, I’ll follow you. If I follow you, I’ll know where you are. I might not
be able to tell the living how to get there—but I’ll know. And what I know—” he stopped
abruptly. “You’ve been avoiding me.”

She started to lie. Stopped herself. This was
Nathan
. Lies had never really been necessary, before. She couldn’t quite make herself believe
they were necessary now. No, she thought, feeling the cold of all kinds of winter,
that wasn’t true. But she hadn’t been lying to Nathan—not directly.

Only to herself. And those lies were just as harmful, in the end. She exhaled. “Yes.”

He didn’t seem to be surprised; his expression rippled as he closed his eyes and waited,
his
Why?
unvoiced, but nonetheless loud.

“You didn’t find me on your own,” she said, voice almost a whisper.

His eyes widened, and this time he looked away. But he answered. “No.”

“You didn’t find your way home on your own, either. My dad said it would take a couple
of years before you could—” She swallowed. “Before you could tear yourself away from
the door. But it didn’t.”

He said nothing, but he met her gaze; he didn’t hold it for long, but to her surprise,
the faintest hint of a smile touched his lips.

“She sent you.”

He nodded.

“Do you understand why?”

After a long pause, Nathan asked, “Do you?”

Emma closed her eyes. Opened them again. “Yes.” She wanted to look away from his luminescent,
oddly colored eyes, but she didn’t. “When I saw Merrick Longland, I was afraid. We
were all afraid. Because we’d all seen him die.

“I wasn’t there when you died,” she added. “But it must have been just as messy, just
as painful. I never expected to see Longland again. But, Nathan—until October, I never
expected to see you, either, except in dreams.”

“Or nightmares?”

“Or nightmares. But when I saw Longland again—it wasn’t just the fear. It was the
hope—” She had to look away. “It was the
hope
, Nathan. Longland was alive, and if Longland could come back to life—so could you.”
When she turned to face him again, he was watching her; his eyes were shining. It
was a light that looked familiar to Emma, although she couldn’t immediately say why.
“I was angry. I was angry with Eric, because he must have known. He didn’t even look
surprised. He didn’t react as if it was impossible.”

“No,” Nathan said, voice grave. “He wouldn’t.”

“Necromancers are supposed to raise the dead. We’re Necromancers. He knew it was possible.”

“Emma—”

She lifted a hand to her mouth, mute for a moment because her voice was becoming so
quavery, and she hated that. “It was everything I
wanted
. If I could learn how to use this power—this power that I didn’t ask for and didn’t
want—I could bring you back. You could be
with me
. I could hold you. I could hold your hand without losing all sensation. I could—”
she stopped. For a long moment, she struggled with breathing, because breathing right
now was too close to tears, and she was still Emma Hall. “But Longland isn’t alive.”

His eyes widened slightly.

“He’s—no one living would be able to tell the difference, but Longland said it’s different.
He’s not alive; he’s dead, and he’s trapped in a body that’s not really his. He can
interact with the world. He can pretend to be alive.

“But he’s dead. He’s cold. And the only thing he now wants—”

“That is
not
all I want from you.”

She turned to face him. “Isn’t it?” she whispered. “Can you tell me, honestly, that
if I could somehow open that door—or remove the impenetrable glass from that window—you’d
even be standing here now?”

Nathan had never, to her knowledge, lied to her. He was therefore silent. It was a
silence that stretched and thinned, and Emma was almost afraid of what would happen
if it broke. But conversely, she wanted it to break. People were just like that.

“No.” He looked down at his feet. “If the way had been open, I would have gone almost
immediately. I didn’t know where I was. I didn’t understand—not completely—what being
dead meant. I was cold, Em, yes. And it’s warm there. Don’t ask me how I know—I can’t
explain it. I don’t think even your dad could. I didn’t think of going home after
I—after. I didn’t even think of moving. I didn’t think of moving on, either—I was
lost.