Death in Spades Page 7

  waiting outside that he’s safe from as long as he stays in here. I can’t keep him trapped in school forever, but I can delay the inevitable

  until I’ve had a chance to figure out what to do next.

  I float back through the door once I’m sure Andy isn’t going to bolt the second I let go of the handle. His backpack is pressed into the stucco wall behind him and a couple of papers look dangerously close to falling out.

  “You look familiar.” I blink and Andy’s face is right up against mine, so close our noses are almost touching. I jump back, his eyes following me in confusion. “Did you go to school here? When did you die?”

  Wow, way to sugarcoat it, kid. Maybe that’s something I don’t want to talk about. It’s not, but he doesn’t need to know that.

  “You’re prying. And stalling for time. I’m not an idiot, you know.”

  “Neither am I.” He narrows his eyes and stares at me; I feel like a bug under a microscope. “You’re Terra Spade, aren’t you? I saw your obituary in the newspaper. The principal talked about it at the last assembly, but you look different than the picture they showed.”

  I groan, rolling my eyes. They must have used the same old photo my dad put in the paper.

  “Obviously I do, I’m dead.” I’m also royally screwed. I might as well just tell him all of my secrets, while I’m at it. “Nice to meet you, kid.”

  “It’s Andy.”

  “I know. You’re a pretty popular dude.”

  Andy flinches visibly and tries to cover it up under the pretense of flattening down his wild hair.

  The bell rings again, but Andy doesn’t move. It’s obvious by now that he isn’t planning on going back to class, but I don’t really care as long as he stays inside. I’ll talk to him all night if I have to.

  A flock of students fill the hallway, running past on their way to class. Andy watches them silently, waiting until we’re alone again before continuing.

  “Your obituary didn’t say how you died,” Andy says, changing the subject. “Usually that means either murder or suicide. Or both, I guess.”

  He stumbles over his words and I grin. “You’re half right, then. The second half.”

  “You killed yourself?”

  I nod, but I can’t bring myself to say it out loud. With Mellie it was easier to talk about death, but that’s probably because we’re both already dead. Andy’s still a living, breathing human, and it feels wrong to talk to him about anything but that. Especially since he probably only has a little longer to stay a living, breathing human.

  “Oh.”

  Silence. I watch Andy fiddle with the sleeves of his sweater, pulling them down over his fingertips. The clock on the opposite wall ticks loudly, echoing in the empty hallway. Andy slides down the wall into a sitting position, his backpack curling underneath him.

  He looks lost in thought, staring at the floor. I can’t tell what he’s thinking, but all that’s on my mind is what a mess I’ve made of everything. I’ve been dead for less than a month and already I’ve broken at least half a dozen rules. I didn’t even know dead people had rules, but I still feel like I’m betraying Mellie by talking to

  Andy, because she told me what happened to her last time she made that mistake. I don’t want anybody to end up dead because of something stupid I did, but I don’t want anyone to end up dead, period. Especially Andy, for some reason.

  “Do you know how I’m going to die?” Andy asks out of nowhere, speaking so softly I only catch pieces of each word. He’s not looking at me.

  I hesitate, unsure of how much I should tell him. “No,” I answer honestly. “And I don’t know when either. So stop worrying about it.”

  He doesn’t look at all like he’s going to stop worrying. If anything, he looks even more worried.

  ♠♠♠

  “Yeah, you’re awesome. Can we go now?”

  I fly up another foot and touch the ceiling, doing a shaky somersault on my way back down.

  “Nope. School’s still in session. Wouldn’t want to get caught for truancy, would you?”

  A teacher walks by and Andy turns his attention to the floor,

  rifling through his backpack and trying to look like he isn’t loitering in the halls half an hour into seventh period.

  “Is that all you can do?” he whispers out of one side of his mouth, keeping his eyes on the teacher as she passes. “Levitate, fly through things, and grab door handles? Not very spooky for a ghost.”

  “Hey, I can turn the TV on and off too, and the light switches.” I cross my arms and float back down to eye-level with Andy, my feet sinking through the floor a few inches to compensate for our height difference. “Sorry if I’m not up to par with your horror movie expectations. Besides, you can see me. That doesn’t count. Technically I’m invisible too.”

  Andy is very obviously trying to keep the conversation light and distract me from the topic we left off on before the bell rang. I can see right through him – not literally, though he can probably see through me – and I know all about using humor to keep the bad thoughts away. That’s probably why some people were so shocked that I killed myself, but if they’d just looked a little closer, they would have known.

  Andy’s starting to scare me a little bit, to be honest. The way he pulls on his sweater, the way his fingers tremble on the handle of his backpack and his eyes dart all over the halls every time he hears a noise. He’s afraid of something, and I get the feeling it goes beyond his impending death.

  “Hey,” I say, waiting for his gaze to turn on me before continuing. “Why did you think I was here to kill you anyway? You asked if you were going to die when you saw me. Why?”

  More fidgeting. A sharp intake of breath blown out through

  clenched teeth. I float back up to my full height and look down at Andy; he’s at least a full four inches shorter than I am, and I’m not that tall either.

  “Just a hunch,” he says. “Why else would you be here? I’m the only one who can see you, right?”

  “Besides Mellie, yeah. But she’s dead too, so that doesn’t really count. And David and Esther, but they died too, so… I get your point. But if it makes you feel any better, it usually happens pretty quickly, and I’ve been here all day. So I’m pretty sure you’re not the one I’m here for.”

  “But you are here for someone.” Sneaky little brat. I should have seen that one coming. “Why can I see you, then?”

  I sigh, feeling the wind rush right through me. “I don’t know. I’m still pretty new at this. Only been dead for a couple weeks, remember?”

  He looks at me, eyebrows furrowed and forehead cut with deep creases. “It’s been over a month, Terra. You died in March; it’s nearly May now.”

  “That’s not possible.”

  I don’t sleep, so time doesn’t mean the same thing to me as it did when I was alive, but I’m still pretty sure I would notice if I lost a whole two weeks of time. I’ve been looking at calendars, watching the clock, and there’s no way Esther and David were the only people to die in the last month. Even for a town this size, that’s a really low number.

  Unless Mellie’s been handling cases without me. But I would have been pulled to them anyway, wouldn’t I?

  “I can show you your obituary, if you want, but I’m pretty sure you don’t want to see that. You do know when you died, right?”

  I hadn’t really given it a whole lot of thought. I died on a Tuesday. But I can’t remember which day of the month it was, or even which month. Those memories should have come back by now.

  I’ve been operating under the assumption that I died two weeks after I actually did.

  “That means I missed Olivia’s birthday,” I mutter to myself. Andy nods like he knows who I’m talking about; he probably does, if he knows who I am. “I didn’t die on her birthday, did I? God, how stupid am I?”

  “You’re not. Your timing just could have been better, that’s all. When’s her birthday?”

  Andy is surprisingly calm,
considering how much I’m freaking out right now. My feet keep sliding through the floor and I have to focus to pull them back up; I’ve noticed that I have less control over my powers when I’m emotional. That’s how I learned I could touch things in the first place – by getting angry and smashing a glass tabletop.

  “March 18th,” I say, and he shakes his head. Relief sinks through me like a weight.

  “She probably didn’t feel like celebrating, though. That was three days after.”

  So I died on March 15th. That’s good to know.

  “But you turned out okay, right? So maybe there’s hope for me.” He looks a little desperate. I wish there was something I could

  say to make him believe that it’s true, but I really don’t know. Am I okay? Some days are easier than others. Some days I feel fine, like I could live like Mellie and not be bothered by it. But other days I’m faced with my decision and I wish I hadn’t done it.

  I can’t tell Andy that death is easy, because it’s not. It’s

  painful and terrifying and never-ending. I don’t want to lie to him, so I keep quiet.

  Chapter Nine

  “I’ve got to change. Don’t come in.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Andy is different from the other boys I’ve met. He’s softer, kinder, but there’s something else that’s… off about him.

  He’s thin – from what I can see of his body beneath his worn, baggy clothes – and so pale he looks anemic. But his hips are defined and his shoulders are narrow, almost feminine, but not quite. From far away, he’s as masculine as every other boy I’ve seen, but from up close… he just doesn’t look right.

  He’s cute, don’t get me wrong – and I don’t mean like that, but maybe I do; I don’t know – but there’s a mystery about him that draws me in. it might be in his eyes, which seem to change from green to blue with his moods, or his pouty lips and high cheekbones. If he managed to put on a little weight, he might actually look attractive. Not that he’s ugly as he is now, but he’s so thin it makes him look sickly and the bags under his eyes are too deep.

  Andy went home alone last night – after a less-than-

  successful attempt on my part to convince him to stay the night at

  the school – and I spent the night hovering just out of eyeshot outside of his bedroom window. At least I had the decency not to disturb him, but there was no way I was going to leave him alone.

  Plus, I still seem to be connected to him, so whenever he goes somewhere, my body automatically wants to follow. It was annoying at first, but now it’s actually kind of helpful; he can never shake me off, because I’ll always be able to find him. He doesn’t know about the thing that’s pulling me to him, because if I told him that, I’d also have to admit that I’m here for his soul after all. I don’t think he’d take that information very well.

  I’ve learned a few things about Andy in the two days I’ve been shadowing him. He pays more attention in math class than anything else, even though his grades are still less than ideal; he eats lunch alone by choice, usually in the back corner nearest the exit. He goes to bed late and wakes up early, with bags under his eyes and a sour attitude; he skips breakfast and sometimes lunch, which is probably why he’s as skinny as a rail. No matter how much he brushes his hair, it refuses to lie flat, and he always changes for gym class in one of the bathroom stalls in the locker room.

  Either he’s shy, or he’s hiding something. Maybe he’s got a really hairy chest or a third nipple? I don’t peg him as the kind of kid with man-boobs or a beer gut, but he could just be self-conscious of his weight. He’s so bony, his ribs poke out of the sides of the dull grey t-shirt he wears for gym. It’s a short-sleeved shirt, and I check

  his arms without realizing it. They’re clean, perfectly unblemished, and I breathe out a low sigh of relief. I had been half expecting him

  to be like me, but that’s ridiculous. Just because he’s a bit of a loner doesn’t mean he’s depressed.

  He’s got knobby knees under his gym shorts and hair that’s almost long enough to tie back, but instead he lets it fall in his face and over his eyes. Physical Education is his worst subject, it turns out. He’s weak and dodges on the rare occasions when his classmates try to include him – usually on the teacher’s orders. In volleyball, he flinches and ducks down low when the ball comes towards him, and the same awful kids who pick on him in his other classes start to laugh like hyenas.

  I feel guilty for watching – he’s probably embarrassed enough as it is. But if I want to help him, I have to keep an eye on him at all times. Even something as stupid as gym class could, theoretically, become deadly in a matter of seconds. What a horrible way to die.

  I lift myself off of the sidelines, ignoring the warning glance from Andy. Nobody else looks over at me, and I walk across the entire gym, stopping on Andy’s side of the net. A volleyball flies towards my head at one point and I sidestep it like an idiot; Andy smiles at me, holding his arms close to his sides and keeping his eyes trained on the ball like he thinks it’s out to get him. From the looks of the game, though, it’s not the ball – it’s his classmates.

  It’s like they’re aiming at him on purpose, trying to get him to lunge out of the way so they can laugh at him again. What the

  Hell is it with jerks like that trying to make other people suffer? I took it enough when I was alive; I’m not just standing on the sidelines watching now.

  I situate myself between two of the meaner girls who keep snickering every time Andy misses the ball. I make sure there’s no way I can accidentally touch either of them, and keep my eyes wide open just in case. I was never that good at sports as a human, but I wasn’t terrible, either. I was pretty good at volleyball, and now that I’m a ghost with superpowers, I should be even better. Or at least good enough to wipe the smug smiles off of these wenches’ faces.

  The next time the white ball arcs over the net and towards the girl on my right, I float up a couple of feet and slam it down with the palm of my hand just before she can touch it. She yelps and jumps backwards, hands still raised in confusion. She looks over at her friend, who shrugs her shoulders before retrieving the ball and lobbing it back to the opposing team.

  I chuckle, floating up a little more until my eyes are level with the top of the net. Andy’s watching me with an unreadable expression on his face, like he isn’t sure whether to be upset or amused. He should just be grateful I’m helping him out.

  Another ball comes flying over and this time I let Andy’s teammates toss it around a few times before making my move. When it finally makes its way over to Witch Number Two, I smack it down again, this time in the direction of her face. It hits her right in the nose and she stumbles backwards, cursing. It wasn’t hard enough to break her nose – tempting though that was – but it’ll definitely bruise a pretty purple in a couple of hours.

  Andy glares at me, mouthing something I don’t quite catch, and I float back down to stand beside him.

  “Knock it off,” he whispers as soon as I’m in earshot. I’m confused, but he doesn’t elaborate, ignoring me and looking straight through the net. The other team has the ball again, and of course, they’re aiming for him. Andy puts his arms up, covering his face, and takes a step back. It occurs to me that he isn’t even going to try to hit the ball; he’s so used to being beaten, he’s just going to stand here and let it happen.

  But I’m not. The second the ball whips close enough for him to reach out and touch it I jump towards him, spiking the ball away from his outstretched hands and over the net to the other team. Nobody’s standing close enough to see that he didn’t even touch the ball; they’re all looking at him with shocked expressions on their faces. The ball makes it to the other side of the net and falls to the ground with a muffled thump, everyone too busy staring at Andy to finish the play.

  I look over at Andy, a smile on my face, and expect to see him beaming up at me. Instead, he’s looking pointedly away from me, eyes watering. As soon as the ball
finishes bouncing and comes to a complete stop he turns around sharply and runs right out the gym door.

  “What the Hell is wrong with you?” he rounds on me as soon as we get to the locker room. His face is beet red and his cheeks are wet.

  I feel like I’ve just been slapped. “What’s wrong with me? What’s your problem? I was just trying to help you!”

  He turns away from me and fiddles with the combination lock on his locker, fingers shaking so badly he has to go around the

  set of numbers twice.

  “No, you were trying to help yourself,” he says, groaning when his third try at getting his locker open fails. “You may have been bullied or whatever when you were alive, and that really sucks, but you can’t just come in here and mess with my life like that!”

  “You were about to get your ass handed to you and I stopped those idiots from laughing at you again. How does that make me the bad guy?”

  Five tries in and Andy finally manages to spin the correct combination. He pulls on the lock until it clicks loose and opens his locker; the metal creaks and he hides his face inside under the pretense of taking out his clothes.

  “Don’t you get it?” Andy sighs and pulls out an oversized, worn blue sweatshirt. “If I wanted to do something about it, I would have. You don’t think I’ve tried? It doesn’t get any better, and now they just have one more thing to laugh at me about.”

  I float down slowly and sit on the end of a bench between two rows of lockers. My feet sink through the floor up to my ankles and I swing them, watching the toes of my shoes disappear and reappear every other second.

  “Why would they laugh at you about actually hitting the ball for once? Maybe now they’ll leave you alone. Don’t you want them to?”

  “No! Maybe? I don’t know.”

  He shakes his head, slamming his locker door shut. I wish I wasn’t such a hypocrite. What right do I have telling this kid to defend himself when I never did? Although, I never had the means

  to get my revenge on the people who wronged me – Andy has me. I have super cool powers and experience on my side; all Andy has to do is ask and I’ll take down anyone who’s mean to him. Mostly because I wish I’d had someone like that in my life when I needed it the most, but maybe just a little bit because I’ve grown attached to this dorky little kid in his oversized sweaters.