“Yes,” I say. “We do.”
A muscle clicks in his jaw. He doesn’t try to argue the point any further.
That, for some reason, only adds oil to the blazing fire inside me.
Another empty casket. No body to bury, no clear end to bring some semblance of closure. An open-ended sentence for the rest of my life.
“I can’t do this. I can’t do this again,” I say, backing up like escaping this room and conversation will turn back the clock.
“We’re going to find him,” Finn says. He takes a few steps toward me, as if approaching a wild animal.“I swear, we’ll find him.”
“I highly doubt that,” I snap. “No one found you.”
He winces and a tiny flare of guilt runs through me, but it fizzles almost instantly.
Jasper. Little Jasper. With his curious eyes and gap-toothed grin and kind heart.
“He could already be dead,” I say. “He’s going to disappear like you and Aisha and Sloane and the rest of them. He’s going to die, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.” I’m spiraling, but I can’t stop.
“Jo,” he says, voice hard but not harsh.
“What?”
“Your brother is still alive.”
“You don’t know that.”
“He’s alive, and he’s going to stay that way,” Finn says.
“How could you possibly know that?” I ask.
Finn pauses. Indecision wars in his expression, and for a breath, whatever he’s gearing up to say is scarier than the circumstances.
“Because.”He inhales.“Because I think I’m still alive, too.”
Twenty-Eight
The world tilts on itsaxis. Finn’s words flutter around my head like those chirping birds in cartoons.
Alive. Alive. Alive.
The longer I take to respond, the more Finn moves. He jams his hands into his pockets, rocks back on his heels, pulls his hands out. Rocks again.
“I don’t understand,” I say. “You told me you were dead.”
He presses his lips together.“I never said that. And until a few days ago, I really thought I was.”
The night we met, I didn’t ask him the question; I assumed the answer.
“What do you mean you think?” I ask.
“When I woke up after…after whatever happened, Vincent and Ingrid told me I’d died. And that’s what I told Aisha and Sloane when they showed up. But this thing with Ingrid…I can’t get the thought out of my head. Us fading away after a few years doesn’t make sense. Ingrid being different, following different rules, doesn’tmake sense. Not unless we’re different. Unless we’re somehow still alive and fading isn’t fading but actually dying.”
I’d thought we were done with the lies. With the secrets. When he told me about Ingrid, about the way they all fade, I thought that was it. No more skeletons lurking in the closet, waiting to rip our throats out.
And here it is, the biggest skeleton, the one that isn’t a skeleton at all.
I’m so angry, I think it’ll burn right through me, leaving a pile of ash on the hardwood floor.
