He smiled, his big brown eyes shining, glinting gold in the dark. “I’m glad you’re terrified. That you’re not completely stone.”
“Griff . . .”
“Yeah?”
I don’t want you to become a mine. I’m scared you won’t survive. I’m scared if you do, then all our innocence will die.
“Will you sleep in my room tonight?”
He raised his eyebrows. “Why?”
“You can have my bed. I’ll take the floor.”
He studied my face. I knew what he saw. A woman who looked like everyone and no one. A thousand faces wrapped in one. A stream that moved your eyes along, a leaf flickering quickly in the wind. A face that was forgotten as soon as it was seen.
“All right,” he finally said. “If you’re scared.”
I nodded. There was a lump in my throat too big to swallow.
I fell asleep on the floor, my back pressed against my bedroom door. Griff’s snores were soft and soothing. If anyone tried to hurt me while I slept—Finn, Last, or even the monster under the bed–Griff would be there. Unlike me or Justice, if I was in trouble, he’d be there for me.
I drifted off to the taste of lemon sunshine and the memory of skinned knees and radishes.
39
The gentle rustling of the train rocked me like a lullaby. I nestled in the wicker seat, my legs crossed under me. It was night, and the ghost train was an apparition flying through the city on elevated tracks that no longer existed.
I looked over at Finn. I wasn’t surprised to find myself here, and I wasn’t surprised to find him. There was only one surprising thing.
“You’re a kid.”
His smile seemed to take up his whole face. “So are you.”
I’d forgotten how big his eyes looked when he was young, and how his nose was too grown-up for a little boy. He’d been a funny mix of adult and kid, with parts of him growing faster than others. His black hair flopped over his face, blowing in the train’s ceiling fans and the wind from the open windows.
I peered at his eyes. They were more moss-green than woodsy-brown tonight. When he was happy, excited, or content, they always tended to look like a forest glade still glistening from a summer storm.
He was eleven. I knew this because both of his second molars had come in when he was eleven and pushed his left bottom front tooth to the side, so it was a tiny bit askew. I could see the beginnings of that tooth migration in his wide grin.
While I was cataloguing his appearance, he was doing the same. I could see myself in the window’s reflection. As the buildings flew past, I noted my brown hair, muddy eyes, and the freckle over my lip. Ah. I remembered this face. I was eight and had only just met Finn.
He hadn’t had his growth spurt yet. His voice hadn’t deepened. He still had his cowlick and that happy-to-see-you smile—the one he wore when he left me slivers of mica, daisy chains, and pebbles that spelled out secret messages on park benches and stone walls.
This was the Finn I’d first met and eventually let into my heart.
“I wonder why I keep dreaming you.” My voice was high, not husky or melodic like now.
Finn kicked his feet, swinging them happily. As a kid, he’d always had to move or fidget. He hadn’t yet acquired his stillness and discipline. That came after his dad stabbed him.
“I already told you why. It’s to set you free.” He wrinkled his nose and then blew upward, sending his hair out of his eyes.
I settled back against the wicker seat, inspecting the scuffs on my knees, my bitten fingernails, and my sneakers with their poorly tied laces.
I frowned over at Finn. He was still swinging his legs, checking out a man reading a newspaper and two women in long skirts giggling behind their hands.
“Do you think they know they’re dead?” he asked.
“They’re figments, not spirits. Except . . . this is a dream, so they aren’t even figments.”
