“I’m sorry, Dad.”
“You’ll be sorry, all right.” His gaze flicks up and down my body. Maybe the bruises already painting my torso and face will deter him from adding even more.
“Get dressed.” He turns and stomps down the stairs. I exhale; didn’t know I’d been holding my breath.
Minutes later, dressed and hair combed, I trudge downstairs. This isn’t a new scenario, Sheriff Riggs narrowing his eyes at me over a cup of coffee at our kitchen table.
“Kyle.” The sheriff gestures for me to sit down. That damn Jesus with his self-righteous eyes keeps staring at me from his cross.
Repent, sinner.
The words echo in my head.
“I’ve just had a visit from Sal Gonzales,” Riggs starts.
“Yeah, I reversed into Mya’s car at Garry’s. I’ll pay for the damages.” This is boring, having just been through this at the hospital.
The sheriff frowns. Did he expect me to deny it?
“Nicholas Vasquez—”
I don’t let the sheriff finish. “Vasquez and Benny Gonzales jumped me. They were waiting for me outside Black Paw with two others.”
“Why?” Riggs scribbles something in his notepad.
“Because I drove into Mya and didn’t apologize on the spot; because they’re assholes. I don’t know. You figure it out.”
“Watch your mouth.” Dad cuffs me over the back of the head. It’s a love tap compared to what he usually dishes out.
“So am I under arrest?” I’d rather be back in the hogan listening to Niyol sing my demons away.
“Should you be?” Riggs makes another note in his pad.
I roll my eyes. “No, I didn’t start the fire that killed D… Shira,” I catch myself just in time. “There were four guys beating me up outside Black Paw so if anything, I should be pressing charges against them, and I already said I’d pay for the damages to Mya’s car. So are we done?”
Sheriff Riggs taps his pen against the notepad. “For now.”
“Great. Been a pleasure, Sheriff.” I push back from the table and shove past my dad, making eye contact. He grabs my arm, the burned one. His fat fingers close tight around the blister and it takes serious effort not to wince.
If Dad wants to take a swing at me, he can damn well do it now. He meets the challenge in my gaze, but lets me pass, releasing my arm. I’ll catch it later, when there’s no one else around to see. Maybe this time I’ll hit back.
* * *
The sun’s just dipping toward the horizon, promising a magnificent sunset. It’s still so hot. Please God, just let it rain
.
Not that God, or whoever else is up there, ever listens to my prayers. Or maybe they do and choose not to answer them.
Having nowhere else to go, my feet take me west toward the hogback. Breathing is easier now, but I still have to take it slow.
By the time I reach the summit, the sun’s consumed the sky, streaking the cirrus clouds with vermilion and gold. Shiprock looms, casting a ghastly shadow across the flat scrub in the distance. If only Danny were here. This kind of beauty only matters, only exists, if it’s shared.
My gaze fixes on the sun. So what if I go blind? The world’s going to end anyway. My arms spread wide; the evening breeze washes over me. With the wind comes snatches of conversation torn from the lips of whoever’s down in the arroyo.
Solar glare stains my vision as I peer over the ridge, down into the creek. The voices are raised in argument. They sound familiar. It takes a few moments for my eyesight to clear. Two people down in the shade, lying on a picnic blanket. Squinting, I can just make out some identifying details. Ice threads my veins. For an instant I think it’s Shira beneath Danny, her hands twisted in his hair, his lips on her face.
I rub my eyes and look again. It’s Mya, dark skin and blonde hair. Lanky Nicholas kneeling above her, attempting the throes of passion despite her protests. My gaze lingers, just long enough to make sure it isn’t Shira and Danny, just long enough to see Mya’s balled fists trying to dislodge the guy.
“Stop.” The wind whips the words up the ridge. I skid along the path; it’s none of my business, but there’s some residual emotion for the girl even if it was born in another reality. Mya’s screams are muffled as Nicholas shoves his mouth against hers.
I announce my presence with a loud, “Hey,” and jog toward them. Nicholas looks up with loathing in his eyes. Mya scrabbles across the blanket, pulling her shirt over her head.
“Fuck off, faggot.” Nicholas rocks back on his heels. There’s nothing wrong with the guy’s nose, and yet he’s pressing charges against
me
.
Mya won’t make eye contact, but she’s drawn her knees to her chest, hugging them close.
“Can’t I join your picnic?” There’s a half-empty bottle of tequila lying in the dust.
“You deaf? I told you to—”
“I heard. Just wondering if Mya feels the same way.”
Her gaze shifts in my direction, making the briefest eye contact.
“I think I can take care of my girl.” Nicholas looms over her like a conquering conquistador.
“Yeah? Didn’t look like she was enjoying it.” I shrug and put my hands in my pockets. The sky’s the color of a day-old scab now, and the shadows thicken around us.
“How would you know what a girl likes?”
“At least I know what
no
means.”
“You’ve got a smart mouth, Kyle.”
“Pity you haven’t got a smart anything.” This won’t end well.
My body can’t handle another fight, but I want nothing more than to punch the guy bloody. If he’s pressing assault charges, I might as well give him something to whine about.
Nicholas resorts to Spanish and spits off a string of curses at me. Half of them land meaningless in the sand. He’s losing the fight and knows it.
“You done?” I ask, the epitome of nonchalance, although my pulse is thundering in my ears as my heart beats double-time.
Nicholas rushes me, growling like a rabid animal, ignoring Mya’s shrill appeals to stop, again. I dart out of his reach, but he catches my leg, sending me sprawling. The pain in my side is dizzying. In seconds Nicholas is straddling me, fists pounding already bruised flesh. I tuck my arms into my sides, trying to protect my ribs, but now I’m losing.
The tequila bottle is a stretch away. Gritting my teeth, I expose my injured ribs just long enough to lay a hand on the bottle. Before Nicholas can land another blow, the bottle smashes across his head. Scrambling to my feet, I lean over his body and raise my weapon. It would be so easy to bash his skull in. Part of me wants to see his brains spattered across the sand.
The bottle drops from my trembling fingers as Mya rushes forward.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asks me, crouching beside Nicholas and smoothing hair away from the gash in his temple. I collapse to my knees, holding my injured side as if it helps. Even shallow breaths feel like knives in my lungs.
“What’s wrong with
you
?” I wheeze. “The guy almost raped you.”
She glares at me before turning worried eyes back to Nicholas. “He’s my boyfriend.”
“That makes it okay, then.” My words are steeped in vitriol.
The glower on her face contorts her features, ruining her pretty face.
“He’s just concussed. He’ll be fine,” I say.
“Why’d you even bother?” She stops fussing over Nicholas.
“I told you.” Every word is agony. “In another life, you and I are friends. It’s what friends do.”
She takes a moment and when she speaks again, she almost sounds thankful.
“You should leave. If anyone asks, I’ll tell them Nick was drunk, fell and hit his head.”
“Suit yourself.” I get to my feet, dusting off my jeans. “Will you be okay?”
“Yeah, he just had too much to drink,” she says without making eye contact.
“I’m sorry about your car.”
A fleeting smile crosses her face. “Your dad got the bill.”
“Thanks. You think you’d get Nicholas and Benny to drop the assault charges?”
Nicholas moans and rolls over.
“I’ll try,” Mya says. “You should leave now.”
That’s all the thanks I’m going to get.
I traipse back up the ridge. The sun’s just an orange memory in the west. In the east, Obscura creeps into the sky, casting blue highlights across the scrub.
We have a staring contest and inevitably, she wins, leaving me with a million little Obscuras flashing in my peripheral vision.
“Screw you.” I give the blinking planet the middle finger. I feel better for it.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Danny’s dead
There are few things more embarrassing than puking into the herb garden of a guy you’ve just been flirting with. The dog doesn’t seem to mind—he’s licking my face even as I spit up more sour mess.
“It’s getting worse.” Shira grabs the dog and hauls him off me. “Can’t you do something?” She’s looking at Niyol over my hunched back.
“This isn’t normal ghost sickness.” Niyol’s watching me from the entrance to the hogan. At least I made it into the garden before regurgitating the medicine man’s tea.
“So there’s nothing we can do.” Shira’s looking at me apologetically.
“Kyle knows what he needs to do. I think he’ll need your help.” Niyol winks at me. “Nice meeting you, Kyle. You come back and see me if the world doesn’t end.” He says something in Navajo to Shira and she nods, releasing the dog that goes bounding after his master.
“You OK?” she asks when I’ve purged the contents of my stomach.
“I’ll live. For now.”
“So what do you need to do?”
We amble through the garden and back along the path.
“Pretty much what the professor said, only Niyol gave me more specifics.” Bile’s burning on the back of my tongue. I’d kill for a glass of water. “He says I need to be open to the spirits, let them show me whatever it is they’re trying to communicate to me.”
“And how do you do that?”
“By wearing something belonging to the dead person.”
“You know who the spirits are?” She turns to look at me, her face lit up with freakish shadows.
“I think so.”
“Daniel.”
“And you.”
She shudders. “That’s weird.”
“Tell me about it.” I pull my fingers through my hair.
“You need, like, a shirt or something?” We continue along the path.
“I think it has to be more personal than that.”
“Like what?”
“Like Danny’s St. Anthony medal.”
Shira doesn’t say anything for a while, the silence between us punctuated by the scurrying of nocturnal creatures through the scrub and the uncomfortably close laughter of hunting coyotes.
“What do you want from me?” she asks. I’m pretty sure she chose those words deliberately, stringing them together to make my answer that much more difficult.
Chewing on my inner cheek for a bit doesn’t provide the hoped-for insight.
“There’s that bracelet you always wear.” Although her wrist is bare tonight.
“It’s at home,” she says, as if reading my mind. “How are you going to get Dan’s necklace? Didn’t they bury him with it?”
Of course they did. The idea of desecrating his grave, digging up his corpse and robbing it of a religious medal brings on another wave of nausea.
“I’ll have to get it from living Daniel.” Easier said than done, considering he’s not answering my calls.
Her head bobs in a nod. “And then what?”
“Then, Niyol says to return to the site of the fire.”
“You want to go back out to Ghost Town?”
“Hell no, I don’t. You got another idea?”
Her shoulders slump in defeat. I take her hand and walk beside her. “You don’t have to come with me.”
Her cheeks are wet when she turns to me. She tries to speak, but fresh tears tumble out of her eyes and she just nods her thanks instead.
* * *
It’s after midnight by the time we get back to Shira’s. Soft moans emanate from the trailer, moans and creaking bedsprings.
“Terrific.” Shira hesitates with her hand on the door.
“I can get the bracelet some other time.”
“Just give me a minute.” Shira takes a deep breath, cracks open the door, and tiptoes into the trailer. The sound effects continue. Hope Shira and I never sounded like that. Looking up at Obscura, I try ignoring the increasingly frenetic creaking and gasping groans.
Shira slams the door behind her and joins me beside the cacti.
“Your mom boning that ranch hand?”
“Mr. Bulging Biceps?” She raises an eyebrow and I nod. “Just some random she picked up at Garry’s. Hasn’t said two words to me, which is better…”
Than him showing too much interest. No need to say it out loud.
“Banging your way through the end of days isn’t the worst way to go.”
Shira’s lips quirk up in a fleeting half grin. “Take it.” She pushes the bracelet into my open hand.
“You’ll get this back, I promise.”
She looks at me, and it’s as if I’m seeing her for the first time. Her deep brown eyes and caramel skin, her soft mouth and long eyelashes. She’s lovely, drenched in the blue-silver starlight.
“You shouldn’t promise when you don’t know.”
“Don’t know what?”
“Which reality you’ll be left with.”
I close my fingers around the turquoise. “Either way, I’ll keep this safe.” I’m about to slip it into my pocket when she catches my hand.
“You should wear it.”
It’s too tight, jagged stone digging into my skin, but I don’t object as she fastens the clasp around my wrist.
“You should have this, too.” She hands me the dog-eared photograph of the three of us, all smiling. “It shows the bond between all three of us.” She shrugs. “Maybe that means something.”
“Maybe it was me that died.” I study the stupid grins plastered on our faces in the photo.
“Only Obscura knows.” Shira gazes up at the blinking orb, her fingers wrapped around mine.
Climbing back into my bedroom isn’t an option given the tree’s anatomy. Two a.m.; my folks should be asleep. I pry open the screen door and pad across the kitchen tiles in my socks. I’m almost past the living room when the light goes on, catching me like roadkill in headlights.