Claude noticed my smug expression and glanced behind him.
I could see it on his face when he realized those dots would eat him up like a million bullet holes. His cold grip grew tighter on my knees and I felt like my bones might snap. He snarled, “I’ll be back.”
Then he disappeared.
I gasped, releasing all the shadows. Exhaustion smacked me in the face and made me its bitch. I huffed out a dry, sad, completely unhappy laugh. Because he would be back again and again.
And I had no idea how to end a ghost.
30
Z found me passed out on the concrete when he came back for me. I didn’t even wake up until he lifted me into his arms. Even then, I blinked slowly, unable to do much more than that.
“Hey, pretty girl, I’m gonna take you to our new spot now.”
I didn’t do much more than lean my head against Zavier’s chiseled pec before I fell asleep again, drained by the magic I’d expelled. I didn’t wake up even when he tucked me into a car he’d procured somehow. I did wake when I heard sirens blaring, jerking up in the stained backseat of some shabby Honda and staring out the window.
“It’s cool,” Z said. “We’re cool. They’re just going after the fire.”
I sat up and twisted so that I could peer out the rear window. The warehouse was in the distance, flames leaping out of each of its newly broken windows as fire trucks and police cars surrounded it.
“Arson?” I asked Z, before laying back down on the seat.
He gave a shrug. “If they can prove it. I pulled a Hayley and tried to start it around the wires and crap first.”
I grinned. “Pulled a Hayley, huh?”
He shook his head as he made a right turn. “Yeah. That girl’s a bad influence.”
“Very true.” I yawned. “How far are we going?”
“Twenty minutes. You’re gonna love it, it’s got—”
But I didn’t hear what “it” had, because I passed out.
When I woke again, we were parking in a vast sea of pitch-black concrete. It was late afternoon, so the sunlight shot down in bright orange streaks and heated my arms as soon as I stepped out of the car and looked around. I read the big white-and-blue sign over the entrance. “Joyland.” The sign was weathered and had vines growing up the sides. It looked the opposite of joyful, it looked depressed and ragged, like it needed a cigarette.
Z climbed out of the front seat and came to stand beside me as I peered past the chipped picket fence and into what looked like an abandoned amusement park.
Beyond the sign, I saw two ticket booths. Or, more accurately, one and a half. One booth was still standing. The other one had lost its roof somehow, and the door was hanging on one hinge, flapping in the light afternoon wind. In the distance, I could make out a partial Ferris wheel, the circle broken off in parts so that the ribs of the ride just jutted straight up into the sky.
On my left, above the tree tops, there looked to be a wooden roller coaster.
Z took my arm gently and linked our hands, guiding me forward into what looked like the perfect setting for a horror film.
“Where are we?” My mind was boggled and I meant to ask why the hell we were there, but it came out wrong.
Z bounced on his toes, excitement fizzing up like soda pop. “Isn’t it awesome? One of Gray’s guys has an uncle who used to own this place.”
“What happened to it?”
Z shrugged. “Same thing that happens to every mom and pop shop.”
I chewed on my lip thoughtfully as we entered under the big, arching sign and passed the ticket booths. To our right was a children’s two-story playhouse shaped like a boot with a roof. I could just imagine little kids swarming into it and over it while their parents snapped pictures and recited “The Old Woman Who Lived in A Shoe.”
To our left, a mechanical clown whose clothes had weathered away, sat hunched over an organ, his mechanical bones exposed and giving him a Terminator feel that only doubled the creep factor of his painted smile.
We passed several game booths that looked like they used to hold carnival fair but had long-since been robbed. A hand-painted sign with corn on the cob made my stomach rumble.
“Do we have food?”
“Yup. Just follow me.” Z led me off the main amusement park path and down to the side, where huge covered picnic areas, large enough for a hundred people each, stood. Each had their own massive grills.
My guys stood together in t-shirts and shorts, avoiding the afternoon heat under one of the awnings, and I watched as Andros roasted hot dogs, corn, and green chiles. The smell alone made me want to fall over in mouth-watering appreciation. Thank goodness that the food was done pretty much the moment Z and I arrived. Andros dished it all onto paper plates and I dug in like I hadn’t eaten in a month.
Malcolm raised a questioning brow.
“Found her passed out,” Z explained between bites. “That fucker was gone, so I guess she aced him.”
I shook my head, but had to finish chewing a mouthful of corn on the cob before I could clarify. “I beat him for now. But he’ll be back. And I can’t hold him off indefinitely. Shadows are far more exhausting than light.”
All around me, the guys exchanged looks.
Gray set down his hot dog and wiped his fingers on his napkin. “So, just to clarify, we’ve got a dirty cop after us, a poltergeist, vamps on the loose, Pinnacle government tightening down on our target … am I missing anything?”
“Hayley and I are suspects in her stepdad’s murder,” Z tossed on.
Gray shook his head. “Damn. After we cure Matthew, I’m gonna demand a vacation.”
I laughed at his confidence, as he dove straight back into eating.
“Sure thing,” I told him.
“I’m serious,” he said around a bite. He pointed a finger at me. “You in a string bikini, dancing on a boat in the ocean somewhere that I can drink pina coladas all day.”
“Deal.” I grinned. It seemed like a small price to pay for all their help.
The rest of the guys whooped, which just made me laugh, because for all their hardened criminal minds, they were still just as stupid-horny as the next guy.
A tropical vacation—now we had something to look forward to. We just had to pull off the goddamned impossible before that.
The guys and I stood at the park entrance, and three of them lined up for their goodbye kisses, making me feel a little bit like Snow White. I mean, I was on the run from the law, in hiding like her, and I had a crew full of guys protecting me. Why the hell wasn’t she considered more of a badass? I wondered randomly.
I was happy that my guys weren’t of the dwarf variety though. As my eyes traveled up Evan’s chiseled torso and Gray’s lean swimmer body and then over the huge planes of Andros’s pecs, I thought about how I’d definitely gotten lucky with my crew. It was like I had my own personal Chippendales.
Gray kissed me goodbye as his phone rang. He ignored it for a second, pulling me in closer and taking his time to make my heartstrings pull tight. But the caller wouldn’t let up. The phone didn’t stop ringing, so after the eighth ring or so, he backed away and answered. “Yup?” His face tightened and he stepped to the side, toward the parking lot and the crappy old car we’d stolen.