Page 36 of All Her Ghosts

“How long?” I gasp. “How long was I—” I can’t finish. How long was Iwhat? I don’t know how to ask where I was,whatI was, how to explain that dream that felt like an awful memory, the rending loss of my other half ripped away—

An other half with sweet black eyes exactly like Bas’s. Living and dying over and over again, jumping bodies, trying to fight his way to me and failing,dying, a fish on a red line thrashing against fate.

And mymotherwas there. God, I’d know that judgmental disdain anywhere. She was there in that awful lab, like a mutated version of the room I found in the basement, all spinning machines and iron, iron, iron. Why is my brain doing this to me? Am I… remembering? Or just spitting up acid-trip dreams, some kind of haunted afterimage of a hallucination, a side effect of last night?

Eyes wide, I grip Bas hard, a question in my face I can’t ask, and he can’t answer. His mouth jerks like he’s trying to smile but has forgotten how. Outside, someone pounds on the door and his head whips around, fury in every trembling muscle. For just a second, he’s a different person, hauntingly familiar.

“I said no,” he bellows, and we’re in a room banded in iron—I couldn’t possibly feel it tremble. Still, I’d bet my whole playlist the door rattled on its hinges, even with the crossbeam still in place.

Except, wait—the last thing I remember is that crossbeam failing. Only the classroom is empty now, not a soul inside it but the two of us, hunkered in the belly of a closet like two kids hiding from monsters.

Quietly, I ask, “Why the closet?”

Bas’s attention never breaks from the door. “We had a little disagreement about how to treat a lady when she’s unconscious.”

“We?”

“Yeah. Me and”—he flips an aimless gesture—“everybody. Teachers. The nurse—man, she was real insistent—some ambulance guys. Think one might have been a cop.” He tips his head, adding with a grimace, “Also, your mom.”

I sit up quick. My head hates me for it, but I don’t have time for its whining.

“Mymomis here? What did you do?”

Bas hunches, a stubborn, sullen look crossing his face.

“Told them to wait for you to wake up. I’m not letting them take you anywhere you didn’t ask to go.”

I’ve never done drugs, but holy crap, I imagine the rush feels a little like this. Swallowing hard, I squeeze Bas’s hand in a silentthank-youI can’t force out through my swollen throat. He didn’t let them touch me. He let mechoose.Even now, he doesn’t ask for more, just holds me up, his arm tight around my shoulders while we wait for the aftershocks to subside. I suck in deep breaths through my nose, clenching and unclenching my hands to force life back into my fingers—

Oh yeah, that’s absolutely Mom out there screaming at Bas to open the door.

“I swear to god, little boy, theunmitigated hellI will rain down on you—”

“Mom, enough,” I call. “I’m awake now. Give me a minute for crap’s sake.”

I shove to my feet, but my watery legs spill me right back onto the floor. Leaning down, Bas loops my hand over his shoulder, heaving me upright. The world spins, threatening to swallow me or else violently unswallow the contents of my stomach. I grip Bas tight, holding very still, breathing in the scent of pine and dead leaves still clinging to his hoodie from yesterday.

Funny. This morning I was worried if he liked me back. Now I’m worried about what weare—two kids without heartbeats, unruly feral dead withasphodelblooming where we kiss, and meanwhile hell is empty, and all her ghosts arehere. I don’t care what my mother says, what the government says. I’m not stupid. Something isn’t right.

“Let’s go,” I manage and together, we hobble awkwardly out of the closet. Bas lifts the crossbeam from the door by himself and tosses it aside without obvious strain, even though it took three people to wedge it up there. It hits the ground hard enough to rattle the windowpanes.

I almost tell him to stop, desperate for another minute in this solitude. Side by side with him, I want to spill my guts, let him reach inside my chest and pull out every painful splinter I’ve been hoarding. Together, we could figure this out. I know it, the way my dream-self recognized her other half—not a platitude but afact. The casual surety of a sunrise, the changing seasons, the moon-drawn tide.

Too late. I take too long to remember how to speak. Bas leads me outside our little sanctuary and my mother wheels around from berating some poor, trapped cop. She rounds on us, her face furious.

Immediately, an answering rage shatters in my chest. What the hell does she have to be angry about? She should be worried. She should beterrified. She sent her daughter to school in the middle of a ghost storm, and she’s only here now because someone was legally obligated to call and tellher what happened. I should be ghost-touched. I should be lying dead and drained in there on the linoleum. And yet Mom’s not scared or even relieved or any regular-mother emotion. Her glare battle-axes straight through Bas.

“You,” she snarls, lurching forward, hand rocketing back. “Get away from my daughter—”

Bas sweeps me behind him. His body braced between me and my rampaging mother, he tanks a slap to the face.

“Mom!” I scream, punching her hand down. “What thefuck?”

She doesn’t hear me. When does she ever?

“I don’t care who the hell you think you are, little boy,” she says, low and furious, a trembling finger held between his eyes. “You touch her again and I will dismantle you down to your godforsaken atoms.”

“Go ahead.” Bas smiles, baring teeth. His eyes shine, something in their glittering black suddenly dangerous. “Try it. Break something else. Impose your meager will on the world and see what next pittance it brings you.”