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  “What did you guys do to me?”

  “You have been chosen,” the reaper says.

  “By who? You? No offense, but don’t reapers just kill? Both of you keep saying I’m not dead.”

  “You are not dead.”

  “Then what am I? Nobody can see me or hear me?” My voice is growing louder, which is probably a mistake, since I definitely do not want anybody seeing me talking to a big plume of black smoke and a reaper. Come to think of it, why am I talking to a big plume of black smoke and the reaper of death?

  Because something tells me this is real. It’s not a dream or a hallucination. This black cloud, this dark foggy haze is real and so is the reaper—even if I’m not dead. They’re both as real as the fact that nobody in Settlemen’s High can see me. And if they’re the only ones who can provide an explanation, then I intend to talk to them all day and all night until they do.

  “I am Nasiel. And yes, I could have killed you but that was not my duty this time. I was sent to collect you, to tell you what your mission is.”

  “And who is that?” I ask, nodding toward the black cloud of smoke.

  “He is Lor, the chameleon. We work for Charon.”

  “Why didn’t Charon just come for me himself? I’m just saying, since he’s all powerful and everything.”

  “Charon cannot walk this realm, yet. Certain demonic activity is prohibited here.”

  “Demonic activity, huh?” I say skeptically. “But you can come here? Aren’t you both demons?”

  “I am a reaper. We enter this realm to usher spirits to their death. Lor cannot show his true form in this realm.”

  “So he chooses to appear this way? That’s just great. And reapers come here to escort the dead.”

  “The dead don’t see reapers coming, nobody does. We do not speak. We just act and we use humans to help us take whoever we need.”

  “Like being possessed,” I say, rhetorically. I’m shaking my head, still trying to comprehend, and then it dawns on me. In a flash I remember the scene clearly and gasp. “I fell in the water.”

  “One of the portals to the Underworld,” says the reaper. “I was there at the portal and then you appeared. That is how we knew you were the one.”

  Suddenly Franklin realized that the reaper had been sent to take the kid who drowned in the lake just before he’d fallen in.

  “And then I was in the woods with…” Franklin said, his voice trailing off. It was clear now. That day when he’d grabbed Krystal after school and took her into the woods. What for? The others came and there was some kind of confrontation.

  “What happened to me?” Franklin demanded. “What did you do to me when I fell in the water?”

  “Falling into the portal revealed your possibilities. When I was summoned by Charon, I told him about you.”

  I blink and blink again, then reach up and touch my eyes to make sure they are where they should be. I know that’s stupid considering I can see, but I want to make sure. “My eyes? What happened to my eyes?”

  “Possession requires a soul,” says the reaper. “Eyes are the windows to the soul.”

  “You took my eyes?” But they’re still there, I feel them.”

  “I possess your soul.”

  “Then I don’t really have a choice but to do what you want me to, right?”

  “Until you have been reincarnated, you can still exercise your free will.”

  “Then why not just reincarnate me? Why give me freedom of mind?”

  “Loyalty is a trait Charon values. He will have your allegiance, your fealty, or nothing at all.”

  My heart pounded like a hollow drum. But I guess if my soul is gone, there’s really nothing inside of me. I need to sit down. Instead I brace myself against the side of the school building, and rub my hands over my face.

  My head starts to hurt. “This feels real. I feel just the same as before. But you’re telling me I’m different now. I don’t feel any different.”

  “You cannot go back. Charon is always watching. I will be watching you, as well.”

  “But I’m here. I’m on earth.” I look around just to make sure.

  “You are here to do his bidding.”

  “Right, Krystal and her friends… How do I do that if they can’t see me?” It seems like a totally logical question in the midst of this bizarre and frightening situation.

  “Trust. Believe in what you will become. You will know what to do and when.”

  I’m shaking my head. “This is not happening to me. Why me?”

  Lor is moving around impatiently with my barrage of questions. I should be freaking out. I should be running and screaming. But I’m not. There has to be a reason why I’m not. I just can’t think of it right now.

  “I can’t do this,” I say.

  “Then the next time I come for you—on the sixth day, of the sixth month, at the sixth hour. I will come and take you forever.”

  Before I could say anything, Lor vanishes into the ground, as if he has been sucked into one of those cracks in the asphalt that has spikes of grass sticking out. The reaper Nasiel seems to shimmer away like hot steam evaporating into the air.

  Me, I’m left standing alone outside Settlemen’s High. I’m not dead. But I’m not alive, either. Which means I’m totally screwed.

  Chapter Three

  There’s no use going back inside the school building. I can’t do anything there. And really, why should I? I’m never going to live a normal life again, so finishing high school doesn’t mean squat.

  Arriving home, I unlock the door and enter the quiet house. Now I’m thinking that maybe my dad isn’t here at all. Maybe that’s why his desk was empty. But where would he go? Why wouldn’t he have at least tried to look for me?

  I can’t do this, the questions are giving me a horrendous migraine, which if I’m not like a normal teenager I shouldn’t feel anymore, right?

  I go into Dad’s office and start looking through his things, pulling out drawers and turning on his computer. Maybe there’s something I can find that’ll tell me where he is. And then what? If I find out where my dad is, what happens next? He won’t be able to see or hear me, just like everyone else. It’s like I’m dead but not really.

  Plopping down in his desk chair, I sit down at the computer and wait while it boots up. First, I go to Dad’s emails, scrolling down to see what I can find. I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I believe I’ll know it when I see it.

  Bingo!

  Emails from Marvin Carrington. There are tons of them.

  Krystal’s friend Sasha’s last name is Carrington.

  I click open one of the emails. They’re talking about something called Project S. I open more emails and they’re all about Project S. I close out of my Dad’s email account and search his entire files for anything related to Project S, since—judging by the tone of the emails—this was something big. All the emails were dated just a few days ago.

  There was only one file on Project S in the hard drive. I open the file but I am not altogether sure what I’m looking at. Notes, it seems like, citing weather patterns and events, charting the energy produced by each occurrence. There are lists with dates of eclipses, locations and, again, projections of energy produced during each eclipse. The very last page of the document makes me stare at the screen with a look of total confusion.

  It was a list of names.

  William Kramer (missing since January 1950)

  Louis Kramer

  Jake Kramer**

  Carrington (daughter was conceived during the storm— November 1994)

  Krystal Bentley (mother lived in Lincoln. Back in town. Why?)

  The moment I see her name, my stomach clenches. Why would Dad have Krystal’s name in this Project S file? What did he know about her and her mother? And what did any of this have to do with what’s happening to me?

  Frustration isn’t an emotion that usually troubles me, but I’m beginning to feel like there’s a whole other world going on around me
. Another world I’ve been thrust into without my knowledge or consent.

  Sitting back in the chair with my hands folded behind my head, I close my eyes and try to clear my mind. This usually works when I’ve got too many things going on at once. Today, not so much.

  The first thing I think of is Krystal. Her smile. Her voice. Her eyes. I really love her eyes—I have since the first day I saw her. They’re this funny brown color and when I look into them, I see…I see power.

  The last time I was with Krystal in the woods, that’s what I saw. And I tried to take that power. I remember that now. She was so afraid. She was afraid of me. With a sigh, I wonder what’s inside of me now. What did she see that frightened her so much?

  In the next moment, I just want to see her again.

  I’ve sat in this chair, thinking, for so long, that it’s about time for school to be out. So I get up and leave the house again. This time I know I can’t be seen or heard, so the people I pass on the streets, who ignore me, aren’t such a shock.

  It’s still weird, but I guess I have no choice but to get used to it.

  “You thinking about Franklin again?” Sasha says, with her legs crossed and her fingers waving in the air as a bottle of nail polish sits on the nightstand beside her bed.

  Krystal sighs, sitting back against the headboard with a pouty expression. “I just don’t understand what happened to him.”

  “The Darkness got him, that’s what happened,” Sasha remarked.

  “Yeah, but why? I mean, what could it possibly want with Franklin? He wasn’t one of us.”

  Sasha began blowing her nails as if they weren’t drying fast enough. “Maybe that’s why it wanted him. He wasn’t one of us, so they could easily get to him. He was close to you, so he could get what he wanted from you without you suspecting anything.”

  “He wanted my eyes,” Krystal said thoughtfully. She stared at the ceiling as she replayed the events in her mind. “Why would he want my eyes?”

  “Windows to the soul, that’s what Jake’s grandfather said. Maybe what he really wanted was your soul.”

  “To do what with?”

  Sasha huffs and rolls her eyes. “I don’t know. What I do know is that you sitting here worrying about it is pretty useless. He’s gone and that’s that. The Darkness however, is not. That’s what we need to be focused on.”

  Turning her attention away from the ceiling, Krystal realizes Sasha’s right. She couldn’t think about Franklin right now. But she did.

  “Wait, were you, like, in love with him?” Sasha asks.

  “I thought maybe I could be, but then…” Her voice trails off and she looks toward the window. It’s cracked because it’s sort of warm today, but her mother hasn’t turned on the air-conditioning yet. There’s a slight breeze blowing, and the leaves rustle on the branches. Other than that, there’s nothing, but she can’t stop staring.

  “But what?” Sasha prods.

  “Then there’s Jake,” she says, and waits for Sasha’s reaction. This is the first time she’s mentioned what she feels for Jake to anyone. And truth be told, she’s feeling kind of weird mentioning it now. Franklin’s been gone for weeks now. The police have been questioning everybody at school who knew him. His father’s gone, too, so the cops think they both might have left town together. Technically, Krystal had been broken up with Franklin for only a few weeks, but she’d been thinking about Jake long before then.

  “Wait a second, you like Jake?” Sasha asks, as a grin quickly spreads across her face. “This is too funny.”

  Krystal frowns. “What’s so funny about it?”

  “I’m just saying that you like Jake and I’m almost positive Jake likes you. The two of you are some pair. Too scared to say you like each other when you’re together almost every day.”

  “Well, you weren’t all that quick to tell Twan you liked him.”

  That stopped some of Sasha’s laughter, but only some of it. “You’re right.” She giggled again. “I did take my time admitting that I liked him. But I finally did, so it’s probably time you do the same with Jake.”

  “But you knew that Twan liked you. He never had a problem telling you that. Jake doesn’t say a thing. I don’t know what he’s thinking from one minute to the next.”

  “You could ask Lindsey to tell you what he’s thinking.”

  “That doesn’t seem fair. Besides, she and Jake can barely stand each other.”

  “Yeah, I know. I was thinking maybe at first that Lindsey liked him. But she seems to have other things on her mind lately.”

  “I know. Sometimes I wish I could get into her head, and read some of her thoughts.”

  “No. You need to concentrate on the ‘you and Jake’ thing. Lindsey’s fine, just figuring things out I guess. Just like the rest of us.”

  “There is no ‘me and Jake’ thing.”

  “Then there should be. Look, I think you should make the first move. I’ve known Jake for a long time and he moves as fast as watching paint dry when it comes to things like this. If you want him, go get him.”

  The edge of Krystal’s mouth tilted in a smile. “You think so?”

  “I know so, chica,” Sasha said with a grin.

  If I were a living being I might have fallen out of that tree and busted my ass. Instead I slipped down slowly from the branch, feeling like the entire sky had caved in on my head.

  Krystal wanted Jake.

  She’d wanted Jake the entire time she was with me.

  Fury probably should have been my first reaction, but I’m having a good time wallowing in self-pity as I sit on the curb outside her house.

  After a while, that self pity turns to something else. It churns inside me like bile and I gag at first. Then I take a few steadying breaths.

  The girl I thought was mine really wasn’t.

  She’d lied to me.

  Just like my dad.

  They’d both deceived me. I sat on the curb, watching cars go by and knowing that Krystal and Sasha were in her bedroom still talking about Jake. I realized that none of them gave a damn about me.

  I’d never been very popular in school. Sure I had a few friends, usually the geeky types, not the beautiful and popular ones. I didn’t know how much I’d longed for that acceptance until now, the very moment when I realized what an outsider I really was.

  Dad’s life was always his career and the research he did while locked behind closed doors. Me, I sort of existed on my own in our household, not really angry about the way things were, but not totally happy about it, either. I always thought I was stronger, that I was too smart to fall into the trap of the clichéd teenager from a broken home. If I kept up the facade well enough, the nagging doubts on the inside wouldn’t matter. And I pretty much had that act down pat. Being such a good actor, makes me think I may have missed my calling.

  But even thinking about my dad’s betrayal didn’t hurt as much as Krystal’s. I thought we’d connected. I thought her feelings for me were the same as mine were for her. At the time, it didn’t seem as if she felt otherwise.

  My fists are tightly clenched by my sides as anger wells up inside me. She could have just said she wanted Jake. Could have told me I was acting like an idiot falling all over her all the time. Her friends probably laughed when I wasn’t around. Jake always glared at me like he was ready to fight me at any moment. Maybe he was, maybe I was the one poaching on his territory. But neither one of them said anything. Both of them lied. All of them lied to my face and laughed behind my back.

  I hate them all!

  Chapter Four

  Revenge can be a great motivator. An hour ago the hand life had dealt me sucked. Now, I can see the possibilities.

  My dad is most likely gone. He’d been researching my girlfriend like she was some sort of lab rat without even telling me. My girlfriend lied to me. A guy I didn’t really know but might have even liked, stabbed me in the back. Compared to the reaper and the demons and their sorcery, I think I prefer the latter. At least they�
�re honest.

  They wanted something from me, so they made me a proposition, told me the pros and cons—well, maybe just the cons—and are waiting to see what my choice will be. Do the choices suck? Well, I guess that depends on how you look at it.

  Right now, if I were still a walking, talking, breathing teenager, my life would be crap.

  But as a whatever I am right now, it’s not so bad.

  What I need is opportunity and, as I’m walking down the street two days later watching the Settlemen’s students as school finally lets out for the summer, I see that opportunity very clearly.

  Everything looks different in the dark of night. I don’t know what made me go home after standing in front of the school, but I did. I lay on the couch and I slept.

  I didn’t dream.

  But I slept and when I wake, I feel rejuvenated. I instantly go to the door, inhale the night air and step outside. This time walking doesn’t bother me. It doesn’t really even feel as if I’m walking, the town sort of just passes by me in slow motion until I’m eventually standing behind the church.

  I’ve never been inside this building, but I remember Dad doing a broadcast out front a couple years back when a lightning bolt struck the bell in the tower. Back then, I thought it was just a cool freak of nature. But after reading more of Dad’s notes on the weather and the energy he thought storms produced that could possibly create supernatural powers, I look back on it differently now.

  The streets are deserted and it’s way past midnight, well past the unofficial curfew for Lincoln. I keep walking, knowing exactly where I’m going and how to get there. My foot touches the stone that’s only slightly covered by short blades of grass. I stand on it and wait.

  In seconds, I’m floating down a dark funnel as a cool breeze brushes over my skin. I’m traveling fast, and my stomach is doing mild flip-flops as I spiral downward. When my feet hit the soggy ground, I fall to my knees to gather myself before standing again.