I didn't get far. I b.u.mped into Simon and Tori, and Derek caught up with us. And then he got his way. Not about driving me off-he still had to work at that. But this new development gave him all the ammunition he needed to persuade Simon it was time to go to their father's friend's place. The bus left at four. First, though, the half-million-dollar runaway needed a disguise.

Derek took me to a restroom in the park I'd seen from the roof. The building was locked for the off-season, but he easily broke the locks and got me in. He made sure the water hadn't been turned off, then slapped a box of hair color on the counter.

"Gotta get rid of that," he said, pointing at my hair.

"I could just keep my hood-"

"Already tried."

He walked out.

I strained to see by the bit of light coming through a row of tiny, filthy windows. It was hard to read the instructions, but it looked similar to the red dye I'd used, so I applied it the same way. I couldn't tell what color Derek had chosen. It looked black, but the red dye had, too, so that didn't mean much. I didn't think too much about it until I washed out the dye, looked in the mirror, and...

My hair was black.

I hurried to the door and propped it open to get better light. Then I went back to the mirror.

Black. Not sleek glossy black like Tori's hair, but dull, flat black.

Before now, I hadn't been thrilled with my latest haircut. I'd had my long straight hair chopped shoulder length in a layered style that had turned out wispy and waiflike. Still, the worst I could have said was that it made me look "cute"-not what a fifteen-year-old girl wants to be called. In black though, it was not cute. It looked like I'd hacked my hair off with kitchen shears.

I never wore black because it drained any color from my pale skin. Now I saw there was something that washed out my face even worse than a black shirt.

I looked like a Goth. A sick sick Goth, white and hollow-eyed. Goth, white and hollow-eyed.

I looked dead.

I looked like a necromancer. Like those ghastly pictures of them on the Internet.

Tears sprang to my eyes. I blinked them back, grabbed some tissue, and started awkwardly trying to daub leftover dye onto my pale eyebrows, praying it would make a difference.

Through the mirror, I saw Tori walk in. She stopped.

"Oh. My. G.o.d."

It would have been better if she'd laughed. Her look of horror, then something like sympathy, meant it was as bad as I thought.

"I told Derek to let me pick the color," she said. "I told told him." him."

"Hey," Simon called in. "Everyone decent?"

He pushed open the door, saw me and blinked.

"It's Derek's fault," Tori said. "He-"

"Don't, please," I said. "No more fighting."

Simon still shot a glare over his shoulder as Derek pushed open the door.

"What?" Derek said. He looked at me. "Huh."

Tori hustled me out the door, brushing past the guys with a whispered "jerk" for Derek.

"At least now you know never to go dark again," she said as we walked. "A couple years ago, I let a friend dye mine blond. It was almost as bad. My hair felt like straw and..."

And so, Tori and I bonded over hair horror stories. We put our differences aside and by the time we were on the bus, we were painting each other's fingernails.

Or not.

Tori did try to cheer me up. For her, this situation seemed to warrant more sympathy than having a dead guy crawling over me. But the closer we got to the bus station, the lower her mood dropped, coinciding with a rising discussion of finances-how much did we have, how much would the tickets cost, should I try to use my bank card again...

I did use an ATM we pa.s.sed. Derek figured that was okay-if they thought we were still in Buffalo, that was good, considering we were leaving. He didn't expect my card would work though. It did. I suppose that made sense. The bank or police might have told my dad to lock it, but he wouldn't cut off my only source of money, even if he thought it could make me come home.

That, of course, made me think about him and how much he must be worrying, and what he was going through. I wanted so badly to contact him, but I knew I couldn't. So all I could do was think about him, and think about Aunt Lauren, and feel awful about everything.

To get my thoughts off my family, I concentrated on my companions. I knew not having money bugged Tori. So I tried to give her a couple hundred. It was a mistake. She lashed out at me, and by the time we reached the station, we weren't talking again.

Simon and Tori bought the tickets. I wondered whether they'd catch any flak-unaccompanied teens buying one-way tickets to New York City-but no one commented. I guess we could just be traveling alone. We were old enough to do that.

Not that I'd I'd ever traveled alone. Not even on a city bus. That got me thinking about who I normally traveled with-Aunt Lauren and Dad. When I tried to stop worrying about them I only thought about someone else I was leaving behind: Liz. ever traveled alone. Not even on a city bus. That got me thinking about who I normally traveled with-Aunt Lauren and Dad. When I tried to stop worrying about them I only thought about someone else I was leaving behind: Liz.

Liz said she could find me, but I was sure she'd meant "in Buffalo." How long would she search for me? Could I summon her without her green hoodie...from hundreds of miles away? I'd need to try really hard, and that wasn't safe.

Maybe she'd move on to the afterlife. That was probably a good thing. But at the thought of never seeing her again, my mood sunk lower than Tori's until, by the time the bus arrived, it was as black as my new hair.

Simon had gone to grab sodas for the trip. Tori was already out the station door. When I struggled to get my backpack on, Derek grabbed it and threw it over his shoulder, which would have been nice if I knew he wasn't just hurrying me along.

"Stop sulking," he said as he walked beside me. "It's just hair."

"That's not-" I shut up. Why bother?

Simon jogged up to join us in the pa.s.senger line. He handed me a Dr Pepper.

"You okay?"

"Just thinking about my dad and Liz. I wish I could have told them we're leaving."

Derek leaned down to my ear. "Smile, okay?" he whispered. "You look like you're being kidnapped, and people are staring."

I glanced around. No one was paying any attention to us. Simon shouldered past his brother, whispering, "Ease off." He waved me to the first empty seat. "This okay?"

I nodded and turned in.

"There's more at the back," Derek said. "We can't sit together up here."

"No, we can't." Simon slid in beside me.

Twenty-seven.

I STARED OUT THE STARED OUT THE bus window as we left the city. bus window as we left the city.

"We'll be back for them," Simon said.

"I know. I'm just...off today."

"I don't blame you. You had a c.r.a.ppy night. And a c.r.a.ppy day before that. And a c.r.a.ppy week before that."

I smiled. "At least it's consistent."

"And I know that"-he pointed at my hair-"isn't making you feel any better, but if you wash it enough when we get to Andrew's place, it'll come out."

"Have some experience, do you?"

"Me? Pfft. Pfft. Never. I'm a guy. A guy guy. We do not color our hair. We don't even use conditioner if we can help it." He ran his fingers through his hair. "This? Totally natural." Never. I'm a guy. A guy guy. We do not color our hair. We don't even use conditioner if we can help it." He ran his fingers through his hair. "This? Totally natural."

"I never said-"

"Well, it wouldn't be the first time. Or the hundredth. When a guy looks Asian and has blond hair, everyone presumes it's a dye job."

"But your mother was Swedish."

"Exactly. Blame genetics, not chemicals." He leaned over and whispered. "But I did color it once. Temporary stuff like you've got. For a girl."

"Aha."

He put his chair back, settling into it. "It was a couple of years ago. I liked this girl, and she kept going on about this other guy, how his hair went so blond in the summer, how hot that looked."

I sputtered a laugh. "So you dyed-?"

"Shut up. She was cute, okay? I bought this washout highlight stuff, then spent all weekend outside, kicking around a ball with Derek. Sunday night, I color my hair. Monday morning I go to school and, hey, look what happened from me being out in the sun all weekend."

"Seriously?"

"I couldn't admit I dyed my hair for a girl. How lame would that be?"

"I'd think it was sweet. So did it work?"

"Sure. She went to the dance with me the next weekend. Then I came home, washed my hair until the color was out, and vowed never to do that again for a girl until I knew her well enough to be sure she was worth it."

I laughed, then said, "Thanks." When he arched his brows, I added, "For cheering me up."

"I'm good at it. With Derek, I get lots of practice." He reached into his backpack. "I have something else that might cheer you up. Or scare the c.r.a.p out of you."

He pulled out a new sketch pad and flipped through it. A few pages in, he turned it so I could see.

"Hey, that's me," I said.

"So it looks like you? Or does the corpse crawling toward you give it away?" He handed the sketch pad to me. "I drew it this morning when Derek was doing his computer searches. I was thinking about last night."

In the picture, I was kneeling on my blanket, the corpse in front of me. Thankfully, he hadn't opted to draw the part where I'd been screaming in mortal terror, but later, when I thought he'd been outside with Tori.

I had my eyes closed, hands raised. The corpse was rearing up, seeming to follow my hands like a cobra dancing before a flute. All I could remember was how terrified I'd been, but in Simon's sketch, I didn't look terrified-I looked calm, confident. I looked powerful.

"I know that might not be a moment you care to have immortalized," he said.

I smiled. "No, it's cool. Can I have it?"

"When it's done. I need to color it when I get some pencils." He took the pad back. "I thought it might be interesting to do a kind of graphic journal about us. What's happening."

"Like a comic?"

"I was avoiding that word, for fear of sounding like a total geek. But, yeah, like a comic. Just for us, of course. A project to take our minds off stuff. It'll be way cooler on paper than it feels when we're living it." He took a long drink of his Diet c.o.ke, then recapped the bottle slowly. "You could help, if you wanted. You know screenwriting and scripts for comics aren't much different."

"Like a movie told in stills."

"Right. I'm not good at the writing part. I know this is a true story, so it's not like I need to make stuff up, but I suck at knowing what parts to put in and what to leave out."

"I could help with that."

"Great." He opened his pad to the page after his picture of me. There were a few rough sketches on it. "I was trying to figure out where to start...."

For the next few hours, I plotted and Simon drew. When I started yawning, he closed the sketchbook.

"Take a nap. We still have five hours to go. We'll have lots of time to work on this after we get to Andrew's place."

"Will we be staying with him?"

Simon nodded. "He's got the extra room. It's just him-no wife or kids. He'll take us in, no problem." He put away the sketch pad, then slowly zipped up his backpack. "There's another thing I've been thinking. I know it's not exactly a good time, but once we get settled in, I thought maybe you and I could-"

A shadow loomed over us.

Simon didn't bother looking up. "Yes, Derek?"

Derek leaned over the seat, one hand on the back for balance as the bus swayed. He seemed distracted, almost anxious.

"We're coming up to Syracuse soon."

"Okay."