"Take it, Ember," she whispers. "Before it's too late."

My eyes close as my heart sings the last lyric, my veins hollow out, and my lungs shrivel. I sense someone else's presence in the room. Gradually, I open my eyelids. The Grim Reaper looms behind my mother, concealed under his hood. He whispers something in her ear.

"It's time," she tells me with her hand extended. "Please, Emmy. It's time. The grains of sand have expired and my hourgla.s.s is empty."

"Take it, Ember," the Grim Reaper tempts. "Take her life."

I feel the thunder of her heart connect with the silence of mine. Her blood mixes in my veins and fills my lungs back up. I gasp for air and open my eyes, watching in horror as her skin wrinkles to a lady twice her age.

"Mommy." I throw her hand off my chest and she collapses to the floor. I hover above her, checking her wrist for a pulse. She looks so old and frail-so gone.

The Reaper watches me from the corner and I throw a shoe at him. "I hate you! You ruined my life!"

"What the h.e.l.l?"

I glance back at Ian standing right behind me. His eyes are opened wide and are filled with helplessness as he stares at our mother lying dead on the floor.

The Grim Reaper's laugh echoes through my head as he sinks away through the bedroom wall.

"Call a d.a.m.n ambulance!" I yell at Ian and start CPR on my mom.

He blinks dazedly and takes his phone out of his pocket. Tears pool in my eyes as I pump my mom's chest and breathe for her. I keep going, refusing to stop until the paramedics arrive and take over. But even when they roll her away in the stretcher, she still isn't breathing on her own. And she still looks so old.

They wheel her out into the ambulance and speed off to the hospital with their lights flashing. Ian and I hop in his car and he hands me his jacket. I slip it on and cover up the blood on my shirt. But I can't hide the blood on my hands.

That will be there forever.

Chapter 17.

Ian and I return home later that night after my mom was stabilized and heavily sedated. She had taken a high dosage of her medication, plus there were traces of street drugs and alcohol in her system. By the time the doctors got her breathing again, the sudden aging had subsided. But there were a few extra wrinkles around her eyes.

She is under observation and we can't see her until a full mental a.n.a.lysis is ran. We hardly speak and Ian heads straights up to his studio. He doesn't know what really happened, which is good because he can't handle what he does know: that my mom overdosed and that she cut up her forehead and wrists.

"If you need anything," I call out as he trudges up the stairs. "Please come get me."

"Sure," he mutters, slipping off his shoes at the top of the stairs. "I'm just gonna go paint for a while."

I doubt he's going to paint. He'll probably lock himself up in his room and smoke himself into a stupor. As soon as he is upstairs, I collapse on the sofa with my feet kicked up over the back. "All I want to do is sleep forever. Please just let me sleep forever."

A raven zigzags just outside the window, back and forth, back and forth, and then it lands on the windowsill. It spans it small wings and shakes off a few feathers.

"Go away." I throw a couch pillow at the window.

Tucking its wings in, it spins in a circle. I toss another pillow at it. Parting its beak, it caws. I begrudgingly drag myself off the couch and place my hand on the gla.s.s. "Why won't you just go away?"

Granting me my wish, it flaps away in the direction of Cameron's house. It's late, so most of the houses are dark, but the light in Cameron's attic is on. I'm possessed by a rage that doesn't belong to me, scorching uncontrollably like a wildfire. As if my feet no longer belong to me, I march out the front door and across the street. The untied shoelaces of my boots drag behind me and blood still stains my shirt and hands.

His Jeep is parked out front and the tires are covered with chunks of mud. I cup my hands around my eyes as I peek through the back window, wondering if I'll find rope and a roll of duct tape, like the kind I saw on Mackenzie in her death omen.

"Find anything interesting?" Cameron's amused voice is startling close.

Slowly, I rotate to face him. He's standing closer than I expect and the heel of my boot slips off the edge of the curb with the shift of my weight.

"Easy there." He catches my arm and balances me onto the curb. He's wearing faded jeans, no shirt, and his skin almost glows beneath the dim trail of moonlight. There is dust in his blonde hair and on his hands.

I wrench my arm free and his dusty handprints mark my skin. "Why did you do it?"

He knows exactly what I'm talking about. "But I didn't do it."

"Yes, you did." I dust the dirt off my arm. "You were the only one who knew the exact location of my car."

"Am I?" He shakes his head and dust flies from his hair. "Because I was under the impression that you didn't get yourself out of that car the night you crashed."

"Who gave you that impression?" I ask. "And why is there dirt in your hair? Have you been digging graves up again, looking for your-" I make air quotes, "'family jewel'?"

"Actually, I ended up finding that in the strangest place." His eyes travel up my body and linger on the hole in my shirt. "And I think I should be the one asking you the questions. Starting with why you look like you just committed murder."

"Tell me, Cameron." I struggle to maintain my composure. "What happen to Mackenzie last night after I left?"

He reaches above my head and sets his hand on the Jeep. "Why? Are you jealous?"

"Jealous that I wasn't the one who got killed?" I back against the door of the Jeep and cross my arms.

"You know, it seems like I'm the only one you have this spitfire att.i.tude toward." He leans over me. "Everyone else I've seen you with, you're nicer than can be. And you were like that with me at first, but now... what happened?"

"You blew me off at the lake," I admit. "And then told the police where my car was, after Mackenzie disappeared."

"I didn't tell the police where your car was," he says. "What was one of the first things I ever told you about me? That I don't lie."

"I think that's the liars' motto."

He bows his head in frustration and his hair tickles my nose. "Ember, Ember, Ember, what am I going to do with you?" He raises his head back up and the sorrow in his eyes is restored. "Is this because I was flirting with Mackenzie, because the only reason I did that was to make you jealous-like how I felt when I showed up at your house and some guy was sleeping in your bed."

"You know what?" I duck under his arm. "I don't even know why I came over here. It must have been a crazy impulse."

"Because you wanted to see if I killed her," he calls out as I storm across the street. I halt and he says, "That's what you think. That I'm a killer, but you're wrong and I can prove it."

I glance over my shoulder. "I'm calling your bluff."

He waves for me to follow him as he strolls backward down the pathway. "Come with me and I'll prove it to you." He enters his house and leaves the front door wide open. A light turns on from inside.

I make my way to the edge of the front path. "Does he really think I'm going to go in there?" I mutter to myself. Then again, it seems I can't die, so what does it matter.

Like a shadow, he transpires in the doorway with the light of the house radiating behind. "Are you coming?"

I shake my head. "Whatever you want to show me, you can show me outside."

He sighs and slinks from the doorway back into the house. Minutes later, a blonde girl pokes her head out.

"Ember, would you please just get your creepy a.s.s in here," Mackenzie says with a trace of pleading in her tone. "Before someone figures out I'm here."

I glance over my shoulder at the silent houses lining the street. I come to the mind-blowing conclusion that I'm probably losing my mind, like certain poets of the past. Or like a Grim Angel. I plod up the path, past Mackenzie and through the entryway. Cameron shuts the door and we go into a living room with red walls and a brick fireplace. The mantle is ornamented with plastic plants and family photos. Above it is a mirror trimmed with a gold frame. The air smells like cinnamon and apples.

"This isn't how I pictured your house," I remark, sitting down on a striped sofa. Across from the coffee table is a matching sofa, and Cameron and Mackenzie sit down on it. Mackenzie looks like she's wearing Cameron's clothes: an oversized flannel shirt and a pair of boxers. She has leather bands on her wrists and neck, like she's suddenly decided to try a semi-gothic look.

"The cops think I killed you," I tell her. "They brought me down to the station a couple of nights ago for questioning."

"Wow, Killer Girl speaks," she says snidely. "You were so quiet at school I thought you were a mute."

Cameron lays a hand on her bare knee. "Easy, remember she knows you're here now, so play nice."

She crosses her arms and says exasperatedly, "Yeah, but only because you made me let her in. Personally, I don't give a c.r.a.p if she thinks you're lying or not." Cameron tilts his head at her and she recoils. "I'm sorry. And I'm sorry too, Ember. Look, it's just that... Well, I was having problems at home. And things were just really bad and I was telling this to Cameron at the lake and he suggested I disappear for a while and take a break."

"You know everyone is looking for you, right?" I press the severity. "There are flyers all over the town with your face posted on them. This is really messed up."

"Messed up?" She laughs, and then starts to cry. "No, messed up is growing up in a house like I did."

"A lot of people have bad home lives," I p.r.o.nounce unsympathetically. "It doesn't mean we run away."

"Oh yeah, what's so messed up in your life?" Tears roll down her sun-kissed cheeks and she scratches under the leather band on her neck. "Did your dad use you to close job deals with old perverted men? I just wanted to get the h.e.l.l away from it for one moment, just breathe. Haven't you ever wanted to just breathe?"

"Every single day of my existence," I whisper.

Cameron catches my eye and raises his eyebrows, seeking my response.

"So what? You just hid her somewhere and then scattered feathers all over the sh.o.r.e and painted it up with X and an hourgla.s.s?" I ask him.

Cameron's eyebrows knit together. "I hid her, but I didn't do the feathers and weird paint thing. Why would we do that?"

"To make her disappearance look like the rest of them."

"As good of an idea as that is, we didn't do that."

"But that's what the detective said." I fall back in the couch with my forehead creased. "Why would she do that?"

"To mess with your head probably, see if you would let something slip." Kelsey shrugs and rearranges the bands on her wrists. "It's kind of their M.O." When Cameron and I gape at her, she adds, "What? I watch a lot of Law and Order, okay?"

I tap my boot on the floor, bubbling with anxious energy. "They think I killed you... and they think I killed Laden."

"No, they don't. They just don't have any other leads." Cameron's eyes journey down my body. "Although, if they saw you now, they'd probably lock you up."

I wrap my arms around myself. "I had an accident."

He points over his shoulder. "Is that why there was an ambulance at your house?"

I focus the interest back on Mackenzie. "So what am I supposed to do? Just pretend I never saw anything and let them keep investigating me?"

"Would you?" she asks, hopeful. "That would be really great, at least until I can figure out somewhere else to live. I'll be eighteen in a few weeks, so I'll be good to move out on my own."

I rub my exhausted eyes. "I don't mean to sound rude, but can't you just tell someone what's going on?"

She laughs, but it's forced. "You don't think I've tried? But my mom always sides with my dad, saying I'm doing it to draw attention to myself. And my dad is a big funder of the Hollows Grove Police Department."

"Is he paying them off?" I ask, flabbergasted, and she gives a subtle nod. I consider the dilemma for a moment, but there isn't much to consider. "Fine, I'll keep my mouth shut, but please try to figure something else out, before they actually arrest me."

"Thank you, Ember," she says gratefully. "And I'm sorry, you know, for treating you so badly in school." She gets up and wraps her arms around me.

My eyes widen and I prepare myself. But her death never announces itself.

She retreats for the doorway, telling Cameron, "I'm going to go lay down, Cam. I'm really tired."

Once she's gone, I say to Cameron, "So it still doesn't explain how the cops found out where my car was."

"That's a question I can't answer for you." He rests his arms on his legs and intersects his fingers. "The only thing I can say is that there has to be someone else who knew where your car was."

Asher. And perhaps the person who was tailgating me that night.

"Did someone save you?" he prods. "Or did you swim out of the car on your own?"

"I have excellent panic reaction skills." I get to my feet. "I should get home. It's late."

He accompanies me to the door, but pushes it closed when I open it. "Can I show you something first, before you go?" His nice guy act is back, like when we first met and had that briefly decent moment in his Jeep.

I go with him upstairs into his room. There's a bed, a dresser in the corner, and a door that extends to a small patio with a camping chair. The walls are black and bare except one, a white accent wall with lines and lines of poetry.

"Are they your words?" I ask, amazed, and he nods. I walk up to the wall and read the poem that centers them all. "In separate fields of black feathers, the birds fly. Four wings, two hearts, but only one soul. They connect in the middle, but are separated by a thin line of ash. It's what brings them together, yet rips their feathers apart. They can never truly be together as light and dark. Unless one makes the ultimate sacrifice, blows out their candle, and joins the other in the dark."

Cameron watches me with interest. "So what do you think it means?"

"They could never be together," I say. "Unless one died? But why? What makes the other one fly in the land of the dead?"

"That's something you'll have to figure out on your own." He chips a flake of blood off my shirt. "You should know that a poet doesn't like to explain the meaning behind his words."

I bite at my fingernail. "Yeah, I understand that completely. But you should know that, as a poet, I have a desire to understand words."

"You know," he steps closer, "we never got to go to that poetry slam."

"That wasn't my fault," I remind him.

"You're the one that ran away that day." He places a hand on my wrist and tenderly drags it up to my shoulder. "I was trying to make you jealous."