“You should give him another chance.”

“He’s dead. I killed him. We killed him together.”

“I was dead too, wasn’t I?”

“Yeah,” Alex said, and now she was whispering too. “You were. And I missed you every day.”

“You should have come for me,” Hellie said, her eyes dark in the gloom, gleaming with tears. “You should have helped me.”

“I didn’t know I could.” Alex didn’t want to cry, but it was pointless to fight the tears. “It’s okay. I promise. I can protect you.”

Hellie’s look of disbelief stung. “You couldn’t protect me before.”

It was true. Only Alex had survived Ground Zero, Len, Ariel.

“Things are different now.”

“Len can help us.”

Alex brushed Hellie’s tears away. “Stop talking about him. He’s dead.

He can’t hurt us.”

“He can watch out for us. We can’t do this alone.”

Alex wanted to scream, but she forced calm into her voice. She didn’t know what Hellie had been through since she’d died. She didn’t know what it had taken to get back to the mortal world.

“I’m telling you, it’s not like that anymore. You can stay with me. I can help you get a job, go to school, whatever you want. It’ll be just like we always said. We don’t need him.”

“That’s just pretend, Alex.” Hellie’s scorn was so firm, so familiar, that Alex felt a flickering doubt. What if none of this was real? The courtyard.

The towers of Jonathan Edwards and Bones. Yale. What if it was all some stupid fantasy she’d spun for them?

Alex shook her head. “It’s real, Hellie. Come on.” She stood, tugging at her hand. “I’ll show you.”

“No. We have to stay here. We have to wait for Len.”

“Fuck Len. Fuck all of them.”

Something rustled in the bushes. Alex whirled, but there was nothing there. She looked up to the branches of the tree. The little boy ghost was whimpering softly, crouched on the branch. Not playing, not hide-and-goseek. He was terrified. Of what?

Alex pulled on Hellie’s hands, drawing her to her feet.

“We have to go, okay? We can talk about Len or whatever else, but let’s just get out of here. I’ll get you something to eat … or anything you need.

Please.”

“You said you could protect us.”

“I can,” Alex said. But she felt a little less certain. Against Grays? Sure.

Against bad boyfriends? She could damn well do her best. But she also knew that night was falling, and there were creatures like Linus Reiter somewhere out there. “I need you to trust me.”

Hellie’s eyes were sad. “I did.”

If Hellie had come back angry or vengeful or hungry for blood, Alex could have handled it, maybe even welcomed it. They would have set fire to the world together. But this ache of guilt and shame was too much. She was going to drown in it.

“Tell me what to do to make it right,” Alex said. “Tell me what to say.”

Hellie cupped her cheek. Her thumb brushed Alex’s lower lip. “You know that mouth is only good for one thing, Alex. And talking isn’t it.” Alex recoiled. Hellie didn’t talk that way. Len did.

But Hellie’s fingers dug into her skull, pulling her closer.

“Hellie—”

“He was good to us,” Hellie hissed. “He took care of us.”

“Let go of me.”

“He was all we had and you killed him.”

“He wanted to throw you out like a bag of trash!”

“You let me die.”

Hellie threw her to the ground and Alex went to her knees in the dirt. She felt the kick to her side, and then her face was shoved into the ground, the stink of rotting leaves and rainwater filling her nose.

“You let me die, Alex. Not Len.”

Hellie was right. If she’d just woken up when Hellie came in that night, if she’d made it home sooner, if she hadn’t fallen asleep in the theater in the first place, if she’d told Len no, they were done. If she’d kept them in Vegas, they could be there right now, staring at all the pretty glass at that big hotel, smelling the perfume and the old-cigarette smell beneath it.

Hellie pushed at the back of Alex’s head, but Alex wasn’t fighting, she was crying, because she’d failed Hellie again and again and again.

“That’s right.” Hellie flipped her over and shoved a handful of rotting leaves into Alex’s mouth. “I choked on my own vomit lying next to you. But you blamed Len for that? I let Ariel fuck me. He put some kind of electric prod inside me. He thought it was funny the way I jumped when he fucked my ass. I did it for us. I made the sacrifices, but here you are with your new friends and your new clothes, pretending you loved me.” “I did love you,”

Alex tried to say. I love you still.

“You should have died, not me. I was the one who finished school. I was the one with a real family. You let me die and you stole the life that should have been mine.”

“I’m sorry. Hellie, please. I can fix it—”

Hellie hit her, a glancing blow, not enough to really hurt, just enough to shut her up.

Her body sitting atop Alex was warm. Too warm. Her hands had been warm when Alex held them. Her cheeks had been hot when Alex touched her face.

Even though she was just wearing a T-shirt.

Even though it was night in November in New Haven.