Hereafter (Shadowlands 2)

Joaquin was silent as he walked me home from Krista’s later that afternoon, beadily eyeing the Lifers at the center of town like he was my own personal bodyguard. He’d shown up out of nowhere as we’d finished the last batch of strawberry-scented cupcakes and had ever so casually offered to escort me back to Magnolia Street. Now I knew why. He thought I needed protection.

I wasn’t sure if that made me feel safer, or a lot more terrified.

“So…” I said finally, as we reached the far side of the square and the ever-present shadows on Freesia Lane. “How about those Yankees?”

“What?” Joaquin snapped.

I blushed, hard. “Sorry. It’s just something…my dad always says that when there’s an awkward pause in conversation. It’s like a thing.”

“Oh.” It was his turn to blush. “I guess I’m a little tense.”

We started down the hill, passing by the tall, imposing Victorian houses, their eaves decorated with intricate carvings, their porches lined with pretty potted flowers—although some of these had begun to wither and brown. The overgrown park at the center of the lane was as deserted as ever, and I averted my eyes from the eerily creaking swing.

“Did you see Tristan at all today?” he asked suddenly.

I shook my head, my heart skipping a beat. Every time a door had closed or a floorboard settled inside Krista’s house, I’d been sure it was the mayor coming for my head, but it was always nothing. Apparently, wherever he and Nadia were, they were having a good time together.

“Krista said something about him going surfing with Nadia,” I replied.

Joaquin rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right,” he said. “Tristan and Nadia are like… What two elements explode when they’re mixed together?”

“Well, there’s oxygen and phosphorus.… There’s—”

“Then they’re like that,” he interjected, gazing at the ocean in the distance. “If they’d spent any kind of time together, we’d know, because the island would have been obliterated.”

I smirked, feeling a little better. Joaquin, after all, knew Tristan better than anyone.

“He’s probably just off on one of his thinks.”

“His thinks?” I asked.

We emerged onto Magnolia and turned toward my house. Overhead, the sky was just beginning to darken, the lowering sun shading the clouds violet and pink. Joaquin sighed.

“Every once in a while Tristan… He just disappears,” Joaquin explained, glancing down at a dying sunflower that drooped all the way to the sidewalk. He stepped over it with a wide stride, like it might suddenly come to life and bite him. “Doesn’t tell anyone where he’s going. Just vanishes for a day or two, and when he gets back he won’t talk about it. One time I finally got him to tell me what he’d been up to, and he said, ‘I was thinking.’ That was it. So now we call them his thinks.”

Something inside of me sank. All along, Tristan had been bent on protecting me. Postponing telling me the truth about my new existence, making sure I didn’t hear about things dying for the first time ever, not telling me about Jessica and Oblivion. But now, when I really needed protection, it was Joaquin walking me home from the mayor’s, not him. He was off alone somewhere, thinking. But I supposed it was better than the alternative.

“Well, here we are,” Joaquin said as we arrived at my front gate. “Home sweet home.”

“Yeah.” I paused with my hand on the latch. “Thanks, Joaquin,” I said, looking him in the eye. “I appreciate you going out of your way.”

“Eh, I was gonna go for an evening swim anyway,” he said, shrugging me off. Then he smiled. “I’ll come down and get you for the meeting tonight.”

“You don’t have to do that,” I said, even as my blood ran cold, remembering the looks on the faces of Nadia’s crew that afternoon.

“Just for now,” he said. “Until we figure it all out. Which we will do.”

I nodded, trying to feel as confident as he seemed. “Okay.”

I went to push the gate open, but he didn’t move. When I looked up at him, I could have sworn he caught his breath. “You sure you’re all right?”

My palms began to itch, and there was a slight hitch in my pulse, but I ignored it. This was Joaquin. He was a player. He’d screwed over my sister. And I was with Tristan. Wherever he was. I heard a loud caw and saw them coming, five dark splotches against the purple sky. The crows swooped in and landed on the apex of our roof, one, two, three, four, five. Overhead, the seagull circled and bleated, but it was clearly outnumbered. It finally turned and soared out to sea.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m fine. I’ll see you later.”

I shoved the gate open, forcing him to take a step back, and strode inside without a second glance. As soon as I inhaled the familiar, musty scent of the house, I started to relax. I was home. I was safe.

Then I spotted Darcy at the kitchen table, and my heart froze. Maybe I wasn’t so safe.