Everwild (Skinjacker 2)

"Maybe I am," he said.

She turned from him. "If you're ready, Mikey, then I won't stop you."

No, of course you won't, he wanted to say. Because then I wouldn't be an anchor around your neck anymore. But instead he said, "Tell me to stay, and I will ..."

But Allie shook her head. "That would be selfish of me." * * *

Once upon a time, Mikey McGill had a bucket of coins. He collected them from every Afterlight he brought to his ship--whether they became a part of his crew, or went to the chiming chamber to hang upside down from their ankles. Why did he take their coins? Because everyone and everything he captured was his property. That's the way he saw things back then. But why did he keep the coins in a bucket, locked safely away? The answer was simple, although he couldn't admit it to himself.

He kept them because he knew.

He knew what the coins were for, just like every Afterlight knows, without ever knowing that they know. It's the memory of a dream lost on waking; it's a name on the tip of your tongue. But if you're an Afterlight, the truth will someday come to you, and you'll realize that you've always known. Sure, for the longest time, the coin was simply standing on its edge in your mind, just a dull metallic sliver, so very hard to see ... but look again--now it's full and round and shining in your palm. It is your proof of something beyond the Everlost, and your fare to get you there.

Once upon a time, Mikey had a bucket of stolen coins, but now he only had one, and since the moment he admitted to himself what the coin was for--the same moment that Allie made the choice to join him--he was always conscious of that coin in his pocket.

Now it felt heavy, like an entire purse full of coins. All he had to do was pull it out and hold it in his hand. Would it be hot for him now? Would it cause space to part before him, revealing the tunnel to the great beyond, which would suck him out of Everlost, sending him to wherever he was going?

And where was he going?

What if he still hadn't redeemed himself? What if he'd been a monster for so long, he hadn't been able to undo all the dastardly deeds of the McGill?

Well, so what if he hadn't! If that tunnel drew him in, then dropped him into a pit, so be it! He had endured the center of the earth, hadn't he? He could endure that place as well.

But he'd be lying if said he wasn't scared.

He didn't fear anguish--there had been enough of that in his afterlife to last an eternity. He feared ... nothingness. He feared being nothing. And yet, that's exactly how he felt now. Here, among skinjackers, he felt inferior, and that was a feeling he could not abide.

No! He would not go down the tunnel with his head hung low. He was once great--he had to remember that. He once inspired fear and respect, but he gave that up for Allie. Because he loved her. And although he still loved her deeply, it wasn't the same as it had been, and he marveled at how love could have so many hidden textures ... for the feeling that once cushioned his heart now chafed at it.

The five of them walked through most of the night to make up for lost time, then early the next morning, Milos took Allie out for more skinjacking lessons. Today Milos taught her the skills of "justicing," and "terminizing."

Justicing involved skinjacking the incarcerated. There was a penitentiary halfway between Lebanon and Nashville, and that's where Milos took her.

"I know it is not a romantic place for a date," he had joked.

"Good thing it's not a date," she reminded him.

While the electrified gate of a high-security prison kept the living from escaping, it was little more than an annoyance for an Afterlight. Allie felt the current as she passed through the gate, and it left her with a passing feeling that resembled indigestion, if one could feel indigestion throughout one's entire body.

Once inside the prison, they proceeded to skinjack various prisoners, with the specific goal of determining if they were guilty of the crime they were imprisoned for.

"That's impossible," Allie had told him before they began. "Sure, we can hear their thoughts, but only the things they happen to be thinking about--and if we get too close, they know we're there, and they freak out."

"Ah, but we can control the direction of their thoughts," Milos had told her, "without them ever knowing we are there." Then he told her to skinjack one of the milder looking prisoners, and at the same time, think of something that made her feel guilty. Her thoughts immediately went to Mikey, and how bad she felt that he was left alone while the rest of them were out skinjacking--and as those thoughts filled her, she suddenly got flashes from the prisoner. His own guilty conscience told her that, yes, he did steal all those social-security checks from helpless elderly men and women.

The moment the confession hit her, Allie peeled herself out, stunned. It took her a few minutes until she was willing to try it again. She tried four more times before it became too much for her. The last prisoner was either innocent, or too hard to read, she wasn't sure.

"Yes," Milos told her. "Guilt is easy, innocence is hard."

"But what's the point of it?" Allie asked. "They're already in prison--what's the point in us knowing they're guilty?"

Milos grinned. "What if the ones we justice are not in prison?"

Allie thought about it, and found the idea both compelling and disturbing. "Do you mean diving into random people, and searching their thoughts for crimes?"

"Not necessarily," said Milos. "We could search the minds of people awaiting trial, or perhaps people who are suspected of getting away with the perfect crime. We can find the truth within them, and then make them confess. Have you ever seen a criminal confess to something they might have otherwise gotten away with? Well, maybe they were justiced by a skinjacker."

"But isn't that ... invasion of privacy?"