Hereafter (Shadowlands 2)

“What shit?” Tristan countered, shoving Joaquin in the chest. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.” Joaquin shoved back.

Tristan’s nostrils flared.

“Rory, do something,” Krista pleaded, hugging her arms to her chest.

“Guys! Cut it out!” I shouted, trying to get between them. “We didn’t come over here to fight.”

“Well, then get him out of here,” Tristan spat. “The mayor’s gonna kill us. You know she hates it when we—”

The door behind him suddenly flew open, and the mayor stepped out. My heart seized up at the sight of her. She wore a crisp blue pantsuit, a light pink shirt, and a politician’s smile. Her blond hair was pulled back so tightly from her face it made her skin appear stretched. She seemed taller somehow. Broader. More intimidating.

This woman could send me to Oblivion. She could send all of us there if she felt like it.

Tristan slid out of the way, taking position behind Joaquin like he was getting ready either to back him up or throw him out. The mayor started to close the door, but not before I saw that someone was sitting in the chair across from her desk, tucking two black Converse sneakers out of sight just before she banged it shut.

“Can I help you, Mr. Marquez?” the mayor asked, clasping her hands together in a patient way. When her eyes flicked to me, I felt a chill in my bones.

“Yeah. There’s something going on around here, and I think you should know about it,” Joaquin said, his chest heaving. “Something aside from the obvious.”

Tristan shot me a betrayed sort of look, as if asking whether this was about what he thought it was about.

“All right, then,” she asked. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” Tristan said, trying to drag Joaquin away. “It’s nothing.”

A tiny crack snaked through my heart. He really didn’t believe in me. In Aaron. He truly thought the coin was in the right. He was embarrassed that Joaquin and I were wasting his “mother’s” time.

“It’s not nothing,” Joaquin said, staring the mayor in the eye with impressively unyielding determination. “I just sent a girl to the Shadowlands, someone who didn’t belong there, and Rory did the same last night. The weather vane has been pointing south a lot more often than it ever has before. All these people can’t belong in the Shadowlands.”

The mayor glanced at me over Joaquin’s shoulder, then tilted her chin toward the floor and chuckled. My palms went slick.

“Mr. Marquez, the coins are never wrong,” she said simply.

My fingers curled like claws, red-hot adrenaline rushing through my veins.

“They were this time,” I said, my pulse pounding in my ears.

“Excuse me, but you don’t know anything about this,” she replied condescendingly. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you haven’t even done a solo ushering yet, have you?”

She looked at Tristan. He shook his head, mute.

“But I do know that Aaron was a good soul,” I protested, my voice quaking. “I felt it. Doesn’t that mean anything?”

The mayor’s blue eyes crackled with anger.

“It means you’re still new here,” she said sharply. “And you have no clue what you’re doing.”

“Now, wait a minute,” Tristan said, squaring off next to Joaquin.

“Maybe the weather vane’s wrong,” Krista piped up suddenly, her voice reed thin. My heart swelled both with gratitude toward Krista and with hope. The weather vane being wrong would mean that Jennifer and Aaron had actually gone to the Light and the vane had simply indicated the opposite.

Another chuckle from the mayor. “Sweetie, the weather vane is never wrong.”

“Well, it is now,” I said, stepping toward her as calmly as I could. “Please, if we could just talk about this,” I implored. “Something is wrong. I know what I felt. I know that Aaron was a good person. If you’d just—”

“Stop!” the mayor thundered. She stepped around Joaquin and Tristan like their wall of muscle was nothing more than a puddle on the floor and came to a stop right in front of me. Terror seized my gut, and I staggered back a step. “Do you even hear what you’re saying? Weren’t you some sort of scientific genius in your former life?”