Beyond - Volume 1 (YA Paranormal Romance) (14 page)

T
he bell rings. Time moved quicker than I thought, but I spent the entire class contemplating him. We get up, and I follow the guys out. I won’t leave Damian and Joey alone for even a second until they’ve answered every possible question I can ask.

“What do you know about Damian?” I ask Joey wh
ile he’s gathering his things.

“Not in here!” he says. “Let’s take it outside.” He pulls me out of the classroom with Damian right behind him. In the hallway Lillian and Emma look at me with disapproval while I’m being dragged outside. I don’t have the time to talk to Lillian about our fight, because Joey’s yanking me with him. It’ll have to wait; the questions that haunt my mind are much more important than that fight I had
with Lillian.

Behind the school is a path that goes right underneath
a large tree, which makes it almost invisible. He pulls me toward the path and then comes to halt right in front of the tree.

“Spill it,” I
demand. Damian leans against the tree.

Joey looks at him with questioning eyes, like he needs his approval. “Don’t you think it’s kind of dangerous if she gets involved in this?”

“Yeah, but it’s too late. She’s already involved,” Damian answers.

“Yes
, I need explanations, Damian. My whole life I’ve believed I was crazy. I need to believe I wasn’t. I need to believe what I saw was true.”

I won’t back down
now. My whole life I’ve been made a fool of, and now I finally know I’m the one who’s actually right. I can see ghosts. And I want to know more. I want to find out what these guys do and what my part in all of this is.

“Fine, you tell her.” Damian waves with his
hands.

Joey shrugs.
“Remember that yellow ghost in your room, the other night? The one that touched your diary?” Joey asks. The memory of that morning when I awoke and saw my diary lying on the floor contorts my face.

“Do you recognize anything?” Joey traces his face with his finger and gives me a crooked smile. His eyes are focused on mine.

“That was you?” I give him a hard push and he smacks against the wall of the building. “I was terrified!”

“Sorry!” he yells
, sticking his hands up in the air as a sign of peace.

I s
putter and blow off some steam. “So you just came to my room to nose around in my diary?” I ask.

“I told you
, you shouldn’t have done it.” Damian spits out his gum.

“Don’t worry about it
. I didn’t read your diary. You woke up when I came in, so I didn’t even have time for it. I was just curious. I wanted to know what girl you were talking about.” Joey points his finger at Damian who flushes.
So he was talking about me, even before we went out?

“Damian just blurted out where you lived, so I
took a peek,” Joey says.

Then I realize I haven’t even asked the most obvious question. “Wait, hold o
n. You can become a ghost too?”

“Yeah, everyone can
. You just have to die first,” Joey answers with a smirk.

“Oh, you’re so funny,” I retort. I lean against the wall and try to keep all the intense emotions and perplexity I’m feeling inside. There’s so much going on right now
, and I don’t understand any of it. I don’t know what to think anymore. I’m getting so much information in such a short time that I don’t even have time to process it all. Catching ghosts, saving people. These guys do bizarre things together. And I’m asking about it.

“But you can come back to life!” I s
ay. “That isn’t normal. Why do you want to become ghosts so badly, and how do you do it?”

“
We do it because they can hurt people, and we’re the only ones who can stop them. If you can see a ghost, you can become one,” Damian answers.

“By dying,” Joey continues.

My jaw drops.
So they really do die.
Damian died. It hadn’t sunk in yet that they actually die. Damian died to save me, and he came back to life again, those times he came to my room and at the pond.
How many times has he ended his life already?

And if everyone who’s capable of seeing ghosts can become one, then that means…

I place my hand on my chest. “So … I can become a ghost as well?”

“Yeah,” Joey answers.

“No!” Damian says, clenching his fist. They both answer at the same time.

“Well, which is it?” I ask.

“No, I won’t allow it.” Damian glares at Joey.

“Well, I guess it’s a no then.” Joey shrugs. “Like I care.”

“Raven?” A familiar voice calls behind me.

When I turn around, Simon Pierce is standing in t
he entrance of the narrow path.

“
How did you find us?” Damian asks, squinting.

Simon frowns. “Lillian and Emma told me they saw Raven going in here.”

“So what?” Joey says.

“Raven,” Simon ignores them and directs his attention toward me. “Are you ready?”

For a moment I’m dumbfounded. I just stand there, watching him, my mouth open. What should I be ready for? Then I realize I work with him at Mr. Cheng’s today.

“Shit, I totally forgot about it! I have to work today,” I exclaim to the
guys. “I’ll come to your house tomorrow. It’s Saturday then anyway,” I say to Damian, but when I walk away, he grabs my sleeve. Simon winces.

“No, don’t, please. My foster parents … I’ll come to your place tomorrow,” Damian proposes.
“If I have to …” he continues, but I ignore that last part.

After I nod,
he releases my arm from his grip. I glance one last time at the guys before sprinting to Simon.

“What are you doing with those guys?” Simon asks.

“Nothing. We’re just friends,” I lie. They’re much more than that. I know their deepest secret. A secret no one in the world should have to carry with them. If it’s true they can actually become ghosts. I haven’t seen them die with my own eyes yet. Can they really do that?

“How were your classes?” I ask, to get my mind
off it. Besides, I prefer not to talk about the guys.

“Nothing special.”

I think he understands why I’m diverting the conversation, because he keeps his mouth shut the rest of the way. I look straight ahead and see him peeking at me now and then, which makes me wonder if he’s going to ask me something. I’d rather not give him the opportunity.

***

Mr. Cheng doesn’t bark at us for a change. I’ve been working here for a couple of days now, but I haven’t seen him this busy before. He’s packing a suitcase and putting on a nice suit, something I didn’t expect, since Cheng’s always dressed in a casual shirt. And who would ever change clothes in a grocery shop?

The boss is so busy
that he doesn’t even look at us, so we have all the time to take it easy. I grab a few incense packets and hang them in the racks, while Simon fills up the herbs.

“Do you like working here?” Simon asks.

“Well … Cheng’s kind of …”

“Mean? Bossy?” He says.

“I didn’t want to say that.”  I laugh. “Strict, is more like it.”

“Tell me about it. He dri
ves me nuts sometimes, but I want to make some money.”

“Yeah, me too, so I’m happy he lets me work here,” I say.

The two hours we spend working pass quickly. Every attempt he makes at talking about the guys, I divert. I don’t want to burden Simon with the whole story. And anyway, I’m not allowed to talk about it. I promised Damian I wouldn’t. And as long as he keeps telling me more, I won’t make myself unworthy of their trust.

It doesn’t take long for Mr. Cheng to leave. He almost shoos us out. When I take my bike, I realize
I only have one key with me, the one for my bike lock, instead of the regular bunch. “Shit, I forgot my house key!” I exclaim.

T
hen I also remember there’s nobody home. My mom’s babysitting tonight, to make some extra money. She has to do it to maintain the family income. The entire day I’ve been walking around without realizing I forgot my keys, and now I can’t get inside my own home. I’ve been so distracted by what happened between Damian, Joey and me, that I didn’t even think about it. But now I can’t go home.

“Isn’t there s
omeone else who’s got a key? Like your mom?” Simon asks.

“M
y mom’s babysitting, and we’re the only ones who have a key. I don’t know what address she’s at, so I can’t drop by.”

I take my cell phone out
of my pocket, but the battery is dead. So much for calling her.

He frowns. “Let’s go to my place then. I’m sure my mother wouldn’t mind having you for dinner,” he says with a big smile on his face.

“But I don’t know when my mom’s coming home,” I answer.

“No problem. You can stay. We could watch a DVD in my room
.” Simon proudly points to his “new to him” car and says, “You can put your mountain bike in the back.”

I eyeball his car with its reflective rims, beautiful black varnish and leather interior. I think it’s a
Landrover. Where did he get the money to afford such a car?

I
nod at Simon, but on the inside I still have my doubts. I don’t know Simon that well, and I’ve never met his parents, so I wonder if it’s really okay for me to eat dinner with them. I don’t want to be pushy, but what else should I do? I have to get something to eat somewhere, and I’m not in the mood to eat some grubby burger at a local booth, and I don’t have any cash for it either. Besides, I’m kind of curious about Simon’s family, so I might as well take him up on the offer.

“Okay
, sure,” I say and walk up to his car.

Simon opens the trunk, picks up my mountain
bike and puts it in. We step inside and drive off the parking lot. This car is comfortable, unlike my mom’s. It smells fresh, like fir needles, and it’s so untarnished that I imagine it’s cleaned every day. It shines on the inside and outside. It’s not a limo, but still luxurious. I almost feel like a celebrity going to the red carpet of a new movie.

***

Simon’s house is somewhere in the middle of the woods, like mine, only on the other side of town. The fence automatically opens for us, and we drive through it. I still can’t see anything but a sandy path between the trees. After about five minutes there’s finally a paved road.

“Is this all part of your
property?” I ask.

Then I see the building. It’s a gigantic white house that resembles a small castle, surr
ounded by a huge garden which we drive through. There are two lion statues at the entrance, quadrangle cut hedges in the shape of a maze, bushes in the forms of all kinds of animals, and a detailed fountain with a mermaid statue on top of it surrounded by a flowerbed of roses, carnations and violets.

My jaw
drops while we drive over the gravel to the shelter where he parks his car. There are rows of cars, twelve or something, but at least five old-timers. When we step out, Simon gets my mountain bike, while I stare at the amazing collection. I can’t resist the urge to glide my finger over the hoods. So precious and authentic.

As we walk toward his home, I gaze up, feeling dizzy. It has a couple of chimneys, a few floors, colossal doors and more than twenty windows.

“You live here?” I blurt out.

“Yeah
… unfortunately,” he says, while we walk toward the door.

“Why? It’s amazing and beautiful!” I’m like a frenzied fan.

“That’s the problem.” He clenches his fists. “I’d rather not have people know I live like this. Else they’d only want to be friends with me for the wrong reasons. Trust me, I’ve been through it many times. Almost all the people in Piney Hollow already know about it, so that’s why I didn’t want to tell you at first. At least there would be one person in this town who didn’t judge me by the size of my house.” The corners of his mouth slump while he looks at the tiles on the ground.

“I like you for who you are, not because of what you have,” I say to cheer him up. His eyes jolt back up and
on his face is a corny smile.

We walk up the stairs
, and he opens the door. Inside there’s a butler waiting to take our coats and asking us if we want something to drink. I turn it down and look around at the exquisite tapestry and magnificent paintings hanging on the walls, while Simon guides me to the living room. There’s a woman sitting on the couch with her back toward us, reading a book in front of the fireplace.

“Mother
, I brought someone. Can she stay for dinner?” Simon asks. I find it odd that he refers to his mom as ‘mother’.

The woman
turns her head and glances at us. Her reddish, curled hair glides along with her movement. I can see where Simon gets his good qualities. His mother is slender, with an elegant posture, but still has an hourglass shape which would drop jaws everywhere.