But I wasn't.

I had Affinity for the Dead. It told me surer than anything could have.

He would be dead soon.

The Zondorae brothers unceremoniously hauled Parker inside the chopper, dumping him in a pile on the floorboards. All the while the Graysheets' guns were trained on my friends. The girls silently crying, the guys with frustrated expressions on their face.

Clyde said it best, "They have not the right," his hair lifting off his forehead, the artificial push of the blade's momentum forcing a windstorm.

"We do, my friend," Zondorae said, pointing his gun at my zombie.

I knew a second before he shot Clyde what would happen.

Gale leaped in front of Clyde.

He could have taken twenty bullets. But it would only take one to kill her.

The bullet hit Gale in the chest and the thick sound of it entering her body made Clyde and I groan with its impact.

The chopper started to pull away.

"Shit!" Alex roared.

"The dick holes!" Jonesy ranted, running to step in beside where Brett lay.

Jade began to wake in the arms of Sophie and she and Mia lifted her to a standing position.

I went to Clyde and knew what I needed to do.

"Master," Clyde breathed. My relation, my zombie.

My friend.

He turned his head to the side and a very human emotion stood there.

Fear and grief, mingled in a bitter pill of stark realization.

"Save her," he begged.

I grabbed Bobbi Gale's small hand and felt death on the edges of her, I could taste it.

I wrapped my hand around Clyde's hand and hers, taking what I'd given.

I took some of the life I'd given Clyde and siphoned it off of him for Gale. As she bloomed like a flower, his spark faded.

"Oh no," Randi moaned, seeing the transformation in Clyde. His hair dulling, his eyes losing their lively spark, the muscles and build of his youth, his life, shriveling into the shell of his body.

His zombie nature reared its head even as Gale opened her eyes. She pegged him and told me, "Stop."

"Not yet," I said, never wanting to stop something more than I did in that moment.

Had they stood in front of me right then I could have killed the Zondorae brothers.

Twice.

Finally, it was done, the bullet had popped out of her chest as if purged and she sat up, taking Clyde's bony hand in hers. She was utterly unaffected by Clyde's new appearance.

Who knew how long it would last?

But right now, he was all-zombie, his life-like appearance stolen for the gift of her life.

"I know that I am not the handsome man you have come to love, Dear Heart," he said from a mouth that could not speak in dulcet notes any longer.

She pressed her hand to his softened face and said, "I loved you when you were rotting."

He pressed his forehead to hers and sighed, wrapping his arms around her, mindful of his zombie strength.

"Caleb!" Lewis Archer yelled.

I whipped my head around to where he was yelling and saw Brett seizing.

Holy hell.

I sprinted to Brett and Jade sat next to him, holding his hands.

Her tears dropped on him like warm rain and I felt pity well inside me. He'd been my enemy for so long I hadn't really ever seen him as anything else. But I knew what Brett Mason really was. What he'd been.

Brave.

In trying to save Jade, he'd gotten shot for his trouble.

Dead.

His body gave one last lurch and he flung his hand out, capturing my shirt. Jerking me down next to his face with the last of his strength he said in a hoarse whisper, "Take care of her."

Our gazes locked for the last time, mine absent of the rancor of our past. I nodded. "I will."

I felt his life slip away, his eyes glazing over with the fog of the recently dead.

The new dead.

I felt him inside the count of the dead that still lingered within the scope of my call.

Brett now waited with the others.

Jade let Brett's limp hand drop beside his body. Tilting her head to the sky she wailed into the still twilight, her despair like crystal shards in the air.

Breathing it left me bleeding.

****

I went to Jade and when she didn't resist me I pulled her in against my body, my eyes meeting the rest of the group. Mia looked all around us and then she said in a quiet voice full of fear, "Where's Howie?"

"Eff, that goddamned Manipulative is prancing around somewhere?" Jonesy said, his eyes roving to Brett's still form.

We looked around us, finding nothing but a pile of zip ties, the plastic shredded in loose piles.

He had escaped his bindings. The directive to the Zondorae brothers fulfilled, still high on adrenaline and loose amongst the populace.

I pressed Jade's head under my chin and said, "John..."

"Yes?" John asked, straightening after putting the only blanket we had over Brett.

I glanced at the lump that used to be Brett and swallowed.

"Pulse 911."

"Caleb... are you sure?" Tiff asked, gumless. Her mouth lay silent, her eyes serious.

"They may throw your ass in the local holding tank, Hart," Bry said.

I nodded, maybe. But Brett deserved to be handled with dignity.

"I don't like it," Jonesy said in a contemplative tone. We all turned to him. Jonesy wasn't introspective.

"I mean, that place is corn cob central..." he trailed off.

Archer sighed. "Would you stop with that? Not everything has to have a homosexual reference, Mark."

"Yeah, exit only, pal... ya feel me?"

"Jonesy, this is like a solemn moment here. Brett's dead, the cops are going to come and maybe Caleb's going to be in even worse trouble?" Sophie said, trying to appeal to Jonesy's decorum.

Right.

Jonesy shrugged. "I'm just sayin', preparin' Hart for stuff."

"Well, don't, okay?" I said over Jade's head as the first of the cruisers pulled up in a loose vee outside the gates of the dump.

Game over.

CHAPTER 24

The ghost turds traveled along the cheap vinyl flooring of what used to be the Frazier house, swirling around in big fuzzy dirt clumps with the breeze that came through the door.

But no more.

Jade and I stood in the open doorway.

The place had been stripped. Jade didn't have anything left.

Well, that wasn't exactly true.

We'd found her broken dreamcatcher behind some loose lumber that lay underneath the basement steps.

The same scrap lumber that Howie had used to beat me but two weeks ago.

The Graysheets had come and cleaned house. All of us knew who the Fraziers had really been. Just a plant. Their sole purpose had been to set up my unraveling.

The unravel that never happened.

They'd have to bite the bullet and just off my ass if they wanted to get rid of me that bad.

It might come to that, after all.

The police had launched a full investigation into the death of Brett Mason. We'd given hours of personal testimonies. They weren't satisfied but the entire group of my friends corroborated my story so they couldn't nail me with using the dead. Even though I had.

Just not in the way they thought.

Brett's death was truly an accident. Although, some could say that he wouldn't have died if he hadn't been carried along by the wind of our paranormal travels. Basically, it was death by association.

Then there was the matter of all the bruises and healing bones.

And there were years of collective damage on Brett. The coroner had enough evidence of systematic abuse to put the dad away.

And throw away the key.

Guess who was gonna get the corn cob treatment? Couldn't have happened to a more swell guy.

We were all glad. Brett could have transcended into someone of value if he'd lived an alternate life.

Check. He had been of value. Had. Now he was a statistic. But we weren't going to forget Brett. His main flaw had been loving Jade.

Not that it could be a flaw. I totally understood his problem.

I turned and pressed a kiss on Jade's still-damp hair, fresh from the same shower I used every day. She was living under my roof now. We were all terrified of whatever may happen in the few days leading up to her legal emancipation.

Anything could happen. You'd think she'd be automatically off the hook when the foster family she'd been assigned to live with suddenly were no longer living in the home of record.

All their shit gone.

Not a scrap of paper, a coin... only the lonely dreamcatcher stood testimony that Jade had ever lived there.

Suspicious-much, guys.

Gramps had taken the time to get fifteen trillion reams of paperwork filed that allowed a temporary stay of Jade's living circumstance.

I'd moved back into my house and she had the spare bedroom.

I sat on my hands so I wouldn't sneak in there for some Quality Time.

Then I remembered the lecture from the experts.

"She's been through a great deal Caleb," my AFTD teacher said, giving the whole group of us a long stare.

"Brett Mason's death, considering their connection via your Life-Transference..." he shrugged, folding his arms across his chest. "Well, it had to have been more of an influence than any of us realized."

"What?" Jonesy asked, earning a scowl of barely-there patience from my teacher. "She like... was his slave or something?"

"Yeah," Tiff said, popping her gum.

He held out the separator and she sighed. "Ugh!" she griped, spitting it out into the proper slot and plunking her butt on an empty seat.

"I don't think it's that extreme but let's ask Jade."

All eyes went to her and she blushed, uncomfortable with the attention.

She gave a small shrug. "I don't know, everything felt natural between Brett and I," she said, sliding her eyes to mine and I nodded to her. I was the one that established the connection, I couldn't exactly bitch about it now. "Anyway, he uh... when he died," she took a deep, shuddering breath and I wrapped an arm around her shoulder, stroking her arm as I did. Jade smiled gratefully and went on, "I felt this release from something I didn't even know was there."

"What?" John asked.

"Like I couldn't be with Caleb." She looked at me then finished, "I didn't want to be with Brett but being with Caleb didn't feel right anymore."

"Then there was the other issue," Archer said and looked at the teacher.

We all got him. Not in front of mixed company.

Actually, the translation was: not in front of adults. Technically, with us all emancipated, we were. But somehow all of us still felt separate from them.

"What issue?" he asked.

Alex shrugged. "It's nothing."

It wasn't nothing but we weren't going to reveal all that to him.

It was something we were still dealing with.

It had taken a full week for the enhancer to wear off. It had been one of the longest weeks of my life. Remembering Jade's withdrawals... Sophie's. The emotional upheaval, a roller coaster of crap I didn't ever want to ride again. Who even knew what the long-term ramifications were?

The trail of my memories broke when Jade spoke, "I guess this is it, isn't it?"

I looked around at the dump she'd lived in and exhaled in relief. It was over. She'd be moving into her own, government-funded dwelling for minors. A place that was close, secure and clean. This weekend she'd be seventeen and that's how we'd celebrate, her new digs.

"Yeah, this is it," I said.

We stepped out of the doorway hand in hand and she closed it softly behind her, pressing her thumb to the lock pad.

The pulse-activated lock flashed its reading:

Jade LeClerc, authorized, 3:42 PM.

Frazier residence, Secured.

We left without looking back, her small hand clasped in my larger one, the dreamcatcher held tightly in the other.

If only it could protect her from more than nightmares.

EPILOGUE

Jade shivered inside her pink puffy and I pulled her closer to my body. It was only my friends and I by the gravesite.

Hell, Carson Hamilton hadn't made an appearance. He couldn't be bothered to pay his respects.

Not for anyone.

The gray clouds roiled above our heads, spatters of rain hitting the plain pine casket. I heard the dead weeping. At least I felt I could. I looked at Tiff across Brett's casket and she nodded her head slightly in acknowledgment, she felt it too.

We were burying a guy that hadn't even been my friend.

But somehow, in death, we moved beyond our mutual hate.

Because of love.

We'd both loved Jade and she had made an unlikely alliance between us. Now that he was gone, that postmortem regard remained. He held a different place in my memory now.

Respect.