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Slowly Barnabas’s jaw unclenched, and I felt a stirring of victory. “It’s going to cause problems,” he warned, and I straightened, smiling.
“So what?” I said flippantly. “Shoe won’t say anything.” I spun to him. “Will you?”
Shoe was shaking his head, still worried. “No one would believe me. Grim reapers? Guardian angels? Timekeepers? They’d lock me up.”
From my other side, Nakita coaxed, “Timekeepers change for a reason, Barnabas. That’s all Madison seems to do. Change, change, change.”
Barnabas frowned again. “Get him out of here,” he muttered, and, elated, I grabbed Shoe’s arm, wondering if Barnabas was only pacifying me, pla
“What about Ace?” I asked, feeling ten feet tall.
“Out,” Barnabas said tightly. “You got Shoe. Ace is not an option.”
I took a breath to argue, then hesitated when Ace’s guardian angel circled Grace twice and flew to me, whispering, “Grace says, ‘There once was a boy in a diner, who thought no one else could be finer. He wasn’t that kind, almost lost his mind, till an angel became his reminder.’”
Oh, really?
Barnabas raised his eyebrows suspiciously, and, refusing to answer his unspoken question, I began backing up, stumbling when our locked gazes were broken. “Come on,” I breathed to Shoe. “I have to get my wallet.” Grabbing his hand, I tugged him to the door.
“What about Ace?” he asked, looking behind him until I turned his head away.
“Don’t look. I think Ace will be okay,” I said as the door jingled open and Nakita sighed loudly. “His guardian angel is going to block Barnabas.”
Shoe twisted to look through the plate-glass windows. “Are you sure?”
It was cooler out here, and I was glad for the lab coat as I held my arms around myself and waited. I wasn’t cold—but if I had been alive, I would have been.
“I’ve been told cherubs sit next to God,” I said, looking up at the stars and smiling. “I think a guardian angel can beat Barnabas’s skills with a stick.”
Shoe’s cough brought my attention down, and in the buzz of the security light, I met his startled gaze. “Really?” he stammered, glancing into the diner and then back to me. “Cherubs, eh?”
I shrugged. “Grace is. Just promise me you won’t say anything about tonight.”
Head down, he smiled as he scuffed his toe into the broken sidewalk. “You want me to lie?”
I couldn’t help my grin. “Well, I am the dark timekeeper.”
A twinge tightened across my mind, and my amulet grew warm, then cold. It was Barnabas using his amulet, and I glanced in as he leaned toward Ace. I wasn’t surprised when Ace woke up, his empty look shifting to hatred as he exclaimed, “You can go to hell, reaper!”
Barnabas looked out the window at me, cross. “Madison!” he complained.
Nakita laughed, the sound coming faintly through the glass. “I told you! Don’t mess with her.”
Smiling, I turned away. Shoe was standing in front of me, his hands in his pockets. “I don’t want to forget this,” Shoe said wistfully. “I don’t want to forget any of it.”
“You won’t,” I said confidently, and with a sudden idea, I leaned back against the brick wall of the restaurant to untie my sneaker. Shoe watched in confusion until I got the lace entirely undone, pulling it from my yellow sneaker with a rasping sound. “Here,” I said, handing it to him. “To remember everything by.” I was breathless, and I didn’t even need to breathe. What if he thought I was weird or something?
But Shoe gri
I smiled, looking at it in the dim light. “Bye, Shoe,” I said as I rocked back. “Have a great life. Be good. Make good choices.” I lifted the coupon. “Thanks.”
He closed his mouth, looking embarrassed and pleased all at once. “I’ll try,” he finally said, then frowned as he looked at Ace through the glass. “It’s not going to be easy.”
I laughed as I started to walk backward to Ace’s truck, each step feeling bigger than it really was. “If being good were easy, everyone would do it.”
Shoe nodded. Waving awkwardly, he turned and began walking down the dark sidewalk, his pace slow but gaining confidence with every step until his head was high. Slowly the darkness took him until even the sound of his shoes echoing back to me faded and there was nothing.
I saw him once more in a spot of light, and then…he was gone.
Satisfaction filled me as I yanked open Ace’s truck and got my phone and wallet. The soft leather was still warm from the ride over here, and it made an uncomfortable bump when I shoved it in a back pocket. The door squeaked as I slammed it shut. In the distance, I heard a faint, “Bye, Madison!”
Happy, I leaned against the truck and stared at the plain white stars while I waited for Nakita and Barnabas to finish threatening Ace. Sure, Barnabas might be mad at me, but he’d get me home, grumbling all the way. If he didn’t, Nakita would. Even better, he’d be on my roof tomorrow to tell me what I could have done better. No one had died tonight. No one would die tomorrow—at least, not before their allotted time was up. Shoe was going to catch hell at school, but he’d known that before he trashed the school’s computers. Nakita was starting to understand—I think—even if by all accounts she had failed in her attempt to save Ace’s soul by taking it early. Ace was still an ass, but maybe he’d learned something. Paul was thinking. And I was…pleasantly tired.
Maybe it was a good night after all.
Epilogue
“Madison!”
It was a panicked shout, and my eyes flew open at the strong shake of my shoulder.
“What!” I shouted back, seeing my dad standing over me, fear on his face. I was in my bed; the sun was shining in. I had been…sleeping? I hadn’t slept in almost three months.
Relief cascaded over my dad’s face to make his few wrinkles appear deeper. “I thought you were—” he started, then visibly changed his mind as he let go of my shoulder and straightened. “You’re late,” he said instead, sounding embarrassed. “For school,” he added, and I smiled. I hadn’t thought he meant the dead kind of late, but then again, I’d probably looked dead, lying there. Not breathing. No wonder he’d shaken me.
“How late?” I asked as I sat up, blinking. I couldn’t believe I’d actually slept. Maybe the flash forward had triggered it. It had taken a lot out of me.
Exhaling, my dad looked over my room. “Breakfast is ready,” he said instead of answering me.
Too bad I wasn’t hungry.
I started to get up, then froze when he picked up the lab coat I’d draped over my desk chair. The Jane Doe toe tag was peeping out of the pocket, and I panicked. How was I going to explain a clearly professional lab coat with the name Marty on it was beyond me.
“Tell me this is ketchup,” he said softly, fingering the stained fabric, and I smiled.
“It’s ketchup. I had some fries after school,” I explained, and he sighed. “I’m sorry! I got hungry!”
He winced, draping it over my desk chair, right next to my torn tights.
“Madison!” he said, snatching them up. “What did you do to your nylons?”
“I cut them. Everyone is wearing them like that!” Oh, man. I was not getting out of this.
“These were brand-new!” my dad complained loudly, shaking them.
“Jeez, Dad…” I complained, proud of myself that I hadn’t panicked. Much. “Didn’t you ever wear cutoff jeans?”
Shoulders slumping, he looked at my fingernails, seeing the black nails that I’d been wearing to help Nakita blend in, his gaze lingering on the two red nails I’d half painted. “Torn tights and a lab coat? Wearing shoes without laces? I’ll never understand your fashion sense.”