She looked to her sister for answers, for help, but somewhere between the car and the body, Serena had changed. She seemed tense, her forehead crinkling in a way that she’d always tried to avoid because she said she didn’t want wrinkles. And she wouldn’t meet her sister’s eyes. Sydney turned back to the body, and knelt gingerly beside it.
She didn’t see what she did as raising the dead, not really. They weren’t zombies, as far as she could tell—she didn’t have prolonged exposure to her subjects, aside from the hamster, and she wasn’t sure how a zombie hamster’s behavior would differ from that of a normal one—and it didn’t matter what they’d died of. The man under the sheet in the hospital hall had apparently suffered a heart attack. The woman in the morgue had already had her organs removed. But when Sydney touched them, they didn’t just come back, they revived. They were okay. Alive. Human. And, as she found out in the morgue, as susceptible to mortality as they’d been before, just not the form that killed them. It perplexed Sydney, until she remembered the day on the frozen lake when the ice water had swallowed her up and she’d reached for Serena’s leg and been a fraction too late, too slow, to catch it—come back, come back—and how badly she’d wanted a second chance.
That’s what Sydney was giving these people. A second chance.
Her fingers hovered over the dead man’s chest for a moment as she wondered if he deserved a second chance, then chided herself. Who was she to judge or decide or grant or deny? Simply because she could, did that mean she should?
“Any day now,” said Eli.
Sydney swallowed and forced herself to lower her fingers onto the dead man’s skin. At first, nothing happened, and panic swept over her at the thought of finally having a chance to show Serena, and failing to do it. But the panic fell away when, moments later, the ice-water chill flooded through her veins, and the man beneath her shuddered. His eyes flew open and he sat up, all so fast that Sydney went stumbling backward to the grass. The once-dead man looked around, confused and angry, before his eyes locked on Eli, and his whole face contorted with rage.
“What the hell is—”
The gunshot rang in Sydney’s ears. The man fell back into the grass, a small red tunnel between his eyes. Dead again. Eli lowered his gun.
“Impressive, Sydney,” he said. “That’s quite a unique gift.” The humor, along with that horrible false cheer and fake smile, was gone, wiped away. In a way, Eli wasn’t quite as frightening, because she’d always been able to see the monster in his eyes. Now it had finally stopped hiding. But the gun, and the way he held it, made him scary enough.
Sydney got to her feet. She really wished he would put the weapon down. Serena had retreated several feet, and was toeing a patch of frozen wild grass.
“Um, thank you?” said Sydney, her voice wavering. Her feet slid backward through the grass without her meaning to. “Are you going to show me your trick now?”
He almost laughed. “I’m afraid mine lacks the showmanship.” And then he raised the gun, and leveled it at her.
In that moment, Sydney felt no surprise, no shock. It was the first thing Eli had done that seemed right to her. Genuine. Fitting. She wasn’t afraid to die, she didn’t think. After all, she’d done it once. But that didn’t mean she was ready. Sadness and confusion coiled in her, not toward him, but toward her sister.
“Serena?” she asked quietly, as if maybe she didn’t notice her new boyfriend was pointing a gun at her little sister. But Serena had turned away, arms crossed tightly over her chest.
“I want you to know,” said Eli, fingers flexing on the gun, “that it is my grim task to do this. I have no choice.”
“Yes, you do,” whispered Sydney.
“Your power is wrong, and it makes you a danger to—”
“I’m not the one holding a gun.”
“No,” said Eli, “but your weapon is worse. Your power is unnatural. Do you understand, Sydney? It goes against nature. Against God. And this,” he said, taking aim, “this is for the greater good.”
“Wait!” said Serena, suddenly turning back. “Maybe we don’t have to—”
Too late.
It happened fast.
Shock and pain hit Sydney in one loud blast.
Serena’s voice had stolen her a moment, a fraction of a moment, and as soon as she saw Eli’s fingers tighten on the trigger Sydney had cut to the side, lunging for a branch as the gun fired. She had the broad stick in her grip and swung into Eli before she even felt the blood running down her arm. The branch knocked the gun to the ground and Sydney spun, and ran for her life. She reached the edge of the forest before the shots started again. As she tumbled through the trees, she thought she heard her sister calling her name, but this time she knew better than to look back.
XXXIII
YESTERDAY
THE ESQUIRE HOTEL