She shook her head. “Emily?”
“She came to me again. She told me that Noah imprisoned her as revenge for her dusting his sister’s ghost. Wren, he killed himself so he could gain the power to use against her. And now he’s going to take revenge not only on her, but on us.”
“That’s a lie!”
The lightbulb above the door exploded. Roxi and Gage cried out. Only Ben was silent. I had to fight the urge to look behind me to make sure he was okay.
Energy clawed up my spine like a thousand needles. My fingers tingled. “It’s not a lie. He’s using you.”
“You think all ghosts are evil,” she sneered at me. Even her teeth were black. “You can’t stand that I’ve met someone nice—someone who actually likes me and I can be with.”
“Now you’re the one lying,” I informed her. My voice didn’t sound right in my ears—it was deeper, rougher. “Think about it, Wren. Isn’t he a little too good to be true? A little too perfect for you? I bet he always says just the thing you want to hear. I bet he’s even been nice about me, as he lists off all the ways I’m a terrible sister who doesn’t understand you.” I had no idea if he’d said such things or not, but if I were in his place, I would. It was classic divide and conquer.
“You don’t understand me,” she growled. It was a knife to the heart. “You never have. You don’t know me half as well as Noah does. He understands me better than you ever will. You think you’re better than me just because you’re the one lucky enough to be born alive. You’ve always treated me like I was a bother.”
I stared at her. My friends were silent, but I could feel their stares as I stood there, raw and exposed. I trembled with the strain of containing the emotions raging inside me. I choked on them.
“I died for you,” I rasped. “I killed myself to prove that you were real. I went to Bell Hill because of you. My entire life you’ve been the most important person in it. I lost my mother because I refused to turn my back on you. Don’t you ever tell me that I’ve treated you as something less! I would never let some guy I’ve only known a few days come between us!”
“Listen to her, Wren,” came Ben’s voice. “Any guy who truly cares about you would realize how much you and Lark mean to each other.”
Oh, God. I knew he meant well, but I wished he hadn’t said anything. That he hadn’t caught her attention. Wren’s head jerked so that she could look at him. I blinked and she lunged.
I whipped around as she tore past me. For a split second I could only watch as she attacked my boyfriend. She bent him over the hood of the car, perched on his chest, her fingers—like talons—going for his eyes. If she scratched him, it would cause a spectral infection like Bent had done.
Something inside me snapped. I think it was my humanity. I was not going to allow Wren to hurt someone, especially not Ben.
I went after her, running and leaping into the air like a cat. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t normal.
I didn’t care.
My fingers fisted in her hair, close to her scalp, and yanked. She flew backward, off Ben, into the side of the house. The siding cracked.
“Fuuuuck,” Gage muttered, awe dragging the word out.
“Lark?” That was Ben. I didn’t look. He was only going to try to talk me down, and that was not going to happen. Not now.
“You don’t touch him,” I said to Wren as she stood. “You hear me? You never touch him.”
“But you can kill Noah?” she demanded.
“Noah’s a monster,” I told her. I didn’t have much proof—just Emily’s word and my gut. And a sister who was acting like a ghost who needed putting down. That was proof enough. Noah had done this to her.
When she came at me, I caught a hint of something strange just before she punched me in the face. Her aura wasn’t right. It swirled with darkness and a strange greenish tint, as though she’d been poisoned.
The same color I’d noticed haloing Noah at Kevin’s party.
My head jerked back from the force of the blow, but I stood my ground. How, I don’t know. I immediately went into fighting stance and caught her with a kick to the chest. She held her ground, too.
After that I don’t remember much except the giving and taking of pain. We traded punches and kicks with increasing speed and ferocity, but we were a perfect match for one another. We could do this forever, and neither one of us was ever going to win—not while we fought against each other.
But neither of us was about to stop trying.
We’d never fought like this before. All we’d gone through together, all we’d faced, and we were fighting over a freaking boy.
The door to the house flew open, and there was Nan, dressed in her gym clothes. “What’s going on out here?” she cried.