“The gates, Joshua. You have to open them.”

He shook his head, obviously still disoriented, but began to fumble with the chain. When his hands kept slipping, I moaned softly. “Please, Joshua, hurry.”

As if he were a zombie under my command, Joshua deftly removed the chain and let it slither to the ground beside him. He’d only had time to pull one gate open before I was shoving him out of it and onto the sidewalk. I followed him out, folded one of his hands back in mine, and pulled him onto the street.

There I started to run, picking up my pace once Joshua gained better control of his feet. The sound of his shoes pounded on the pavement as we dodged the traffic on Rampart Street and crossed back into the French Quarter.

Even though we’d made it back into the Quarter, we both continued to run mindlessly in the direction of the town house—holding each other’s hand and sprinting past pedestrians and restaurants and shuttered town homes.

While we ran, my brain buzzed with thoughts. Unpleasant ones. Each beat of my feet against pavement brought me closer to a horrible, inevitable conclusion.

This is it, isn’t it? I asked myself. This is the end.

And I knew, without a doubt, that the answer was yes.

I couldn’t keep letting things like this happen. I couldn’t keep placing Joshua in danger with these constant, hopeless attempts to stay with him. Fleeing Oklahoma, only to wind up in potentially demon-infested clubs; participating in failed Voodoo rituals? These were crazy, desperate acts that hurt him far more than they helped me.

He could have been possessed tonight, by whatever dark force had taken over Gabrielle. Worse, he could have been killed. Besides, the longer I lingered by his side, the more opportunity I gave the evil netherworld spirits to find me, and thereby him.

Every second he spent with me, every instant he touched me was like a slow-working poison. Which meant that everything I’d done in the past few days was unforgivably selfish. Done to prolong my time with him instead of to protect him.

So I didn’t have two nights left with him. I didn’t even have one night.

I had to end this, now.

When I saw that we’d made it to the relative safety of Ursulines and Royal, just north of the Mayhew house, I yanked him to a stop. He instantly flopped back against a brick wall, panting, looking grateful for the chance to rest.

I, however, didn’t rest. I paced madly in front of him, trying not to cry. Trying to think of exactly what to say. It didn’t help that the weird, burning sensation was still snaking its way through my body. It made me feel heavy and jittery at the same time, simultaneously light-headed and weighted down.

Joshua looked worse for wear too. He clenched and unclenched his hands a few times and then ran one hand through his hair, letting it rest on the back of his neck.

God, why did he have to do that? I thought. This would be so much easier if he wouldn’t do things like that.

“You okay?” he asked me, sounding winded. “What the hell happened back there?”

“It doesn’t matter.” I shook my head bitterly. “It’s not going to happen again.”

Joshua made a small noise somewhere between a grunt and a laugh. Then he grinned widely, like someone under the influence of a danger-induced rush.

“Oh, I agree—we won’t be going back to the St. Louis Number One any time soon.”

I shook my head again, more strongly. “No, Joshua. You don’t get it: it’s not going to happen again, because nothing’s going to happen again. Not between us. Not anymore.”

Joshua’s smile held, but faltered at the corners. “Amelia? What’s going on?”

I steeled my back, and my voice. “I’ve been lying to you, Joshua. You called me out for acting weird lately, and I lied to you about it. So now I’m going to tell you the truth: I’ve been thinking a lot about us, and our future.”

“And?” he said softly.

“And we don’t have one. A future, I mean. Tonight just proved it.”

His smile disappeared. “But … but tonight was just about me helping you. I thought you were okay with that?”

“I … I lied.”

Panic edged into his eyes. “Look, I won’t try that again. I promise.”

“N-no,” I whispered, my voice finally cracking. “You probably won’t. But will it matter? When five, ten, twenty years pass, will it really matter that we just sat back and enjoyed each other? Are you really going to be a forty-year-old man with a dead, eighteen-year-old girlfriend?”

Now Joshua’s eyes burned. He lunged forward, clasping his hands to my upper arms. He didn’t intend to hurt me, but he grabbed me forcefully enough that the movement lifted me onto my toes.

“I will, Amelia,” he said roughly. “I will.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I moaned, trying to pull away from him. I cursed myself when the tears began to flow, filling my eyes despite my resolution to be cold and immovable. “I’m leaving you, Joshua. Right now.”

He leaned in, trying to hold my gaze. But I closed my eyes so tightly, I forced the tears out onto my cheeks. I had to get out of here, had to materialize before my willpower completely crumbled.

So I ignored him. Ignored the heat I suddenly felt rising off his skin. Instead of his smile, his hands, his eyes, I pictured the ghosts I’d met in Jackson Square. Though they didn’t expect me for another day, I pictured myself finding them, joining them. Fading with them.

The effort worked. I could feel the soft pull of the materialization tugging me out of Joshua’s arms. Helping me vanish from his life forever.

Just before I slipped away, I heard him call out to me.

“Amelia, don’t do this! Stay with me.”

“Why?” I sobbed, though I could no longer see him. But his fading whisper still followed me into the darkness.

“Because I love you, Amelia.”

Chapter

NINETEEN

I love you.

The words whispered in my mind long after they’d been spoken. They echoed, haunting me, distracting me in the darkness.

Maybe they were the reason my materialization didn’t work. Not entirely anyway.

When I opened my eyes, I didn’t see the other ghosts. Instead, I saw a throng of drunken, living people, laughing and shouting and surging around me. Beads were flying, drinks were sloshing, and loud music was pouring out from every window and door.

Bourbon Street.

For all I knew, I’d landed right in the middle of a parade, or what might have been just an average night in the French Quarter. Either way, it was nothing but utter chaos, and it mirrored perfectly how I felt inside.

I began to stumble through the crowd like a zombie—mindless, uncaring, blind. I wanted to be numb, too, but my body wasn’t complying with that wish. As I walked, I grew dizzier and sicker, burning and reeling inside. It felt like my veins were filling up with kerosene and my brain was just seconds away from striking a match.

At this point, I probably wouldn’t stop it. While I stumbled and burned, one word repeated itself on an endless loop in my mind.

Mistake. Mistake. Mistake.

I pushed my way through the mass of bodies, moving without direction or coherent thought. With nothing on my mind but that one repeating word and the impulse to get away. Every now and then I would catch the stench of rot, alcohol, and centuries of decadence. Even though they vanished quickly, these momentary sensations just made my head spin faster.

The farther I walked, the dizzier I got and the more the crowd pressed smothering-close. Their drunken laughter disoriented me so much, I started to superimpose the scene on other memories.