He shifts back, his angular jaw clenched tight, and it’s clear in his expression the thought hadn’t occurred to him until she’d said it.

She shakes her head. “Sorry, I’m not doing a good job explaining. See, I think I know why I don’t remember anything and why it’s hard to pick things up and why I don’t need food or sleep or—your sweatshirt.” She looks up at him, waiting for him to say something, but he doesn’t. Licking her lips, her eyes pulsing with anxiety, she says, “I’m pretty sure I’m dead.”

CHAPTER 8 HIM

COLIN STARES AT HER, PART CONFUSED, PART horrified. “Okay?” he says, eyebrows slowly rising. Half of his mouth tilts in an unsure smile. This can’t be happening. It can’t. “Dead, huh?” He blinks, pressing his hands to his eyes. He’s officially lost his mind.

“Yeah.” She stands and walks a few steps toward the pond.

Colin watches her as she gazes at her reflection and wonders if a dead girl would even have one. “So, when you said you’re here for me, you mean, you came back from the dead for me?”

He can see her nod even though she faces away from him. “That’s what I mean.”

Dread, heavy and cold, settles between his ribs. No, please no. “But if you’re dead, how can you open doors, or”—he points to the sweatshirt in her arms—“hold my hoodie, or even wear the school uniform?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. I’m pretty sure I look the same. Still tall and knobby. But I’m less clumsy.” She looks over her shoulder and smiles at him sadly, then turns away again. “But I think I feel different, less solid, less . . .” She trails off, shaking her head. “Just less. I remember dying, but I’m here. That’s all I can tell you.”

Her long white-blond hair reaches the bottom hem of her blue shirt, and she looks so eerily beautiful in front of the pond with the perfectly sliced half-moon directly overhead. Suddenly the idea that he’s losing his mind doesn’t seem so impossible. Colin wonders if Lucy is even really here.

“Lucy, what color is your hair?”

She turns, a confused smile on her face. “Brown . . . ?”

With this, he drops his head into his hands and groans.

Lucy walks over, sitting beside him on the bench. “Why did you ask me that?”

“It’s nothing.”

She reaches out and takes his hand, but he immediately drops it, shooting up from the bench and wiping his palms on his thighs. “What the hell?”

His hand tingles where it touched hers, the sensation slowly fading into buzzing warmth. She felt like static, like charged particles in the shape of a girl. Colin stares at her and then puffs his cheeks out as he exhales.

“What is going on?” he murmurs, looking beyond her and up at the sky. He’s suddenly remembering every burnout kid that’s come back from the woods with a story about something they saw. How his mom used to talk about . . . God, he can’t start thinking about that. The idea that Lucy is a Walker is impossible. The idea that Walkers are real is even more impossible. But either scenario makes him nearly choke with panic. Because if Walkers aren’t real, then he is insane. And if they are real . . . then maybe his mother wasn’t crazy after all.

And right now, in every other way, he feels sane. He does. He remembered to grab a jacket before he came outside; he’s wearing shoes. He thinks he’s speaking coherently. When he looks around, he doesn’t see anything amiss—no spiders crawling up his body or stars weaving in the sky. Just a brown-haired girl who looks blond to him, says she’s a ghost, and feels like static heat.

That’s it. He’s insane.

“Why didn’t I think about it more?”

“Think about what?”

He waves a hand, blindly indicating the area around her head. “Your hair is blond, and Jay says it’s brown. And your eyes? Oh God. What is going on?”

“My eyes? My hair?” Lucy bends to catch his gaze. “I look different to you?”

He shrugs stiffly. It feels like there is a stampede of horses galloping in his chest.

“I look different to you and it didn’t freak you out before?”

“Not until now.” He groans. “I guess I didn’t want to think about it. I don’t ever want to think about it.”

“Think about what?”

“Nothing. Forget it.” He shoves his hands into his hair, pulls.

“What did my hand feel like?” she asks, more insistent now.

“Um . . . ? Like . . .” He shakes his head, trying to find the right words. “Energy . . . and buzzing . . .”

She offers her hand again. After staring at it for what feels like an eternity, he steps forward, breathing heavily, and takes it. In his grip, her touch snaps against his skin before settling into a warm, vibrant hum. His voice shakes when he says, “Like energy and air? Um . . .” The hum begins to fill him with a longing so intense he feels disoriented. He releases it again and steps back, shaking both hands at his sides like he’s flicking away water. “It’s crazy, Lucy. This is crazy.”

She steps toward him, but he takes another step back, needing space to breathe. He feels like the air is being sucked from his lungs when she’s so close. As if reading his mind, she pulls her hands into the sleeves of her shirt.

But after a long moment, curiosity takes over. Reaching forward, he tugs at her sleeve, pulling her hand out and toward him. His fingertips run over her palm before he turns her hand and presses it to his. Snapping, crackling energy followed by a delicious warmth and the relief of a strange, deep ache. The shape of her is obvious, but he can’t close his hand over hers. When he presses too hard, her energy almost seems to repel his touch.

Is it really his mind doing this?