The Departed

say so, Tristan. If that’s what you want. Well, then—let’s go look for these so-called pals of yours.”
     

CHAPTER SIX
    “SO everything’s ready for tonight?”
    Brendan Moore leaned against the wall, studying everybody. He saw excitement. He also saw fear and nerves. He didn’t give a damn. It was going to be a party to remember—just the way they’d all planned. Nobody could get in the way now. They all knew what would happen if they tried, too.
    Besides, it was too late to stop things.
    Beau smirked and lifted his beer to his lips. “Oh, yeah. It’s ready. Man, people are going to freak .”
    “I still say we should have stuck with Halloween.”
    “Shut up, Kyle,” Brendan said, rolling his eyes. “The party tonight is the best way to do it. It’s supposed to be about senior year, anyway, not Halloween. Everybody from school will see it, and we’ll be in the middle, too—nice little alibi in case anything gets fucked up.” He paused and looked at each of them. “Not that anything is going to get fucked up, right? Mark, you took care of all the security shit, right?”
    Mark nodded, rocking a little, tugging on his lip. He wanted a drink. Needed it, but his stomach was fucking burning. If he had a drink, he’d puke. And he needed to quit drinking—that was part of why he was in this mess. Started drinking, hanging out with these assholes. He couldn’t believe they were doing this. Shit, he should have listened to Tristan, back when they still had a chance to talk to somebody about Brendan…
    “Mark, damn it, get your head out of your ass.”
    Jerking his head up, he stared at Brendan. His heart raced, his gut rolled. But he managed to smile. “Sorry, man—just running things through my mind, ya know. Don’t want anything to get fucked up.”
    Brendan stared at him for a long, hard moment and Mark hoped none of the fear he felt showed in his eyes, on his face.
    Finally Brendan looked away and Mark wanted to heave a sigh of relief, but he didn’t dare. Couldn’t let the guy know how scared he was, what he was thinking. Not Brendan. Not Beau, either.
    * * *
     
    THE noise was cacophonous—pushing past the level of deafening. Even before she drew near, Dez bolstered her shields. With that much noise, she’d need it. Even though she didn’t have the same connection to the living that she had with the dead, she knew better than to go unshielded, especially around chaos.
    It was going to be hard to pinpoint much of anything—damn it, she was the worst possible person to be doing this job. Worst possible person to help Tristan, it seemed, because he needed somebody who could connect with the living—all she could do was connect with him, and his memories were too fractured. He had no connection to what had happened after his death, just a desperate need for justice, to help this girl, wherever she was.
    Sighing, she pushed through the door and immediately a blast of muggy air wrapped around her. For a moment, it chased away the cold and she paused, enjoying it even as her eyes went wide at the sheer chaos she saw before her.
    No. It wasn’t chaos. Chaos didn’t quite touch this.
    Happy chaos didn’t even touch it. The shrieks of joy coming from the kids, the shouts and giggles. Without even realizing it, a smile curved her lips and she stood there, letting it settle over her.
    There weren’t many times in her life when she’d seen such…delight.
    A pint-sized tornado came blasting her way. Dez froze, watching as an exasperated mother followed, grabbing the girl before she could get around Dez and make it to the doors.
    So many sensations, so much emotion—all of them wrapping around her, flooding her. There was laughter, exhaustion, frustration, exhilaration—but overall, almost everything she allowed to filter through her shields felt… right .
    Dez stood there, all but wallowing in it. It was so exhilarating it took a minute to realize that something felt off. Wrong. Completely off. Utterly wrong. And terribly foul .
    A whisper of evil, underlain with terror. It skittered along her shields like a slimy little beast trying to push its way inside her soul. She swallowed, closed her eyes, and tried to focus on it, but it was faint. So faint.
    Aware of the fact that she was catching attention standing there, she showed her wristband to the teenager sitting a few feet away from the door. Once she’d done that, she just wandered around the huge, open-air room, no destination