Chapter Eight

Even though I'd told myself that I wasn't going to be able to enjoy it, I had to admit that I was kind of exited. For the first time in my life I was going to an actual mall. For real, not just in the fictional sense.

I was dressed in the same clothes I had on yesterday, and was combing through my hair as someone knocked on my door.

"Come in!" I called.

Simon peeked in, one hand covering his eyes. "You decent?"

I laughed.

"Sure," I said, putting the brush down on the dresser and giving myself one last glance in the mirror. My hair looked longer than normal, but I figured I was just imagining it, wanting it to be longer. My freckles seemed more dominant today, as they sometimes did when I'd spent time in the sun, and I frowned at that as I turned to face my new friend. I didn't like my freckles. I thought it made my skin look dirty sometimes.

"So …" Simon said, smiling. "You exited?"

I walked over to the bed, sitting down and gesturing for him to join me. He did.

"I actually am," I said. "I mean, I know I shouldn't be, but–"

Simon placed a hand over mine, stopping me from finishing the sentence.

"Of course you should," he said softly. "You have every right to be happy, Leah. And as a teenage girl, I think a trip to the mall is included in the happy-package."

"Thanks. So, are the others ready to go? Is that why you're here?"

Simon glanced at the door, "Yeah," he said, looking back to me. "But I wanted to talk to you about something first."

"What's up?"

Simon stuck his hand into his pocket, searching for something. "Close your eyes," he said. When I didn't, he repeated himself, and I did as he'd asked.

"Now open your hand," he said.

I lifted my hand, open palm facing upward.

"I'm getting a gift?" I asked, smiling at the thought.

"Something like that," Simon murmured, and I felt him move beside me. Something small and cold dropped into my open palm, and I close my hand around it automatically. I could feel what it was. A ring.

"Are you proposing to me?" I asked mockingly and opened my eyes. When I looked at Simon, he looked back at me, his eyes amused.

"You really are one odd fourteen-year-old," he said, shaking his head. "You know that, right?"

"I've been told."

He nudged me with his shoulder.

"Come on, open it."

I looked down at my hand. For some reason, I wanted to wait for as long as possible. I'd never gotten a gift just like that before. Sure, Ron had sneaked me an extra chocolate milk from time to time, but no one had ever given me something else than what was handy for the taking at the moment.

Slowly, I uncurled my fingers, and when I saw what lay in my hand, I gasped.

"When did you ..?" I asked, amazed at what I saw.

Simon plucked the silver circle from my hand, the dark stone shimmering briefly as the sun shone through the window. He took my hand, and gently slid the ring onto my middle finger.

"I thought you might want to see it again," he said, his gaze never leaving my hand. "So I kept it for you. Safekeeping, until the right moment came for me to give it back to you." His thumb stoked across the top of my hand, a soothing gesture. "I just thought … Well, if it was your mother that gave it to you, you shouldn't leave it hanging from some tree outside a prison."

I stared at my hand, and tears sprung to my eyes. Only, this time, the tears weren't broken ones.

I flung my arms around his neck.

"Thank you so much," I said. "I can't believe you did that."

Simon hugged me back.

"No worries."

"Who's ready for some serious fun-time–"

We pulled apart as Tori entered the room, staring at us. Before I knew what was happening, she stormed across the room, slapping the back of Simon's head and calling him word I will not repeat.

"What the heck, Simon! She's like a toddler!" Tori crossed her arms, glaring at him. Realizing what she must've thought when she'd seen us, I blushed, feeling my entire face burn with the redness.

Simon just laughed, standing up from the bed.

"Well, I'm not the one with the crazy ideas here," he said. "That'd be you, Tori. I mean, the girl saved my life. I think she's earned herself some thank-you-hugs."

Tori scowled at him, pointing toward the open door. When I glanced in that direction, I could see Chloe leaning against the doorframe, obviously trying to suppress a smile.

"This is a girls day," Tori said to Simon. "And as far as I know, you're not a girl. So leave. Take your brother for a walk or something. And don't forget the ball, or he won't play nice."

Simon laughed, turning to leave.

"You better not say stuff like that when he's around," he called back. He stopped just as he'd passed Chloe and looked back at Tori. "Or he'll mark his territory on those expensive shoes of yours."

Tori let out an aggravated cry, and shot her arm out. I yelped at light seared from her fingers, Simon barely managing to duck in time, the light swooshing by above his head.

"Sometimes I really hate you, Simon Bae!" Tori yelled after him as he disappeared from view.

"Oh, please," I heard him say, his words becoming more and more distant as he walked. "No one could not not like me."

"Yeah, well," Tori called after him. "You just wait and see, Simon Bae! By the time we're back from girls day out, I'll make sure Leah here absolutely despises you!"

I didn't think he was still close enough to answer.

"Not possible!"

I laughed at the sound of his barely audible voice, but stopped abruptly when Tori spun around, glaring at me.

"He's not funny," she said. Or, more like, told, me. Demanded. "He just thinks he is."

"Give it a rest, Tori," Chloe said, walking into the room for the first time. "If memory serves, you seemed to think he was funny. You seemed to think a lot of things about–"

"Oh, no you don't, Chloe Saunders!" Tori snapped. "It has been agreed upon that we do never, ever!, speak about that. Ever!"

Chloe chuckled, and dropped down beside me on the bed. She handed something over to me. Surprised, I took it from her hands.

"My diary?" I asked, confused. "Why do you …" I stopped, realizing what was happening. They had my diary. My secrets. My personal secrets. And I'd written stuff about Simon in there. Fourteen-year-old-girl-meet-cute-older-guy-for-the-first-time stuff.

"We didn't read it," Chloe hurried to say. "We didn't even open it. Well, Tori wanted to, but I refused to let anyone do it. It shouldn't have been taken from you in the first place; Liz was just trying to help out."

I looked at her, frowning, asking, "Liz?"

Chloe smiled.

"Liz is kind of the one person in this family you haven't met yet. Well, you kind of have, several times; you've just not been able to see her."

My frown deepened. "What?"

"Liz is our ghost," Tori explained, and Chloe gave her a stern look.

"She's not our ghost," she said, looking back at me. "She's a ghost. And a friend."

"So she's dead?" I asked. "And she stole my diary? You sent a ghost to steal my diary?"

Chloe smiled, obviously amused.

"We sent Liz to retrieve the camera you stole from us," she said. "She just kind of snatched you diary at the same time."

My mind flashed to the night I'd seen the floating camera, and it finally made some sense. A ghost, Liz, had been carrying it. That's why I'd only seen the camera. I couldn't see the dead like Chloe could do. Like my dad could do.

No, I told myself. I wasn't going to think about that. I was never again going to think about my father or the prison. That part of my life was over.

"She figured we could use it to help Simon," Chloe explained. "But I told her we wouldn't read someone's diary like that. And after she'd showed us your picture and explained about how all you did was bring him food and talk to him, we realized you weren't one of the bad guys."

I wanted to say that they'd been wrong. That I had been one of the bad guys. I'd believed Simon was evil, that he'd belonged in there. I hadn't been nice to him because I knew he was innocent. I'd been nice to him because of selfish reasons. I'd only started speaking to him because of his age and that he was the closest to a normal companion I could find at the time. Pure evil or not. I'd wanted someone to talk to. I'd needed it.

"So …" I said, placing the book down on the bed and standing up. "The camera, I mean, Liz … she was like scoping out the place? Taking pictures for you guys to see so you could build a plan around it?"

"Exactly," Tori said.

"But …" Something they'd said earlier had me wondering. "How did she know I was talking to Simon? In the cell, I mean. She should've been blocked from there."

"She was," Chloe said. "Form the cell, but she still managed as far as the corridor. That's how she knew about you bringing the food too. She saw you with that cart. She also saw you reading that file you guys had on him, and she realized you weren't in on any of it."

"Oh," was all I said.

To be honest, I didn't know how to react to all this. It was weird knowing that I'd been followed around by a ghost that whole time, and it made me feel kind of violated.

"We can talk about this later," Tori said, grabbing my arm and dragging me toward the open door. "We have some serious shopping to do. And a whole lot of ice cream to eat."

We left my motel room and the two of them guided me to a parked car. It was small, normal-looking. Nothing out of the ordinary. Well, expect for the werewolf leaning against it.

"Hey," he said softly, snaking his arm around Chloe's waist and giving her hair a quick kiss. She smiled at him, and got up on her toes, kissing his lips instead. I felt like I should look away, but they'd separated before I'd made the decision to actually do so.

"You sure I shouldn't come with?" Derek asked Chloe, seeming unable to remove his hand from her arm. "I can just hang back, keep an eye out."

"We'll be fine, Derek," Chloe said. "I'll be just fine. We're just going to the mall. This have been the safest in a long time. I don't think they're staking out the local mall disguised as retail assistants."

I looked at them. "Safe from whom?"

"Oh," Tori said, waving her hand dismissively and opening the driver's side door. "Just some people wanting to kill us. Nothing new." She slid into the car. "Now come on! I really want a new pair of shoes!"

I stared at the spot above the car where her head had just been. Was she serious? A hand placed itself on my shoulder, and I turned to see Chloe.

"It's nothing to worry about, Leah. Promise. Today is all about the fun."

Chloe offered me the front seat, but I told her I'd prefer the back. As we drove out form the motel's parking lot and made out way to the mall, I used the time to really think over what they'd said. People were trying to kill them? Who? Why? I'd imagined everything was fine now that we'd gotten away from my dad and the prison. But what if it wasn't?

What if, not counting these mysterious killers they spoke about, my dad was searching for us? He had seemed really interested in these people. Was it to a degree that he'd take his zombies and come searching for us? Or had he, like Chloe had, sent someone even more dead? A ghost? An invisible spy to find us? No. Chloe would know if he had. She could see them too.

But could I really trust them? What if it all was an act? What if my dad had been right after all? What if these people were evil?

I shook my head. Looking down, I twirled the ring around my finger, and my thoughts landed on another issue I had. A toddler. That's what Tori had said. But did Simon see me that same way? I hoped not. I didn't want to admit it, mostly because she kind of had a point, he was older than me. But I still didn't know by how much. I was turning fifteen soon, so if he was eighteen it wasn't that much of a difference, was it? But these were things I had no idea about. I had absolutely no experience when it came to boys. Hell, I couldn't even be sure that what I was feeling for Simon was something in the way of a crush, but still … he made me feel something. Something new to me.

Yes, I decided. I did like Simon. But did he like me back? How was I to know? I didn't know how to read signals. I didn't even know if he was sending me signals.

I shook my head again, deciding I wasn't going to think this way. At least not today. Today was all about the fun, like Chloe had said, and as I saw the large building that was the local mall, I realized that the fun had already began.