Pulse

Chapter 48

Cian

I didn't think I had ever moved this fast. It was a miracle Lucie was even holding on, and a part of me felt bad for dragging her along when God knows she must have been exhausted—but this was urgent. We had already taken too long buying shovels at Lowe's (Lucie: "Who gets this excited about buying shovels?"), and I was trying to compensate for it by pressing down the Escalade's gas pedal and making dangerously sharp turns. Lucie looked both sick and as if she wanted to slap me.

Bracing herself against the car's dash, she demanded, "You have an annoying habit of figuring stuff out and then not telling anyone else, you know. Sorry I'm not the best with deduction, but what's happening right now?"

I shook my head. I could see my destination up ahead, the dead grass with gravestones dotting it like manmade flowers. Crows circled the area, cawing their eerie songs. The road roared underneath the tires, almost as loud as the blood pounding in my ears. "It's Vinny. If I'm not crazy, he might be...alive."

It was insane to hear the words Vinny and alive in the same sentence. Even crazier that it made perfect sense.

Lucie sputtered. "But how—"

"Questions later. Right now we need to get him out of his grave before he wakes up, or he'll be dead all over again," I snapped, a bit harsher than I'd intended. Lucie wasn't looking at me. My hands, grasping the steering wheel in a white-knuckled grip, were shaking, not unlike my whole body. Vinny. Vinny. Vinny. This is what I had always wanted. To have him back, there—no longer a mirage reached for, but something solid. And now, now I was so close that I didn't know if I was more excited or terrified. "I...I can't have that."

"Oh my God," murmured Lucie, pressing her head into the dash, her knees knocking together as they shook. She flicked her gaze up at me as I pulled into the graveyard's parking lot, my heart skipping and adding beats. "Are we seriously graverobbing?"

"No," I said, hopping from the car and popping the trunk. I thrust a shovel at Lucie and took one for myself, slamming it back down. I paused at the graveyard's entrance, reading the wiry letters above my head: East San Francisco Cemetery. I exhaled. "We're giving Vinny the second chance he deserves. Now come on. Hurry."

"This is insane."

"I know."

"I hope he's okay."

"He will be if we move fast enough," I called, breaking into a sprint. It didn't take me long to reach his grave; I'd been here so many times that its location seemed programmed into my feet. I didn't have to think, I just moved. I just moved, and I was there, jamming the sharp end of my shovel into the earth as forcefully as I could. I didn't have time to hesitate. His life was in my hands once again, and I was not letting him down this time.

For every thievery there is a thief.

Edie's voice rung in my ears. Lucie was right. This was insane. Vinny had never possessed anyone, and I'd never heard that possessing a member of the undead gave your life back. But in a sense, it was practical—that when Vinny's spirit left Dempsey's body, he'd taken his life with him. I prayed Eden was right, that I'd get to the coffin in time and open it up and have my brother again.

Since the accident, he'd been the person I felt as if I owed the most. I wanted nothing more than to pay him back for what I did, because it wasn't fair. It had never been fair.

We were getting deeper.

It felt like years before we reached the coffin, arms shaking and sore, dirt on our foreheads and exhaustion written on our faces. The heat of the afternoon was unforgiving. Lucie grunted and cast her shovel aside, staring down below her.