“Well, if we’re going to stop them, we’re going to have to figure out where they went.”
Even though Allie had no need to breathe, she forced her lungs to fill, and let out a long slow breath. “What if we don’t have to find them?” she said. “What if there were a way to stop Mary’s skinjackers without having to know where they’ve gone . . . just where they’ve been?”
Mikey shook his head. “I don’t follow.”
o;Yeah, well, we’re all almost something.”
Nick pulled his feet out of the ground, nearly losing his balance.
“Stop that. You’re making me nervous. And when I get nervous . . .” Clarence didn’t finish the thought. He just grabbed his drink and took a swig, then stood from the bar. “Looks like someone once croaked in a booth back there. Unlucky for him, lucky for you.”
Sure enough, there was a corner booth that had a bright little deadspot on the seat just big enough for an Afterlight to sit on. They went to the booth and sat across from each other.
“You tell Mikey I’m done with this nasty business,” said Clarence. “I want nothing to do with any of you anymore.”
“I understand,” Nick said. “But—”
“No buts!” Clarence slammed his drink down so hard an ice cube leaped out and slithered across the table like a snail. There were tears in Clarence’s eyes now, both the living and the dead one.
“When I touched that boy, I felt something. Something awful. Something I can’t describe.”
“We all felt it,” Nick said.
“You may have felt it, but I caused it.” Then both his eyes seemed to go far away. “Something changed out there. I don’t know what it was, but something in the world changed because that kid didn’t deserve what I did to him—and the powers that be know that I did it.” Nick watched as a tear fell from his Everlost eye and disappeared through the living world table.
“What if,” said Nick, not even sure what he was going to say yet, “what if you were that kid and you were told you could change the world, but you would have to sacrifice yourself to do it?”
Clarence chuckled at the thought. “I believe that question was already asked a long time ago, and that creepy kid did not look anything like Jesus to me.”
“But you do think that something changed. . . .”
“I don’t know whether it’s good or bad.”
“What if it’s neither?” suggested Nick. “What if we get to make it one or the other?”
Clarence finished the rest of his drink and crunched on the remaining ice. “You’re a pain in my derriere, you know that?” Clarence said. “Derriere, that’s French for ‘butt.’”
“I figured.”
Clarence took a long look at his empty glass, his unkempt clothes, and his Everlost hand, which, to his left eye, was nothing more than a shriveled lump.
“You know, I wasn’t always like this,” he said softly.
“Neither was I,” Nick replied. “But maybe . . . maybe we’ll both find who we once were.”
Clarence looked at him, perhaps seeing more than just the chocolate. Nick thought he caught the slightest hint of a nod, but then the bartender called over.
“Hey! Hey, you in the corner!”
On TV, the news had switched away from the quake, and now was reporting live from the playground disaster. A teacher being interviewed spoke of a disheveled, scar-faced man who had saved them.
“Hey!” yelled the bartender. “Are you the guy?”
Clarence sighed. “Yeah, I’m the guy.”
“That’s great, man. Hey, your drink is on the house!”
“That’s good, because I can’t pay for it anyway.”