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.

The coffin was composed of an expensive dark mahogany, sheened over with a gloss that glittered in the daylight. I hadn't seen it since two years ago, when I'd been all clad in black, watching my brother's arms folded and his body lowered deep into the earth. That same day, I saw him again, and the day before, I'd become an angel. The week altogether would have been enough to draw most people to the mental asylum.

I lowered myself into the pit of his grave, helping Lucie down on the other side. She looked at me, her eyes wide, face streaked with soil. Her hair was a frizzy halo, barely contained by a ponytail holder.

"Are you ready?" I asked, and she nodded.

I stood opposite her. Both of our fingers were latched on the coffin's lid; for a moment, there was only the sound of our breaths. "On three," I said.

"One..."

Vinny's voice in my head: All I'm ever going to be is a phantom.

"Two..."

I don't want to be just another tragedy.

"Three!"

We heaved the lid off. Lucie sidestepped it just as it slid to the ground with a thunk, and then we both peered inside.

Nestled inside the casket's immaculate white bedding was my brother. Not a skeleton, but my brother, fair hair tossed in his shut eyes, skin a healthy pink, chest rising and falling. Instead of the expensive suit my mother had made sure he'd been buried in, he wore the clothes in which he'd died: white t-shirt and gray swim trunks, a neon stripe down the side. He was the same age he'd been that night, a gentle and innocent fifteen years old.

I stared.

Lucie stared.

Vinny breathed.

After two years, there he was, lying in his coffin as if he'd been peacefully sleeping all this time. Death was life again.

Lucie blinked at the sleeping boy. "Is he gonna wake up, or—"

Vinny inhaled sharply, eyes snapping open.

"—Jesus Christ."

Vince's chest was heaving. His eyes were round, an unforgiving blue I'd forgotten could be so vibrant. They were like the ocean in the morning, pale blue water, the flecks of gold like the sun's refracted light. He was shaking, hands reaching out to grapple the edges of the casket.

I called, frantic, "Vince! Vince! Are you okay?"

"My—I'm breathing," he exhaled, eyes switching from me to Lucie and back to me again, all at record speed. "I'm breathing, I'm breathing, and I can feel my heart—where am I? What's happening to me?"

I reached over, beginning to mop the sweaty hair from his forehead, but hesitating.

I hadn't touched him since before the accident.

Two years since I'd made any sort of contact with him.

My hands were shaking.

My skin touched his, and he gawked at me as I pushed the hair from his forehead, feeling the heat underneath. There was blood running in his veins, a pulse in his neck, air in his lungs. I pecked him gently on the forehead, tears ambushing me. I could barely speak. "Vinny...you're alive. Because you possessed Dempsey..."

"I took his life," Vinny murmured, and then his eyes snapped to Lucie. "Lucie, I'm sorry."

For a second, I thought she was upset. But the tears in her eyes were ones of joy, and she laughed through them, shaking her head at him. "Shut up. Vinny, you're alive! You're alive...oh God. Am I crying? I think I'm crying. Ew."

Vinny managed a chuckle, though it sounded breathless. "You're right. I'm alive. This feels so weird." He moved slowly, pulling his body to a sitting position using the edge of the coffin. I stared at him, watching each movement carefully, as if this was some sort of dream, like he'd be a ghost again if only I blinked. But I stared, and he stayed there, breathing and functioning as any other person would.

He wasn't the faded, meek spirit who played with the lights or my Norwegian band posters anymore, no longer could be called there but not there. The river that had separated me from his world, and him from mine, had dried. We were on the same plane. I had never felt as close to him as I did now.

Vinny's voice sounded uneven. I realized his eyes were wet with unshed tears. "Cian..."

I folded him against me. I wanted to hug him as firmly as humanly possible, just to prove I'd never let him down again, but I didn't want to break his frail form. Instead, I just softly held him in my arms, my head leaned over my shoulders, my sobs breaking the silence of the tranquil California afternoon around us. It was strange to feel his body against mine, corporeal and—and existing. It felt like a second and it felt like forever, my little brother and I, never separating.

I shut my eyes, whispering, "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, Vinny. I'll never let you down again. You're my little brother, and I love you so much, and I'll never let a thing happen to you ever again, ever—"

He laughed, shushing me. "Stop blabbing, Cian; you're ruining the moment. And let me go. You're hurting me a little."

I released him, stepping back. Tear tracks stained his cheeks. "Sorry," I said. "Sorry."

Lucie came towards my brother, an unshakable smile gripping her lips. She looked so happy then that it only swelled the joy in my heart further. I had thought that Eden, Vinny, and I would always be together back then, that we were inseparable. I had thought it would always be our little trio against the world. And I was almost right.

Yet Eden was not the girl who'd always stick by my side, and by my brother's. That was this girl, standing in front of me. Lucie Monteith was my everything. She was my forever.

Her eyes were trained on the pale blond strands of my brother's hair. He noticed, and nodded sheepishly. "Go ahead."

She gasped. "Really? I can?"

He shrugged.

Lucie laughed childishly and ruffled Vinny's hair as if she'd never done so to anyone else, and at the smile on his face, laughed some more. She said, "I can't say I'm glad to have you back, since I wasn't there before. So, Vinny, I'm just...I'm just glad to have you. Really."

He slid his hand into hers, and brought it to his lips. "You too, Lucie."

She grinned in appreciation, then lifted her eyes to mine. "I don't know about you two, but don't you think there's some others Vinny should see?"

She cocked her head at me, and I got her message. Together, we helped Vinny to his feet and to level ground again, filling the grave back in and heading for the Escalade.

Vinny looped an arm around either of our shoulders, as his legs were still a bit wobbly. He glanced at me. "Where are we going, exactly?"

"Home," I said.

"Are you getting a gun?"

I smirked at him. "Not this time, Vince."