“Maybe he'll go away if we don't answer," I said, and Jenks rose - sixty feet in a mere second. In another second, he dropped back down."He's coming around back," he said, his gold dust looking black through my sunglasses.Damn it back to the Turn. "Pix the sucker," I said, then waved my hand in negation when Jumoke clearly thought I was serious. The small pixy looked about six, and he took everything literally.[...]"Let him come back," I finally said. "If this is about that paper of his, he can suck my toes and die.”

“He bent, lips coming to mine and —'Derek? Chloe?' It was Kit, opening the back door. Derek let out a low growl.'Never fails.' I turned to Kit. 'How is she?''We’re going to take her back to the house now. She’s unconscious again.''Then we’ll walk back,' Derek said. 'Give you room in the van to lay her down.'His dad agreed and went back inside. As we walked toward the steps, I looked down at Derek’s hand, holding mine.'No one’s around,' he said. 'And we can take the back way.''Good,' I said, and entwined my fingers with his.”

“Finally, he pushed back the chair and exhaled."He's alive," I said. "Your dad's alive."He loooked up at me and, I couldn't help it-- I threw my arms around his neck and hugged him. Then I realized what I was doing. I let go, backing away, tripping over my feet, stammering. "I-I'm sorry. I'm just--I'm happy for you.""I know."Still sitting, he reached out and pulled me toward him. We stayed there, looking at each other, his hand still wrapped around my shirt hem, my heart hammering so hard I wash sure he could hear it."There's more," I said after a few seconds. "More emails, Tori said."He nodded and swiveled back to the computer, making room for me. When I inched closer, not wanting to intrude, he tugged me in front of him and I stumbled, half falling onto his lap. I tried to scramble up, cheeks burning, but he pulled me down onto his knee, one arm going around my waist, tentative, as if to say Is this okay? It was, even if my blood pounded in my ears so hard I couldn't think.”

“Ford put a hand to his head. “Back up. Back up!” he cried. “You’re too close.” Heart pounding, I looked at the eight feet between us and pressed into the fridge. “I think he meant for the ghost to back up,” Jenks said dryly.”

“Sorry about Bender," Lula said, letting the Trans Am idle at the curb. "Maybe we could tell Vinnie he died. We could say we were all set to bring Bender in, and he died. Bang. Dead as a doorknob.""Better yet, why don't we just go back and kill him," I said. I opened the door to leave, caught my toe in the floor mat, and fell out of the car, face first. I rolled onto my back and stared up at the stars. "I'm fine," I said to Lula. "Maybe I'll sleep here tonight.”

“Al was standing a bare three feet away, his mood almost jovial as he took the paper and it vanished in a wash of black sparkles. “Thank you, Rachel,” he said, carefully reaching for my hand as Trent stiffened. “Welcome back, my itchy witch.”