Chapter 52
The soft whoomp whoomp whoomp of the ghost train mirrored the beating of my heart. I leaned my head against the firm muscles of Finn’s shoulder and looked up at his hard, unshaven jaw and the feathering lines of his eyelashes.
The train rolled slowly along the track, and its gentle glide pulled me into a sleep-thick relaxation. My arms and my legs felt heavy, as if they were full of sand sliding down an hourglass. I wrapped my arms around Finn’s middle and curled into him.
I wasn’t surprised to find myself riding this nighttime train. Before I went to sleep, I’d warded the space under my bed, and I’d locked my door. There was no way into my room, and if I didn’t unlock the door, there was no way out.
“How are you doing this?” I asked, spreading my hand over the warmth of his chest. “Why are you doing this?”
With my face buried against his side, I could breathe him in. He smelled like he did before solange. A summer meadow with a storm on the horizon. The promise of rain, lightning, and thunder.
Before, he’d said these ghost train rides would save me.
“Finn?”
He looked down at me, his hazel and navy eyes solemn. “Did you kill Durst and Haddock?”
This wasn’t the same as times before. He wasn’t relaxed or happy.
We weren’t kids this time. I wasn’t dressed in my black jeans and top like the first time.
Instead, I was wearing a red satin dress with miles of tulle, a black lace overskirt, and black lace gloves.
It looked vintage, like the wooden ghost train.
Finn was wearing a classic black tuxedo with tails.
His black hair was combed back, leaving his face stern and hard.
He looked more like his dad. Like the Smith.
“Who?” I asked, pressing my hand to his heart.
The muscles in his jaw clenched. “Two Smiths. At The Other Place.”
I pushed upright. “No.”
“And Pole . . .” He swallowed painfully. “Did you torture—?”
“No.”
He studied my expression, peering at me like he was trying to see inside me. “Can I believe you?”
“No,” I said for the third time. “You can’t. But I didn’t.”
“And Rockefeller? Was that you?”
I turned away from him and looked out the window. We were moving across the river, heading east. A century ago, this train never left the city, but now, it was floating along an elevated track, veering toward the shore.
The train had a long, padded bench seat, red floors, and lights lining the ceiling. The leather straps for passengers to hold onto swayed above us with the car’s rocking.
The train was empty except for us. The windows were closed. The clatter of the wheels was no longer soothing.
I searched the city lights. We were in Brooklyn now, racing south, Midtown and Rockefeller far behind us.
“So it was you,” Finn finally said. “People died, Mari.”
“No—” I shook my head. No one had died. We’d made certain . . .
My stomach dropped at the look on his face.
“How many?” I whispered.
“Too many.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Finn didn’t answer; he only watched me.
I didn’t know what to trust or what to think.
“Is this real? Or are we figments here? I don’t feel Jagger”—I pressed my hand to the lace over my heart—“when I’m here with you.
Not so much. Usually, his presence suffocates and chokes me, but here, I can breathe.
” I dropped my hand to my skirt. “I don’t think it’s real.
In real life, you’re cruel. You want to kill me. You destroyed Hell Gate.”
Finn reached over and gripped my hand. “What if life is the illusion and this is what’s real?”
“Did you leave me a note?”
He bent his head and gave me a slow smile that worked a flush over my body. “A note?”
I nodded. “Saying you stopped by. Yesterday?”
“No. I didn’t. I’ve been . . .” He searched for the words, then he shook his head. “I can’t tell you. But no.”
Yet it had been his handwriting. His slanted scrawl. His signature. His note.
I poked at the feel of Jagger’s will inside me. I prodded at his roots wrapped around my bones and the drive to hate and to hurt. I tapped the hollow drum of his orders and felt them echo inside me. It was so quiet the usual jarring shout was only a slight vibration.
The train had slowed, swaying softly like an old mare, slope-backed, tiredly plodding down a winding valley.
“If life is illusion,” I said, turning into him and wrapping my arms around his shoulders, “and this is real . . .”
“This is real.” He spanned his hands across my rib cage. He stroked my sides, his thumbs barely brushing over me. Still, the heat of him breached the smooth satin of my dress.
I leaned forward and pressed my mouth to his.
He tasted like cherries, sweet and tart.
Finn had always loved cherries. He let out a sharp exhale, and his grip tightened as he pulled me closer.
His mouth was smooth, his lower lip soft, as I feathered my way across him.
A tingle started at my lips and then spread over me, racing through my blood.
It was a luminous ache, like a rainbow caught in a raindrop just as it hits the pavement.
The pain and the pleasure warred inside me.
I’d only been gently tracing my mouth over his, a prelude to a kiss, but with a soft, carnal noise, Finn stole the kiss from me and took possession of my mouth.
He breathed my name, rocking against me, pulling me close.
The satin of my dress rustled and whispered, and the wool of his tuxedo scraped my arms as he held me.
I gasped as he picked me up and spread my skirt so I lay on his lap, sprawled on the narrow bench.
My skin flushed and prickled as if I were naked under the noonday sun.
Finn drew a plea from me, and he drank it in.
He traced the line of my lips, opened my mouth with his, and mimicked the act of love.
I lay in his arms glowing, burning, tingling, aching.
He was loving me. In his kiss, I felt the echo of the promises we’d sworn the night we married.
I surrendered to his love; promised it back.
A tear leaked out of the corner of my eye and fell to our lips, salty and sweet.
Finn paused, his mouth hovering a breath from mine. “Mari?”
I closed my eyes. Another tear fell.
“Does it hurt?”
It was excruciating.
With the pleasure and the echo of love, Jagger’s blood had strengthened. It was devouring and choking. It was . . .
Finn frowned and leaned back.
He gently wiped at the space below my nose. His finger came away covered in blood.
“Nosebleed.”
He pulled the white handkerchief from his tuxedo pocket and cleaned the blood trickling free. When he pulled it away, it was stained red.
“Okay?” he asked. His voice was gruff, as if he were having a hard time speaking.
I nodded. I didn’t trust myself to speak. I didn’t trust myself to move. What if I did something like the last time we kissed and stabbed him? I gripped the lace on my dress and concentrated on the scratchiness.
Finn tucked the handkerchief away. The white and the red reminded me of the night Jagger had declared I was officially a mine. It was right after Justice and I fought.
“How did you survive the Clark’s trap?” I asked, thinking about the water illusion.
Finn shook his head. “I didn’t.”
So he’d drowned.
That settled it—this wasn’t real. But sadly, even in dreams, Jagger still had a hold on me. Weak or strong, it was still there.
“You keep dying.” I loosened my hands and frowned at the wrinkled dress.
The train groaned, swayed, and then heaved to a final stop. The doors slid open, and a blast of warm, sea-salt air fanned through the car.
“We’re here,” Finn said, lifting me from his lap and setting me on my feet.
Gently, he took my hand and pulled me from the ghost train.
As we stepped onto the wooden platform, the train’s door sighed closed, and it swept quickly away like sand blown from a dune.
“Where are we?” I whispered.
Finn smiled. “I think . . . I think we found paradise.”