Shine

PRAISE

FOR

SHADE

"Shade is a hauntingly good story and an intriguing beginning to a new series.

Jeri Smith-Ready proves again why she is one of my very favorite reads!"

—P.C. CAST, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE HOUSE OF NIGHT SERIES

The perfect combination of mystery, ghosts, and romance.

—LISA SCHROEDER, AUTHOR OF I HEART YOU, YOU HAUNT ME

"A fully satisfying read. Smith-Ready changes the world completely by simply

changing our ability to see."—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, STARRED REVIEW

PRAISE

FOR

SHIFT

"This sequel to Shade will not disappoint fans of paranormal romance with its

blend of action, star-crossed lovers, and entanglements, both dangerous and sexy."

—BOOKLIST

JERISMITHREADY.COM

LIFE CAN CHANGE IN AN

instant, and no one understands that better than Aura. It’s been almost a year since her boyfriend tragically died. She’s finally letting go of Logan’s violet-hued ghost, but not her search to uncover the truth about her past.

As the first in a generation that can see ghosts, Aura is convinced that she has a connection to the Shift. She’s trusted Zachary, ever patient and ever by her side, with all that she knows. But when the government threatens his life in an attempt to learn Aura’s secrets, she will stop at nothing to protect herself and the one she loves . . . even if that means betraying her own heart.

0512

JERI SMITH-READY is an award-winning author who lives in Maryland with her husband, two cats, and the world’s goofiest greyhound. Like many of her characters, Jeri loves music, movies, and staying up very, very late. Visit her at jerismithready.com or follow her on Twitter at @jsmithready.

Jacket designed by Jessica Handelman

Jacket photograph copyright © 2012 by Monica Stevenson

Author photograph copyright © 2006 by Szemere Photography

SIMON PULSE

Simon & Schuster, New York

Watch videos, get extras, and read

exclusives at

TEEN.SimonandSchuster.com

SHINE

Read the Shade trilogy

Shade

Shift

Shine

Also by Jeri Smith-Ready

Wicked Game

Bad to the Bone

Bring on the Night

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

SIMON PULSE

An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

www.SimonandSchuster.com

First Simon Pulse edition May 2012

Copyright © 2012 by Jeri Smith-Ready

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

SIMON PULSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event.

For more information or to book an event contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.

Designed by Mike Rosamilia

The text of this book was set in Adobe Caslon Pro.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Smith-Ready, Jeri.

Shine / Jeri Smith-Ready.

p. cm.

Sequel to: Shift.

Summary: Seventeen-year-old Aura must decide between two loves— ghostly Logan and very alive Zachary, her Scottish research partner—as she tries to unlock the mysteries of the Shift and of her past.

ISBN 978-1-4424-3945-0 (hc)

[1. Ghosts—Fiction. 2. Supernatural—Fiction. 3. Love—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.S6634Sj 2012 [Fic]—dc23 2011045611

ISBN 978-1-4424-3946-7 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-4424-3947-4 (eBook)

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Author’s Note

Acknowledgments

To each of you,

for bringing books to life

A light began to glow and to pervade the cave . . . and to melt the earthen floor into itself like a fiery sun suddenly uprisen within the world, and there was everywhere a wandering ecstasy of sound: light and sound were one; light had a voice, and the music hung glittering in the air.

—George William Russell, A Dream of Angus Oge

Chapter One

My phone glowed bright in the dusk-drenched cemetery. But the words on its screen filled me with a dark, heavy dread.

FLIGHT 346: NO STATUS.

I reloaded the web page for my boyfriend Zachary’s flight, then forced myself to look away. Calm down, Aura. But the black-on-white words left an afterimage floating in my vision.

NO STATUS. Blink. NO STATUS. Blink. NO STATUS.

To obliterate the image, I focused on Logan’s headstone beside me. His birth and death dates were etched in granite, seventeen years and one day apart. But the stone would never mark the date and time most important to me and to everyone Logan had haunted.

June 22, nine p.m., when he’d passed on for good. Five minutes ago. After eight months as a ghost, Logan had finally found peace.

A feeling I wouldn’t share until this stupid airline’s flight-status page started making sense.

The silence was getting to me. On this hot, still evening, no breeze stirred the trees. The two violet-hued ghosts wandering among nearby graves didn’t speak to me, maybe mired in memories of their own lost loved ones.

I plugged my earbuds into my phone, which automatically started the music player. It shuffled to a Snow Patrol song Logan and I had always adored: Make This Go On Forever. For the year Logan was my boyfriend, and for the last three months when we were just friends, Snow Patrol was always our band.

The final word in the final sentence you ever uttered to me was ‘love.’

My throat lumped as I realized that lyric was true.

Don’t forget me, okay? Logan’s golden-white glow expanded, erasing the violet from his ghostly form.

I laughed, because it was ridiculous. I’ll never forget you. I’ll never forget your voice or your face or your dumb jokes. And I’ll never forget your love.

He’d hushed me then. I’d thought it was because I’d gotten too cheesy, but now I realized it was because this song lyric had come to life.

Logan filled the silence with one last I love you, Aura. Amid a final ethereal embrace, his light faded, then winked out.

It already seemed like hours ago. Fear was replacing the peace Logan had left behind. Staring at the phone screen that gave me no answers, I felt more alone than ever.

The bouquet of white roses I’d brought seemed to glow against his dark gray headstone. I pulled out a single bloom to keep for myself. A stray thorn scraped my palm, leaving a thin red stripe but no blood.

The song’s last, quiet chord seemed to call to the handful of stars appearing above. They were a pitiful showing compared to the silver-studded sky blanket Zachary and I had lain under last night.

Hmm. Our star-gazing field was only a half hour from this cemetery north of Baltimore. I longed to return to the field, to feel close to Zachary. But first I wanted to be sure his flight had taken off.

My voice mail alert bleeped. I sighed at Aunt Gina’s half-hour-old message. Why couldn’t she nag me via text like everyone else’s mom did?

The music stopped while her message played:

Aura, it’s eight thirty. Don’t forget we’re getting up at five a.m. for your DMP interview, and we still need to go over what you’re going to tell them about Logan’s concert. I don’t want to be rehearsing in the car on the way to headquarters.

Fine. I deleted the message and returned to the browser, which I refreshed again.

This time nothing happened. The status page for Zachary’s flight was now blank.

Damn it! My outburst drew the attention of the nearest ghost, a boy near my age wearing an old-fashioned high-school football uniform, the kind with leather helmets. Since ghosts are captured in the happiest moment of their lives, this guy could’ve been older than his apparent seventeen when he died. I imagined his best day ever—winning the state championship while his favorite cheerleader shook her pom-poms just for him.

The song switched to the swelling opening strains of Arcade Fire’s Ready to Start. The drums slapped my brain and the guitar crunched my nerves.

Propelled by the music, my longing took on an edge. Zachary had been unofficially deported for causing trouble for the Department of Metaphysical Purity. We’d sworn to meet up in Ireland for our birthdays in December, in defiance of every obstacle. But I honestly didn’t know if I’d ever see him again.

Hell, I didn’t even know if his freaking plane had taken off. All I knew was that in the airport, he and Logan had met for the first and last time.

In a fresh browser window, I brought up the airline’s home page again, then thumbed in 346, Zachary’s flight connecting through London on his way to Glasgow, Scotland.

The site paused, searching, searching, searching. . . .

My grip on the phone grew slippery with sweat. I fidgeted with the seam of one of my worn black Skechers.

What was I worried about? Was I creeped out by the headstones’ lengthening shadows and the slow pacing of the ghosts? Like everyone in the world born after me, I’d lived with ghosts my whole life. They never scared me, unless they turned into the bitter, toxic versions of themselves known as shades, which were still pretty rare.

In the corner of my eye, something moved, dark and gray. I yelped and spun around, yanking out my earbuds. A squirrel skittered away to watch me from the top of a low-set headstone.

I gotta get out of here, I muttered. This place is making me crazy. Clearly, since I was now talking out loud to myself.

My phone buzzed, making my heart leap. Maybe it was Zachary with news about his flight.

But then it warbled the ring tone assigned to my best friend Megan. The screen said TIFFANY. I’d replaced my contact names with code versions after the DMP had confiscated my phone last week. Last night Zachary and I’d bought new phones, both red, to communicate solely with each other.

Hey! I answered. Guess who I saw at the cemetery? Everyone, including me, had thought Logan had passed on at his farewell concert two nights ago.

Are you still there? she blurted.

I was about to leave. Gina’s bugging me to—

But you’re not driving now?

No, I said impatiently. Aren’t you gonna guess who I saw?

Aura . . . you don’t know, do you?

Know about what? My laugh was nervous, even though Megan was known to go Maximum Drama over celebrity breakups and cafeteria gossip. What happened?

You’re sure you’re not driving.

Megan! What?

She paused for the length of a shaky breath. What was Zachary’s flight number?

The world stopped. Even the nearby ghosts seemed to halt in their tracks.

Why? I whispered with what felt like my last exhale.

It just came on the news. A London flight out of BWI. It took off at eight thirty and—it went down. Flight 346.

My body went numb. My eyes fixed on a stranger’s grave across the lane. A pensive angel stared back from her perch on a rose-marble headstone.

Aura? Are you there? Was that his flight?

I could barely feel my lips part. Uh-huh.

Oh my God. The last word was a squeak.

I swallowed, ready to topple. Did they—were there any— The word survivors wouldn’t come.

They’re saying there was an explosion. It came down in— Her voice broke. Aura, I’m sorry. It came down in pieces.

Chapter Two

I couldn’t breathe. I clutched the ridge of Logan’s headstone to keep myself upright.

Zachary. Zachary dead. Zachary gone forever.

Not possible. Not him, too.

A low drone began inside my head, like the buzz of distant bees. I squeezed my eyes shut, remembering the last I’d felt of Zachary—his soft, dark hair threading through my fingers as we kissed good-bye. Now my fingers felt nothing but the hard granite marker of death.

Aura, don’t drive. I’ll pick up your aunt and come get you.

Unh . . .

Promise me!

I’m in the cemetery. My voice seemed to come from a mile away.

Just stay, all right? We’ll be there in fifteen.

I hung up, then stared at the phone’s blank screen, where I would never again see Zachary’s name.

No. My tone was low and firm, as if this new reality was a naughty dog to be scolded. Zachary couldn’t be dead. It didn’t feel real.

But when Logan died eight months ago, it hadn’t felt real either, even with his body in front of me—and his ghost beside me.

I slid my hand along the front of his headstone, over the quote, FOR WHAT IS SEEN IS TEMPORARY, BUT WHAT IS UNSEEN IS ETERNAL.

Wait.

His ghost.

Zachary could be a ghost, like many people who died suddenly. But he could only haunt the places he’d gone during his life.

I had to see him.

I grabbed my bag and the white rose, then stumbled toward my car, weaving among the graves.

There was no one in the cemetery to stop me, so I drove fast, tires squealing. The car careened down the narrow lanes, banging its bottom on the uneven pavement.

My mind darted through all the places Zachary and I had been together. My house. His apartment. The Inner Harbor. Our star-gazing field. He had to be somewhere, wanting me to find him.

But if I saw his ghost, that would make it real.

I slammed on the brakes, skidding through the wide iron gates. The car came to a stop, a stone’s throw from the busy four-lane road.

I shifted into park, my right arm like jelly. Tremors swept through me, building in waves until even my teeth chattered.

No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. My foot stomped the floor with every word. No, no, no, no, no, no, NO!

I pressed my forehead to the steering wheel. I couldn’t see, I couldn’t think, I could barely breathe. A flood of tears was dammed behind my eyes, waiting to drown me.

Zach . . .

My phone rang, as if in response. I grabbed it, seized by a delirious hope.

Which died when I saw the name on the screen.

I answered. Dylan, it’s not—I can’t talk, I’m—

The tears came at last, gushing like a cranked-up faucet.

Logan’s younger brother spoke slowly. "Oh my God. It was Zachary’s flight."

I heaved a sob in response.

Where are you? he said. I’ll come get you.

Cemetery. Megan and Gina—coming—

Logan’s cemetery? That’s here in Hunt Valley. I’ll be there in, like, ninety seconds.

Don’t hang up. Please.

I won’t. There was a shuffling noise, then the jingle of keys. Mom, I’m taking the car! Then Dylan spoke into the phone again. They don’t care, they’re so glued to the TV news about the crash. I don’t even have my full license yet. Where are my fucking shoes? Swear to God, I can never find anything after the maid people leave. It’s not their fault—Mom picks up everything ahead of time. Yeah, seriously, she cleans the house before the cleaning ladies come. Is that insane or what?

I pressed the phone against my ear. Dylan’s rambling chatter felt like my last, thread-thin link to sanity.

Here they are, he muttered. I’ll put them on in the car. A door creaked in the background. Hey, are you sure Zachary actually got on the plane? Like, did he call you or text?

My phone. The red phone, our secret connection.

Dylan kept talking as my hands dove into my bag.

. . . my friend Rashid went to Disney World last week, and he sent me and Kyle and Jamal a brag-text when he was on the plane. Dickweed got to fly first class. Aura, are you there?

Hang on!

Please, please, please, please, please. I yanked the zipper on the compartment that held my red phone. It stuck.

Shrieking, I tore the fabric. The phone tumbled out onto the floor, screen side down.

Dylan shouted from my other phone’s speaker. What happened? You okay?

Just wait! I lunged to grab the red phone, jamming the emergency brake into my gut.

I turned it over.

NEW MESSAGE, it flashed.

With a whimper of hope and fear, I jabbed the screen.

MISSED PLANE THEYR TAKUNG M

My hand covered my mouth. The message was marked 9:01 p.m. Megan had said that Flight 346 took off at eight thirty.

Zachary wasn’t on the plane.

He’s alive, I whispered to Dylan.

His astonishment barely registered as I used my other trembling hand to return Zachary’s message:

TKING U WHWRE? WHO?

I punched send and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

I waited, speechless, while Dylan told me which street he was on, described the cars he was passing, and yelled at the stupid driver who cut him off at the intersection. He kept talking, as if knowing I needed to hear a human voice.

I was still waiting, staring at the blank screen, when a car pulled in beside me. My red phone was set on silent mode—no ring, no vibrations—so I had to watch for Zachary’s reply.

It wasn’t coming.

Dylan opened my car door. If he’s alive— he said into his own phone, then realized what he was doing and hung up. If Zachary’s alive, he’ll call you.

What if he’s hurt?

Then he’ll call from the hospital, or his mom will.

His mom. Zachary’s parents! Did they get on the plane? Had he lost them? Wherever he was, he needed me.

I rattled the red phone hard, as if I could shake Zachary’s location out of the speaker. Where is he?! What did they do to him?

Hey. Hey. Don’t break that. Dylan crouched down and took my wrist in a soft grip. It’s gonna be okay.

I lowered my chin, dribbling tears onto the blacktop between us. I wiped my eyes and noticed Dylan still hadn’t put on shoes. His middle toe peeked out of a hole in his white sock.

Another car arrived, brakes squealing. I leaned on Dylan’s arm as he helped me up.

Aunt Gina lurched out of the passenger side, her pale face pinched in sadness. She looked like she’d been crying on the ride over but had dried her eyes, thinking she had to be strong for me. Again.

The full relief of Zachary’s escape hit me. I ran to her. He’s alive! My hug knocked her back against Megan’s car. Zachary’s alive!

What? Honey, how do you know?

He sent me a text. I shoved my red phone into her hands.

He’s alive? Megan was scooting around the hood, her long auburn braid bouncing over her shoulder.

Yes! I hurled myself into Megan’s arms.

Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod, she chanted, rocking me back and forth. Dylan, what are you doing here?

Keeping me sane, I told her. It was his idea to check for a message from Zach.

Are you sure Zachary sent this? Gina’s voice held lawyerly suspicion.

No one else has this number. If he’d gone down in the plane, the phone would have gone with him.

Unless someone stole it from him before he boarded, Gina pointed out.

I leaped to correct her, needing her to believe. My number’s not on speed dial or in the contacts.

Besides, Dylan said, putting on his sneakers, why would someone text you that Zachary wasn’t on the plane when he really was? Airlines know who’s on board and who isn’t.

My soaring mood plummeted at the thought of the people who had died. What about Zachary’s mom and dad? You think they—

No way. Gina shook her head emphatically. No parent would leave their kid behind in the terminal.

Let me see that. Megan snatched the phone from Gina. "Guys, it says, ‘They’re taking me.’ Not ‘They’re taking us.’ "

Oh God. Gina pressed her fingertips to her eyes. So his parents weren’t with him when he sent that message.

My throat thickened with fear as I voiced the hardest questions of all. Then who took Zachary? And where?

Chapter Three

While Gina drove us home, zooming down the expressway, she told me who to dial from her contacts list. As a lawyer who specialized in wrongful death suits, she knew lots of people in law enforcement. Maybe one of them would know what had happened to Zachary and his parents.

But the cell phone lines were jammed. Everyone in the area must have been calling friends and family to talk about the disaster.

Let’s go to the office, Gina said. I’ve got more numbers there, and maybe I’ll have better luck with a landline.

She clicked on the blinker, then waved at Megan in the rearview mirror so she knew to follow. Dylan’s parents had made him come home, once they realized he’d taken the car.

The radio said that more than two hundred passengers had been in the crash, with no survivors found yet. One report claimed that planes had been grounded across the country in case Flight 346 was part of a coordinated terrorist attack. But another said the crash was due to a mechanical failure.

We slowed at a stoplight. A group of girls my age were crowded around a café’s outdoor table, laughing and pointing at a magazine.

Hadn’t they heard? Didn’t they care that the world had fallen down?

My pulse accelerated as I listened to more contradictory news reports. In one hand I clutched the white rose I’d taken from Logan’s grave, and in the other, an iced-tea bottle cap Zachary had given me months ago. A spiral design adorned the cap’s underside. I’d found Zachary a matching one, which he’d carried with him as obsessively as I carried mine. The spiral reminded us of the walls of Newgrange, an ancient passage tomb, which we were convinced held the secret to our very natures.

I’ll call my friend in Immigration. Gina was attempting a soothing tone. Her home number is on my secretary’s Rolodex. Maybe she can find out what happened to the Moores. She patted my shoulder. We’ll get it all worked out, I promise.

I nodded, wishing I was driving so I could get us there faster.

Dusk had turned to full dark, so ghosts were visible on the tree-lined sidewalk outside Gina’s Roland Park law office. None of these half-dozen violet-hued spirits could see one another. That’s why ghosts spend so much time haunting those who can see them—meaning, me and everyone younger.

Post-Shifters, they call us. My birth marked the moment of the Shift, though few people knew I was the first. Born a minute before me—but halfway around the world to different parents—Zachary was the last of the pre-Shifters. This was also top secret.

What no one but me and Zachary knew was why my birth caused the Shift and made ghosts visible to everyone born after—my own father was a ghost.

I was struck with a new, horrible thought. The people on the plane, I said to Gina as we got out of the car. They died suddenly, so a lot of them will be ghosts.

Just what the world needs, Gina sighed.

Unlike most pre-Shifters, my aunt didn’t hate ghosts. She pitied them, thinking it pure torture to be stuck on earth in a desperate search for peace. Many did want to pass on, but others shared Logan’s most fervent wish:

To live.

Flaming wreckage, one of several pieces of what was once Flight 346, floated in a Chesapeake Bay tributary. A sheen of jet fuel lay atop the river, so it looked like the water itself was on fire.

Megan and I stared in horror at the wall-mounted television in the law office’s conference room. Gina was phoning her colleagues from her secretary’s desk outside the door.

The shot switched to another burning airliner piece, engulfing the low, flat roof of a discount store in Dundalk.

I wonder if the people on the plane knew what was happening, Megan said. And did they all die when it blew up, or did some live long enough to feel themselves fall?

I closed my eyes and imagined it. The explosion, a sudden crack, the smell of burning metal and flesh. Then gravity having its way, the earth tugging its creatures into its hard embrace. People crying, screaming as they plummeted. Praying, as if that would break their fall.

Would lovers hold hands and kiss, or would each person be trapped in their own grief and fear? What if a mother had more than two kids—whose hands would she grasp?

Would Zachary’s last thought have been of me?

My muscles went rigid, as though bracing for impact. Zach should’ve been on that plane. My words were strangled by a sob. He should be dead.

But he’s not. Megan pulled me into a hug. The universe would totally suck if it did that to you again.

If it killed another boyfriend of mine, she meant. I clutched her back and wept for Logan, too. My grief for him and my fear for Zachary formed a double-stranded rope of misery that would surely throttle me.

My phone rang. Zero-one-one area code. United Kingdom.

I almost fumbled the phone in my excitement. Zachary?!

Sorry, it’s Eowyn.

My heart plunged. For a second, I’d thought a UK area code meant that somehow he’d gotten a new phone. Not that I didn’t want to talk to Eowyn Harris, our friend and mentor.

Aura, what’s going on?

I don’t know. I grabbed a tissue from the nearly empty box in front of Megan. Zachary’s plane went down, but he wasn’t on it.

Oh, what a relief! Her usually smooth voice turned ragged, making her sound much older than her thirty-four years. What about his parents?

No idea yet. I shoved back my chair to stand, though my legs shook. And we don’t know where Zachary is, just that someone took him somewhere.

Let me know as soon as you find out. Fear filled her words. I pictured her pacing, twisting her waist-length blond hair around her fingers.

What about you? Are you safe? Can you tell me where you are?

Yes, I’m safe. And no, I can’t tell you.

Frustrated, I dragged the tissue over my cheeks. Professor Harris had fled to England to keep the DMP from seizing her Shift research. I assumed the agency’s British counterpart, MI-X, was protecting her. Zachary’s dad, Ian, had been MI-X’s liaison to the DMP before he got lung cancer. Part of his job was to keep those jerks away from me and Eowyn.

Me, because I was the First, and Eowyn, because she’d been at Newgrange on the winter solstice nineteen years ago—the same morning as Ian and my mother were there. Eowyn saw the two of them light up from inside as they passed through the sunrise beam.

Zachary called me last Friday, Eowyn continued breathlessly. He said you two didn’t get to read all of your mother’s journal. I’m so thankful I made a copy.

Me too. Eowyn had left a trail of clues to locate my dead mother’s account of her Ireland trip. Desperate to know who my father was, I’d skipped to the end of the journal, skimming the middle. Then the DMP captured me and Zachary and tried to take us to a remote place in the Pennsylvania mountains called 3A. We escaped, but the journal pages had been ruined as we crossed a river to cover our tracks.

I told Zachary I’d give him my copy of the journal when he arrived in the UK, Eowyn said, but who knows when that’ll be?

Can you mail it to me, or scan and e-mail it?

"It could be intercepted. I don’t trust