Free I'd Rather Not Be Dead by Andrea Brokaw Page A

in return.”
    It takes me a while to figure
out what he's saying and then I have to laugh. “Cooper Finnegan
didn't murder me. He might be an idiot and a conceited jerk, but
he's not a killer.”
    “An idiot?” Fray asks. “I
thought you said he was valedictorian.”
    “He is. Or probably will be,
anyway.”
    Fray's eyes sparkle. “So he's an
idiot who gets better grades than you?”
    “Yes.” I glare. “What's your
point, Fray?”
    “Point? Oh, no point.” He gives
me a maddening grin and bounces on the balls of his feet.
    With a frustrated grunt, I punch
his arm. It only makes him laugh. “You're like an angry little
kitten. You have all this fury, but you can't do anything with
it.”
    My teeth grind together and the
car closest to me starts to shake. Then the car next to it. Then
every car in the parking lot.
    Fray stops laughing.
    “Drew?” His eyes are wide with
fear. “Are you doing that?”
    I growl, relishing his
reaction.
    “Calm down, luv,” Fray soothes.
“You don't want to do this.”
    “Don't tell me what I want!”
    Every window in sight shatters.
Crap, I didn't want to do that. Horrified, I look around at the
damage while Fray curses.
    “Where's your boyfriend?”
    “What?” I squint at him, a
disconnect between my brain and any actual thoughts.
    “Finn? Where's Finn?”
    Fray's voice seems very urgent.
Nearly panicked.
    “I don't know.”
    His eyes are wide while he lets
out a loud breath and shakes his head. “Well, you'd better figure
it out!”
    The world starts to darken and
the air thickens until I can hardly breathe.
    “If you tell me where he is, I
can take you to him.” Fray grabs my arms, stares down into my face
with naked pleading. “Tell me.”
    “I don't know,” I repeat, almost
whining. I swallow, trying desperately to think. “There's no
football practice today. He might have gone home?”
    There's a clap of thunder and
we're standing in Cooper Finnegan's yard. He's on the porch,
changing a light bulb.
    The fog is thicker here than it
was at the tavern, as if it knew where we were going and cut us
off. Fray pushes me toward the porch. “Run!”
    He vanishes. Hopefully to his
haunted booth.
    I sprint.
    Cooper Finnegan runs toward me,
meeting me half way. He catches me and swings me around as we come
to a stop.
    The world is clear. I can
breathe. The sun is out. I cling to Cooper Finnegan, whimpering.
And I pass out.

Chapter Nine
     
     
    A phone rings. And rings. No one
answers the stupid thing, though someone does let out a noisy
sigh.
    Groggily, I lift my head and try
to glare at the offending phone. My eyes won't quite focus but I
can tell I'm in a living room, on a couch bathed in funky copper
lighting. It's blurry but the room seems to be decorated in a heavy
'country' theme with lots of blues and soft wooden curves. There's
a pale oak armoire probably hiding a television and a lot of
shelves littered with historically garbed teddy bears.
    “I've passed on to Hell.” My
eyes squeeze shut and my head crashes back onto the pillow. “I
thought I was in Hell before, but I was wrong.”
    “Sorry. I can toss you back on
the lawn,” Cooper Finnegan offers.
    The world's noticeably more
clear when I open my eyes again. My medium's sitting in an
overstuffed blue chair. It has lace draped over it.
    The phone starts to ring again
and he glances at it.
    “Someone's calling you,” I point
out.
    “Probably wondering where I
am.”
    The bizarre orange tint that
didn't fade when everything came into focus implies it's sometime
around sunset. “Don't you have a football game?”
    His mouth twists. “That's why
they care where I am.”
    I raise my eyebrows at him.
“Aren't you going?”
    He watches me for several
seconds before answering. “Guess so.”
    “You don't you know?” My head
spins as I sit.
    His expression is wry. “There's
a girl passed out on my sofa.”
    “Oh.” I stretch a little and he
looks away. “She's awake now.”
    “You alright?” He