I was so taken aback by the rebuke in his tone, tears filled my eyes. I mean it. Actual tears. Furious. That's what I told myself. I was crying because I was furious with him. Not because he'd hurt my feelings. Not at all.

But Jesse didn't notice my fury. He'd turned his back on me, and now he strode up to the Angels. A second later, the car stopped rocking, the windshield wipers and radio stilled, and the lights went dead. The Angels were strong, it was true. But Jesse had been dead a lot longer than they had.

"Get back to the beach," Jesse said to them.

Josh actually laughed out loud.

"You're kidding me, right?" he said.

"I am not kidding you," Jesse said.

"No way," Mark Pulsford said.

"Yeah." Carrie pointed at me. "I mean, she called us. She said it was all right."

Jesse did not turn his head in the direction Carrie was pointing. It was pretty clear he was disgusted with me.

"Now she says it is not," Jesse informed them. "You will do as she says."

"Don't you get it?" Josh's eyes were flashing again, flashing with the psychic energy he was so filled with. "He killed us. He killed us."

"And he will be punished for it," Jesse said evenly. "But not by you."

"By who, then?" Josh demanded.

"By," Jesse said, "the law."

"Bullshit!" Josh exploded. "That is bullshit, man! We've been waiting all day for the law! The old man said that was what was going to happen, but I don't see this kid being taken away by any boys in blue. Do you? I don't think it's going to happen. So let us teach him a lesson our way."

Jesse shook his head. It was a dangerous move with four angry, out-of-control young ghosts bearing down on him. But he did it anyway.

I took a step closer to Jesse as I saw the RLS Angels shimmer with rage. I stood on tiptoe so he could hear me when I whispered, "I'll take the girls. You take the boys."

"No." Jesse's expression was grim. "Leave, Susannah. While they are occupied with me, run for the road and flag down the next automobile you see. Then go with them to safety."

Uh, yeah. Right.

"And leave you to deal with them alone?" I glared at him. "What are you, nuts?"

"Susannah," he hissed. "You don't understand. They'll kill you – "

I laughed. I actually laughed, all my anger with him gone.

Jesse was right. I didn't understand.

"Let them try," I said.

That's when they rushed us.

I guess the Angels must have agreed upon an arrangement amongst themselves that was similar to the one I'd tried to make with Jesse, since the girls came at me and both boys went for Jesse. I wasn't too dismayed. I mean, two on one is kind of unfair, but, except for the whole telekinetic power thing, I felt we were pretty even. Carrie and Felicia hadn't been fighters when they'd been alive – that much was clear from the very first moment they tackled me – so they didn't have a real solid idea of where it was best to apply a fist in order to cause the most pain.

At least, that's what I thought before they started hitting me. The thing I hadn't counted on was the fact that these girls – and their boyfriends, too – were really, really mad.

And if you think about it, they had a right to be. Okay, maybe they had been jerks when they'd been alive – they didn't exactly strike me as the kind of people I'd want to hang out with, with their obsession with partying and their elitist attitudes – but they'd been young. They would likely have grown into, if not thoughtful, then at least productive citizens.

Michael Meducci had put a stop to that, though. And they were spitting mad about it.

I guess you could argue that their own behavior hadn't exactly been above reproach. I mean, they had thrown that party where Lila Meducci had been so seriously hurt, due not only to her own stupidity, but also their – and their parents' – negligence.

But that didn't seem to occur to them. No, as far as the RLS Angels were concerned, they'd been cheated. Cheated from their lives. And somebody was going to have to pay for that.

That someone was Michael Meducci. And anyone who tried to stand in the way of their achieving that goal.

Their wrath was exquisite. Really. I don't think I've ever been as completely, one hundred percent angry as those ghosts were. Oh, I've been mad, sure. But never that mad, and never for that long.

The RLS Angels were furious. And they took that fury out on Jesse and me.

I didn't even see the first blow. It spun me around the way that semi truck had spun the Rambler. I felt my lip split. Blood flew out in a fountain from my face. Some of it landed on the girls' evening gowns.

They didn't even notice. They just hit me again.

I don't want you to think I didn't hit back. I did. I was good. Really good.

Just not good enough. I had to reassess my whole theory on that two-on-one thing. It wasn't fair. Felicia Bruce and Carrie Whitman were killing me.

And there wasn't a blessed thing I could do about it.

I couldn't even look over to see if Jesse was bearing up any better than I was. Every time I turned my head, it seemed, another fist connected with it. Soon I couldn't see at all. My eyes had filled up with blood, which appeared to be streaming from a cut in my forehead. Either that or some blood vessels in my eyes had burst from the force of some of those blows. I hoped Jesse, at least, would be all right. It wasn't like he could die, or anything. Not like I could. The one thing that kept going through my head was, Well, if they kill me, then I'll finally know where everybody goes. Once a mediator has sent them packing, I mean.

At one point during Felicia and Carrie's assault, I tripped over something – something that was warm and somewhat soft. I wasn't sure what it was – I couldn't see it, of course – until it moaned my name.

"Suze," it said.

At first I didn't recognize the voice. Then I realized Michael's throat must have been crushed by that seatbelt. All he could do was croak.

"Suze," he wheezed. "What's happening?"

The terror in his voice, I thought, showed that he was probably as frightened now as Josh, Carrie, Mark, and Felicia had been when he'd rammed their car and sent them plummeting to their deaths. It served him right, I thought, in some distant part of my mind that wasn't concentrating on trying to escape the blows that were raining down on me.