Scorpion Shards by Neal Shusterman

stronger.
    â€œSometimes . . . ,” said Michael. “Sometimes I think . . . what if all my dead relatives are watching me? What if their ghosts can see the things I do?”
    â€œDead people don’t care,” said Lourdes. “Because if they really do hang around after they die, I’ll bet they’ve seen so many secret things, nothing bothers them anymore.”
    â€œYou think so?”
    â€œAt the very worst, they think it’s funny.”
    â€œI don’t think it’s funny!”
    â€œThat’s because you’re not dead.”
    Above, the rain began to ease up. Some things you can’t talk about, thought Michael. He never thought it would be so easy to talk about those things with Lourdes.
    â€œWe should go soon,” said Lourdes, who, for obvious reasons, preferred to travel by night rather than by day. “Maybe when the rain stops we’ll see the rainbow.
    Michael rolled his eyes. She always brought up the thing about the rainbow.
    â€œIt’s night,” reminded Michael. “Whoever heard of a rainbow at night?”
    â€œMaybe night’s the only time you can find a gray rainbow.”
    â€œMaybe there’s no such thing as a gray rainbow, and that dream you’re having doesn’t mean a thing.”
    Lourdes shook her head. “Dreams always mean something,” she said. “Especially dreams you have more than once.”
    Michael cracked the window and took a deep breath. He could smell the end of the storm, the same way he could smell when it began. He could always smell the weather. An autumn storm always began with the smell of damp concrete and ended with the aroma of yellow leaves trampled along the sidewalk. A winter blizzard began clean, like the air itself had been polished to perfection, and ended with a faint aroma of ash.
    As Michael sat there, breathing in the end of the storm, he had to admit that talking to Lourdes had made him feel a little bit better.
    â€œLourdes,” said Michael, “tell me something about younow. Tell me something about yourself you swore you’d never tell a living soul. It’s only fair.”
    Lourdes shifted and the seat creaked, threatening to give way. Michael waited.
    â€œI don’t have secrets,” she said in her deepest, most thickly padded voice.
    Michael waited.
    Lourdes sighed, and Michael leaned closer to listen.
    â€œMy parents . . . they love me very much,” said Lourdes. “I know this because I heard them talking one night. They said that they loved me so much, they wished that I would die, so I would be put out of my misery.” Lourdes spoke matter-of-factly, refusing to shed a single tear. “The truth is, I never felt misery until I heard them say that.”
    Outside the air began to take on a new flavor—a rich, earthy smell that Michael recognized as fog rolling in, matching the cloudy, numb feeling in his brain.
    â€œLourdes,” said Michael, “I don’t care what anyone says, I think you’re beautiful.”
    M ICHAEL AND L OURDES ARRIVED in St. Louis the next morning, their van riding the crest of the storm. The black rain clouds followed behind them like a wave rolling in from the distant Atlantic Ocean, baffling the weatherman, who always looked west for weather.
    Michael, starved, stopped at the first cheap-looking fast-food place he found, but all they sold were fried brain sandwiches, a local specialty. When Michael returned to the car with his questionable sandwich and a drink for Lourdes, he looked behind him to see a sheet of rain moving across the surface of the Mississippi River, until it finally reached them, letting loose over St. Louis. Michael hopped into the van and managed not to get drenched.
    He handed Lourdes her Diet Coke. “What do you know about St. Louis?” she asked.
    â€œI know I’d rather be just about anywhere else in the world,” he said,