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“And we did some little stuff together, sure, but nothing like the way it used to be. And I kept hoping…but then you died and, I mean, things were never gonna get very far without you. But now you’re here again, and you did always used to say that any opportunity for taking is ours for the taking, right? We could finally do it, that last big job. You and me.”

Jack pressed his lips together. He’d loved his life before. The small-time heists and robberies committed shoulder to shoulder with his dearest friends. But this was his afterlife, and the rules were different. Still, before he could help himself, he was saying, “What are you thinking?”

Dale’s face brightened, his back held a little straighter. “Jackie, this is the kind of thing you would’ve come up with in your heyday, I swear it. Okay, think about it. Folks could know in advance when they or someone they love is gonna kick it, right? How much do you think info like that would go for? Loads! So what we do is we find out where they keep whatever Master List they’re working from and we take it. Sell it off. Sav could get a cut of the money. So could the rest of the gang. Or you could blow it all in Vegas. Who cares? We’d have pulled off the most badass heist in history. We’d be legends.”

There was a part of Jack—one so far removed from Margaret he could feel her essence shudder as he thought it—that felt a sense of pride in that moment. Dale was right, this was exactly the sort of scheme he’d have come up with not long ago, the sort that would have seen them rolling in the proceeds of a bad job well done. Dale had never been an ideas man, but he’d hung on Jack’s every word for long enough that something had clearly rubbed off. Something that, under different circumstances, Jack would have happily nurtured. But in his current skin, he didn’t have that kind of luxury. Jack shook his head. “I like it, but we can’t. I need to keep my cover or else I’ll end up dead. Well, dead-dead. I can’t risk it.”

“Dead-dead.” Dale stared down at his semitransparent hands resting on the table. “Can’t imagine what that would be like.”

Jack didn’t say anything. There wasn’t anything to say. He’d caught a lucky break, the way he always had, and Dale hadn’t, the way he never did. It hadn’t ever really been fair, the way Jack could always make shit hit the fan without any of it landing on him. But he’d always reasoned that life wasn’t fair, and now he decided death wasn’t either. It wasn’t his fault. He was just a leaf on the stream. But who was he to refuse a gift when offered to him?

“C’mon, Jackie, how many times have I taken the fall for you? How many nights have I spent on the couch or has Eli spent in jail because of something you pushed us into? You can’t risk being dead-dead, but you have no problem shuffling me off without keeping your promise? And the other guys, what are they gonna do with us both gone? This could really help them.”

“They’ll figure it out,” Jack lied.

Dale shook his head, his focus back on his hands.

“Jeez, Jackie. You become an old woman once and suddenly it’s like I don’t even know you anymore. The Jack McCoy I know would’ve jumped at this so fast. Hell, he’d have come up with it himself. But I guess he’s gone, huh? What’s the point of continuing on with life if it isn’t even your life anymore?”

Jack was no stranger to those words. He’d thought them himself at least once a day since he’d become Margaret. When he looked in the mirror and saw plucked brows and designer cashmere sweaters reflected back at him; when he had to care about emails finding their recipients well or circling back to a topic he didn’t give two shits about; when he drove through his old neighborhood and caught a glimpse of the life he left behind. He often found himself aching for his old friends, his old schemes, his old world. And then he would tell himself he didn’t, and he’d carry on as Margaret, and the feeling would eventually pass. But to hear those words from outside his own mind made them hit with more weight, the kind of weight that would have knocked his frail new body over if it were standing upright.

In life, Jack had never taken the time to consider a decision before making it. In death, he’d had to learn to adjust to considering things from Margaret’s perspective first, so no one realized she wasn’t the one steering the ship. But old habits died hard, and as much as Jack wasn’t willing to do the same, the words left his mouth with as little forethought as an exhale.

“We’ll have to be careful about this. And we’ll need some help.”

4

Her

August 2002

The heat of the sun poked its way through the cracks of Fort You Again like a toddler’s sticky fingers, leaving foreheads slick with sweat. Frankly, the fact that the flimsy sticks and tarp scraps that made up the fort had held up this long was verging on miracle territory. It had been a late summer day like this when the six of them ran off into the deepest depths of the remotest woods they knew—the quarter-acre patch of spindly trees at the end of Jack’s street—and built their headquarters from fallen branches and whatever supplies they could sneak out of their parents’ garages without getting caught. At the time, Fort You Again had been an impenetrable fortress that would surely stand the test of time. These days it was patiently waiting for a Big Bad Wolf to come put it out of its misery. They’d have to find a new place to meet soon. Jack couldn’t ignore that, no matter how much he wanted to. But there was something to be said for tradition, even when that tradition came in the form of sweat in uncomfortable places. He looked out over the gathered faces from his perch on a tattered beanbag chair.

“Well?” Eli prompted impatiently, fingers tapping on the thigh of his baggy jeans.

“I’m waiting for everyone,” Jack said, gaze scanning the forest beyond the fort through the cracks in the wall of branches.

“She’s not coming, dude.”

“I’m waiting,” Jack said again, the authority in his freshly changing voice wavering slightly.

Eli rolled his eyes and mouthed something at Carter from behind his hand. Jack decided not to care. Eli had been moodier than usual lately, and that was a pretty high bar to clear. But that was the price you paid for having an Eli in your group, and as far as Jack was concerned, it was worth the cost. For all his scowls and sharp retorts, when push came to shove, Eli would be the one doing both the pushing and the shoving on his friends’ behalf.

Jack had selected the You Agains with great care, each of them an essential ingredient in the schemes he was forever cooking up, and Eli was no exception. But right now, one of those ingredients was missing. An important one. The one that brought the most flavor, at least as far as Jack was concerned. And he wasn’t about to attempt this recipe without her.

He chanced a look at his Spider-Man watch. Maybe she really wasn’t coming.

How much longer could he stall? Carter had stopped doodling on his jeans by now, the grotesque ink faces that peered out from mucky denim staring at Jack with the same impatience as their creator. It wasn’t angst that pulled Carter’s arms across his chest the way it was with Eli. Carter was the no-nonsense type, which meant his annoyed posture was the result of disapproval. That was always worse.

At least there was Dale. Despite the need for a man-to-man conversation about his recent decision to start frosting his tips, Jack could always count on Dale to be perfectly complacent and compliant. It was why Jack had selected him as his right-hand man. You needed that kind of thing as a leader; someone who wouldn’t cross their arms in frustration or disapproval but would smile up at you with all the earnest reverence of a little kid playing with a slightly older kid. At least he had one You Again on his side.

Jules, meanwhile, wouldn’t meet his eye from where she sat across the fort, tiny and as aggressively fearless as a Yorkshire terrier. She knew something. The youngest of the group and the most apathetic toward the conventions of the world, Jules always knew something, though it was usually a weird something, and often pertained to worms. Still, if their missing member had told anyone she was bailing, it would be Jules.

Jules lifted her chin defiantly as Jack shifted in his beanbag throne, trying and failing to haul himself to his feet from the unrelenting clutches of his squishy seat so he could begin the necessary interrogations. Whatever Jules knew, he needed to know too. Especially if it was going to validate the worry currently sitting like a rock at the base of his stomach. Could this really be the end of the You Agains as he knew them? All because his favorite member had been inconsiderate enough to go through puberty and start caring about what other people thought was cool?

A twig snapped just outside the fort; combat boots stomping over earth, the swoosh of a sundress against overgrown shrubs. Jack’s back straightened at the sound, his heart giving a quick jolt against his rib cage as he sank back onto his beanbag. He caught Eli’s eye and flashed an I-told-you-so grin. Then, as subtly as possible, he sniffed his pits to make sure they hadn’t grown too oniony in the summer heat and swept back the strands of hair sticking to his forehead. A smug smile ran across Jack’s lips as the fort door flap swung back. He had known he was right to wait. Never doubted it for a second. When it came to his schemes, he’d never even think to start cooking until every ingredient was in place. That, he decided, was a promise. It was all the You Agains against the world, just the way it was meant to be.

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