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Mikey didn’t say anything about my jumpiness, but he did stick close to me. So close, in fact, that we were practically fused together. Our arms brushed with every movement, until eventually I couldn’t take it anymore and grabbed his hand, tangling our fingers together. He blushed again and still refused to comment, but when he squeezed my hand back and didn’t let go, I knew it helped him feel better, too.

‘It’s just over here…’ he said, picking his way carefully over a fallen tree trunk and guiding me over.

I noticed what the problem was as soon as we were close enough to see it. He had strapped one of the devices to a tree, and something had nibbled through the rope so it dangled precariously above the ground. Mikey removed a bungee cord from a pocket in his cargo shorts and quickly tied the little metal thing back in place. He stuffed the broken rope in his other pocket as he stepped away to examine his handiwork, then checked the device for any damage. The light at the top blinked whenever he moved closer, but he didn’t seem concerned, so I didn’t ask. Any data it recorded was sent straight to his laptop, so he only needed to come out here for maintenance issues like this.

‘Okay,’ he said, then smacked his hands against his thighs. ‘That’s that problem solved.’

I watched him expectantly, curious where he would lead us next, but he merely stared back like a doe in headlights.

‘Oh… that was it?’ I asked, unsure why I was sad. I wanted to get out of these woods, but I also enjoyed the work that Mikey did. His career fascinated me, even if I was wary of the scarier aspects. I was quickly coming to see that spirits and entities weren’t all that scary, but it was the stories behind their deaths,the prospect of being haunted, that truly sent the shivers of fear skittering down my spine.

It hit a little too close to home.

He shrugged, glancing away with a sheepish blush staining his cheeks yet again. ‘That’s it. Sorry it wasn’t more exciting.’

‘Oh, no,’ I rushed to object. ‘It’s not that. I just thought…’

‘If they’d captured anything worthwhile, I’d tell you. I just thought… maybe… You could use a walk.’

I tried to smile, but I was sure it came out more like a grimace. ‘A walk sounds good, but I think I’d prefer to get out of the woods…’

‘Oh, sure,’ he said, eagerly moving back the way we came. Unfortunately, he was a little too eager and didn’t see the root poking out from the ground. His toe got caught, sending him flying, and he landed face down in a nearby bush.

‘Ow…’ he said, and I rolled my lips into my mouth in an attempt to stave off the laugh that threatened to burst out of me.

‘Are you okay?’ I asked when I was certain my voice wouldn’t give away my amusement. He was easily embarrassed, and I didn’t want to send him running because he thought I was making fun of him.

‘Just a bruised ego, I think,’ he said, dusting himself off and avoiding my eyes. If his complexion got any redder, I was concerned he’d pass out from too much blood rushing to his head.

He didn’t look at me for the rest of the walk back. He didn’t let me get close enough to hold his hand again. He waved a half-hearted goodbye when we got back to the house, then we went our separate ways.

I didn’t want to look too closely at why I felt like I was losing him, and why that sent a lightning bolt of panic through my veins.

Chapter 17

Kali

Chance was frowning, his frustration evident as he tried unsuccessfully for the umpteenth time today to move away from his grave.

‘This is useless,’ he said with a huff, and I couldn’t stop my smile from spreading it I’d tried. He was so fuckingcutewhen he was out of his depth. He had always been in control of everything around him. His home life wasn’t the best, so he tried to make everything else go his way. It wasn’t often I saw him lose his cool like this.

Plus, thatpout. I just wanted to take it between my teeth and give him something else to focus on. Something that would take the edge off.

Unfortunately for me, he was too determined to be deterred, even by the prospect of sex. He couldn’t stand the fact that he was unable to move anywhere, that he couldn’t even get his feet to move, and that,apparently, left me vulnerable. It wasn’t like I hadn’t been a ghost forseven yearsor anything, but he was being a bit boneheaded about the whole thing.

I kept trying to convince him he should give himself some grace – it had taken me months, if not years, to succeed in what he was trying to force himself to do now – but he wasn’tlistening. I tried to be patient, but there was only so much I could do before I lost it with him, too.

‘I’m going to check on the woman again,’ I told him. I had been taking brief stints away from him for several reasons, one of which was Blake’s next victim. I was trying to see if I could communicate with her somehow. The cops had already been informed, and if they weren’t going to do anything, then the job fell to me.

I wasn’t cut up about it. Quite the opposite. Chance kept calling me a hypocrite because I was doing the same as him, except I was pushing and testing the boundaries of my new abilities. He was just trying to create one out of thin air under the guise of being a better bodyguard, but I didn’t need one of those. What I needed was to make myself strong enough to interact with the living realm, because I was itching at the bit to start making Blake’s life a living hell.

That started with figuring out a way to release the poor woman currently trapped in his basement. Since she was a cop, she could get those empty-headed coworkers of hers to pull their thumbs out of their asses and actuallydosomething.

Though now that I thought about it, if Blake were to get arrested, I would need Chance to have the ability to move around freely so we could follow in his wake. We could be his unrelenting, waking nightmares if we couldn’t get to him.

Okay, perhaps I was being a little unfair to Chance. He was doing his best in a shitty situation, and I was the one preaching about giving him some grace, after all. I should be extending him the same courtesy.

Damn it.