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Blake.

He was here. In my room. With Dakota.

He was staring down at my corpse with a dead expression. There was no emotion there, just emptiness that flared every instinct inside of me. His hand was wrapped tightly around Dakota’s like he was holding her hostage, and he kept darting his gaze to where Mikey sat in the chair in the corner, like he was preparing to start a brand new hunt, and Mikey was his prey. With the way Mikey kept stealing no-so-surreptitious glances at Dakota, I got the feeling Blake was considering using her as bait.

He needed to leave. Now.

I surged forward, ready to physically drag him from my house if I needed to, but got the shock of the century when instead of my hands landing on him, they went straight through. I tumbled down, down, down, through the floor, passing through the bottom storey, and ended up in the crawlspace beneath the house.

‘Well, that was fun,’ a light, lyrical voice teased from behind. I whipped around, and there she was.

‘Kali!’ I grinned, more than happy to see her.

‘Hey, Rhodes. Sorry about your death.’

I waved her condolences away. ‘Don’t be. I’ve been waiting for it to happen so I can do this.’

Then, without any preamble, I threw my arms around her smaller frame and gave her the biggest hug ever. The very hug I had dreamed of for weeks now.

She chuckled, her arms lifted to wrap around me and return the embrace. ‘You’re feeling better, then?’

‘Much,’ I mumbled into her hair. Fuck, she smelled good. Like ice cream on a chilly winter’s night. It always tasted better in the winter, for some reason. ‘This helps.’

I felt her smile against my chest. ‘Glad I could help.’

‘I’m so glad I can finally touch you,’ I said, sighing happily into the embrace.

‘Okay, okay,’ another voice said, and glanced up to find Chance stalking towards me. ‘Break it up, bud. That’s my woman, you know.’

I didn’t listen to him. I was happy that he and Kali seemed to have found each other again, the right way this time, but I wasn’t letting her go. She belonged right here in my arms.

‘Uh… Rhodes?’ she called out, her voice muffled by the way her face was shmooshed against my chest.

‘Yeah?’

‘You gonna let go?’

‘No.’

She huffed like she was annoyed, but her arms tightened, pulling me closer. I grinned at Chance, but he just rolled his eyes and joined the hug.

‘Oh, hell yeah,’ I beamed. ‘Group hug!’

Chance’s rumbling chuckle vibrated through us all, followed by Kali’s squeal when he lifted us into the air, squishing her between us.

When he put us back down, I reluctantly released her and stepped back into Chance’s embrace, leaning against him while he wrapped his arms around her from behind.

‘I hope your passing was smooth and painless,’ he told me, and my smile immediately fell from my face.

‘It was peaceful. But yours wasn’t, was it?’ I wasn’t a question.

‘Not particularly, no.’

‘You can move freely,’ Kali commented, eyeing me with a scrutiny I was all too eager to welcome. So much so that I lifted my arms, struck a pose, and did a little spin.

She whistled. ‘Nice.’

‘I’m feeling a bit left out now,’ Chance pouted, but it was all in good fun.