Page 12

Kali

T he longer I sat with a slowly coalescing Chance, the less this new energy running through me called out to his.

The more solid he became, the less he flickered in and out of existence, the more secure I felt being near him.

Soon, I felt it would be safe to touch, though that was still far enough away that I refused to test our luck.

Waiting with him gave me the time to ruminate over everything that had happened.

It was obvious that I was no longer an ordinary ghost. What I was specifically, I still had no idea, but I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Bianca had given me all of herself in a bid to provide me the power I needed to take our vengeance.

Now, I just needed to figure out how to use it.

After a while, I determined that the shadows dancing around my skin were a physical manifestation of that energy, the strange new power that I had received by fusing with Bianca.

And with that realisation, I finally figured out Morty’s secret.

Chance was right that Mortimer must have been killing those people, but now I had discovered his motive.

He was sucking them up, adding their essences to his stores of power to grow it, cultivating the energy into something magnificent, albeit terrifying.

But I had already suffered through one murderous bastard, and I wasn’t about to add another one to the list. Mortimer was a problem I didn’t know how to solve, but I would need to in order to keep both myself and Chance safe.

But safe from what, exactly? My body heated at the memory of the way he’d fucked me into the grass, the newly required ability to feel all of those sensations again driving me to heights I had never before experienced.

A part of me wanted to do it again. I’d never had a hate fuck before, but it was definitely something I was willing to repeat if the opportunity arose.

My gaze flickered back to Chance, and guilt threatened to swallow me whole.

Here I was imaging fucking another man, a murderer , no less, when the man I had secretly loved for so long was right there, suffering after just confessing his love for me amidst the most heartbreaking of scenes.

Still, my thoughts drifted to yet another man, this one still alive and very much engraved in my brain.

Rhodes. Sweet, beautiful Rhodes, with his floppy curls and bubbly personality.

His brilliant smile flashed in my mind, and I wanted to see it again.

I wanted to do more than just look, too.

I was going to Hell. If I wasn’t already there.

Casting all thoughts of other men aside, I refocused on Chance.

He was moving a bit more now, which was more than what I had been capable of after going through the same trauma.

He was strong, stronger than I had ever been.

I took comfort from the knowledge that he would make it through this okay.

He would be irrevocably changed, but he would survive.

Well, that wasn’t the right word. Or was it?

We weren’t alive, but we weren’t gone, either.

This was merely a different plane of existence, a new form of life that did not require a body and sustenance.

Or, at least not the same type of sustenance.

The shadows gently caressing my skin were proof that we could still consume for energy, only with a different result.

Maybe, now that I had broken through the barrier that had contained me to my grave, this existence wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe I could finally carve out a little slice of happiness, of peace, that I couldn’t have whilst trapped.

Hope, unlike anything I had ever experienced before, filled me, patching up the cracks and chips of my soul that the circumstances of my death had caused. With Chance here, I no longer felt so alone. There was potential, possibilities in abundance, and the innocent joy only freedom could provide.

Yes, I decided. Everything would be better now.

With a smile tugging at my cheeks, I settled in for the long haul as I waited for my best friend, the man I had loved for a lifetime, to come back to me.

∞∞∞

I had dozed off. Boredom had quickly overtaken the excitement of newfound hope, and my brain had shut down. I didn’t dream because I didn’t sleep, but I had found myself in a state of consciousness-limbo.

The sound of an approaching vehicle, the tires crunching over the gravel, snapped me out of it. It wasn’t Blake. He was still here, his SUV parked out front like usual.

A visitor, then?

A quick glance at Chance proved he was still out of it, so I risked venturing away for a bit to see who it was.

My curiosity was sated at the sight of the black and white of a police cruiser.

The blue and red lights on top were off, but still reflected brightly beneath an afternoon sun.

I wasn’t sure how long I had spent sitting with Chance, but it couldn’t have been that long.

I couldn’t be in two places at once, and Chance was more important than anything right now, so I chose to stay where I was rather than chase after the police.

For now, I could hear what was happening.

The creak of the cruiser’s doors as they opened, then the rattling slam as it was closed.

Gravel crunching beneath two pairs of boots.

The crackle of radios overshadowing unintelligible voices.

‘Police,’ a man’s voice called, and there was the thud of a fist banging against the door. ‘Open up!’

The front door opened on creaky hinges that screeched with the effort.

‘Officers, how can I help you?’ Blake’s sickly sweet voice, the very same one that had hooked me all those years ago, trickled over to me.

‘Sir, are you Blake Dodd?’

‘What is this about?’ he asked, blatantly avoiding the question.

‘We received a call about a possible crime in progress at this residence. May we come in?’

I could practically hear Blake’s teeth grinding from here, and I smiled. Good. Let that panic set in, Blake. I hope you’re fucking sweating.

‘I’m not comfortable with that unless you explain what this is about.’

‘We already have, sir. We have enough cause to enter the premises without a warrant. Don’t make this harder than it has to be. Now, are you going to let us in, or do we need to enter with force?’

Blake huffed, not bothering to hide how put out he was, but the door screamed obnoxiously as he opened it wider. ‘Knock yourself out. I’ve got nothing to hide.’

Liar.

Blake’s confidence set off alarm bells inside my head.

I was suddenly very sure that they wouldn’t find anything.

He had reinforced the door to the basement and soundproofed it all so well that all he needed to do was push a cabinet in front of it to hide its presence.

There weren’t even any windows to prove there was a basement level either.

The police would look around, find everything in order, and then leave.

Their fellow cop was not going to be rescued today.

Fuck.

I listened, silently seething as the police searched the cabin, only to exit within a few minutes.

‘Everything seems to be fine, here,’ another officer said, also a man. ‘Sorry to have bothered you, sir.’

‘It’s not a problem,’ Blake said, back to that sickly sweet voice that made me want to hurl. ‘You’re just doing your job, and I’m happy to help.’

‘Have a good rest of your day,’ the first cop said, and then they climbed back into their cruiser and drove away.

He was going to get away with it.

No… I wouldn’t let that happen. The police might be useless against him, but he wasn’t immune to me. It was clearer than ever that I would need to take matters into my own hands.

But first, I would need to get stronger. It had taken far too much energy to scratch out Blake’s name on that note. I needed to be able to do more, inflict more damage, to make him believe he was going insane. Well, more insane than he already was.

Years of planning accumulated inside my head, fantasy after fantasy pushing forward, just begging to see the light of day.

I was more than happy to put them to good use.

Eager, even. I had been waiting a long time to see Blake pay for his crimes, but it was so close now I could practically taste it.

And I was going to be the one to make him suffer.