Page 35 of Possessed By Shadows

Chapter 10

We didn’t get to go home and relax, much to my frustration. Instead, we stalked the handful of places Lukas might go, his apartment, the building he was renting for the ghost hunt thing, which was a bust as no one answered the door, and finally his haunted mansion. No sign of Lukas.

My dad hadn’t seen him. The dumpster was gone. I had hesitated to go inside, instead standing on the walk outside, pacing. It wasn’t dark yet, though edging that way as the day grew long. My dad didn’t come out and offer to chat, not that I thought he would, but I heard the brief exchange between him and Micah at the door.

Sky had gone with Micah, and I felt like a baby not wanting to go inside and sort through the lies of my brother’s life. The good son, yet not. How weird that was to realize. Maybe that was why he’d been in New Orleans so long, away from our parents, to keep them knowing he wasn’t the stable one? Did that make me the stable one? I didn’t think so. Maybe during my military years.

Micah returned with Sky trailing behind him. They were both carrying stuff. Micah some files and Sky what looked like computer equipment. “Are we stealing from my brother?” I asked, thinking he probably deserved it.

“Borrowing,” Micah corrected. “When he returns, he can have it all back.”

I thought about that as we headed home. When he returns. There was no stress in his tone. He expected Lukas to just show up again. Because he had? Was this different from when I’d vanished?

“How do we know he wasn’t taken like you or I were?” I asked quietly.

Sky stiffened, but Micah didn’t react. “We don’t,” he said.

“Shouldn’t we be more worried?”

“Not yet,” Micah sighed, his shoulders slumping. Guess the super nap of the afternoon wasn’t enough. “He knows he’s supposed to check in. If we don’t hear from him by tomorrow morning, then we’ll worry.”

“But we took his stuff,” I pointed out.

“Yep. He owes me,” Micah said. “For not showing me the videos of the night noises.”

“Why wouldn’t he share that?” Sky asked. “I mean, I didn’t disbelieve you, but hearing that? I’d have been pretty scared.” We reached the outer gate and slipped inside. Sky looked at the garden with a new wariness and kept close to us. “Do you guys know what makes that noise?”

“No,” I said. We didn’t really. I opened the door since I wasn’t carrying anything other than my messenger bag. Jet greeted us with warm kitty hellos. Micah set the files on the kitchen table. Sky added the laptop to the top. “Is there any stuff in Lukas’s apartment that would tell us where he was?” I asked her.

“He hasn’t been there much. Mostly seems to have given it to me as my space,” her tone was heavy, and filled with pain. “I told him I would sleep on the couch, or stay with you guys…but mostly he doesn’t come home at night. I guess he was staying at the house, since some of his stuff was there.”

“I’m sorry my brother is an asshole,” I said. It took another few minutes for the heavy emotion to begin dissipating. For Micah it was betrayal, which I recognized because I felt it myself. Lukas should have told us. Could have validated some of what we felt, even if we didn’t have answers. The fact that he chose to keep it quiet, and even post it to public forums without our knowledge, that was brutal. What did he think of us to do that?

Then to abandon Sky. I hated the idea that he was stringing her along for some reason. Maybe because he thought I’d disapprove? I liked him messing with her less than I needed him dating her.

Jet sat near us, perched on the top of the futon, staring into the kitchen. But he wasn’t hissing and his fur wasn’t standing up straight. I turned, pulling Micah into my arms and breathing in his smell. There was no sign of Precious behind us, for which I was grateful. I could use less unexplainable in my life right now.

Lukas missing made me wonder about the difference between him being gone and me. They were used to it, like it happened so much, Lukas falling off the grid, that they didn’t worry. But me? I didn’t think it was the same. “Is this different than when I disappeared?”

“You vanished on camera, into nowhere,” Micah reminded me. “Taken…”

Yes, and no. I’d gone to a dark place in hopes to get Micah back. And it had worked, but I felt like I’d bargained with something that day, the black-eyed child or whatever spirit it was presenting itself as. Gave up part of myself to get him back. Maybe that was why I would forever be cursed with these abilities. And yet, from information we were getting now, it seemed my father and my brother had abilities too. Maybe not on the same level, but at least they’d had a history of strangeness.

“I need to know when it happened the last time,” I said as I went to the closet to strip out of the cape and hero gear. I didn’t feel like a hero anymore. Mostly just frustrated by being in the dark. “Was it when something happened to you, Sky?” Sometimes direct was the only way.

“Yes,” she agreed, voice tight.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Micah assured her. He crowded into the big closet too, stripping out of his costume and switching to pajamas.

“I think I need to know,” I insisted. “What happened?”

“I was dumb,” Sky said. “Let someone con me. Found myself stuck in a trade sort of thing.”

Trade? Were we speaking the same language?

“Sex trafficking,” Micah clarified.

“Fuck,” I said, my gut clenching in fear for her.