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He looked at me, long and hard. “I can stay in the school. That library lady isn’t completely right in the head. I balance her out, I think. I’m more powerful than her and she’s a little scared of me. Then when Cole goes to college, I bet there’s going to be another ghost at her university that might need my help too. I bet there are others all over. I’ll help the ghosts around Cole. That’s what I’ll do to help.”

As options went, it wasn’t a bad one.

I said, though, “If you hurt her, or start thinking about hurting her, I won’t let you.”

He held my gaze, knowing I was telling him that I would end him. Pure and simple.

He gulped before he nodded his head, fervently. “I know, but I won’t let you hurt her too.”

“I’d never.” I sank down so I was sitting. My knees were up and I rested my arms over them, leaning back against one of the trees. “Hurting her would mean hurting myself. I love her. If anything, it’ll be the other way.”

“She loves you too. She’d never hurt you. Even if she didn’t love you, she wouldn’t want to hurt you. She’s just nice like that.” He sat beside me, one of his little knees touching my energy, but his knee couldn’t go through me. He gasped, looking at where his knee rested against my leg. “I can feel you.”

I shot him a sideways grin. “I can feel you too.”

His grin grew. “That’s so cool.”

He leaned against me as we sat, watching until one of the cops got too close.

Benji said that he could scare them away, but I declined. Though, as I slipped away, I was touched that the little guy even offered. As poltergeists went, he was the nicest one I’d met.

36

COLE

Lee was sitting at the island in his kitchen when we walked inside. His head was down. His hands were braced on his knees.

I watched him take a single breath before his head lifted. His face was guarded.

I walked right into him.

My chest hit his with a small thud.

He let out a slight grunt, tensing.

Ignoring that, I wound my arms around him and buried my head in his chest.

After a second, his arms lifted. His head bent down, burying into my neck and his entire body softened. “Cole,” he choked out on a sob.

Hands touched my hips from behind. A chest moved in, touching my back, and I was lifted. Lee’s head popped up, but he saw that Cassian was lifting me. My legs opened and all three of us moved as one unit. Lee leaned back against the counter. I slid over his lap, my legs straddling him, and Cassian pressed me more firmly between them.

“Guys.” Lee started, his Adam’s apple moving up and down. He wet his lips before grabbing a fistful of his hair, pulling on it. Leaning back, he gave us both a tormented look. “I’m⁠—”

I shook my head, a somberness coming over me.

I’d been so happy when I got back into my body. Giddy. Until, Cassian had been there. Lee had not. A part of me was missing. I knew it and I felt it and it took everything in me to wait it out through the police questioning. They couldn’t get over how fast my face and leg healed. They were alarmed by what the others on The Witching Line witnessed. I had no idea how to explain some of it except that Cassian blurted out, “She was so happy about you know, her body healing, and we were in detention all day. She didn’t want to miss the end of The Witching Line. It’s her first year. Halloween’s a big deal to her. She didn’t want to miss the big tradition.”

The cop gave him a bland look. “Uh huh. And your explanation for the multiple witnesses saying she threatened herself?”

Cassian shrugged, a charmed smile on his face. “Temporary insanity? You could maybe say she wasn’t in her right mind. Or body. Weirder things have happened tonight.”

The cop’s face turned to stone at the reminder about Benji. It was an explanation they didn’t like and couldn’t explain it away, but it did its job. The cop let it go, after I went back to the hospital for another checkup and a long and intense talk with the hospital’s social worker. A threat had been made about having me committed on a seventy-two hour hold, but I promised the same social worker that everything was fine. I was all good. “Just got caught up in the Halloween spirit. I was committing to my costume that a ghost took over my body. Method acting.”

She’d pressed her lips together. “This is not a joking matter.”

“I’m not. I swear.”

I had to sit with her for almost an hour. There were steps I had to take and criteria she had to cross off until she felt okay with letting me leave with Cassian. It was after midnight by then, and I was an adult so no guardian was needed. I was busting at the seams to get to Lee’s house.