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I announced this when Noah was gone and Lee brought Ethan down to the kitchen. “First, we gotta handle the ghost who tried to take over Cole’s body.”

“Sabine.”

“Sa-I-Don’t-Care-About-Her-Name. You and Lee go and handle her. Do your thing. Talk to her. She’ll apologize, probably put on the waterworks and Cole won’t want her punished, but dude, you gotta work some magic. Put like a Google alert in her that if she tries taking over someone else’s body, it’ll alert you and then you go and handle her. Without Cole at your side.”

Lee’s grin was almost malicious. He was loving what I was dishing.

“Wait a minute.” Cole started to hold up a hand.

“I’ll stay here. I’m not needed for ghost stuff. I’ll take care of the human.” I nodded at Ethan, who was sitting at the kitchen table and eating cereal. Lee said he was starting to act more human after his shower, and he was eating so that was a good sign. To be safe, we moved clear to the other side of the kitchen so he couldn’t overhear us. “I’ve got an idea about him too. Way I see it, he didn’t do the fire so we should help cover his tracks. Security footage and stuff like that.”

Lee clipped his head in a nod. “Noah and Benji can help with that. They did something similar with erasing my banned status at Haven Rock.”

“No shit?”

Lee frowned. “You didn’t hear? I thought you were there for that.”

“I pick up what I can, but that’s awesome to hear. Yeah. Put the poltergeist to work. All security footage from the school to the path that Ethan would’ve taken to get here. All of it needs to be erased.”

“I’ll tell Noah. He’s not here right now.”

I beamed because I knew that. I kept my happy report to myself, though. Then told them my other idea. “I think we should throw a party.”

“What?” Cole squeaked.

Lee rubbed a hand over his jaw. “Why?”

“People will party. Stories will get exaggerated. Soon people will start talking about how the party lasted two days. Two nights. We can tell Nimrod he was here last night and he’ll go with it. Ethan was here too. We’ll establish his alibi. Enough people will start believing the bullshit rumors and there you go. Ethan was here all night.” I gestured to Cole. “Plus, it’ll be a good time to start setting the groundwork that Cole’s off-limits. She’s dating both of us and we’re good with it. Maya and Rebecca will help. They don’t want to lose party privileges here so no matter what they’ll go with it.”

“I have to go to the hospital.” Lee had folded his arms over his chest, but he spoke up. “I need to heal Chlamydia so her parents can’t try and go after Cole for anything, even though they assaulted her.”

“You two go and handle She-I-Don’t-Care, then heal Chlamydia. I’ll be here, watching Stoner behind me and making some calls. We’ll have a full blown party going by the time you get back.”

Lee’s grin was wicked. “Such a high school thing. What do we do in the wake of a crisis?”

I answered, grinning just as wickedly, “We throw a party.”

I put my hand in the air between us.

Cole was adorable, grinning widely and her eyes shining in the way they did. She smacked her hand on top of mine. I turned mine over, tickling her a little. Lee groaned. “I’m not doing that.” He turned, grabbing his phone, keys, and wallet before hooking an arm around our girl and lifting her in the air. She squealed, grabbing onto him.

He gave me an upnod and carried her out the door.

Good. I had all the faith that they’d handle business on their end. Me? I poured myself some coffee, slid into the seat beside Ethan, who needed more cereal so I poured him a second bowl. He never stopped eating.

I started texting people.

44

COLE

Ididn’t particularly want to talk to Sabine, but I supposed it was something we needed to do. It went down almost exactly how Cassian predicted. Lee waved his hand. Sabine appeared, still suspended in the air. She was apologetic at first until she saw neither of us cared. I didn’t really want her to be forced into going across the line. She had chosen to stay for a reason, so Lee got all growly and angry. Which made him all the more hot to me.

Sabine tried crying. It didn’t work.

Her eyes were big and tearful, and blinking at me.

Lee bit out a harsh laugh. “You’re looking at her to give a fuck? You took her body.”