Felix. My first real friend. Observing him on the floor, I push down my confusing feelings. One side of me is elated he’s still here, while the other recoils at the idea that I may play a part in his eternal demise. He looks normal with his feet hanging in the air, his legs crossed at the ankles, and holding his head up on his hands. Like it’s just one of many endless days, instead of unknown finite moments.I can’t lose him.
He flinches as he watches one of the characters die via falling off a cliff, her back cracking as it hits a pointed rock before she rolls down a hill next to another girl that’s also dead.
“I know I’m a ghost, but even I could feel that pain,” he mumbles.
“According to the wiki, the same thing happens regardless of choosing to let go or not,” Kaleb announces, his face alight from his phone’s screen.
“Dude, the whole point is to make the choices. Not to look up what the best choices are,” Donovan complains, grabbing one of the throw pillows and hurling it at Kaleb across the room.
Kaleb catches it, dropping his phone into his lap in the process. “I just want to make sure we don’t miss any clues that affect our decision making.”
Donovan groans, muttering under his breath, “Fucking hopeless.”
After choosing from a selection of either-or scenarios, the game continues on, with radio narration explaining that a year has passed since the terrible accident with the two girls.
I don’t know what it is. Maybe a lot of things said around me have finally sunk in. Maybe listening to the game’s narration play, reflecting on tragic pasts, makes me recall my own. But somewhere in my brain, where my desire to do something useful with my magic sits, combined with Kaleb’s story about what happens to spirits that don’t move on, and this game where every choice creates a butterfly effect that has unforeseen repercussions, a thread torn from my past weaves into an answer. A way I can help. It seems so obvious. For once, the Bastard gave me something useful.
“I can save Felix,” I breathe, giddiness making me dizzy.
At first, only Connor and Nolan hear me, the rest looking confused when the game pauses.
“What the hell?” Donovan barks, with similar statements spouting from Kaleb and Felix, as Nolan grabs my shoulders and twists me to face him.
“We get Felix a new vessel,” I answer the questions swirling within the desperate depths of Nolan’s eyes.
“Vessel?” Kaleb echoes, not sounding pleased.
“Somehow, I don’t think she means a boat,” Donovan mutters.
My brows drop into a heavy frown as my gaze bounces between Donovan and Kaleb—both of their expressions are guarded. Shouldn’t they be happy I figured out a way to save Felix? Then I remember what my father had planned. The poor woman he kidnapped to be my mother’s body. That can’t be the only way.
“We won’t kill anyone,” I assure them, but that doesn’t seem to help, their expressions only growing darker.
“I’m also anti-murder,” Felix exclaims, twisting onto his backside. “What the hell is going on? It was all video games, ‘how do we get the chick to climb over the wall?’ and now we’re talking boats and murder. I think I missed something in translation.”
A somewhat hysterical laugh bubbles from my throat, and I slip from Nolan’s grasp so I can sit on the floor. Looking directly into Felix’s warm, hazel eyes, I announce, “I think I can bring you back from the dead.”
Chapter 9
Felix
Callie looks at me expectantly, with a joyous mania dancing in her eyes, and I don’t know what to say. There has to be some catch. Everything comes with a price.
“Bring me back from the dead?” I repeat slowly, my fingers slipping through the hardwood floor beneath me. I have to remain calm, or I might fall through the floor again. “Like a zombie?”
“No, not like…” She shakes her head then leans to one side as she thinks out loud. “Well, not like azombiezombie. No rotting flesh or anything, which probably means we’ll need a fresh body. Someone that hasn’t been dead for long. I know I can heal living tissue, not so sure about dead tissue.”
“Callie! Listen to yourself. You can’t be serious,” Kaleb exclaims, launching to his feet.
Donovan’s eyes are so wide that whites completely encircle his vibrant blue-green irises, and he shouts, “That’s possession. You’re out of your damn mind.”
She grows painfully still, her gaze narrowing at Donovan, and I immediately look toward the windows, expecting something to explode any minute. It’s surprisingly quiet outside.
“I’m not crazy,” she whispers, slowly rising to her feet. “And it won’t be possession. Not like you’re thinking. Whoever it is, the spirit will have already moved on.” Her hands curl into fists at her sides. “To stay in the mortal realm, Felix needs a body or unfinished business. The…beings that murdered his family have been dealt with, so to keep him with us, we need to get him a body.”
“You’re sure you can do this?” Nolan questions, tentative hope in his eyes. It isn’t a secret he hates magic, but I guess for me, he’ll look past that small detail.
Callie straightens and squares her shoulders, her ‘I’ll take on the world’ stance.
