“Who here has lost a limb?” A lazy smile spreads across his face. “You think way too highly of yourself.”
I lower my voice into my best impression of him. “You won’t think so after I’m done with you.”
A pillow flies at my face.
Nico says maybe ten words to me in the next two days that aren’t direct orders. We spend every second of the day together. I argue with him every time I have to pee. I probably shouldn’t have taken such a long detour that first time, because he’s taken to standing outside the door and will only let me out of his sight when it’s time for bed.
He even takes over my morning training.
“You need to start lifting weights,” he says one morning in the gym. “I don’t know why Griffin only has you running.”
“Probably because I couldn’t do cardio for shit,” I say.
“That much is clear,” Nico says. “Your running form’s all wrong, but you need to be doing more than cardio.”
He guides me through a lift more painful than any day I ever had at the construction site. I’d thought that job had made me strong, but Nico quickly proves me wrong. He looks annoyed the entire time, but his annoyed face is still somehow so impossible to look away from. Combined with the tight black long sleeve he has on, which leaves nothing to the imagination and lets me see every muscle shift as he demonstrates proper form, it’s hard to focus on the reps.
I’m staring into the fridge a good six hours after we’re done, trying to decide whether I can stomach week-old pasta for lunch when I spot a whole mackerel wrapped in plastic on the bottom shelf.
Snatching up the fish, I turn to my reluctant shadow.
“I want to practice talking to Peggy,” I say.
The corners of Nico’s mouth tense. “Why?”
“She’s weaker than the Possessors, right? So, I should be able to maintain my walls more easily.” I hold up the fish. “I could come bearing gifts.”
He lets out a sigh that sounds more tired than annoyed. “Fine.”
Twenty minutes later, I’m sitting cross-legged under a tree just beyond the property line with the fish in my lap and goggles strapped to my head. Late afternoon sun filters through the leaves, making everything look bluish green through the lenses.
Nico stands about fifteen feet away, leaning against a tree with a shotgun strapped across his back. He leans against everything. I wonder if it’s because the world has made him tired, if leaning helps take some of the weight he’s always carrying off his shoulders.
I wonder what it’ll take for me to stop being completely obsessed with him when even rejection doesn’t work.
“Peggy?” I unwrap the fish, and the strong, briny smell makes my nose curl. “I brought you something.”
Bare branches quiver in the wind. I squint at the iron posts stretching into the distance.
I drop my weight on one hand, twisting around to look at Nico. “What stops a ghost from going over the fence?”
“The fence is for people, both possessed and not,” Nico says. “A possessed person couldn’t touch it since it’s iron. The salt line is what keeps the ghosts out.”
I wait, holding the fish out until my arm starts to get tired. I’m about to ask Nico if this is usually how they get Peggy’s attention when the temperature drops.
“Is that for me?”a tiny voice says behind me.
I whip my head around so fast I nearly drop the fish.
A girl hovers a couple of feet above the dead leaves. She looks no more than seven years old, with big eyes, a pouty mouth, and dark hair pulled into pigtails. Her form shimmers in theshadows like heat coming off pavement, and I can see the tree trunk through her torso, but she’s not as bright as any of the other ghosts I’ve met. She reminds me so much of Rosie that it’s painful to look at her.
Until she points at me with a translucent finger and says,“Shit on a fucking cracker. You can hear me.”
Kids dropping F-bombs has to be one of the funniest things in the world. I could watch videos of that forever.
“Yep.” I place the fish on the leaves. “I’m Eden.”
“Nico said he met a girl who could talk to me, but I didn’t believe the grumpy bastard.”She floats closer, her eyes fixed on the fish with an unnerving intensity. She crouches next to it, and I watch in fascination as her translucent fingers work at the scales, gripping one and yanking it out. The scale drifts through her hand and settles on the leaves with no sound.“They look like fingernails.”
