Page 213 of Love at First Fright

“It’s not fucking okay!” I lunged toward his body, dropped to my knees. “You’re not—you can’t—”

“You need to go through your door.”

My head snapped up. “What?”

He gestured in the direction I’d glanced at. “This could be your only chance to leave.”

“Are you insane?” I stared between him and his body. “I’m not leaving you here alone! I’m not having you go through what I just went through—years and years and years of this fucking manor, but this time, completely and utterly alone?!”

“Bat—”

“This isn’t right!” I screamed, words tearing out of me. “You were meant to live. You were meant to go make beautiful music. For both of us.”

Charlie smiled. Sad and small. “Plans change.”

“No!”

I threw myself at his dead body, pressed my palms against his chest. Started compressions. One. Two. Three.

Nothing.

My hands sank through his ribcage. I roared and tried again, pouring every scrap of energy I had left into making myself solid. My palms connected. I shoved down hard.

But I was too weak. Too scattered. The compressions weren’t deep enough—weren’t doing anything.

“No!”

“Bat, stop.” Charlie’s ghost drifted closer. “It’s okay—”

“It’s not okay! You don’t die! This isn’t how this ends!”

I scanned the basement wildly. Evelyn huddled against the wall, shaking. Father Ashworth and Harrison’s bodies lay crumpled and broken nearby.

Brad.

My gaze snapped to him. Those ridiculous muscles. Those strong fucking arms.

The idea struck like lightning.

I’d possessed him before. Twice. I could do it again. One last time.

I didn’t know if I was strong enough. Didn’t care. I would try even if it shredded me to pieces, worse than what Cornelius had done.

I stumbled to Brad’s corpse, dropped beside it. Still warm—the limbs would still work, surely?

“What… what are you doing?” Charlie’s ghost asked.

I looked up at him. “I promised I’d always save you.”

Then I dove.

Different this time. Emptier. No consciousness to shove aside—just vacant meat and cooling blood. I poured myself into muscles and tendons, nerves and bone. Brad’s body jerked. Convulsed.

Sat up.

Charlie’s ghost vanished from view.

I lurched toward Charlie’s body, Brad’s legs unsteady beneath me. Dropped to my knees and positioned my hands over his sternum.