Page 68 of Dead Vengeance

“Look at me!” Fabian half cries, half shouts. “I don’t want to live like this!” He jumps to his feet, twists in a circle, calling out, “Simon! Simon!”

And Liam, who obviously has no idea this guy was dead ten seconds ago, sits there with his arm around my shoulder, supporting me, not at all sure what to make of it.

But he doesn’t have long to think about it.

Very suddenly, Fabian stops dead, announces, “No body can hold me!” then darts, head first, towards the tree.

A split second later, he’s flat on the ground again, utterly motionless.

Fuck.

twenty-one

Few Truths and a Thousand Lies

Archer

We’re back in a hospital, but not the same one. After what happened last night, I didn’t want Liam running into his dead brother again, if he really is stuck in Hillingdon. That’s something I need to find out more about, but maybe not from Liam if it’s going to dredge up too much trauma.

I think I’ll go over there alone and have a chat with the ghost, just as soon as the current disaster is sorted. I hate doing it. I hate being in hospitals in general. Too many souls who haven’t crossed over, who haven’t figured out yet what’s happened. Full grieving energy for their lost lives when they do. And if they see me, and if they realise I’ve noticed them… it’s a lot. And there’s only so much I can do to help them.

Today, Liam’s not wandering back and forth making frantic calls to Gerald, which I’m glad about. It gave me time to sneak away and make my own call to him—give him a blast about this and more. But I’m back now and Liam’s only tapped out a few texts on his phone. He certainly seems a whole lot less anxious about getting Fabian seen than he was with Raul. Maybe it’s the ridiculous nature of the injury? Or maybe it’s something else.

He seems… sad? Withdrawn. Could be the shit job in general, I guess. Maybe he hates hospitals too.

When they finally take Fabian through, he sits back down next to me and says, “Listen, I don’t think you’re safe in that house.”

A slightly sick sort of humour twists inside me. If only he understood that I’ve never been safe. Not really. “I’m used to ghosts,” I attempt, as some sort of distraction from him thinking too deeply about why I haven’t run screaming from my haunted property yet.

“I know,” he says. “But your warding…”

A touch of worry trills in the back of my mind as I watch him, his eyes averted, taking too long to get his thoughts out.

“What if it doesn’t work?” he finally says. “What if, because what if… if the thing in your attic isn’t a ghost… how can you know the warding would work?”

Fair point. “I guess I can’t. But it’s never gone in my room, if that’s what you mean.”

“But what if it can?” His eyes are dark when they meet mine, some depth of concern there that’s both confusing and, frankly, a little flattering.

“You don’t need to worry about me.”

“I am worried about you.” Stark words he drops without the slightest blush. “It could kill you. It could come in when you’re sleeping and…”

It takes a lot for me to not touch his knee, so close to mine. It’s very sweet that he’s worried, but Liam is very sweet in general, so I suppose I shouldn’t read too much into it. I can only try to put him at ease. “If it followed us to the hospital yesterday, I don’t see that my changing sleeping location will be of much use if it really wants to get me.”

The storm over his brow only deepens. “So… you don’t think there’s anywhere? Or anything we can do?”

‘We.’ I like that too much. “I think we just have to take solace knowing that if it could have killed me in my sleep, if it wanted to, then it would have done it already.”

Liam nods, head hanging low in thought, until he eventually glances towards the exit and says, “I don’t think I can be here again. Not today. Not after what happened yesterday.”

Does he mean the creature, the hallucination, or his brother? All of it, most likely. “Shall we go outside?”

He throws a look over his shoulder at the doors that closed behind Fabian’s stretcher. “Do you think he’ll be okay?”

That brings a smile to my face, to see that he is still that concerned about Fabian after what he just did. “There are no safer hands we could leave him in.”

He smiles back lightly. “I guess that’s true.”