Page 9 of Phantom’s Mate

He seemed to sense something, because just at the bend in the road he stopped and looked back at her, his gaze melting into hers. She gave a little wave with one tentacle, and saw him lift a hand in response.

Then he turned away and vanished around the bend.

Brittany stared after him for a minute. It had started raining again, and the wind was picking up. She shivered, feeling more alone than the first time she woke up here. Like she’d imagined the whole encounter because she was so desperate for human contact, and for a way out of purgatory.

Would he really come back?

Did she need him to?

What if she followed him to whatever escape hatch he was using, and slipped through? She started down the road, walking as fast as she could, then breaking into a run, her tentacles flopping around her.

She could see Nick ahead of her. Don’t look back, she thought. Because she couldn’t stand the humiliation if he saw her running after him.

The road went around another curve. She saw him cut over to the shoulder, and then—he vanished. She kept running, faster and faster, eyes on the spot where he’d disappeared. The exit. She was almost there—she was going to do it…

Wham. She felt like she’d been slammed back by a huge fist. The now-familiar white light flashed before her eyes, she was flying through the air…

And then she was back on the side of the road, in the place she’d died, still dressed as a Kraken, with the rain pouring down.

The disappointment was like a knife in her stomach.

Slowly, she got up and trudged up the hill to her cabin. After that last reset, it was going to be cold and lonely and abandoned-looking, just like it had been the very first time she found it.

But it was better than nothing.

She went up the sagging wooden steps and pushed open the door. It was a combo bedroom/living room with a tiny kitchenette. Right now it was mainly a replica of her childhood bedroom—single bed with Wonder Woman sheets, and a bookshelf full of favorite chapter books from middle school.

But the posters on the wall were the exact rock star ones she’d had as a teenager, down to the torn corners from where she’d moved them around the room.

And on the pillow sat her stuffed bear that had been lost when she was five.

Across from the cold empty fireplace was a couch exactly like the one Chaz had picked out for their living room six months before she died, that she’d always hated.

She knew without looking that her grandma’s Corelle dish set was in the cupboard of the kitchenette.

Everything but the fucking couch was dusty and covered in cobwebs. Because even this place knew that Chaz would never tolerate a dusty couch.

Brittany sighed.

Bit by bit, using all her concentration, she changed it back to the place she’d gradually evolved it into. Clean and comfy, with a blazing fire in the fireplace and a four-poster bed like the one she’d always wanted, with the comforter set she’d admired in a magazine.

Then came the couch she’d wanted to buy, that Chaz said was too—what was it? Plebian. Because it was casual, like normal people had in their family rooms, instead of sleek and boxy and hip. His whole house had been filled with the trendiest, least functional, most uncomfortable furniture she’d ever sat on.

This couch was soft and squashy, with a big ottoman and the cable-knit blanket her grandmother had made for her. At least she could have things exactly how she wanted in her afterlife.

The new, larger bookshelf was filled with a mix of grownup, children’s and YA books. Only ones that she’d already read, though. She kept trying to manifest ones she’d wanted to read, but the pages were always blank.

She guessed that since everything here came out of her head, if it wasn’t in there in the first place, she couldn’t make it happen.

She peeled off the fucking Kraken costume, dripping wet yet again. She now understood the true meaning of the saying ‘I wouldn’t be caught dead in this outfit.’

Last, she re-created her closet, filled with soft comfy clothes. She wondered again why she couldn’t just re-dress herself with her mind.

If she could, she wouldn’t have ended up practically naked in front of a stranger. An incredibly hot stranger. Although, the expression on his face had been priceless, especially when she beat him with her Kraken ship.

And she hadn’t missed the look in his eyes when he saw her in her underwear. Chaz had never looked at her like that, she realized. Like his gaze could melt that lingerie right off her. It was awesome to feel sexy again, especially after all this time spent dressed in tentacles.

Brittany chose a pair of flannel pajama bottoms and a hoodie that she’d often seen advertised online as the softest hoodie in the world. She didn’t know if the real thing really was that soft, but her version was.