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“Sometimes you need that push,” he says. “Without it, you’d stay in a rut. Maybe you’d never get over what happened to you if it was just up to you.”
“You think you’re the one to give me a push?”
“Just paying you back for what you did for my sister.”
That brings me up short.
“You didn’t give her time to process everything she went through with that scumbag,” he says. “She told me all about it, how you got in her space and said she had to spend her nights in bed with you all, one at a time.”
My stomach turns. I have to clear my throat before saying, “I was out of line.”
“No. You weren’t.”
I shake my head. He’s wrong.
“Cora needed that,” he says.
“The hell she did. I wasn’t much better than that piece of garbage who abused her.”
“Are you kidding me, right now?” I feel his gaze on me, even if I can’t see it. “You seriously think that? Jesus, man. If there was a self-loathing award, you’d be a shoe-in.” He huffs a laugh. “Listen, you didn’t make Cora do anything. What you did was provide a framework for her to be safe inside. You gave her rules she could follow, and you gave her a place to belong. You were a leader, and she chose to follow you.”
He lets that sit, and I play it over again in my mind. When he puts it like that, I almost sound like a good guy.
Quietly, he says, “You keep telling people not to tiptoe around you. You don’t want to be treated any different because you’re blind now, but your actions speak louder, man. Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but everyone’s giving you a wide berth. You’re like a wounded bear. Everyone wants to help you, but no one wants to get close enough to get mauled.”
My gut twists. He’s right. Goddamn, I hate that he’s right. I’ve barely spoken to Cora since Baton Rouge. I’ve barely spoken to anyone but Rev, and that was about logistics. I had him fill me in on everything that went down when I was out of commission. Of course, my keeping things about business didn’t stop Rev from putting in his two cents about what I’ve been through. But we didn’t hold hands and sing Kumbaya after.
“All I’m saying,” he goes on, “is when you’re ready to come out of the rut you’re in, you’ve got someone there for you who knows just how dark and messy it is where you’re at. My sister had every right to get cozy down in that rut, but she had a strong leader willing to reach down and pull her out. You might not think so, but she’s strong enough to return the favor. You should give her that chance.”
On the outside, I’m cool as a cucumber. Inside, Ghost has me squirming in my seat. He might be young, but he’s got some wisdom in that head of his. Some damn-annoying wisdom.
“That all?” I ask, heavy on the snark to cover how uncomfortable he’s making me.
He chuckles. “Almost.”
“Almost? You mean there’s more?”
“I mean, I have an audience with the Judge,” he says. “I’m not going to waste the opportunity.”
The kid’s been dead-on with everything he’s said. Despite how unsettled that makes me, I find myself smiling. Ghost has a way of wriggling under a man’s defenses.
“All right,” I say. “What else you got?” Surely, he can’t make me any more uncomfortable than I already am.
“I don’t think the problem with your eyes is with Doc’s Gift,” he says. “I think the problem is with you.”
“Excuse me?”
I hear him shift in the rocker beside mine, which is progress for him. At the moment, he has enough physical form that his jeans make a rasping sound on the planks of the chair.
“Doc’s been helping me be more present this week,” he says, and I know he’s speaking literally, not metaphorically. Ghost is practicing being physically present instead of transparent. “But it’s not just his Gift that’s making a difference,” he goes on. “I have to participate. I mean, I know he can heal cuts and stuff. Cora told me how he healed Grim after that lighting strike, and I heard about Scrap getting caught in that explosion at the church. It took Doc less than two minutes to patch him up.” I heard about that too. Rev told me. I’m still having trouble believing everything my guys, plus a group of new friends, risked to get me back.
“But with more complex stuff,” Ghost says, “Doc can’t do it alone.”
I cock my head. He’s got my attention.
“Like with the birds at the lodge,” Ghost says. “Doc needed Grim to help him with that. And with Rev on the roof of the hotel. I mean, it doesn’t get more complex than raising the dead, right?”
I furrow my brow. “You’re going to have to back up. You lost me on that one. What’s this about raising the dead? I thought that was Lazarus’s deal.”
