Page 16 of Ghost Girl

Though I was going to make damn sure it wasn’t for all eternity.

I had been a pushover in life. He was going to get one hell of a shock to realise what he’d unleashed in my death. He thought he was the monster here? Ha! I’d show him that no matter how big and bad he thought he was, there would always be something bigger and badder, eager to devour him in ways his puny little brain couldn’t even begin to conjure up.

Another scream ripped through the atmosphere, vibrating through everything in its path like an earthquake of rage and despair, and digging up more memories of the last dregs of my life. A knife slicing through my flesh. Digging deep intomy organs. Tearing through layers of muscle, fat, and tendons so my innards would spill out. I only wished I could say that disembowelment was the worst of it, but he’d made sure the remnants of my agony stuck with me even in death. Even now, a dull throb pulsed through my incorporeal form, like I was expanding and shrinking at the same time in the exact places he’d caused the most damage.

He had carved my scars so deep they had punctured my very soul.

I collapsed, as much as I could without a physical body for gravity to pull down, as the energy left me again. Each time left me strangely bereft, like I was missing a piece of me that I didn’t realise I had until it was gone. Without conscious thought or effort, I drifted back to my unmarked grave and hovered over my remains, once again taking strength from them. I didn’t know how it worked or why, but the longer I spent with my physical form, the stronger I became. I’d learned that the hard way when I’d avoided the spot at all costs. Now, I couldn’t fathom not having access.

I hoped that, if anyone ever did find us and removed our bones, whatever connection we had was to them and not this place. If I was stuck here forever, I didn’t know what I’d do. Nothing good. I’d probably go insane.

Actually, there was no ‘probably’about it. Iwouldgo insane.

As I lay there, staring at the sky, contemplating how far I’d come and how far I still needed to go, a new sound drifted to me. Voices. Male and female.

Familiar.

Chance…

And Ashe. Gloria, too.

They’re here, somewhere close by. After all this time. Have they finally found me? Do they know what Blake did?Isdoing?

When it was quiet for too long, I began to question if it had all been a figment of my imagination, but no… There it was again.

Laughter. Teasing. Chance grousing.

It’s them. It really was them.

I wanted to move, but I couldn’t. Doubt niggled at me, itching and persistent. How much did they know? Were they in on it? Was Blake with them?

My emotions were a wild thing, clashing inside of me like bone-rattling thunder. Hope, fear, loss, longing… all of it was so intense that I couldn’t grab onto just one. They slipped through my control much the same as the power I was attempting to harness, like trying to cup water through splayed fingers. Instead, it became a tsunami of rage, grief, and frustration.

I wanted so badly to believe that they had finally come for me. Too late, but still searching. I wanted so badly to believe that they were good, that they didn’t know what Blake was, that they hadn’t seen beneath the mask. Yet, I couldn’t. That was even worse. I couldn’t let myself believe anything, becauseI didn’t know.

I wanted them to know, because I cared enough to want them to be safe, yet a large part of me hoped that they were just as ignorant as I had been, if only to validate my stupidity. Blind trust. That was what I had given that man. My love, my body, everything I’d had to give, he’d taken as if it was owed to him.

How could I have been so blind?

That question haunted me ever since. Yet, I still had no answer. No matter how many times I thought back on the life I’d shared with him, there were simply no signs that I was married to a psychopath. Which begged the broader question: if I had missed the signs with Blake, how could I possibly know I hadn’t missed them with anyone else?

That, I had an answer to, whether I liked it or not: I couldn’t.

So, I stayed put, straining my senses as I let the swarm of emotion overwhelm me. All had gone quiet again, the only sounds those of the girl in the basement was making. Desperate and pleading, she still hadn’t tired herself out. She was lasting longer than most. The others had given up by now, accepting their fate even if only subconsciously. This one was a fighter.

Blake’s favourite.

Mine, too.

Suddenly, the sound of tires crunching over the gravel driveway added to the screams, which only increased as the girl must have heard the approaching vehicle, too. Except her screams wouldn’t be useful now. They were only going to make things worse for her because it wasn’t a saviour rolling up to the front door.

Blake was back.

His boots scraped against the gravel like he was dragging his feet, which was unlike him. I couldn’t see him from my grave, since it was around the other side of the cabin, but I could hear him grunt as he lifted something. But what? What could he have possibly brought here that was so heavy?

It couldn’t have been another girl… Right? He already had one.

I would have to use my other senses to figure out what was going on while I replenished my energy reserves. Frustration became the primary emotion, overwhelming all the others as I was stuck resting on top of my bones, the key word being ‘stuck’. It didn’t matter that he was no longer starving me, carving into me, or taunting me with fake promises of false affection. I was still trapped and at his mercy, even in death.

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