Page 33 of Ghost Girl

‘I’m not going to fuck you, pretty girl,’ he whispered against her ear, then licked up the blood that had bubbled to the surface beneath his blade. She whimpered and tried to pull away from him, tears cascading down her cheeks to mix with the blood on her neck and dampen her hair. It clung to her now, both with her tears and the sweat from her efforts to escape. It would only tangle and eventually matt, and I didn’t think hers would be combed like mine had been. Despite his efforts to torture me physically, his tender, almost loving care was another method he used to get inside my head. To confuse me. To break me.

She should count herself lucky he wouldn’t do that to her. That was the type of psychological torture you could never come back from, apparently even in death. Still, I continued to find myself searching for that elusive sign that what we’d had was real, some acknowledgment that I hadn’t completely fucked up my entire existence because I fell for this shithead. However, after however long it had been, there had been none. That ring still glinted on his left hand, taunting me, evidence that I was nothing but a ruse to him. A cover. It was finally beginning to sink in that it had all been in my head.

‘Stop,’ I begged her, tired of the show. ‘You’re only egging him on. Give it a rest and die as peacefully as you can in this shithole.’

When Blake passed the knife over that life-sustaining artery on the side of her neck, something clicked inside of her. Suddenly, she was gasping and gaping for an entirely different reason as her eyes locked onto me.

‘Please, help me. Don’t let him do this. Please, I’m begging you.’

Holy. Fucking. Shit. She could see me.

Blake froze, confusion twisting his features as he followed her gaze to where she was pleading with wide, terror-filled eyes for me to save her. He scanned the room, finding nothing, and I was both relieved and disappointed. I wanted him to see me. I needed him to see me coming and be completely helpless to stop me. But I wasn’t ready yet. I wasn’t strong enough.

He turned back to the girl and dragged the knife from the side of her neck to the hollow beneath her throat, dipping the tip into it with enough pressure for her blood to start pooling. She stayed perfectly still, the only sign of movement coming from her trembling. It rippled in the blood, vibrating it in a way that caught Blake’s attention, until his phone rang and cut through the moment. He wrenched his gaze away with visible effort and took a few deep breaths through his nose to calm himself down, already redonning his nice-guy mask.

The girl released a heaving sigh of relief that she choked on as she sobbed, her eyes still latched onto mine. Blake placed the knife back in its place on his wall of weapons, peeled off his gloves, and reached into his back pocket to pull out his phone. One glance at the caller had him cursing beneath his breath and thundering up the stairs to take it. He’d walked right through my incorporeal form to get to the stairs, and I took a small amount of pleasure from the way he shivered like he’d walked into a freezer, his skin pebbling with goosebumps that he rubbed away with one hand. I heard him answer the phone, and the reinforced door between him and his ensured that the girl could make as much noise as she wanted, but whoever was on the other end of the call wouldn’t hear a peep.

I could still hear him, though, and I was grateful that sound on the other side of the veil travelled differently without solid objects getting in the way. It was his wife calling, something about him not knowing where he was, if he was okay, and wondering when he was coming back. I could even hear Mallory,Calvin, and… was that Florence in the background? What the fuck was happening there?

No. Nope. Not my problem. Let the living do what they would. That was no longer my business.

The girl was still staring at me, the helplessness clear in her gaze as her brain slowly processed what she was seeing. ‘Y-you… you’re… one of…them.’

‘His past victims? Yes.’

Her lip wobbled as she accepted that information. ‘W-w-why?’ she stammered.

‘Why what? Why you? Why now? Why me?’

‘Y-yes.’

‘Something about our pale features. I don’t know his timeline. I’ve lost track of time now, anyway. It no longer matters. But he got me because I caught him. He was my husband.’

She flinched away from me at that news, likely worried I was in on it with him. If she hadn’t seen him walk right through me like I didn’t even exist, perhaps she might have continued believing that.

‘How c-can I s-see you?’

‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘It’s been happening a lot lately, people seeing me. It’s a recent development. Although… the other guy is dying from brain cancer, and you’re not far off, so perhaps that’s the connection,’ I muttered, no longer talking to her but mulling my thoughts out loud.

‘Will you h-help me?’ the girl asked, her voice small but hopeful.

I faced her again, her eyes locking mine in place with her tears that she refused to let fall again. My lips tipped down in a sad grimace, and she flinched before I even uttered the words. ‘I’m sorry. If I could, I would, but I can’t interact with the living.’

‘Can’t or won’t?’ she asked, her voice stronger in her anger and frustration.

‘Can’t. I physically can’t even touch things. The best I can do is let you know when he’s coming back. Give you time to prepare.’

She nodded sullenly, her eyes losing focus as she was lost to her thoughts, so when she spoke, I jolted a little in surprise. ‘My name is Bianca. Bianca Devlin. I’m twenty-three years old. My parents were in a car accident, and both need a full-time nurse to care for them while they heal from their injuries, though most of the damage was in their brains, so they’re pretty much gone now, anyway. My little sister, Reina, she’s only ten. She has been struggling with seeing both of her parents turn into vegetables. She’s been acting out a lot, and I’m all she has, but now that I’m gone…’ She paused, catching her breath as her emotions clogged her throat. She cleared it a few times before she could get another sound out. ‘She’s going to lose everything. Her entire family… gone. She’ll be all alone.’

I didn’t know what to say. There wasn’t anythingtosay. She was a dead woman whether she liked it or not. All she could do was accept her lot in life, that her parents would no longer receive the care they needed, that her sister would end up alone, bouncing from house to house in the foster system. It didn’t sound like she had any family to take her in, but there wasn’t anything to do about it now.

I knew that sounded harsh, but that was reality. Life waited for no one. Death embraced us all.

‘Can you help me after he… you know?’ she asked, resignation dimming the hope in her tone, but it was still present. This woman… man, she had balls of steel. Blake really went all out with his victim choice this time. I legitimately felt bad for her, but my hands were tied.

‘I’m not sure how I can help,’ I admitted.

‘You said you talked to another guy, right? The one with the brain cancer?’

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