Page 4 of Ghost Girl

It was ridiculous. He was unaware that we still lingered.

I often wondered if there was some way to move on to a better place, to find peace and comfort in the afterlife. I didn’t think so, though. If so, why were we still here? What was our purpose,other than to watch as life moved on without us? But no matter how many times I asked the question, nobody answered.

Blake’s boots echoed off the concrete steps that led down to his murder room, the girl’s hair swinging in matted clumps down his back. Those boots were the catalyst to my demise. I hadn’t noticed them before, and suddenly they were sitting behind some boxes in the garage, covered in mud and blood. When I’d asked Blake about them, he’d simply looked at me strangely as if I was imagining things, and when I tried to show him, they were gone.

If I hadn’t caught that small smirk as he’d turned away, convinced he’d successfully gaslighted me into believing it was all in my head, I would have believed him.

His smug pride got him caught.

My lack of discretion got me killed.

The thud of the new girl’s body hitting the thin, lumpy mattress jolted me from my memories and back to the present. I watched, unable to do anything to help her, as he cuffed her wrists and ankles to a chain connected to the concrete wall. It was a position I was familiar with in more ways than one. It was how I found the victim that I’d tried to save. It was also how he’d held me captive for four whole days before finally ending my misery. Or so he’d thought. I was still here, still miserable, only now I had a deep-seated hunger for revenge.

One day,I assured myself.One day, he would experience the same pain and suffering he’d caused us all, and everyone would know what a monster he was.

But something was different this time. Something that froze me where I hovered over them. The glint of a ring on his left hand, right where I had put one all those years ago. This one was gold instead of silver, with an inscription on it that I couldn’t read from here, so I floated closer.

If I’d had working lungs, it would have knocked the breath right out of me.

Always and forever.

The bastard had gotten married.

A hurricane of emotions raged within me as that information sank in.

First,how dare he?Howdarehe move on after killing me, after everything I had done for him, all the love I had given him? How dare he replace me so easily, like I meant nothing?

Second, fear for the woman he had managed to ensnare had the air around me swirling with a chill that took a lot of energy to create but only succeeded in ruffling Blake’s and the girl’s hair like a small, insignificant breeze.

Third, had it really been that long? Had enough time passed since I’d been gone that it was now socially acceptable for him to move on? Had I been forgotten, cast aside and relegated to nothing more than a memory?

The disgust I felt for myself over the feelings that still lingered for Blake was the worst, however. I didn’t know why I kept expecting him to feel some sort of remorse or grief over what he’d done to me. He wasn’t capable of human emotion. Yet, I still found myself wishing and waiting for a sign, any sign, that he had ever actually loved me.

And each time he failed to do so, I let myself down a little more with the disappointment and grief I felt over losinghim.Not this creature born for the deepest pits of hell, but the man I had once known. The man I had loved and devoted my life to. Some part of me held on, refusing to believe he was a fictional character Blake had created to fool me. To fool us all.

But the evidence on the contrary was staggering.

Still, his actions continued to chip away at the tiny flicker of hope I just couldn’t seem to extinguish, no matter how many times I watched him kidnap, torture, and murder someone else.

And that, more than anything, was where most of my anger stemmed. Ihatedthat he still had so much power over me. He didn’t deserve it. He certainly hadn’t earned it. I needed to know what it would take for me to finally acknowledge thatmyBlake had never existed in the first place. It was like I had fallen in love with a character from a movie, only that movie was my life, and it wasn’t supposed to be fake.

It made me question everything I had ever known. Everything I had ever felt.

Fuck him for that.

I watched, equal parts intrigued and repulsed as his hand hovered over the girl's head, like he couldn’t decide whether to stroke her hair or leave her alone.

‘It’s a bit late for that, honey,’I spoke out loud, my voice nothing more than a mere echo that only I could hear.‘You’ve already irrevocably violated her.’

As if my words reached him, he pulled away, wiping his hand on the front of his shirt like even the thought of touching her made him feel dirty. It was another contradiction about him that made no sense to me. I’d watched him carry countless girls into this very basement, tying them up and showing them a strange version of what could almost be described as affection, only to be repulsed by them a moment later.

Considering he dismembered the bodies when he was done with them, sometimes while they were still alive, it was yet another mystery that made up Blake Dodd.

His phone rang, cutting through the oppressive silence like one of the knives hanging on the far wall, gleaming with malicious promise. It seemed to take him aback, however. His thick, neatly trimmed blonde brows rose in a genuine display of surprise, but with one last glance at the unconscious girl, he accepted the call, moving the phone to his ear.

It was like watching a completely separate person. As soon as the decision was made to answer his mask fell back into place. The transition was so seamless that it even mademewonder if the man I’d just been looking at was the same.

If I needed confirmation that my Blake was nothing more than a character, then I was getting it right now.

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