Page 19 of Ghoul Me, Maybe
Not this time.
Later that night, I sit in bed with the charm around my neck and the map spread across my blanket. The bruises ache like they’ve been lit from the inside. Mira gave me tea that’ssupposed to knock me out without dragging me into dreamland, but it tastes like swamp water and regret, and I’m still very much awake.
The coin lies on my nightstand. Quiet. Innocent-looking.
“You better not pull any haunted nonsense tonight,” I mutter.
“I don’t think it listens to threats,” a low voice says behind me.
I jump, twisting toward the sound.
Elias stands in the corner of my room, shadows sticking to him like another layer of skin. His coat’s damp. His boots drip on the hardwood. And somehow, he looks less see-through than the last time I saw him.
“You need to start using a door,” I snap.
“You need stronger wards.”
I rub my face. “What do you want?”
He steps closer, gaze flicking over the map, the bruises, the charm Mira gave me.
“You dreamed again.”
“No, I ran into a doorknob.Twice.”
He doesn’t laugh. “It’s starting.”
“What is?”
“The bond.”
I blink at him. “Excuse me?”
“The relic… it wasn’t just cursed. It was crafted. To bind souls. It’s how it kept me here. How it’skeepingme here. And now it’s using you.”
Mira’s words echo in my skull—tethered. Dangerous. Unnatural.
I cross my arms. “It’s not magic. It’s trauma. Nightmares. I’ve got a long, broken history and my brain’s just sorting through the mess.”
Elias says nothing.
Just closes the space between us in three silent steps.
Then he reaches out.
I flinch—but he stops just short of touching me, fingers hovering a breath away from my collarbone.
“If I touch you,” he says, “you’ll feel it. You’llknow.”
I want to call bullshit.
I want to laugh in his face and tell him he’s full of seaweed and melodrama.
But I don’t.
Because something in his voice sounds like truth wrapped in heartbreak.
I nod once.
