Page 43 of Ghoul Me, Maybe

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Mira nods, sharp and silent, then turns back to her counter. Conversation over.

Sienna takes my hand.

It’s warm. Solid. Real.

“Come on,” she says, eyes unreadable. “We’ve got a relic to find.”

And I follow her, not because I’m her tether,

But because I’m starting to believe she might bemine.

We walk the edge of the shoreline in silence.

The moon is swollen tonight. Fat and watchful. The kind of moon that used to guide ships and doom them in the same breath. Sienna’s coat flaps in the breeze, and her hand never leaves mine. Not once.

She pulls us off the path, behind a weather-warped driftwood log, half-buried in the sand. We sit. Her thigh presses into mine. The tide murmurs.

“Why does it feel like the sea’s watching us?” she asks.

“It always does,” I murmur. “It just doesn’t always care.”

She leans her head on my shoulder.

I don’t breathe, though I don’t need to.

Not when she’s this close.

Her voice is soft, quiet, almost a confession. “You scared me, back there. Not ‘ghost-in-the-hallway’ scared.Usscared.”

“I scare myself, sometimes,” I admit.

She tilts her face up toward me. Moonlight silvering her lashes.

“Then do something that doesn’t.”

Her mouth is so close.

One heartbeat—hers, not mine.

And I kiss her.

It’s not careful.

It’s not hesitant.

It’s the kind of kiss that says I remember every life I didn’t get to live. The kind that says if I only get one more night tethered to this world, I want it to end here—in this fog, in this sand, with her.

When we pull apart, we’re both breathless.

And somehow, Iambreathing.

She smiles against my jaw.

“Still think I’m burning out?”

“No,” I say, my voice rough. “I think you’re the one keeping the fire lit.”

CHAPTER 17

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