Page 22 of Ghosted

“It’s Lucien…and what do I normally look like?” I question as I stand in front of her. In these moments, I feel more like myself. My body feels more solid and my mind clearer, like she’s giving me energy. I’m unsure what that could mean but I’m not going to question it, I’d rather take the free moments to enjoy these pockets of peace in a whirlwind of chaos and pain.

She tilts her head to the side as her eyes scan over my face. “Like a burning man. Your skin is charred and veins of embers run through it. Flames lick around your form. Haunting.”

That has a sad smile forming on my face. “It makes sense. That is how I met my end.”

“Can I ask you a question?” she asks. Her teeth gnaw absently at her bottom lip like she’s worried about my reaction. I nod to give her the chance to ask and she blurts it out in such a rush it takes a moment or two to process it. “Who is Stella? Did she hate you? There’s a picture we found and that’s the current lead we’re following.”

“Stella?” I repeat despite hearing her question just fine. Hearing that name falling from her lips is almost blasphemous. Raven is someone Stella had no chance of touching and I didn’t want to ruin that so soon. “Lead?”

Raven launches into a story about the picture they found and everything they’ve dug up so far.

“So, we hit a dead end, but if I can see and talk to you…why not ask?” she finishes and takes a breath finally.

“Do I make you nervous?” I ask as I step closer. The urge to touch her is strong and I have to force myself to resist. She’d likely shift away, afraid of me.

“A little,” she admits as her dark brows furrow. “But not because you’re a ghost. Something about you feels different. Like we’re connected. And I can’t make sense of that.” She seems to have more she’s holding back but I don’t try to press her.

“I won’t hurt you,” I promise. “It’s hard to make sense of for me, too. It’s not that you look like Iris, but that I’m so often torn from this world into the past and back again. Thinking isn’t as easy but here, next to you, I feel almost tangible.”

“You look stronger this time,” she admits. Her fingers reach in my direction but fall short, curling back toward her palm as she stops herself. “Almost as if I can touch you.”

The impulse is too strong now and I reach for her, my heart clenching when my fingers pass through her cheek and I pull my arm back to my side. Disappointment is thick on my tongue.

“I felt that,” she whispers in shock. Her gorgeous, hazel eyes are wide and full of excitement.

‘I wish I could feel it too.’—the sentence I wish I was brave enough to utter out loud but still hold close to my chest. How do I tell her that she draws me in too? That she feels like my second chance even though one is impossible. My time to be happy was ripped away from me and now I’m forced to wander this plane and the past for eternity, never feeling the touch of another person and never to know what this feeling bubbling in me now is.

Instead, I change the subject. “Stella was a girl who had trouble understanding boundaries. She thought we were dating and I made it very clear that wasn’t true. She made my life miserable.”

Raven’s eyes narrow. She clearly picked up on my half-answer. But Stella was gone and after reliving the memory so recently, I wasn’t eager to get into the dirty details of her downfall. Because the unannounced lunch during the first meeting I had with Iris was the least of the issues I had with that woman.

“We think she set the fire.” Her words hit me like a tidal wave and I’m so startled, I lose the weak grasp on reality I have. The world darkens around me until I’m back in the in-between. The void of darkness and nothing, my energy and mind already fading as I’m enveloped in the everlasting blackness here.

Until next time, Raven.

Raven

Lucien’s arrival and departure were both so sudden that I sit in stunned silence for a moment, trying to make sense of what he had and hadn’t said. It was clear there was more to the story he gave me on Stella. Hell, his expressive, green eyes alone said that she’d done something awful. A wave of annoyance and anger hits me on his behalf. Lucien is a ghost, a mystery, but here I am angry at something that happened in freaking 1909.

Taking a deep breath, I try to wrap my mind not only around talking to Lucien but that I felt his touch. It was just a flutter on my skin but enough to make butterflies in my stomach. How could I fall for a ghost? Was I crazy to even consider it? I already had two amazing men in my life, why would I need a third? Yet, I can’t deny how he makes my stomach flutter and my heart clench with just his gaze alone.

I’m shaking off the emotions from the encounter when there is a knock on the door. Jayce and Eli had left me alone to get dressed. We have to go to the meeting with the local scryer and need to head out soon.

“Rav, are you ready?” Jayce calls from behind the closed door.

“Just about, I need a few more minutes.”

“Need any help?” This time, his tone is teasing.

“Easy there, tiger, we will have time for that later,” I joke.

I pull my hair into a high ponytail and grab some socks and I’m ready.

Jayce is leaning on the doorframe when I open the door and he has a smirk on his lips.

“Is that a promise?”

“Only if you think you can keep up, big boy,” I state as I boop him on the nose.

---