29. Charlie #4
“You have to go, then.”
“I don’t want to leave you.”
“You have to.”
Bat drifted closer. The air between us grew colder with each inch he travelled. I could see the pillar through his chest, the outline of Harrison’s body through his legs.
Above us, the house creaked and settled. Adjusting to the absence of its ghosts. To the silence where their voices had been for centuries.
Bat flickered. He raised his hand toward my face.
I held my breath.
His fingers found me. Just barely. Ephemeral and cool but there—gossamer-thin contact that sent goosebumps racing down my arms.
He adjusted my glasses with infinite care, straightening them on the bridge of my nose. His thumb traced along my cheekbone. Light as dust motes. Delicate as that moment in the attic when I’d first played his guitar and felt something touch me in the dark.
“Promise me, Charlie,” he said. “Promise me you’re going to leave here and live.”
“Bat—”
“Quit ExorSquad. Go back and finish your music degree.” His thumb continued its gentle path across my skin. “You’re brilliant, Charlie. You deserve more than being bashed about by ghosts for minimum wage. You deserve everything you truly want.”
My throat closed. I nodded because words wouldn’t come.
“Play my guitar, every day.” His hand dropped away, leaving cold absence. “Think of me when you do.”
The tears came then. Hot and fast, spilling down my cheeks before I could stop them. I tried to swipe them away, but they just kept coming, blurring my vision until Bat became nothing but a pale shimmer through saltwater.
He reached up again. His translucent fingers caught my tears, wiping them away with the tenderness of someone memorizing every feature of my face.
“I’ll carry you in my heart,” I whispered. “Always.”
Bat drew a deep breath—unnecessary, but the gesture so achingly human it broke something inside me. His own eyes glistened. “Fuck, in another life…”
“In another life,” I agreed.
The words hung between us. All the possibilities that would never be. Coffee dates and gigs and movie nights and waking up tangled together every morning. Him meeting Mum, Emily and Lily. Growing old side by side. Building something real and lasting and ours.
Bat’s smile widened. “We would have been pretty fucking epic.”
“The most epic.”
He moved closer. Wrapped his arms around me—solid enough now that I could feel the pressure, the shape of him against my body. His mouth found my ear.
Then he sang.
His voice washed over me, beautiful and heartbreaking.
“Nothing lasts forever, that’s what they all say
But I’d trade my soul to make you stay
In this moment, suspended in time
Where your heart beats in rhythm with mine
Forever’s just a word until you find
Someone worth leaving the whole world behind.”
The melody twisted through my chest, wrapping around my ribs, squeezing until I couldn’t breathe, carving itself into my soul.
His arms tightened. “One last kiss,” he whispered.
I nodded against his shoulder.
Bat pulled back just enough to find my mouth with his. Soft little presses. The taste of desperation and goodbye and every unsaid word we’d never get to speak. His lips solid and cool and there—so beautifully, impossibly there.
I kissed him harder. Poured everything into it. All my fear and grief and love and rage at the universe for only giving us days together. Mere days in a haunted manor when we should have had decades.
His tongue swept against mine. I made a sound—half sob, half moan—and reached for him, trying to pull him closer even though no space remained between us.
The kiss deepened. Grew frantic. His hands fisted in my jumper, clutching like he could hold onto me forever if he just gripped tight enough.
My head spun. The room tilted. Everything hurt—my back, my ribs, the place where I’d cracked my skull against the wall. Exhaustion dragged at my limbs, threatening to pull me under.
I stumbled.
Bat tried to catch me but his hands passed through my arms. I lurched backward, feet tangling, balance completely shot.
My heel caught on something.
The broken PolterPulse.
I went down hard. My ass hit the floor first, then my shoulders. The back of my head bounced off stone.
My hand landed palm down on the shattered weapon.
White-hot agony erupted through my body.
Every muscle seized. My back arched off the floor, spine bowing as electricity coursed through me in violent waves. The current locked my jaw shut, teeth clamping together so hard I tasted blood.
I couldn’t scream. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move.
Just convulsed on the floor as the PolterPulse’s dying circuits discharged directly into my nervous system.
Blue light flashed behind my eyelids. My heart stuttered in my chest—thud-thud-skip-thud-nothing.
“CHARLIE!”
Bat’s voice. Distant. Terrified.
My lungs burned for air that wouldn’t come. The electricity kept flowing, kept locking my muscles, kept stopping my heart from beating.
Thud.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
The basement faded. Sound disappeared. Even the pain receded, replaced by something vast and empty and cold.
My heart stopped.