Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty- Two
Dylan
My dignity was just as bruised as my ass was.
“It wasn’t that bad,” Mike tried, barely holding back his laughter as he helped me back into our hotel room.
“They knew you’d spanked me,” I reminded him, making him blush.
“They didn’t know for sure,” he tried, but that only made him blush harder.
They’d definitely known. Once I was taken into one of the rooms at the nearest hospital, they’d made me undress completely to check my entire body for cuts, carefully removing each piece of glass from my skin.
Even the drive had been cruel, with me laying across the backseat so as to not sit on my butt.
My bleeding butt. Then arriving here and them wondering why my ass was so red and checking if it had gotten infected so quickly or if it was simply the hit that had done it.
The knowing look one of the nurses had given me said she knew though, and I’d wanted to die right there.
Mike carefully helped me onto my side on the bed, stroking my hair with a worried frown when I winced from the pain.
Both my palms needed stitches and my butt, too.
A few cuts were glued together, but I was basically a sore mess with stinging pain throughout my body, my hands and butt already swelling up.
“I hate that ghost,” I grumbled, trying to get comfortable. It was damn hard, though.
“Oh, trust me,” Mike growled. “She’ll get what’s coming for her soon. I won’t hesitate when we return and I doubt Marcus will either.”
I basked in his protectiveness and just as I was about to pout and ask for a kiss to make me feel better, Mike’s phone rang.
He groaned, mimicking my feelings and accepted the call. “Hi, Rino. No, we’re back at the hotel, he’s okay, just hurting.”
I rolled my eyes at that. Just hurting.
“We will and I’ll let him know. I plan on us returning in two days to banish her. Might be a bit longer because both his palms needed stitches. I don’t want him to hold my hand if it pains him.” Mike nodded even if Rino couldn’t see it. “Thank you, bye.”
He looked my way and smiled softly, so I asked, “We still get to kick her to hell?” My tone was hopeful.
He grinned, nodding his head fondly at me.
“We do. Rino will let the owner know what happened, and that we plan on returning. The castle is being kept closed for visitors until we deal with her. Marcus offered Rino to go there alone and banish her. With Erik there he should be safe enough. However, once Rino heard Marcus was the Marcus, he declined and told him to enjoy his free time with Erik.”
“That was nice of him,” I said, thinking about how Erik and Marcus had remained professional.
That was at least what it had seemed like to me.
I wouldn’t have been able to focus on the case if I hadn’t seen or touched Mike for five years.
Marcus had cried when we met up with him and I’d imagined what had been said, but after that I’d only caught Marcus giving soft smiles in the direction I believed Erik to be.
It had been cute and heartbreaking all at once to witness.
“It was,” Mike agreed. “He also told us to take our time and return once you were ready. No other mediums want to take the case and the owner had already planned on closing for the entire week anyway.”
“That’s something at least,” I mumbled, hating that I was the reason for our delay. “At least Erik found Marcus, I would hate if we had to wait longer before we could help him.”
“Me too,” he sighed. “But I also hate that I wasn’t prepared.”
“Prepared?”
He nodded. “I thought we would have more time together. I guess I hadn’t truly realized until today how much he means to me.”
“Should I be jealous?” I teased, not knowing what else to do, to make him smile again. It wasn’t as if I could distract him with sex or anything. I only had my wonderful personality to go on right now.
My teasing worked and he shot me a bemused smile. “I think he’s in good hands with Marcus. No need for you to worry about him stealing me away.”
“I know,” I smiled. “And you’re allowed to miss him. You spent months together, always being just a few feet apart. It will take time before you get used to not having him around anymore. I respect it if you feel sad some days. Just be honest and tell me, so I can try and make it better.”
“You already are,” he whispered, then leaned down and gave me a soft kiss. “I have to call your mothers and let them know about your hospital visit. Want me to order some food?”
“Yes, please,” I begged, fluttering my lashes.
“You want pastries again, don’t you?”
“Well, if you want them…”
He just rolled his eyes and turned on the TV, intent on leaving me preoccupied before he left the room to call my mothers. I was truly a lucky man.
“You could’ve bought grey ones, you know,” I grumbled as I carefully stepped into my new black sweatpants.
The hospital had advised me to wear loose fitting pants until the cuts had healed enough.
It would likely be a week with wonderfully comfy pants and I wasn’t complaining at all. Only about the color.
Mike rolled his eyes as he held out my hoodie, which I gratefully accepted. “See, this is grey, why not the pants?”
“You know why,” he sassed, ignoring my scoff completely, checking his phone for the tenth time this past half hour. “He said forty to sixty minutes,” I reminded my adorable boyfriend, who was missing Erik like crazy but trying to hide it.
“I know,” he blushed, pocketing his phone. “I just worry. I wouldn’t like driving in the city.”
“Yeah, that’s the reason why you’re checking it obsessively.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Well, it would be rude to make them wait for longer than necessary.”
“You don’t ever put your phone on silent, sweetheart.”
He ignored that comment. “I also bought you these,” he said, his back to me as he looked through the shopping bags.
I’d been left behind in the hotel room yesterday while Mike went into the city to shop.
I was only a little miffed that I couldn’t go, but he went to make my life easier, considering I only brought jeans and most were tightfitting. Sue me for wanting to show off my ass.
Mike spun around, a beaming smile on his face as he showed me a handful of sweets. “I figured you could post it on your blog, unless its considered tacky when you post such beautiful photos from restaurants?”
“Why didn’t you tell me you’d brought candy yesterday?!” I demanded, picturing us both in bed sharing them and testing which ones we enjoyed the best. And those we would absolutely hate, like the one in his right hand that looked like licorice.
He just laughed at me. “You wanted us to eat these last night, along with all the cakes I brought from the bakery?” His raised eyebrow was enough to make my shoulders slump in defeat. I guess he had showered me with baked goods. I doubted my stomach could’ve handled candy as well.
“Fine, I guess they’ll do as breakfast in the car,” I sighed.
“Marcus is bringing us breakfast. These,” he shook the candy, “are for us to share tonight. I just wanted you to have something to look forward to.”
I smiled at that. “I love you.”
“And I love you,” he grinned. And then, just as I was closing in to kiss him, his phone beeped.
Mike’s face broke into a wide grin. “They’re here!”
Marcus looked like a changed man as he drove us to the castle, his hand clasped at the center console, obviously holding Erik’s hand in his.
There was a lightness to the man that I knew had to be from Erik’s presence alone, and I was glad to see it.
I wished I could see Erik as well, but considering I’d never seen him before, I wouldn’t notice the difference anyway.
“How are you feeling, Dylan?” Marcus asked, looking at me through the mirror.
“Better, still sore when I sit for a long period, though,” I replied with a tense smile.
The pain was starting to smart, but I was the one who’d demanded we would get this over with today.
I felt like we were stalling and the man and ghost in front of us needed to focus on each other and not on a bitchy ghost.
“Lie on me,” Mike offered, scooting closer to the door, patting his lap.
I wasn’t about to say no to that, so I maneuvered around in my seat, changing the seatbelt around me and laid my head on my man’s lap, sighing in contentment when I felt the pain lessen.
Once we arrived at the castle, we walked inside, Mike’s hand firmly gripping my wrist. My hands were too sore for me to hold his hand as we’d hoped, but we just needed skin to skin, so this would have to do.
We remained firmly attached as we walked up the stairs to the attic.
I hadn’t heard them speak with the castle ghosts, so I figured they weren’t around and that Marcus and Mike had decided not to bother them before they’d dealt with the one causing havoc.
“Erik will go ahead and check the room first. We need to be prepared for her to startle us again,” Marcus told us, mostly for my benefit.
I just nodded and watched Marcus frown before he pushed the door. “Fuck,” he growled. “Erik told us she’d barricaded the door, but I didn’t think she would be strong enough to actually block it completely.”
“Erik, can you tell us what she used to block the door? Then we can maybe guess how heavy it is, and how much force to use,” Mike said.
Marcus and Mike shared a look and nodded.
“Then Mike and I will try to push it open,” Marcus announced and I felt guilty over not being able to help them.
My hands ached as I followed Mike to the door, keeping my aching hands on his hips as he pushed the door inward with Marcus.
It took a few minutes, but then it finally moved an inch, then another, then another, and once it was big enough for Marcus to squeeze through, he did, getting the dresser out of the way so Mike and I could join him.
The room was dimly lit and it was obvious she’d been busy while we were gone, using the time on her hands to effectively create a hazard of a room.
I shivered when I spotted how neatly she’d placed the broken glass on the floors.
She wanted to hurt us, that much was clear.
I was glad she couldn’t touch us with Erik here.
“She’s not here, is she?” I asked, already dreading the answer.
“No,” Marcus answered, shaking his head. “Let’s see if we can spot anything while up here.”
“And get the glass cleaned up,” Mike muttered, already searching for a broom, dragging me along with him. I knew she wasn’t here, but I wouldn’t let Mike and I part for even a second. She was likely planning another sneak attack like last time.
Mike found an old broom and began sweeping the bits of glass off to the side with one hand, as awkward as it was, while his other held my wrist protectively.
“Wait,” I said, stalling him as I pointed to a large piece of glass. “There’s lettering on the back of this one.”
Marcus came over, kneeling next to the glass. “It’s a sentence, but we need the other pieces before I can read it.”
“Uh fun,” I drawled. “A dangerous puzzle piece, just what we needed.”
Mike and Marcus just laughed at my lack of enthusiasm and got to work flipping through the scattered glass, my hand resting on Mike’s arm as he worked, intent on never letting our connection waver.
Ten minutes later, we had an assortment of collected glass, all with writing on the back off it. “Are you sure this is related to the case?” I questioned, eyeing the scribble with a frown. It was definitely not English so I had no clue what it said.
Marcus shrugged and pointed to the vanity. “I think the mirror comes from that, and considering how the ghost is holed up in here, there must be something that ties her to this room.”
Mike perked up at that. “You think this is a cursed object case? Not just a random ghost who got left here?”
Marcus frowned. “You truly believe that a medium would consciously leave a ghost here?”
Mike seemed to deflate at that. “No, I guess not. It goes against everything we stand for.”
“Exactly,” Marcus agreed. “And since she didn’t die here—
we know that much from her appearance—she would have to have been brought here by an object.”
Mike grabbed his phone. “Did the owner purchase any new things recently? Do we know that?”
Marcus shook his head. “We know as good as nothing.” He was still moving the broken glass pieces around, working on the puzzle piece alone now that he had to spell out what it said. Neither Mike nor I could be of any help there.
“I think this is as good as it gets,” Marcus mumbled as we looked at the messy puzzle in front of us. “It says, Dear Kristina, may you look upon your pretty face each morning and think of me. Yours forever, Lars.”
Suddenly, it was as though all the warmth in the room disappeared and then Marcus and Mike covered their ears to a sound I couldn’t hear.
The bitch was back.