Chapter 3 #2
My chest twisted at the thought of Sunny with anyone else, but DJ was right; if I couldn’t have her, the least I could do was make sure she dated a stand-up guy. A lot of the dudes in my class were assholes, but Mav seemed more put together and didn’t care about peer pressure.
I’d already had to kick Riley Allen’s ass for talking smack about Sunny in the locker room.
He’d been boasting to his buds about getting to third base with her, but I knew it didn’t happen.
It was weird how Chelsea could talk shit about me and I became a school legend, but if a guy told lies about a girl, it could ruin her rep.
Punching his lying face was worth every minute of the detention I got, and once I explained to Dad, he didn’t care.
In fact, he told me that if I heard that shit about any of the girls, I had to kick ass again.
My dad got it; he was so fucking cool, and all the kids were jealous that we were biker brats.
Being part of the club fucking ate, and nobody messed with a Demon; hell, they wouldn’t dare.
I wanted to be just like my dad. I’d prospect for the club at eighteen, then join the military, maybe even do bomb disposal like he did. Then I’d leave the Army and find a hot babe and have kids who’d eventually be future Speed Demons.
I just had to get Sunny out of my head first.
“We gonna do this Ouija board or what?” DJ asked.
A heavy feeling pressed down on my chest, but I jerked my chin up and replied, “Let’s do this.”
DJ went to touch the planchette, but he paused. “Are you sure about this, Kai? What if the girls are right? What if we summon a bad spirit?”
“Bear’s just a ghost story. He’s not gonna show up and eat us.” I threw him a cocky grin, but he didn’t smile back.
“They say he cursed the Speed Demons and all their future generations to eternity when they killed him. What if he’s lying in wait, ready to take his revenge?”
I wanted to reassure him that we wouldn’t give him the chance, and we could kick Spirit Bear’s ass, but what came out of my mouth was, “Quit being a pussy, DJ. We doin’ this or what?”
The thing was, my bravado wasn’t real; it was just an act.
I was having second thoughts already, especially after the girls had walked out.
I felt sick that they were mad with me, and I knew I needed to apologize for being a dick, but for some reason, my pride kept my ass on the beanbag in front of that damned board.
“Let’s just get it over with,” I said impatiently. “The sooner we prove that all this is bullshit, the sooner we can go watch a movie with the girls.”
“If they’ll sit in the same room as you,” he murmured quietly, but still, he let out a resigned breath and nodded. “Let’s do this.”
We set up the board, going through the ritual that we pulled up on Google until we were confident that we knew what we were doing.
“You ready?” I asked.
DJ replied by placing his finger on the little resin planchette, already worn from years of use, probably from generations of bored teenagers trying to call up ghosts on Halloween.
I noticed a slight tremor in DJ’s hand, but I didn’t say anything because mine was the same. But my pulse was throbbing in my temples, and my blood was pumping with nerves, so it was no wonder really.
I cleared my throat and placed my finger next to DJ’s and asked out loud, “Is there a spirit here who wants to communicate?”
DJ’s throat worked up and down, but apart from that, nothing.
Just silence.
Not even a breeze in the air.
“Does anyone here want to send a message?” I asked, louder that time.
Again, silence.
The heavy feeling inside me began to lighten, and I said clearly, “Is there a spirit here who wants to talk to us?”
The planchette rattled slightly under our fingers.
My shocked stare cut to DJ just as his simultaneously cut to mine.
“Shit,” he whispered.
I gulped, my eyes darting around the room, and I called out, “Does Bear Rawlins want to communicate?”
My heart froze as the planchette whizzed to the word YES.
DJ jerked his finger back from the resin as if it had just burned him.
“Keep it on,” I hissed.
DJ stared down at it wide-eyed and moved his hand back where it was, though he did it hesitantly. “It was you,” he accused. “You moved it.”
I stopped pressing the planchette and instead, lightly rested my fingertip on the top until I was hardly touching the damned thing. “There, I couldn’t move it now if I wanted to.”
DJ did the same, and then his eyes lifted to meet mine. “Ask another question.”
“Why are you here?” I called out, and before I’d even finished my question, the planchette whizzed to the letter ‘R.’
My jaw dropped.
“Jesus,” DJ whispered.
The resin moved through the alphabet, spelling out a word.
R.E.V.E.N.G.E.
“This is crazy,” DJ breathed, his voice strangling in his throat, but he didn’t pull away, and neither did I.
Our arms were rigid with shock, our fingers trembling over the board.
My heart beat so hard that I thought it would punch a hole through my ribs, and the only sound in the room was the rasp from our own breaths.
“Bear?” I called out, forcing myself to speak through the massive lump in my throat. “Who do you want revenge on?”
The planchette rattled slightly, and then it spelled out another word.
D.E.M.O.N.S.
“You want revenge on the Speed Demons?” I clarified huskily.
I glanced at DJ to see if he looked as stunned as I felt. Then the resin jerked again and landed on the word YES before moving back to the middle of the board.
My breath shuddered out of my mouth.
DJ shook his shoulders as if someone had just walked over his grave, and I saw goose bumps trail down his arms.
The air felt heavy and thick, like someone had started a fire and the smoke had become dense and cloying in my lungs.
Squinting down at the board, I forced my next question out.
“Do you want to hurt us?”
The planchette immediately flew to the word YES and then flipped over beneath our fingers before flying across the room at a hundred miles per hour and hitting the wall with a loud crack.
“What the fuck?” DJ whispered, his face ashen.
Still in disbelief, I slowly stood and made my way to where the planchette had landed. Bending down, my breath left my lungs with a loud whoosh as I picked up two pieces of thick resin.
“It’s broken,” I stated, holding them up.
DJ’s eyes widened. “How are we meant to close down the session without it?”
“Google it,” I demanded, my voice panicked.
DJ grabbed his cell phone from beside him and furiously started typing. “It says we need the planchette, and it needs to be on the word GOODBYE. We also have to tell the spirit we don’t want to talk anymore but say thank you for communicating.”
I stared down at the two pieces of resin in my hands. “Should we just fix it together again and close the board down?”
“I don’t think we’ve got much choice. It doesn’t tell me how to close the session without the planchette. I’m guessing two parts are better than none, and it doesn’t state that the planchette has to be in one piece.”
Heart hammering, I made my way back to the board and took my seat again, slotting the two broken parts back together. I placed them on top of the word GOODBYE, and a strangled sound left my throat as the board began to shake violently.
“Say it,” DJ hissed, placing his finger on the broken planchette alongside mine. “Just fuckin’ say it.”
I took a breath, straightened my back, and stated, “We don’t want to talk to you, Bear, so we’re closin’ down the session. Thank you for your time.”
The board immediately stilled.
I heaved out a sigh of relief and watched DJ's shoulders slump as he pointed down at the board. “That was fuckin’ gnarly. I can’t believe it worked. Jesus, imagine if the girls had stayed put? They’d be hysterical by now, and we’d be in some deep shit with Cash.”
“Startin’ to think we should’ve put a movie on after all,” I admitted. “I don’t even know what the fuck just happened.”
“I think we just raised the ghost of Bear,” DJ murmured, his eyes wide with shock. “If I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t believe it.”
“Let’s go join the girls,” I suggested, eyeing the board as if it was about to attack me. “I don’t fuckin’ like this at all.”
DJ nodded, and we got to our feet to put the board away before hurrying for the door.
As we hit the hall, DJ asked, “We got rid of him, right? Bear’s really gone? He won’t come back and murder us in our beds?”
“You saw the board go quiet. He’s gone,” I reassured him.
“Yeah,” he agreed, chewing his lip nervously. “But I may bunk down on the floor in the girls’ room tonight.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Me too. We’ll keep an eye out for them, but I’m sure it’ll be sweet.”
We found the girls in the room where they were sleeping together. They were curled up on the bed watching a chick flick.
Sunny’s red-rimmed eyes slid to my face, then she looked back toward the TV, dismissing me.
My heart took a nosedive.
I couldn’t handle this tonight. What had just happened with Bear had freaked me out. I needed Sunny to be on my side. I was sick of the drama and arguments, and I wanted to be friends again.
“How was the séance?” Kady asked pointedly.
DJ’s eyes bugged out, and he sat on the floor with his back against the bed.
“Quiet,” I lied, crawling onto the mattress between my sister and Sunshine. I nudged Sunny gently with my elbow and whispered, “Sorry.”
She moved away and slid onto the floor next to DJ, laying her head on his shoulder, all while completely blanking me.
I tipped my head back, gently banging the back of my skull on the wall behind.
I’d really fucked up this time.
Nothing felt right inside me ‘cause Sunny was mad and I felt sick over what had just happened.
DJ was right; it was terrifying.
“You okay?” Kady whispered. “You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”
I let out a humorless snort and slid my arm across her shoulder protectively as my stare drifted toward the large TV on the wall. “Don’t be stupid, Kady. We all know there’s no such thing as ghosts.”
But even as I said the words, I didn’t know who I was trying to convince more.
Kady, or myself.