Chapter 31
He was already in their blood. It was only fitting he should be in their stomachs, too.
Guess who had the most INSANE kiss of her life???
I bite on the pad of my thumb. What am I doing? Tori’s not going to care about this. She still hasn’t responded to any of my messages. I’m glad Donny didn’t end up murdering me. Tori would’ve been no help at all.
I try again:
I kissed someone and it was the best kiss of my life but then he ran out and I’m so scared I messed it up
Sure, because that doesn’t sound pathetic.
I need to tell someone. Keeping this inside is making my ribcage feel too tight, like all these feelings are going to burst out of me like a ruptured abscess.
DJ is the only friend I have who might care about this, which is depressing considering I’ve only known her for a week, but something stops me from running across the hall and knocking on her door.
She’s known Nico and Griffin for so long, and she explicitly warned me about Griffin.
She’ll hate me for kissing them both in one night. I can’t blame her.
But nobody has ever looked at me like Nico did last night. It made me feel wanted in a way nothing with Dylan ever did, in a way nothing in my entire mess of a life has since before my family died.
I need to stop texting Tori. She doesn’t care about me unless I can do something for her. I bet if I texted to say I’d won the lottery, she’d miraculously see my messages and respond right away.
I shove my phone under my pillow.
“Under no circumstances will Griffin or Eden leave the house,” Donny says during our team meeting the next morning.
All of us except for Griffin are crammed into Donny’s office. DJ and Zoey are sitting in the chairs, and I’m leaning against the back wall between Nico and Benji.
“I don’t care if you’re going to the bathroom,” Donny says. “Someone must know where you are at all times.”
I glance at Nico, who’s staring ahead at Donny like he’s carved from stone.
He hasn’t looked at me all morning. Not when I walked into the office.
Not when I said hi to everyone and got a smile from DJ and a wave from Benji.
The longer he avoids my eyes, the more sure I am that the reason he ran out last night has nothing to do with ghosts and has everything to do with me.
Did I come on too strong? Did I misread everything?
Being contaminated with ectoplasm is not unlike being drunk. Could he have seen it as a drunken mistake?
The thought that Nico might have felt the way I did when kissing Griffin keeps shoving its way to the front of my mind. I may have thought I wanted Griffin, but I never could have kissed him the way Nico kissed me last night, making those sounds, moving with me.
I tilt my head down, not wanting anyone to notice how flushed I am just from remembering last night. I find the hair tie on my wrist and snap it once. Nico twitches.
I’ve pretended to be into men before when I wasn’t feeling it, but it would be impossible for me to fake the amount of passion Nico and I had last night. Nico had to have wanted me. He couldn’t have been pretending. What reason would Nico have to pretend with me, anyway?
“Right now, we’re waiting,” Donny continues. “Monitoring the news cycle for a similar crime that matches Morrow’s M.O.”
“Could we set a trap?” I ask. “If he wants Griffin and me for his next trial, then we could use us as bait.”
“It’s too dangerous,” Nico says, still staring ahead.
“Or you could send me back to the apartment,” I tell Donny, ignoring that Nico already shot down that idea. “I know you and DJ tried scanning for the residual energy, but I can sense things that the scanners can’t.”
“Did you listen to a single word Donny just said?” Nico snaps his head around to glare at me. “I already told you no, but clearly, you don’t listen to me either.”
Donny flinches. DJ twists around in her chair to glower at Nico with an expression that says, ‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ I try to force my face to stay neutral, so he doesn’t see how much that stung.
“Eden, the police could be lingering around the building,” Donny says. “I appreciate the idea, but, for now, it’s more important you stay protected.”
I nod and slump back against the wall, wishing I would fall through it.
“And, Nicholas, since you’re so concerned about Eden’s safety, it’s only appropriate that you serve as her security,” Donny says.
I must have misheard him. “What?”
“Griffin will be bedridden for the next few days.” Donny takes a slurping sip from his coffee mug. “DJ can watch him once he’s mobile again. But, Nicholas, you’re responsible for Eden. She won’t go anywhere without you. Consider it your top priority until we apprehend Morrow.”
Nico is giving Donny a look that would wither a sensitive plant.
“Unless there’s a problem?” Donny asks, arching his brow in the same probing way my high school principal did the time she accused Tori and me of drinking at school. She knew the truth but couldn’t prove it, so she was trying to get us to confess.
“No problem,” Nico grits out.
“Good,” Donny says. “Then it’s settled.”
Nico assigns everyone a different list of newspapers in the Midwest to monitor. The team clusters around him, but I hang back, waiting until they’ve scattered before approaching.
“Which papers should I—”
Nico cuts me off with a raised hand. “Focus on your assigned reading.”
“But we have an active case,” I say. “I can help.”
“We have it handled.”
I hate the twinge of annoyance in his voice. “So, what am I supposed to do? Sit around reading about ghost history while everyone else does something useful?”
“Yes,” he says, already moving toward the door. “And you’ll do it from the library.”
The library is freezing. Rain pelts against the windows in a steady rhythm that would normally be soothing, but right now makes it impossible to concentrate.
I wrap myself in one of the throw blankets and curl up in the chair across from Nico at the table. He opens his laptop, his face a mask of concentration that I know is an act. Tension radiates off him in waves. I can actually feel it, hanging in the air.
As hard as I try to focus on the field guide, my eyes keep drifting to him. I hate not knowing what’s going through his head. Mom used to tell me my big mouth would get me in trouble. She was right about ninety percent of the time, but at least when I blurt things out, I know where I stand.
“If you’re regretting last night, you can just tell me the kiss was a mistake,” I say. “You don’t need to ice me out like this.”
“It was a mistake.” His eyes don’t leave his screen. “And I never want to talk about it again, understand?”
I nod, numb, and force my eyes back to the page.
Him calling it a mistake feels worse than it being pretend, somehow, but I’m not surprised.
Nico was contaminated with ectoplasm, and in that moment, the ectoplasm was loud enough to drown out the voice in his head screaming that he doesn’t actually like me.
We’re back to the Nico who begged Donny to fire me.
I was stupid for thinking it could be anything else.
But knowing I was stupid doesn’t stop my chest from feeling like someone’s sitting on it. I have to swallow six times before I trust myself to keep reading without my vision going blurry.
Possession is a gradual process. An entity cannot simply leap into a body and take over—much as I’m sure they’d prefer it that way.
I read the same sentence three times before the words actually sink in. Wait. If possession takes time, then why are we monitoring the news right now? Wouldn’t Morrow need days, maybe weeks, to bond with a new host?
At least he can’t get to Ed anymore. DJ and Benji are heading to Pittsburgh this morning to give Ed a full debrief on possession and set him up with ways to protect himself.
The knowledge comforts me, until I think of the unwitting person Morrow has probably already selected as his next host, who has no idea how much their life is about to change.
The entity begins appearing in the host’s dreams, as that is when the mind is most malleable, sharing images and memories. By the time the host realizes these are not normal dreams, the entity has already begun establishing its connection.
During the initial stages of possession, the entity can only take control for brief periods, usually during moments of heightened emotion.
The host might experience blackouts, lost time, or the sensation of watching themselves act without conscious control.
But with each short episode, the entity establishes stronger and more sophisticated connections.
What started as minutes becomes hours, then days, and once the neural bond is fully established, the entity gains near-complete dominion over the host’s motor functions and decision-making processes.
I wonder how long Caine had been controlling Marcus Walsh. Nico said I was the second girl he went for, so hopefully not that long?
I pull out my phone and find Marcus Walsh’s Facebook profile. Surprise, surprise, he hasn’t accepted my friend request, but there’s a public post from a few days ago: Out of the hospital. Thank you all for the messages.
The knot in my chest eases. Posting doesn’t mean he’s okay, but at least he’s out of the hospital and not in police custody.
Sending him a friend request was monumentally stupid.
I deserve a cosmic hand to reach down from the heavens and give me a slap across the face.
Yes, my account is under a fake name so reporters can’t find me, but my profile picture is of Bob.
Marcus wouldn’t know the friend request came from me, but he might remember Bob.
The last thing I want is to add to any of the pain he must be feeling if he’s started remembering the things William Caine made him do.
I cancel my request and return to reading.