Epilogue
CHLOE
SIX MONTHS LATER
“Don’t swim out too far!” I yell from the edge of the pier, the warm summer wind whipping my dress around my thighs. Oliver gives me a thumbs up from the soft swell of the water and then promptly dives back under.
I sigh, although I’m honestly not too worried.
He’s actually quite a good swimmer, as I learned when the first really hot day of the year hit, and he wouldn’t stop begging me to let him go out into the lake.
Eventually, Theo just rowed the boat out to the middle of the water and sat there to keep an eye on him while I finished up work.
When I joined them a few hours later, Oliver was swimming in circles around him, using a pretty impressively executed breast stroke.
And Theo was smiling—really smiling. He didn’t look much like a ghost at all. Or a murderer.
I’ve seen that smile more and more these last six months.
Still, I don’t like leaving Oliver unattended, even here at Hanging Lake, where he feels safe. Where he is safe, a fact I keep having to remind myself of—although less often, these days.
I walk backwards down the pier, keeping an eye on where Oliver is circling around in the water.
As long as he stays nearby, I can watch from the back porch, where I’ve got a brisket slowly cooking away in the big propane grill-smoker that Theo liberated for me from one of the still-abandoned houses along the lakefront.
It’s been nearly a year since that night.
The killing moon, as Theo calls it, and my house is the only one still occupied.
Me and Oliver have the whole lake to ourselves.
It’s still astonishing to me that I was able to convince the state to let me take on Oliver as a foster while I work toward real custody.
I’m sure Sofia played a role, especially after she came to visit shortly after Oliver ran away from his ex-foster family.
She told me, the two of us standing in the driveway while the snow melted around us, that she had never seen him so content.
Theo, of course, is off the books entirely.
“Our guests will be here soon!” I call out to Oliver. “You’re gonna need to come in for at least a little bit to meet them!”
That earns me another thumbs up before he dives under the water.
I’m about to turn around when a big, rough hand scoops around my waist, and warm, familiar breath blows against the side of my neck. I breathe out, sinking into that firm chest.
“You caught me,” I murmur.
Theo spins me around, making my skirt flare out.
“I always do.” He brushes his hand over my hair, his face serious. Nervous.
“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” I ask. “If you want to go back to your cabin, they’d understand. They’re mostly here to see me. And that one.” I tilt my head back toward Oliver’s splashes.
Theo’s hand tightens against my belly. But then he nods, right before he kisses me, with that slow, gentle sweetness he uses whenever Oliver is around.
Well, mostly sweetness. He does nip hard at my lower before he pulls away—not enough to draw blood, but enough to hint at the darkness he saves for when we’re alone.
“Just don’t leave me alone with them,” he signs.
I laugh. “What are you afraid they’ll do?”
“The humans?” he asks. “Nothing. The Hunters…”
He drops his hands to his side. Yes, the Hunters. Penelope is bringing Callie. And Abi—
Well, it turned out Abi was keeping secrets of her own last summer. That new boyfriend of hers, Rowan?
Another Hunter. Like the two of us are cursed. Or blessed, depending on how you look at it.
“You’ll be fine,” I tell him. “You’re the oldest one, remember?”
That actually earns me a grin back, and my heart flutters around. I really do like seeing him smile.
The wind gusts, and Theo suddenly snaps his head toward the house, his muscles tensing beneath my hands. I suck in my breath; after six months with him, I know what it means. He senses them. Whether he senses Abi and Penelope, the two humans, or Rowan and Callie, the two Hunters, I don’t know.
“Showtime,” I murmur against his shoulder.
It was Abi’s idea, the four of them coming to visit, although I suspect Penelope played a role in it too.
Abi finally confessed the truth about Rowan back in February, when she and Penelope came to help me wade through the bureaucracy of getting temporary custody for Oliver.
Penelope lost her shit for about thirty minutes, pacing furiously up and down the lakeshore.
It wasn’t until I coaxed her back to my pier with a baggie of weed and a Thermos of homemade hot chocolate that she finally calmed down.
That’s when we decided the three of us really are cursed/blessed.
They’ve been planning this trip for ages, though. Abi wants Rowan to meet Theo because, in her words, “they need mentors.” And then Penelope said she could drag Callie out, too. My two best friends and their two Hunters. One big fucked-up family.
Honestly, I’m glad to see them, after all that’s happened in the last year.
“Oliver!” I shout. “It’s time!”
His head pops out of the water, only to slap back down on the surface in frustration. I sweep my arm for him to come in.
“Theo’s doing it, and so can you!” I shout.
By now, even I can hear the car tires on my driveway, and a flare of light flashes from around the side of my house, the sunlight bouncing off the car’s windows.
Oliver begrudgingly starts to swim back toward the pier.
I turn to Theo again, winding my arm around his.
I can feel the tension in his muscles, tight and nervous.
He takes a deep breath, his chest rising and falling.
“Thank you,” I whisper to him. “Thanks for meeting them.”
He looks down at me, his gaze soft. “You think I would let two Hunters anywhere near you and Oliver without me?”
I roll my eyes at that, even though I don’t blame him, really.
Then I reach up and tuck a loose lock of his hair behind his ear.
He did get cleaned up for our little reunion, I’ll give him that.
He’s wearing the new clothes I bought him a few weeks ago—clothes he didn’t have to pilfer out of a murder site. He almost looks presentable.
Almost. There’s still that predatory wildness in him—those big, rough hands and hard, glinting eyes. It’s the same wildness that seeped into my bones and led me home: here on Hanging Lake, in the place he’s haunted for sixty years.
I don’t know what the future will look like. All I know is I want to stay with him for as long as I can.
Oliver climbs out of the lake, huffing and dripping water everywhere. When he shakes his head like a dog, the droplets splatter across my dress.
“Hey!” I tell him. “Watch out!”
Theo laughs. Oliver grins up at both of us, and his smile makes me happy, too. Like Theo, I never saw him smile like that—as big and bright as the sun. Not until spring came, at least. Not until he knew for certain that neither Theo nor I was going away.
Voices carry on the wind. I breathe in deep and take hold of Oliver’s hand. Theo squeezes mine—just a little too tightly, crushing my fingers together, exactly the way I like.
And we stand like that, on the edge of the pier that juts over a haunted lake. All of us linked together, a little family of ghosts.
THE END
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