Chapter 5 Ellis
ELLIS
The first thing I registered as my eyes flicked open was the smell—thick, earthy, and cloying. Burning incense. It curled through my nose, latched onto my soul, and dragged me back to consciousness.
Flickering candlelight met my eyes as they focused. It wasn’t fluorescent lights, not a hospital ceiling. Candles. Which meant I was still in that ridiculous room, or I’d died and been sentenced to some bizarre spiritual holding pen full of scented smoke and wicker furniture.
A groan escaped me before I even realized it, the room tilting slightly as I moved. Two figures swam into view.
My heart stuttered in my chest, just enough to remind me it was still someone else’s. And that someone else was in this room with me now.
The shapes came into focus, and my eyes locked on a pretty face. Wary brown eyes and soft, coppery skin. Loose strands of hair had fallen from her space buns, making her look a little chaotic, her tie-dye shirt clashing with the haze in my vision.
Dove.
I wanted to groan again at myself. There was no point in finding her pretty, even if my traitorous brain insisted on it, having latched onto the idea the moment I first saw her in the store.
“Hey,” Dove said cautiously. “You okay?”
“No,” I croaked, leaning up on my elbows. “This isn’t real. None of this is real. I’m going to wake up in my bed any minute now.”
A snort came from the pink-haired figure now stepping into my line of sight.
“And she’s back, folks!”
She grinned down at me and had her arms out like she were a TV host.
Dove rolled her eyes discreetly before extending her hand toward me. “You fainted,” she said calmly.
I blinked at her hand, then up at her, my mind screaming with a thousand conflicting thoughts, my ears still ringing. Licking my dry lips, I slid my hand into hers. Her warm, steady grip jolted through me like a defibrillator to the chest.
She helped me up carefully, and I became acutely aware of the throbbing pain at the back of my head, likely from hitting the floor.
The only small relief was the thick shag carpet beneath me, which had probably cushioned the fall.
Still, I now had a potential concussion to add to my growing list of issues.
Dove gently lowered me into the chair I’d originally occupied. My eyes flicked once again to the ghost, who was now draped across the wicker chair as if she owned the place, wearing a look of smug satisfaction I already didn’t like.
Dove said nothing as she sat next to me in the second chair, as if too polite to tell the ghost to get out of hers.
A small silence stretched between the three of us, and I stared down at the table. The cards between us looked far too innocent. Not at all like something capable of summoning the dead…and yet…
“So,” Dove began gently, clearing her throat, “you had a heart transplant?”
“Oh, she did,” the girl cut in before I could find the strength to answer. She reclined, kicking her boots up onto the table. “I saw the whole thing. I watched them crack open her chest like a fucking crab shell and tuck my heart into place like it was a jigsaw puzzle piece.”
I blanched at the description, my head swimming as nausea rolled through me. The vivid image of myself lying open on a sterile table, chest empty, made my breathing go shallow.
“Stop,” I whispered. “P-please just stop.”
“Are you serious?” the girl said, her voice teetering on the edge of manic. “I’ve been stuck to you for months—basically screaming in your ear every day—and finally, finally, I’m being heard again! Like, I know I’m dead, but have you already forgotten basic manners? You haven’t even asked my name.”
Dove looked genuinely aghast, as if she were truly horrified she hadn’t thought to ask the rude ghost her name or exchange pleasantries, as though it went hand in hand with her tarot-loving nature.
“I’m so sorry,” Dove rushed out, clapping a hand to her forehead. “Wh-what is your name?”
The girl’s expression softened slightly as she turned to Dove.
“I’m Liv. Liv Browne.”
A name.
Finally, a name to go with the face of the girl whose heart now beat so steadily in my chest. The person I had thought about every night for the past year before falling asleep, wondering who she was and who she’d left behind.
Her wild pink hair curled at the ends, her lashes dark and full. Pale skin. Bold lipstick. Heavy eyeliner. She looked like she’d been dressed for a concert… or a club.
And underneath all of it… she looked about my age.
I swallowed uncomfortably.
“You’re real,” I whispered, my throat dry.
She rolled her eyes. “I mean, I was.”
“No, I mean… this is all real. You’re here. I mean… dead, but here.”
Another stretch of silence settled over us, as if the weight of the truth had just begun to sink in. And while I briefly wondered if I was hallucinating or if maybe I had some undiagnosed brain tumor. I didn’t think I did.
Because there she was.
The ghost of my heart.
Sitting across from me in the back room of a crystal shop in downtown Chicago.
You couldn’t write this stuff.
“You said you’re stuck to Ellis?” Dove asked tentatively, her eyes eager. This must be a novelty for her, I guess. Was her having a ghost in her shop the equivalent of an archaeologist finding a dinosaur bone?
Liv nodded and flicked a pink curl over her shoulder.
“Uh-huh. I don’t know why. I mean, one moment I was standing in a white room, watching all my functioning organs get removed—honestly, that was a bit much—and then I covered my eyes, and when I looked again, I was standing over her,” she flicked her head toward me, “watching my heart get put into her chest.”
It sounded like a horror movie.
“I mean, when Miss Morbid over there did all her deep-dive Googling about the heart, I caught some interesting shit about energy and cellular memory, I don’t know if it’s true. All I know is I died, I was carved up like a cow at a slaughterhouse, and suddenly, I was stuck to her.”
I glared but couldn’t quite form the words to defend myself, even as she spat out her like it was a dirty word.
“So… so there’s no, like, spirit guide telling you what to do? Or why you’re still here?” Dove asked in awe, her hands clasped together. I eyed the chipped nail polish on her fingers, feeling myself starting to dissociate.
“No,” Liv said with a shrug. “I’m just here.
I can’t move on. There’s no white light or whatever shit you see in the movies.
I mean... things seem duller over here, like there’s some kind of veil between me and reality.
Color seems less. I feel less. When we came in here. .. I—I finally felt something.”
“This is ridiculous,” I said, rejecting any hint of acceptance and marching right back down the road of denial. “This is some kind of stress breakdown,” I added with a nod, explaining the situation more to myself than the people in the room with me.
Dove gave me a shady side-eye. “Do you always hallucinate full-blown personalities when stressed?”
“Only since I started hanging out in dusty rock shops with strangers,” I snapped, letting my glare land squarely on her.
She didn’t shrink back, though. No, her lips twitched, just a little, like she was trying not to smile.
“Honestly, believe what you want, heart thief,” Liv said coolly. “Regardless, I’m here now, and there is no way I’m going invisible again.”
Dove bit her lip and tucked a loose strand of hair into one of her haphazard space buns. “Okay, so, let’s just rally for a second. We have a ghost, a heart transplant patient in denial, and me. I…I’m not quite sure what my role in all this is yet.”
Liv snorted. “No way. You’re the key here. I’ve been stuck in that silent void for ages, and the second we came here, bam! No, you’re important. Maybe the cards too. That deck is throwing off a lot of energy.”
Dove’s mouth dropped open slightly as her eyes flicked to the deck.
“So—so what?” I asked, trying to sound more confident than I felt. “You have unfinished business? You’re here to tell me how ungrateful I am? What do you need us for?”
“Unfinished business,” Dove echoed, raising her brows.
Liv sighed and dramatically threw her arm over her forehead.
“I do. Quite a lot, actually. I’ve got some major loose ends I need to tie up.
It’s the only reason I can think of why I’m stuck here.
Don’t ask me why you’re the one I’m stuck to,” she grumbled, scowling.
“You’re the last person I would’ve chosen.
Do you know how agonizing it’s been to watch you film your little survivor videos, telling your fans to ‘stay strong,’ while you mope, groan, and map out your own death? ”
My cheeks flushed. I ignored the flick of Dove’s eyes in my direction, her expression unreadable, but shame curled through me all the same.
“I left things bad with my mom,” Liv continued, her cocky coolness dimming slightly. I frowned. “Really badly, actually. I have to make it right.”
Something twisted in my stomach.
“I think it’s why I can’t move on,” Liv added, suddenly springing to her feet and glancing between us. “So, I’ve had a lot of time to think about this, and I need help getting to Los Angeles.”
A beat of silence passed.
“I’m sorry, what?” I asked, every hair on my body standing on end.
“L.A.,” she repeated slowly, like she was talking to a toddler. “That’s where my mom is. I need to go there.”
“And what?” I deadpanned, her attitude already grating. “You want us to book you a plane ticket?”
Liv snorted and inspected her nails. “Cute. No, we’re driving.”
My stomach dropped. “What?”
“We’re driving?” Dove echoed, her voice pitched slightly higher.
“Yep,” Liv said with a firm nod. “See, part of my unfinished business is that two days before I died, I was supposed to move states. I was going to drive cross-country with my best friend. Route 66. Road trip of a lifetime. It was all planned out.”
I blinked, my mouth going dry. “You want to finish your bucket-list road trip... so you can go make peace with your mother?”