26. Ghostbusters
Chapter twenty-six
Ghostbusters
Nicolette
“ S avannah is known for its restless dead, but some of our ghosts don’t wait at the stops.
Over the years, drivers have reported passengers who board the trolley without a ticket .
. . and never get off. They don’t speak.
They don’t move. And when the driver turns to ask where they’re headed—there’s no one there. ”
Daphne shuddered beside me, as if her dad didn’t own the trolley company and she hadn’t heard the same script every year since high school, when we’d started this annual tradition.
I’d always come home for at least one day to do this with her.
Even during med school. Even through my brutal residency and internship.
I hadn’t missed a year since we were sixteen.
I took Daphne’s hand and squeezed it, my throat tightening, knowing that this would be our last year.
That soon I would become a ghost to my best friend.
How was I ever going to leave her? But I knew if I didn’t, I would only put her in danger.
I didn’t care what Cyrus thought—I knew my stalker was real.
And whoever it was, they were going to appear again.
For all I knew, they were watching me now, biding their time. For what, I didn’t know. What were my mother’s secrets?
Maybe I would never find out. Maybe it was better that way.
Just like maybe I should have never discovered what it was like to let Julian in.
“I know, I’m being a baby,” Daphne said, squeezing back. “But it feels creepier this year. All this fog.”
She wasn’t wrong. Everything felt darker than normal as our trolley crept along downtown toward the cemetery. It was as if someone had turned off the moon and the stars.
Maybe it was just my mood.
I was going through the most painful breakup of my life—and I couldn’t tell anyone about it. That only made it hurt worse. I’d never expected heartbreak to feel so physical. Like something had been torn out of my chest and left bleeding.
Stupid vampire.
Why did he have to tell me he loved me?
Why did I want to believe him?
And how could I believe him? That was the real question.
He didn’t trust me. And for all I knew, Cyrus was the one sending the notes while trying to make Julian think I was crazy. It was clear Julian would never question Cyrus.
And Cyrus hated me.
He’d watched my every move yesterday in the lab, making me grateful today was Saturday.
Even though it was more than awkward at the penthouse.
Julian and I were doing the whole polite dance while basically ignoring each other.
What did Cyrus think I was going to do? Surely Julian had told him I’d be leaving soon.
That I was no longer experimenting with Julian’s blood.
Oddly, I wasn’t just mourning the end of my relationship with Julian. I was mourning the loss of answers. Mourning the fact that I’d never understand what made my blood different. That I might never discover a cure for him.
For Julian—who had said I’d already made him human.
If I thought about it too much, I was going to cry.
Again.
I’d already shed more than enough tears.
It would be a lie to say I wouldn’t miss Julian. He’d helped me see myself—see what I was truly capable of. He’d even made me imagine a future with him.
I felt like such an idiot.
Why couldn’t he have just trusted me?
Okay, sure—had there been a time when I’d thought science could be used to eradicate vampires? Yes. But I’d gotten past that. My intentions with his blood were pure. Always had been. And I’d trusted him enough to tell him about my mother’s laptop. About our last phone call.
I’d even trusted him enough to believe that someday I would give all of myself to him.
I needed to stop thinking about it—about him . There were plans to be made. Unspoken goodbyes that were going to break me if I let myself dwell on them too long.
I smiled at Daphne—the best friend a girl could ask for. The only person I would willingly wear my Ghostbusters costume in public for.
Yep. We were wearing them. Proton packs and all.
It was tradition.
We always received strange looks, but they seemed more pointed this year, considering who I was married to. But I didn’t care. I was a proud member of this two-person geek squad.
Daphne had seen me through every disappointment and heartbreak of my life. She’d been my loudest cheerleader and my safest place.
If only she could see me through this too.
“Why are you smiling at me like that?” she asked.
“I was just thinking you’re the coolest girl I know,” I said. “And that I’m grateful we’re friends—even though you make me wear a proton pack every October.”
I did my best to keep the emotion out of my words.
“Uh, hello,” she said, lowering her voice into something eerily dramatic. “We’re on a ghost tour. Who’s going to save all these people when the ghosts rise from the dead?”
“Who indeed?” I grinned, though the thought felt heavy. Finding out vampires were real had a way of doing that—of giving ghost stories an entirely different weight. It made me wonder if any of them were true.
Like the one our ethereal-looking tour guide was telling now.
Honestly, she looked like a ghost brought to life, with silver hair and skin so thin it appeared blue where the veins showed through. Her voice drifted over us, soft and eerie, as if she were speaking in a minor key.
Every head turned toward her. Couples clutched each other a little tighter.
“Some spirits in Savannah don’t just haunt houses,” she said. “They haunt people. At the turn of the last century, a woman was reported dead and buried. Yet sightings of her continued for decades. Always at night. Always avoiding the light. Folks said she looked . . .” She paused. “Unchanged.”
I shivered, thinking of the beautiful undead surrounding me. I’d even shared a bed with one.
Well. Not anymore.
I swallowed hard, holding back the tears. I’d come to love sharing a bed with Julian. There had been something achingly intimate about it. Safe, even—which was odd, considering what he was. But it hadn’t been about physical safety. It had been the emotional kind.
Until two days ago.
I wrapped my fingers around my mother’s locket, clutching it as if it might protect me from the monsters lurking in my life.
I wished her ghost would haunt me.
“We’re almost to the Colonial Park Cemetery,” the tour guide said, her voice dropping into something unnaturally hushed. “Beware of the green mist and the shadowy figures. These are not friendly ghosts. And stay away from the statues—some of them weep blood.”
The word “blood” crawled down my spine, and I shifted in my seat before I could stop myself.
“Wow,” Daphne whispered, leaning closer. “She’s really laying it on thick this year.”
Yeah. She was.
But I didn’t smile.
Normally, I would have brushed it off—laughed, even. Tonight, it felt different. As if the air itself had gone tense. Like something was waiting for us just beyond the reach of the trolley lights.
The vehicle creaked to a slow stop in front of the cemetery gates.
“One last warning while you explore,” the tour guide said softly. “Be careful not to step on the mass grave. Six hundred and sixty-six people died here during the yellow fever. It’s said their souls still look for bodies to inhabit.” Her smile thinned. “Be careful it isn’t yours.”
On that cheery note, we began filing off the trolley.
At least, I tried to.
The tour guide’s hand closed around my arm.
Even through my long sleeve, her touch was unnaturally cool, sharp enough to make me flinch. I told myself it was the mist. Or poor circulation. Or the atmosphere.
But the thought crept in anyway.
Vampire.
I searched her face, staring into deep-brown eyes. There was no telltale red. No blue from plasma treatment. No obvious contacts—but the light was low, and shadows were skillful liars.
Her smile widened, slow and knowing. She enjoyed my discomfort.
“Watch out, pretty,” she murmured. “The ghosts love redheads best.”
“Last year the guide said it was blondes,” I said, forcing a smirk. For a moment, it helped—reminded me this was supposed to be pretend.
Her fingers tightened briefly before she let go.
“They were wrong.”
She released me with a look that landed somewhere between amusement and threat. It said, Good luck. You’re going to need it .
I hurried off the trolley and found Daphne, her particle thrower wand raised as if she were ready to bust a ghost. If only the thing actually worked.
“I’m going to complain to my dad about her,” Daphne whispered, flicking her head toward the tour guide, who was still staring at me in a weird way. “She’s over-the-top creepy.”
I agreed, but I didn’t say it out loud. Not with the tour guide watching me like that. Just in case she wasn’t pretending.
Just in case she was a vampire.
The thought sent a chill through me. Had Julian sent her to keep an eye on me? If so, I would’ve preferred Amos.
Even though a part of me couldn’t shake the fear that it was one of his family tormenting me. One of them who’d sent the notes. One of them who might have killed my mother.
I glanced toward the dark paths ahead and swallowed.
Wherever I ended up after I left him, I just hoped it was somewhere bright. Somewhere warm. Somewhere far away from vampires or anything that went bump in the night.
Daphne grabbed my hand. “Let’s go bust some ghosts.”
I laughed, even though my insides were squirming. For some reason this year’s tour didn’t feel like the Casper the Friendly Ghost version. It felt more like a Friday the 13th documentary.
The rest of the tour group had already spread out—most lingering over the headstones, some nearly three hundred years old, murmuring about the history etched into them.
I stayed close to Daphne as we followed the narrow path deeper into the cemetery, my steps careful on the uneven ground. I told myself there was nothing lurking among the trees. That nothing was hiding in the Spanish moss dripping from every branch.
So why were the hairs on the back of my neck standing straight up? Why did the foreboding sense that I was being watched refuse to fade?
Granted, I probably was being watched.
I almost whispered Amos’s name, just to see if he was there.
A twig snapped.
I lurched and grabbed Daphne’s arm, my gaze darting into the shadows.
“So jumpy tonight,” Daphne laughed. “Maybe you should’ve brought Julian with us so he could protect you,” she teased.
“Yeah,” I murmured, playing along—while my heart ached.
I hated how much I missed him. How much I wished he were there. How much I craved the quiet intimacy of him holding me at night, listening patiently while I spilled every chaotic thought in my head.
Daphne stopped and tilted her head, giving me a careful once-over. “Are you okay? You seem a little down tonight. Is it that creepy tour guide?”
That definitely wasn’t helping.
“I’m fine,” I lied. It was becoming my default. “Just a long week. A lot going on at work.”
“Well,” she said gently, “if you ever need to talk, you know I’m your girl.”
I did know that. With all my heart.
Which only made me wonder how I was ever going to do life without her.
She tugged me along. “Let’s go check out the brick vaults.”
Daphne had always been obsessed with the family vaults—the stacked brick structures rumored to hold multiple caskets, layered one atop another. Most of the caskets and bodies had likely decayed into nothing by now. That knowledge didn’t make them any less unsettling.
We wove between headstones placed with no apparent order, some leaning at precarious angles, others nearly swallowed by the earth. The low-lying fog curled around our ankles, cold and damp, carrying the faint scent of wet stone and old leaves.
When we stopped, it was in front of several vaults that had been broken into. Time had scarred the brickwork, mortar crumbling, edges softened by centuries of weather and neglect. The vaults had been crudely patched, jagged holes still visible where something—or someone—had forced their way inside.
I had to remind myself it had been grave robbers. Vandals. Human theft. Not the undead bursting free of their brick prisons.
Some of the vaults bore large stone plaques, and though I’d read them dozens of times over the years, I always found them fascinating.
Even more so now, knowing Julian was older than any of the names carved into the stone.
That he’d lived through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. That he remembered them.
I wished I could stop thinking about him. But I wasn’t sure that would ever happen.
Regardless of how things had ended between us, Julian’s existence was proof that there was so much I didn’t understand about this world. About science. About myself. My blood alone was an enigma—one I still wanted answers about.
And maybe, someday, I’d solve the mystery of why my heart still ached for my husband.
I was reading the Graham family’s plaque when I realized Daphne had wandered farther down the row. She’d stopped in front of another vault, snapping selfies, her proton wand raised dramatically. She was adorable.
I was just about to call out and ask if she wanted me to snap some pictures of her when a hand closed around mine. Cold and tight.
I opened my mouth to scream, but before a sound escaped, a familiar voice in a hushed tone cut through the night.
“Hello, Nicolette. We need to talk.”
I turned my head slowly.
There I was met with an unexpected pair of shifting eyes that didn’t seem to know what color they wanted to be.
Unfortunately, I could see a hint of red.