12. A Small Dose of Truth
twelve
A Small Dose of Truth
Archer
What the fuck have I done?
This is all my fault. I should never have gotten anyone else involved in this, let alone Liam. If only I could have stopped it. But I never could have imagined this—that this thing would be here. That it would follow me. That it would do this to him. That it could do this to him.
“I’m so sorry.” I stroke a hand down his back, trying my best to console him. “I know that was awful. It’s over now.”
“No.” It’s barely more than a whimper. His head turns back and forth, as if he could erase what just happened from both our minds.
I feel so shit. Truly, so shit. I’ve scared him half to death just by existing near him.
“No,” he repeats, then he pushes himself up, using my chest for leverage. “It wasn’t that. It was but…” He stumbles a few feet away, dropping onto a bench, looking as exhausted, as fucked up, as I feel. A hand tears into his hair. “All those people…”
I drop down next to him, giving him time to process what he’s just seen. And he takes it, staring straight ahead, tear-streaked face a mask of horror, until finally, “That was my brother in there.”
My insides twist into a sick knot.
His gaze runs back to the door, fear and sadness carved into every feature. “I saw my brother.”
I don’t say a word. Every lie that wants to pour out of me tastes so bitter on the tip of my tongue.
Should I tell him he didn’t see him? That it wasn’t real? That’s the line I usually give people because it’s so much less terrifying than the truth.
“It was him,” he insists, as if I’d presented the arguments in the face of fact. “He was here. In this hospital. He was here. He’s been missing for five years, and now he’s…” His head drops into his hands, and his whole body convulses with emotion.
I run a hand over his back, trying to comfort him, trying to catch up, to take in the enormity of what he’s just said. “You were… um—”
“That was real!” he shouts. When he sits up, his eyes are frenzied, fierce. “That was real, and you can’t tell me it wasn’t.” His finger points sharply towards his cut cheek. “This wasn’t real? Is that what you’re going to tell me?”
The shock of his fury is like a slap in the face, knocking my senses back into me. I don’t want to lie to him. And he deserves better than that. “I won’t tell you it wasn’t real. I felt it. And I saw it. I understand. But Liam, it also wasn’t.”
“He was there,” he cries. “How can you say that?”
“Because this is what it does. The… the thing.” With a shake of his head, his eyes latch onto mine, searching for understanding.
“This is why I called you, Liam— The ExorSquad. This is why I needed your help. What you’re seeing, what just happened to us…
it’s not a ghost. I don’t know what the fuck it is, but it’s not a ghost, and whatever it is, it just did that. ”
“What do you mean it just did that?”
“I mean the thing in my house can do that. It can make you see things. It can control your reality just like that.”
He frowns in sheer disbelief, then throws out, “Then why did you call me to come fix a ghost?”
“Because I don’t know what it is! And I thought you might know.”
“How should I know? I know fuck all about ghosts—I know fuck all about anything!” His knee turns so sharply that it jabs into mine as he swivels to face me.
“What I want to know is, why the fuck do you know so much about them? Why are you always one step ahead of me? Why are you the one calling me for help, then you’re the one taking me out of the hospital like this is some daily occurrence for you?
You aren’t even scared, not like I am. Why are you just sitting there like… ”
He’s realised he’s shouting by the time he stops. Furious and hurt, and I can see it all. This is officially the worst, most fucked up first day at work any man ever had. And I want to fix it. But he’s so perfectly, exactly correct that I don’t think I can.
I will try, though.
“I know about ghosts because…” Yeah, okay, maybe not the whole truth.
I can’t tell him or any living person on the planet the whole truth.
Maybe just a small dose of it. “Because there are several ghosts haunting my house. I… have learned a bit about them, how they operate. What kind of things to avoid doing around them. I’ve studied them, and…
to be honest, I wouldn’t have had to call you if it were just a regular ghost. But this thing, it gets inside your head, and it makes you see things that aren’t there. ”
“I know he was there.” Liam’s lips are set hard, as if I’m trying to talk him out of it. Which I guess I am.
“But look now.” I wait for him to turn his head with that same mixture of fear and dejection while he assesses the hospital entranceway. “Like a bad dream. It’s all gone.”
“Then how did it do this?” Again, he points to his face. “And why did I see my brother?”
“I don’t know.” And that’s perfect honesty.
“It has powers that go beyond anything I’ve ever se-read about.
I can’t pretend to be an expert here, beyond the fact that I’ve had a few dealings with it.
But it has never followed me away from home before.
And I never thought you were in that sort of danger. ”
“That sort of danger?” he spits back. “Just normal danger, then? Like what happened to Raul?”
“That was a ghost. That wasn’t… this.” His forehead creases, and he searches my eyes as if he’s trying to figure out if I could be lying about that too. “You saw it yourself. You saw that ghost. You saw Raul try to shoot it, and you saw it react. It was, in a manner of speaking, self-defence.”
His lips part in shock. “You’re defending the ghost for almost killing Raul?”
“Well… what would you do in that situation?”
“I mean… probably not drop a chandelier on him.” There’s a moment of silence, then the smallest touch of a smile tilts the corner of his lips, and I find myself desperate for more of that.
“The one you met today, his name is Simon,” I vomit out, trying my best to get back on his good side. “And he’s an asshole, on occasion. He has telekinetic powers, so it was easy for him to drop the light on Raul.”
“So… he did do that?” He thinks it over a moment. “How did it get back in the ceiling?”
“Simon put it back.” I offer him a shrug. “Perks of poltergeist powers. Though clearly he’s able to appear in regular ghost form too. He’s had a long time to work on it.”
Liam’s gaze changes from surprised to curious. But still wary. He’s processing every word I’m saying and making judgements about me as he goes.
I flip to defensive, lest he stumble upon the truth. “At least I assume as much. He’s in some kind of old-fashioned clothing, from what I can tell. Looks like Regency to me, with an outfit like that.”
Liam’s gaze drops to my shirt, my suit, and I suppose he’s assessing my understanding of historical fashion, my ability to make a call like that.
And he’d be right. I’m pretty good with Regency fashion, just as I’m pretty good with modern fashion.
But it’s best I don’t let him explore the holes in my explanation for too long.
“There’s also Lacey,” I reveal, by way of distraction. “She’s a creepy girl who turned up one day, and now I can’t get rid of her. She doesn’t do much. Just peeks at me over the backs of chairs and things. Really quite creepy, though.”
His face is still ashen, but there’s the slightest spark back in his eyes now. “That sounds terrifying.”
“She is. I didn’t invite her in.” His eyebrows rise, and yep, looks like I’ve fucked up again. Talk on, Archer. “Or-or any of them, obviously. I wouldn’t invite a ghost in. But you know, the place is very old, converted stables and all that.”
“Did a lot of people die at the stables?” he asks, half incredulous, half entranced.
“No. I mean… maybe? Maybe. Horses can be pretty dangerous, I guess. And um. Hay bales. Falling on people. From the loft.”
He laughs, just lightly, and it does something, knowing I can pull him out of whatever sadness he fell into, even if it’s just for a little bit.
“There’s an old man, Tony, and he’s… Oh, he’s ghastly. Super grumpy. Stomps up and down the stairs at all hours. He’s the one you’d come across sitting at your kitchen table at four in the morning, staring at you, all white and angry and bitter. Stuff of nightmares.”
Leaning back for a cute and comical side-long glance, he asks, “Are you having me on right now?”
“No, I’m not having you on. Honest truth. It’s really scary in there some days.”
“Some days?” he prods. And there’s the full smile, like the ghost of the bright man who turned up on my doorstep this morning. I want so much to resurrect him in full. To make it like none of this happened.
But I can see now, from what he just saw in there, his scars run so much deeper than I could have imagined. This brother of his. This job he absolutely should not be doing. This man—handsome, beautiful, sweet—has something haunting him too.
“It’s only scary some days,” I tell him. “On other days…”
His head tilts a little closer, and the scent of whatever he uses to get his hair that soft-looking carries on the breeze, hits me, makes me want to sink my face into it.
The briefest vision catches me—of being closer to him, being able to go for a walk with him. Go on a date with him.
Then comes the memory that I don’t do that. With anyone. That I can’t do that. That my life is far too complicated. Especially for someone like him.
He must notice the way my smile fades. His shoulder bumps into mine in a friendly way, willing me to go on. “Other days?”
“Other days, someone like you turns up, and…” He waits, and I feel it, the tension in the air.
It’s like that will-he-won’t-he moment.
But I simply can’t.
“And here we are at the hospital. And I’m really sorry for everything.
I tried to explain this morning, before everything went wrong, that this was something bad.
I asked Gerald for his most experienced people because I needed help that went beyond ghosts.
And now you’ve seen what I’m up against. It’s really scary.
And it’s really dangerous. And I don’t know how to get rid of it. ”
His head drops. Whether it’s because he’s mulling over the problem, because he’s about to quit, or because I didn’t say what I think we both knew I was about to say, I can’t tell.
But he’s tired. And he’s been through something terrible. Something personal, on top of everything else. Something I don’t want to ask about, because from the way he was crying a few minutes ago, I know it must still be raw.
I think it’s best for both of us if I just drop him home and tell him goodbye. For good.
End this now before he gets hurt again.
Talk him into quitting this awful job on the way, then let this be just another sad, unwanted memory amongst a million others.
It might have been so lovely too.
But I can see already, Liam and I are just too haunted to ever work out.