Epilogue
The lights went down.
The crowd hushed—that electric silence before music breaks loose and pulls everyone under. I gripped the edge of my chair, blood rushing hot behind my ears, like it always did when Bat stepped onto a stage.
Two years since Grimthorne Manor burned. Two years of building this life together, piece by piece. And I still couldn’t quite believe it was real.
The spotlight snapped on.
Bat stood centre stage, electric guitar slung across his chest. Black jeans that clung to his thighs.
A sleeveless band shirt—some obscure post-punk group from the nineties—that showed off the tattoo on his upper arm.
A bat in flight, wings spread wide. Identical to the one he’d had before.
Before he died. Before he came back wearing Brad Harrington’s face and decided to make it his own.
That tattoo had been one of the first things he’d done—reclaiming his new skin inch by inch. The piercings came next, then growing his hair out until it fell across his forehead the way he remembered. Small rebellions against a body that didn’t feel like home yet.
He wasn’t quite as muscular as he’d been two years ago, but not far off. We’d eaten our fair share of salt and vinegar crisps, but we’d also had lots of sex. Lots and lots of sex. It had balanced out, apparently.
Bat’s fingers found the strings.
The opening chords rang through the venue—a proper London venue, not some dingy pub side room. Actual acoustics and a stage that didn’t wobble. I felt so proud of him, I almost didn’t know what to do with myself.
Then Bat leaned into the microphone and sang.
Nothing lasts forever, that’s what they all say
But I’d trade my soul to make you stay
I knew every word by heart now. Had heard him work through this song a hundred times in our tiny Brighton flat, perfecting each note, each pause.
He’d been collaborating with some producer who took a shine to him—polishing it, recording it, mastering it into something that could actually be released. Something real.
And now here it was. His voice filling this room, wrapping around every person present.
Movement caught my eye—the journalist in the corner booth. Middle-aged woman with sharp eyes and a sharper pen, scribbling notes onto a pad. NME. Actual fucking NME. I’d almost fainted when Bat told me she’d be here, and I still hadn’t recovered.
My stomach twisted. Nerves for him. He deserved this so much.
“You weren’t lying. He’s absolutely brilliant,” Mike, sat beside me, whisper-shouted into my ear.
I glanced at my new uni mates, Mike and Emma—two of the older students, who like me, were currently enrolled at UAL studying music production. They both sat forward in their seats, completely captivated.
On my other side, my mother was equally transfixed, whilst Emily grinned. My sister, looking more relaxed than I’d seen her in years. Doctor hours were brutal, but she’d taken the night off for this. For me. For Bat.
Lily sat in Emily’s lap, nine years old now and sipping cola through a straw. Thrilled to be up way past her bedtime. Thrilled to be watching Uncle Bat on stage.
Uncle Bat. Fuck. That still got me every time she said it.
Last summer we’d all gone camping together—me, Bat, Mum, Emily, Reuben, Lily.
Pitched tents in the Lake District and spent three days hiking, swimming in freezing water, cooking beans over a camp stove.
Bat had taught Lily how to skip stones. Emily had taken approximately one million photos.
Mum looked set to cry every time Bat and I held hands.
It was truly the best time of my life.
Bat’s eyes found mine across the crowd. His fingers never faltered on the guitar, but his mouth curved—just slightly. Just enough for me to see.
My heart performed a sequence of acrobatic squeezes.
He held my gaze as he sang the bridge, voice stripped bare and achingly honest.
I’ve been a ghost too long, fading in the dark
You brought me back to life, you stitched my broken heart
The journalist’s pen moved faster.
Emily squeezed my hand.
And Bat—my Bat, my impossible second-chance miracle—poured everything into that song. Every regret. Every hope. Every fierce, defiant declaration that we existed, that we mattered, that love could bloom even in the wreckage of haunted manors and stolen bodies and ectoplasm-stained bedsheets.
The final chord rang out.
Silence.
Then the room erupted.
Applause crashed over us like a wave. People were on their feet—Mike, Emma, strangers who’d never heard Bat’s name before tonight. Lily bounced in Emily’s lap, clapping her small hands together.
I stood too, throat tight with fierce emotion. “That’s my guy!” I wanted to scream. “He’s mine! All mine! And look how bloody amazing he is!”
Bat bowed. Grinned that crooked grin that looked the same even in different skin, that still made my knees weak. Then he launched straight into the next song—something faster, heavier, the type of track that made you want to move.
I glanced at my phone. Nearly midnight. We’d be catching the last train back home to Brighton soon.
Cat would be waiting for us on the doorstep—yes, we’d actually named him Cat because we’d kept saying “the cat” until it became too late to call him anything else.
He’d demand treats even at two in the morning, smug little bastard.
Home. Our home.
I still hadn’t quite recovered from that day we’d moved all my stuff two years ago. Hauling boxes down narrow stairs, Bat complaining about my excessive mug collection, both of us laughing until we couldn’t breathe.
The first few weeks together had been weird.
Not bad. Never bad. But adjustment after adjustment stacked up until I felt like I was drowning in logistics and existential crises.
Bat was alive again. Walking, talking, eating crisps, taking showers that lasted forty-five minutes whilst I banged on the door shouting about water bills.
Alive in Brad Harrington’s body, with Brad Harrington’s face, Brad Harrington’s thick rugby thighs and Brad Harrington’s voice that still made me flinch sometimes when it said my name with such tenderness.
I’d look at him across the breakfast table—this broad-shouldered, conventionally attractive bloke who’d once called me a delusional pervert—and had to remind myself that Bat lived behind those blue eyes.
My Bat. The one who’d died in 1999 wearing excessive amounts of eyeliner and a puncture wound between his ribs.
Some mornings I’d wake up and panic, thinking I’d imagined everything. Thinking Brad would roll over and sneer at me.
But then those strong, comforting arms would wrap around me, and Bat would whisper good morning against my neck in that way that made my toes curl.
Bat struggled too, though he tried to hide it.
I caught him staring at his reflection more than once—not in vanity, but confusion.
Like he was trying to recognise the stranger looking back.
He’d touch himself sometimes, absently, fingers tracing features that didn’t belong to him.
The thick jaw. The complete absence of his scar.
“Do you still see me?” he’d asked one night, voice small. “When you look at me, is it still me?”
“Always,” I’d promised. And I’d meant it.
And we had other challenges too.
Massive, identity-theft-level challenges that neither of us had been remotely prepared for.
The first one: we didn’t even know where Brad lived.
I’d stood in Gerald’s office three days after the fire, Bat’s hand gripping mine.
Gerald had been hunched over his desk, turning something over in his fingers—something dark and glassy that caught the light wrong.
Something about that object nagged at me.
It was familiar, somehow. Like I’d seen it before but couldn’t place where.
He’d jerked when he noticed us. Shoved the thing under a pile of paperwork.
“We’re resigning,” I’d said. “Both of us. Effective immediately.”
Gerald’s milky blue eyes had gone wide. “Right. Fine then. Just go tell Ted.”
Bat had laughed—this bright, genuine sound that Brad’s vocal cords had never produced before.
“That’s it?” I’d said.
“What do you want me to do?” Gerald had leaned forward over the papers, protective. “Beg you to stay? There’s always more idiots who think they can handle ghosts. Now if you don’t mind—”
He’d made shooing motions with his hands, desperate for us to leave.
We’d left feeling vaguely insulted that he hadn’t even tried to stop us.
Ted had been very helpful. He’d handed over Brad’s address from the payroll paperwork without question, probably relieved to have two less nightmares to manage.
Brad’s flat had been exactly what I’d expected. Studio in Croydon. Dingy. Beige walls. Framed photos of rugby teams covering every surface. Protein powder lined up on the kitchen counter like soldiers. Not a single book in sight except for some self-help rubbish about alpha male success strategies.
We’d grabbed his passport, birth certificate, National Insurance card, driving licence. Everything we’d need to fully inhabit his life.
We already had his phone—it had been in his uniform pocket, and somehow survived the basement, unlike mine. Bat’s fingerprint unlocked it instantly, and we’d scrolled through his contacts whilst sitting on Brad’s lumpy sofa.
Brad didn’t have many friends. Surprise, surprise.
A few names from his supposed professional rugby days. Mostly contacts for tradesmen, a dentist, his gym. No record of that infamous lesbian cousin he’d told me about. But there, near the bottom of the list: Dad.
Bat had stared at that entry for a long time. “We can’t just disappear on him,” he’d said quietly. “That’s cruel.”
I’d wanted to argue. Wanted to say Brad’s father probably didn’t deserve our consideration, that we owed him nothing.
But Bat’s face had done that thing—softened with an ache I recognised.
The same ache that still appeared whenever he mentioned his own parents, the ones who’d quietly rejected him for being gay before he died.
So Bat kept up the relationship.