Chapter 13
“This is nonsense.” Chad’s voice fissured through the living room like he was trying to split it in half. He paced near the door, hands chopping the air, the gun hanging loose at his side like an afterthought.
He was talking too fast now, words stacking on top of each other like if he didn’t slow down, the truth might not catch him.
“There’s no such thing as ghosts,” he went on. “Or an ‘other side.’ Or demons. Elias accidentally died after Zach hired him to be a fake medium. End of story.”
“He didn’t just die,” Zach said flatly. “You killed him. And he was a real medium.”
Chad scoffed. “He was a guy with props and a sob story, and you paid him to fuck with us.”
“I paid him because he was legit.”
“And Derek’s dead because Liv blasted him in the face,” Chad continued, nonchalantly—like he was reading off a grocery list.
Liv made a small, broken sound beside the couch. She stared at the floor, eyes unfocused, hands locked together so tight her knuckles had gone white.
“What about the door?” Erica said.
The room turned to her.
Chad barked a laugh. “The door?” He waved a dismissive hand. “Old building. Temperature change causes expansion or contraction, something like that.”
Erica glared. “It wouldn’t open from either side.”
“Then it’s jammed.”
“What about the power?” Liv asked, wiping at her face with the heel of her hand. “It went out right before—” She stopped, swallowing hard.
“Circuit breaker,” Chad said immediately. “Or a blown fuse. Or whatever the hell buildings have. There is nothing supernatural happening here. There are real problems, real bodies, and real cops on their way. So you all need to stay fucking focused.”
Focused meant obedient. Erica heard it clearly now. She didn’t respond to him. Instead her gaze drifted back to the coffee table.
The wooden slab sat at its center, scorched now, blackened in places.
The brass bell lay tipped on its side. Zach’s penny, Liv’s hair clip, Derek’s keys, Chad’s Rolex, and her sister’s ring rested on it.
Beckie’s bracelet lay discarded on the floor nearby, warped and blackened.
The objects felt charged now, like exposed wires humming quietly.
Erica replayed how this all started, the prayer, the bell, the names, the circle of objects. It had all been so deliberate and intentional. Nothing about this felt accidental.
“What if we didn’t end it?” Erica said quietly. “What if we opened something and never closed it?”
Chad groaned. “Jesus Christ, not this again.”
“We said our names to start it,” she pressed on. “Three times. We placed the objects. He said they grounded us.” Her throat tightened. “What if that’s how we close it? We repeat the prayer. We take our objects back. One by one.”
She hated how much she sounded like Elias now. Hated that she was borrowing his cadence because it was the only framework she had left.
Silence met her first—each of them glancing at the others, measuring how insane this sounded.
Then Zach nodded. “Erica’s right.”
Liv lifted her head. Her eyes were swollen and red and desperate. “We have to try something.”
Chad snorted and crossed to the table. He yanked his Rolex off the slab and inspected it, frowning at a dark mark on the face.
“Asshole scorched it.” He glanced toward Elias’s body. “Lucky he’s dead. Otherwise, I’d be sending him the bill.”
Erica sank to the floor. Time was running out.
The police would be here soon, and they’d have a lot of explaining to do.
But first they had to banish whatever had crossed the threshold.
Zach sat across from her. Liv joined them shakily, knees folding beneath her like she couldn’t trust her legs anymore.
Beckie hovered, chewing her lip. Then she sighed, picked up her bracelet, and placed it back on the slab—careful this time.
“You too?” Chad said, incredulous.
“What else are we going to do?” Beckie snapped. “We’re trapped.”
“We are not trapped,” Chad said. He strode to the door and set the gun on the entryway stand with a sharp clatter. “Watch.”
Chad grabbed the handle and yanked, but nothing happened. He slammed his shoulder into the door once, twice. It didn’t budge. It didn’t even shudder.
Erica closed her eyes and forced herself to focus. “The prayer,” she said. “Does anyone remember it?”
She was met with blank stares. Her stomach twisted, but she tried anyway. Fragments surfaced—words about protection, thresholds, permission. They came out wrong and out of order, but the sentiment was there. Imperfect was better than nothing.
“That should do it,” she said weakly.
“Names,” Zach added, parroting Elias’s cadence. “Say your name three times.”
They did, and the bell rang. The sound felt less ceremonial, like an echo instead of a signal.
“Take your objects,” Erica said. “In the order we set them down.”
Zach picked up his penny. Liv reached for her hair clip, sobbing softly as she did. Beckie retrieved her bracelet for the second time tonight, and Erica lifted her sister’s ring, fingers shaking. All that remained was Derek’s keys. Liv took them, trembling.
Nothing happened.
The silence that followed was louder than the bell.
Beckie blinked. “I don’t feel any different. Just . . . slightly more sober, which is honestly pretty lame.”
Erica’s stomach sank.
Chad turned, breathing hard, face flushed. “I told you,” he said. “Your ghost shit isn’t real.”
He grabbed the gun from the table and took a couple of steps back. “I’m getting us out of here,” he said, raising it toward the lock—
And then he was gone.
One second, he was standing there. The next, he was slammed upward, pinned against the ceiling like gravity had reversed just for him. His head struck hard, cracking against a wood beam.
Erica gasped.
Zach stood and stumbled back. “Jesus—”
“Holy fuck,” Beckie breathed.
Liv cried harder, voice breaking. “I told you.”
Chad thrashed, mouth open in a scream that didn’t fully become sound.
His arm jerked violently away from his body, the material of his shirt ripping under the strain.
His flesh separated, muscle shredded, and bones popped out of sockets.
Something pulled hard, and his whole arm fell to the floor with a thud.
The gun clattered, still clutched in his hand.
Chad screamed as he stared down at what used to be attached to him.
Another wrenching pull and the other arm ripped away, blood spraying in an arc that painted the wall.
Then his legs, one by one, were torn and dropped from his body, each impact sounding final and obscene.
Erica couldn’t look away. Her hands covered her mouth, breath trapped in her chest as Chad was dismantled in a way that made no sense. It was as though the room itself were doing it.
Only his torso and head remained, pinned and trembling against the ceiling. His eyes were wider than humanly possible. His teeth chattered so hard they began chipping away.
Then the arm holding the gun lifted. It rose slowly into the air, suspended, like something invisible had hooked into it.
The group looked on in horror. The barrel swung in a lazy arc, pointing at each of them in turn.
Everyone dropped instinctively, shielding their heads, bracing for gunfire.
Then it shot upward—fast—vanishing into Chad’s ruined body with a sickening shove.
Chad gurgled and convulsed as it worked its way through him.
Erica looked up to see the barrel of the gun inside Chad’s mouth, his own fingers reaching up from somewhere deep in his throat as if he’d been turned inside out.
He made one final, muffled sound before the gun went off in his mouth. The blast painted the ceiling in a wet burst, like a test spot for a new accent color.
Chad dropped. The impact was sickening. Blood splashed outward, warm and sudden, spattering Erica, Zach, Liv, and Beckie. The metallic smell hit a second later, and Liv screamed.
Beckie staggered back until the wall caught her and slid down it, shaking.
Zach stared at the space Chad had occupied seconds ago, his chest rising too fast and his hands flexing at his sides like he was bracing for a blow that never came.
No one spoke.
Erica’s heart pounded so hard she could feel it in her ears. She looked at the walls, the ceiling, the corners—places she’d never had to think about before.
Whatever had done that to Chad hadn’t burst in. It hadn’t forced its way through. It had responded. And now they were trapped in the condo with it.