CHAPTER TWO #2
Ben released a bitter laugh. “I’m not sure if that’s what you would call this, but hey, we’re both in uncharted territories here, so who knows?”
That was a scary thought.
“No, you’re right,” I agreed, running my hands up and down my arms. Cold seemed to hang out on my doorstep, ever encroaching like a persistent salesman. “You shouldn’t need to spell it out for me.” I paused. “Except…”
He glanced at me. “Except? Dot, dot, dot?”
Should I ask the nagging question that’d burrowed through my thoughts these past few months?
I inhaled a fortifying breath, squared my shoulders, and leaped. “Except doesn’t your being here change things?”
His warm brown eyes melted. “Willa, as much as the idea of you dating and moving on with your life kills me—sorry, I shouldn’t have phrased it like that,” he added when he clocked my wince.
“Ah, screw it.” He swiped his hand through me.
The cool sensation passed through my muscles, making me shiver. “See? I can’t even hold your hand.”
I attempted to rally my train of thought, lost to the swirling eddies of frosted sensation playing jump rope with my nerve endings.
“Right. But that’s—” I paused, cocking my head.
A niggling feeling itched my brain, the only warning I got before a resounding clap shook the rafters. On instinct, I flinched, huddling over to protect myself, but when nothing else happened, I cautiously peeked out.
Gabriel stood, hunched and panting from exertion—a living gesture that he wouldn’t have thought twice about doing before spending so much time interacting with Ben and me.
“Gabriel?” I paused, scanning the dark corners for shadows or threats—maybe both.
He didn’t answer at first.
Ben exchanged a glance with me, as if I were the expert authority on what to do in this situation. Wide-eyed, I gave a helpless shrug, refunding all that pesky responsibility. He was the ghost here, not me.
Ben shook his head but tried. “Gabe, hey there. Are you okay? Did you get pulled back?”
Gabriel waved Ben off when he tried to approach. “I’m—all good. No worries. I just—whew, that was rough. Wait, let me check something really quick.”
Before we could utter another sound, he zipped away.
…only to crash back into reality.
I had enough time to adopt an “oh shit” expression before Gabriel’s spiritual form slammed into me—quite literally. I flew up and off my feet, impacting the low-profile sofa instead of the wall, so… small blessings? That was my last thought before darkness stole my vision.
My eyes blinked open on an unfortunately familiar sight—blinding nothingness.
“Perfect,” I sighed before recalling how this alternate reality tended to distort sounds.
My words echoed back at me, louder and broken until even the individual sounds of the single word twisted into something menacing. If Hell ever held auditions for a turntablist, they’d hire this place on the spot.
Note to self: no more talking.
I assumed this place was the afterlife, but Gabriel said it more probably represented my own headspace. If that was the case, I really had made a mistake by breaking myself free of the loony bin—sorry, psychiatric ward. My mental self was a twisted basket case.
Since I tried my best not to walk around assuming I was a crazy person, I still called it the afterlife—the Big Al, for short.
“Willa?”
I turned, seeing Gabriel approaching, a speck of interest in a bleak, endless landscape. Forgetting my mental note against talking, I blurted, “What happened?”
To further defy being boxed into any sort of rational label, my voice came out normal this time, lacking the terrifying reverb straight from the mouths of demons.
“I don’t know, but when I crash-landed, it displaced you. Come on. Let’s get you out of here. Your lips are turning blue.”
They were?
I didn’t really have a physical form when I visited the Big Al, so I’d have to take his word for it. “Wait! Are you going to force me out? Because, I have to say, it really sucks when you—”
He didn’t wait for me to finish my objection. His open palm kung-fu slammed into my sternum.
“Owww,” I groaned, cradling a hand to my chest.
“Willa! You’re okay!” Ben exclaimed. I blinked as his face came into view from inches away.
He had to be hovering over me, considering I was flat on my back with the itchy couch fabric cushioning my form.
Sure enough, when I glanced down, Ben was floating horizontally, a few inches above my prone figure.
Goosebumps dotted my arms.
I would be adding a notation about personal space into my ghost guide the second I found some privacy. Then, I remembered why Gabriel slingshotted through me in the first place.
Would I be able to get any privacy?
“Ben?” I murmured when my breathing regulated.
“I’m here. Yes? What do you need?”
“Breathing room.”
His jaw dropped, hanging a bit before he blurred away so fast it was inhumanly possible. Ah, there was another dose of reality to help hammer in Ben’s earlier point before Gabriel’s untimely interruption. “Sorry!”
“It’s okay.” I sat up, still holding my hand to my chest. If I looked in the bathroom mirror right this instant, I’d bet my four-wheeler there’d be a Gabriel-sized handprint hiding beneath my cocoon-esque layered ensemble.
Speaking of the troublemaker, Gabriel stood not far off, his dark eyes a steady weight on me.
“As I was saying, I hate when you do that.”
“And like I said, you were about five seconds away from a complexion icy enough to make Jack Frost jealous.”
Something about his statement set my brain on alert. I jolted when I realized what it was. He’d implied the trip hadn’t been instantaneous. “Was I in there long?”
The guys exchanged a glance at the urgency in my tone. “Maybe ten minutes. It’s hard to tell, the passing of time—”
I rocketed to my feet. “Clock. I need a clock.”
Since I’d taken to self-imposed isolation, I didn’t always keep my phone on hand. I crossed to the cubbyhole dormer that housed my bed and hit pay dirt. After my rude awakening courtesy of one awful nightmare, I’d forgotten the device, plugged in and forlorn.
“What do you need the time for?” Gabriel asked.
“Because.” I jumped onto the mattress, not caring how undignified it looked scrambling across the rumpled duvet and decorative floral pillows. “My dad was just making a quick run to the store. If a lot of time passed in the real world while I was lost in the Big Al, he could—”
“Willa Walker,” Dad’s voice called from too close away for comfort.
Phone disregarded once more, I whipped around, catching sight of Dad towering in the doorframe at the top landing of the staircase.
I plastered on a shaky smile. “Oh! Hi, Dad. How are you?”
He didn’t bother to answer the question. Instead, his concern etched deeper into the lines of his face. “Who were you talking to?”
My heart dropped, and I froze, my mind utterly blank.
“Willa?” he repeated, his eyes round.
Oh, I hoped the loony bin hadn’t given away my bed. It looked like I’d be needing it.