Chapter 4
Kendyll
(Present Day)
THERE WAS SOMETHING EERIE ABOUT walking through a large institution that once bustled with life yet now sat empty.
Deserted. Hollow. If I closed my eyes, I could almost pretend that I still heard the swish of scrub pants as nurses traversed the halls or the distant nonsensical babbling and ramblings of a patient who wasn’t able to understand or interact with the world.
I could hear the low rumble of a rolling bed that carried a patient to their destination or the dull buzz followed by a loud clang of the doors shutting behind people as they were let into a locked ward.
I opened my eyes and looked around the dark lobby of the hospital. The sounds of my memories faded, but the smell didn’t. Even after being closed for many months, the heavy scent of antiseptic lingered.
From somewhere deep in the quiet building, there came a hushed, brief giggle, and if I had to guess, the haunting sound didn’t belong to the living. Good. That meant at least one ghost was still here with whom I could try to form a relationship.
Overcast light from outside streamed through the many windows.
I followed along the dim lighting, which looked about as gray as I felt.
I scanned my surroundings as I walked, mumbling about good spots to take creepy photos or set up fake scenarios should the activity of the place really fall through.
It wasn’t until I’d gone up two flights of stairs and wandered into one of the unlocked wards that I realized where I’d blindly walked to. I swallowed hard and stood in the doorway of patient room 203—my room.
It looked exactly as it had back then with its plain white bed, white walls, and white floors.
A twin-sized bed was pressed into the corner, right across from where I currently stood.
The staff wanted us positioned in front of the window in each metal door so that they could routinely peer in at night to make sure we were asleep and behaving.
The bright light of their flashlight woke me up every single time, and panic would flood me until I reminded myself that it was the light of the hospital staff, not the hallway light illuminating my childhood room as that door was slowly opened to reveal the beast on the other side.
A sensation like the gentle caress of fingers reaching out to touch me whispered against the back of my neck.
I inhaled sharply as a jolt of warmth and a memory of a left behind face flashed in my head.
I turned and reached up to grab the back of my neck.
I looked up and down the hallway, but there was no one there.
Still, my heart pounded too fast while my eyes dropped to my feet.
That feeling … that ghost of a loving touch …
it felt too familiar. It felt like him, but that had to be my imagination.
Shaking off the feeling lingering on my skin, as well as the one trying to flood my chest, I cleared my throat and returned to my car to carry my belongings inside.
Catsper appeared by my bags just as I set them in the central hub of Ward E, right in the common room that was overlooked by the nurses’ station.
His transparent black body had thickened in hue, which meant he’d gathered some energy from some humans or devices along the way to this place.
Smiling, I patted his ghostly head. “Welcome back, boy. I’m going to check the security room to make sure the surveillance cameras are working. Feel free to wait here or come along.”
With a push off the ground, Catsper pitter pattered through the air as though meeting some invisible floor to pounce off of.
Together, we roamed the halls in search of the security room, and while we walked, I tried to focus on sensing any remaining ghosts.
There was a faint trace of spiritual energy hovering around the place, but it wasn’t as loud or obvious as I normally found at a haunted location.
“Guess that hasn’t changed since I was here,” I mumbled to myself, recalling how, back during my patient days, the few spirits here always ran and hid anytime I came close. “Even with the place being abandoned, they still don’t want to come out.”
I wouldn’t give up, though. I had time to wait and earn their trust. Whoever remained here, I hoped to give them the help they needed to feel safe in their afterlife.
Since this building was recently an operating mental hospital, it already housed a security feed of every hallway and common area.
Even some patients’ rooms had cameras in them.
Given that Bethelma had purchased the place and kept the water and electricity going, all I had to do right now was make sure the cameras were working and recording, just in case I managed to capture any ghosts on them.
In the places without cameras already shooting, I’d set up my own to capture evidence in the rooms that had the best activity.
Though, figuring out those spots would take time.
The large building really felt empty because of the spirits that hid and dashed away.
The sound of my sneakers padding along the tiled hallway echoed.
I listened, occasionally thinking I caught the faint squeak of a wheelchair within the sound or a breathy whisper of a spying spirit, but every time I stopped walking, all would go quiet.
Too quiet.
Narrowing my eyes, I looked behind me to find the long stretch of hallway with its many doors empty. The gray light of outside barely permeated this section. No ghost followed. No ghost peered around a corner or doorway. I was alone.
After ensuring the cameras were functioning and flipping through the different feeds but spotting no ghosts, I returned to the second floor where I’d left my belongings. Given that I’d be staying here for three months, I wanted to set up my own little area to call temporary home.
Each ward of the hospital had the same areas—the nurses’ station overlooking the common room, the patient rooms, the communal bathroom, and a day room.
The common room and nurses’ station were at the front of the ward, and they were the first things people walked into after coming through the doors.
It also boasted a wall of large windows that showered natural light into the space.
“I think we’ll make this our room,” I told Catsper as he followed me to the windows. I looked past the bars on them to the gray world outside. “What do you think?”
He meowed in response.
I slipped into the closest patient room and grabbed the bed.
The metal scraped across the ground as I dragged it into the hallway and then into the open, lit area in front of the dozens of windows.
I stripped the bed of its current sheets and blanket, and with a flashlight in hand, carried the bundle in search of the laundry room.
The laundry room was in the basement where no outside light reached.
Only the thin strip of glowing light extending from my flashlight allowed me to see anything as I trekked down the cold hallway.
Thankfully, the laundry room had a light switch that I managed to find.
After dumping the old blankets, I found where the clean ones were kept.
When the hospital closed, it was a quick process, so almost everything was left behind.
Patients were moved to a nicer, larger, and newer facility while staff dropped what they were doing to move onto the next job with no care left for this place.
Most medical records and charts were electronic, so without credentials, people wouldn’t be able to log into those on the remaining computers.
Still, I wouldn’t be surprised if I stumbled upon some paper charts still hidden or forgotten in the recesses of this building during my stay.
I returned to my temporary lodgings with these thoughts still in my head, but when I rounded the corner, I froze. My entire body tensed while my fingers went slack, dropping the blankets I carried.
Perched on the windowsill with one leg propped up and the other draped over the side sat everything I feared, everything I longed for, everything I ran from.
His dark eyes were fixed on Catsper, who purred happily in his lap while being showered in warm pats.
I knew they were warm, because I could still remember those same hands on my skin, breaking my chains and teaching me freedom.
His black hair, short on the sides and longer on the top, fell across his forehead.
Those same strands had passed between my fingers countless times like water between rocks.
Whether it was from me playing with the tresses while his head rested in my lap or from my gripping the locks hard while his head was between my thighs, I still felt tingles along each of my fingers from the memories.
He seemed to sense the minute I’d arrived.
Even from this distance, I saw him stiffen and appear to hold his breath with eyes still locked on the black cat in his lap.
Those lashes fluttered shut for a brief moment, and his chest rose hard with a deep breath as though steeling himself for something. Slowly, he looked up.
Our colliding gazes might as well have been a meteor crashing into me.
Every emotion from the past swelled to life in the space between us, coming so fast yet replaced by the next so soon, I couldn’t fully name them all.
But at the root of us, of our story, were two central feelings that seemed to constantly get tangled.
I honed in on the one that would protect me and give me the push I needed to get us back to where we needed to be.
Pain.
For me, that emotion manifested as the gnashing of teeth and savage swings.
“Why are you here, Xander?” I hissed with a curled lip and an irritated shake of my head.
His lips parted as the same feeling I’d latched onto briefly rippled in the crease of his brow and set of his eyes. He pressed his lips back together and dropped his head with a humorless laugh. “I see. It turned out this way after all. That’s fine. I promised to remind you.”
I had no idea what he was going on about, and I didn’t bother asking him. Instead, I bent down to pick up my blankets and snarled, “You promised? That’s hilarious. Because you’re so good at keeping your promises, aren’t you, Xander?”
Those deeply dark eyes, like pools of fresh ink, set into his handsome face searched my own gaze.
Yet he kept his expression blank so that I couldn’t get a read on anything he was thinking or feeling.
He looked the same as the last time I’d seen him, save for a new tattoo I couldn’t quite make out on the outside of his pinky and his hairstyle.
The dark locks had been longer the last time we’d been together.
His black septum nose ring stood out against his flawless skin, and those pink lips, ones I still remembered all over my body, were set in a flat line.
Suddenly, that mouth broke into a charming grin that masked whatever he was really feeling. “You’re still so hot when you’re pretending to be angry.”
Talking to him was like talking to a wall. With a huff, I repeated, “Why are you here?”
I knew I shouldn’t drift closer, but my bed was right by where he sat.
I worried that getting close to him would spur a temptation I couldn’t resist, but I’d always been good at pretending to be strong.
So with my head held high and an unbothered set to my shoulders, I crossed the room to the bare mattress and dropped my blankets onto it.
“I’m following you,” he finally answered.
I could see him watching me from the corner of my eye.
I didn’t need to ask how he knew I’d be here.
After all, he and I had a lengthy history, the most recent chapter having been not long ago.
And what a chapter that had been. It was happy.
It was warm. It was together. He and I had planned to do this very investigation of Mountview Psychiatric Hospital as the ultimate duo—a ghost-seeing human and a Mischief demon.
But that was then.
That was before.
Before he broke that final promise.
Before my fears came to life.
Before I realized running from him was the only thing I could do.
“I don’t need or want you here,” I told him coldly, refusing to look at him.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Xander stand and drift closer. His familiar clean and spicy shampoo crowded my senses, and warmth rolled off his muscular body. Without taking my eyes off the sheets I tucked around the mattress, I felt his eyes boring into me.
New memories of the last time we were here together flooded me.
This demon had reappeared in my life after ten years of waiting on him, and he’d begrudgingly taken me away with him.
He was always doing that—showing up only for things to pull us apart.
He was back now, but like always, I knew it wouldn’t last. We’d drift apart again.
It was an inevitable pattern for us. It was like I told him the last time we were together.
My story? Our story? It didn’t have a happy ending.