They were there, so close that I was waiting for a zombie to crawl out from under my fence and come running at us. When a burn started to spread through my chest, I realized I was holding my breath in anxious anticipation. I had to exhale and force myself to suck in a fresh breath before I keeled over.
Maddox put a hand to my upper arm. I was swaying on my feet. Panic had me in its grasp, and I didn’t know how to keep it from rendering me useless. My knees gave out, forcing Maddox to catch me and take me to a nearby chair.
He knelt in front of me, but I couldn’t look directly at him. Like a scared rabbit, I kept my attention on my surroundings.
“Is there another ghost?” Maddox asked, looking over his shoulder.
“No. That’s the problem.”
Had I told him about the way the girl’s ghost had been missing, too? Or had it slipped my mind? I couldn’t remember. My mind refused to work. Adrenaline scrambled my thoughts, turning the inside of my head to a sloshy mess that I couldn’t control. No matter how I tried to wrangle myself, I slid out of control again.
They were here. They were close again. Why? Would they come for me in the middle of the day? I didn’t understand where the spirits were going. Why did the killer take another life nearby? Nothing made any sense.
I needed to know what I was. If I had answers, then maybe I would be able to understand what was going on. Instead, my hands were empty.
“Addie!” Maddox gave me a gentle shake. “Get ahold of yourself.”
“I-I-I can’t…” My breath shuddered out of me.
Maddox didn’t sigh or roll his eyes. Instead, he lowered his voice. It was as gentle as a father’s. “You’re safe right now. I promise you that I will do everything in my power to keep you out of harm’s way. But I can’t catch the person hurting you until you tell me what’s going on.”
Maddox understood. Despite my panic attack, he somehow saw through it to the problem underneath. I tightened my grip on his shirt and tried to control my breathing. I needed him. Only he could help me through this.
The thought that I wasn’t alone forced fresh air into my lungs. Though I had the ladies at Bad Moon Café, they didn’t know much about my arcana. Not the way that Maddox did. He’d been there through it all, through the worst.
No. I had too much faith in him. The moment that he learned that I could raise the dead at the expense of the living, he would walk away from me, too. He would turn his back on me. I couldn’t let myself develop feelings for him or lean on him too often. If I did, I would collapse when he left.
“Killer nearby,” I managed to say.
Maddox jerked upright. He spun, likely searching for someone. His hand went to his hip, but there was nothing there. I yanked on the back of his shirt to get his attention.
“Not here. S-somewhere.”
Maddox did a doubletake back at me. I grimaced apologetically. As it was, I struggled to speak. This was the best that I could manage in the moment. I wished I could tell him more, but that was all I had in me.
Maddox
I satwith Addie until she could calm down. After seeing her face down an angry ghost last night, I knew that anything that could make her react like this had to be bad. She’d been so calm and determined last night. Now she was a shaking mess that could barely form words.
We didn’t have time to waste, though. The moment that she was in working order, I dragged her through the neighborhood. She swore up and down that she wouldn’t be able to find the ghost.
According to her, there hadn’t been a ghost last time. The girl in the ravine hadn’t left a spirit behind. The implications made me shudder. Addie explained that some spirits moved on without hesitation. It was nice to know that there was an afterlife waiting for us, but Addie doubted that the girl went into it.
“Spirits of those who’ve been killed before their time are usually pretty grumpy. They don’t want to give up on the world of the living until their demands are met. That’s what happened last night.”
Addie told me the story of a young man by the name of Jaden Jones. At first, I thought to ask her to send an anonymous tip to the local police so that Jaden’s killer could be caught. But Addie’s silence worried me.
“I had to kill him last night.”
“I thought he was already dead.” I cast a wary glance in Addie’s direction as we walked through her neighborhood.
I didn’t like where this was going.
“Jayden tried to hurt you because he was jealous of your life. He would have killed someone last night had I not…I destroyed him. Jayden Jones will never see an afterlife because he no longer exists.” She wrapped her arms around herself.
I stopped dead in my tracks. She didn’t get far ahead of me. Back to me, Addie paused and lifted her head like she was beseeching some higher power. After a moment, she shook her head and sighed.
“I keep forgetting that it’s a mess up there. There’s no point in praying to a God who isn’t listening.”