34

Chris kept holding her as she let out a short scream. More blood dripped from her nose, but that wasn’t what made her next breath catch. The exorcism had started to work, and that meant Drew’s ghost was being pulled away from the anchor it had made of her.

But Drew wasn’t going without a fight. As soon as his spirit started to be drawn away from her, his hands latched onto Olivia even as he let out a yelled swear.

His fingers wrapped around her arms, sinking through her skin and muscles before grabbing onto the part of her that was still connected to him. She hadn’t realized that would be possible—none of them had—but whatever Riley was doing had clearly made the tie between them stronger, just like it made his ghost visible to everyone in the room.

“No,” Chris murmured, his gaze locking onto where Drew was gripping her.

Olivia’s eyes widened with fear, and Chris sent a futile punch through Drew’s face while keeping his other arm wrapped around her.

“You’re hurting her, you piece of shit,” Chris roared.

Drew’s eyes lifted from Olivia to meet Chris’s gaze. He smirked, though it quickly turned into a pained cringe. “Nice to see you too, Hartley.”

Chris glared and placed his hand on Olivia’s arm just below where the two were connected. “Let her go.”

Drew clicked his tongue after letting out another agony-filled swear. “What? No ‘good to see you’ or ‘how have you been’ for your old teammate?”

Drew was dragged back a step, and Olivia let out another scream as she was dragged with him. Chris tightened his hold on her, and though he was probably trying to be gentle, his grip felt bruising. That pain barely registered, though. The ache in her head had spread throughout her whole body, and it felt like something was trying to rip her apart.

A gash opened behind Drew, right in the center of the circle. It widened slowly, a mouth ready to swallow him whole, and Olivia along with him if he didn’t release his grip on her. Hissed whispers and distant screams leaked from the gateway, layers and layers of voices merging into a sound that had goosebumps rising on Olivia’s arms and a shiver running down her spine.

“Please, Drew,” Olivia begged, hating that she sounded exactly as she had in the recording from that night.

“You need to let her go,” Chris bit out.

“You’re the ones hurting her,” Drew snarled back. “Even if I let go, she’ll be in pain. You can’t sever what’s tying us together so easily.”

Riley stopped speaking, and Olivia slumped back into Chris with a sigh of relief as the pain receded momentarily.

“He needs to let her go,” Riley said, her eyebrows pinched together. “We can’t risk Olivia being pulled with him.”

Drew grinned at that. “Then maybe you should put a stop to all this.”

“No,” Olivia said. “You’re going, even if I have to go with you.”

Chris’s arm tightened around her. “That’s not an option,” he whispered into her ear angrily.

“Riley, keep talking,” Olivia said.

Her sister looked between her and Drew uncertainly, her expression grim.

“Just do it,” Olivia snapped. “Trust me.”

Riley’s lips pressed into a thin line. “Okay,” she eventually agreed reluctantly.

“What’s your plan, Olivia?” Drew asked, his smirk back in place. “You going to join me in hell?”

“No,” she replied, her nostrils flaring. “It’s already hell having you in my head. I don’t plan on joining you there permanently.”

Drew’s mouth twisted with rage, and he got pulled back another step. Chris’s hold on Olivia tightened further, and she swore as Drew’s fingers slowly and painfully slipped down her arms, his grip pulling at her limbs until they felt seconds away from popping out of their sockets.

The candles relit, the flames larger than they’d been before, and Drew’s eyes widened. Olivia could only hope that meant the exorcism was working.

“Olivia?” Chris asked quietly as Riley continued speaking, doing her best to ignore them and focus on the page in front of her. “What’s the plan here?”

“Just trust me,” she said, standing up straighter so that less of her weight was pressing on him.

Drew scoffed. “Look at you two love birds.” He looked at Olivia in disgust before turning his glare to Chris. “I watched you fuck her, you know.”

Chris’s teeth ground together, and Olivia wished more than ever that she could send her fist into Drew’s face.

“So you saw how much better he was than you,” she said, and Drew’s eyes widened in shock.

Olivia used the moment against him, taking a step toward him and sending her knee flying between his legs.

Ghosts couldn’t feel pain, but instinct had Drew removing his hands from Olivia’s arms and using them to cover himself. It was exactly what they needed, and Olivia grinned as she placed her hands on Drew’s shoulders and shoved him back as hard as she could.

Drew landed on his back and roared in anger as he tried to stand up. But an invisible force pulled him back down, keeping him on the floor and away from her. She stepped back as far as she could, pressing herself into Chris again and taking comfort from the warmth of his body.

“Have fun in hell,” Olivia said to Drew, unable to keep the smile from her face. “I won’t miss you at all.”

But she celebrated too early.

Drew’s legs were dragged through the portal, his feet disappearing first. His fingers scratched at the floor as he was pulled down further. But he wasn’t the only one being pulled. Olivia’s heart skipped a beat as she was yanked forward.

Chris was again the only thing that kept her from falling to the ground. He grabbed her forearm with both hands, and Olivia’s body spun, her legs pulled from under her as the rest of her body was sucked toward where Drew was being pulled through the floor.

“Liv,” Chris shouted, his eyes wide with panic.

Olivia wanted to scream, but she felt frozen by fear. She could only hold onto Chris like her life depended on it. Which it did.

She was sure her body would be dragged to hell along with Drew, the spell Brett’s knife had put on them too powerful to overcome. But Chris’s grip was strong. His fingers would leave bruises behind, but Olivia barely felt the pain in the face of her terror.

She looked over her shoulder, her eyes meeting Drew’s. He’d been dragged further down, and his hands scratched uselessly at the floor, one of them lifting and stretching out toward her.

“Olivia,” he begged, for once sounding like the scared one.

It was more gratifying than Olivia could have imagined. For once, he was the one who was afraid. He was the one who was begging.

“Fuck you,” she said, a small grin lifting the corners of her lips as the candles’ flames grew impossibly tall.

Drew screamed in rage, but his anger couldn’t save him. He was pulled down, the fear in his eyes the sweetest justice Olivia could imagine. His hands were the last to disappear.

Olivia thought that would be it, but the force pulling at her didn’t let up. It only strengthened. Her gaze flew back to Chris.

“Don’t let go,” he begged as her hands slipped down his arms an inch. “Riley,” he screamed, looking behind Olivia.

“It’s closing. Just hold on,” she replied, pausing in whatever passage she was reading before starting again.

Chris’s gaze locked with Olivia’s. “Don’t let go,” he repeated, looking anything but reassured by Riley’s words.

Olivia nodded, her voice still lost in the face of her fear. The only sound her body seemed capable of making was a small whimper.

She didn’t want to believe that Brett’s spell was strong enough to send her to hell if she didn’t deserve to be there, but their souls were bound together. Where one went, the other had to follow, and the only thing keeping her from being dragged down with Drew was Chris.

And by some miracle, Chris won the fight.

The strength of the force pulling at her weakened enough that he was able to pull Olivia against him. She got her feet back under her, but it was Chris holding her to him that kept her standing. Olivia wrapped her arms around him, her cheek pressed into his chest and the front of her body plastered against his.

Chris spun them around, putting himself between her and the shrinking black wound in the floor.

“I’ve got you,” he murmured, his arms not releasing from around her even as the pressure pulling at her ebbed further, and the pain became nothing more than a memory.

Olivia took a shaky breath in, the scent of him filling her nose and doing more to steady her than the fresh air in her lungs. It took a few more seconds, but finally, the flames of the candles died, and the force trying to get Olivia in its clutches vanished.

She wobbled on her feet, unbalanced as it disappeared, but Chris was there again, his arms tightening around her.

“I’ve got you,” he repeated, one of his hands lifting to her head, his fingers sinking into her hair.

Olivia inhaled again. This time, her breath hitched, and her face crumpled. A sob broke free as all the emotions she’d been feeling hit her in one solid blow. The rage. The fear. The relief. It was all too much.

“It’s okay,” Chris whispered, still holding her as though he could keep her from breaking.

Olivia nodded. It was okay. It was finally okay, but instead of celebrating like she’d thought she would, she could only cry into his chest.

“What the hell is going on here?”

The sound of her dad’s voice was perhaps the only thing that could have made Olivia leave Chris’s arms. Still, she pulled back reluctantly, and Chris seemed just as grudging to have her gone. He kept his hold on her until the last moment, his hand sliding down her arm and brushing over her palm and fingers as she stepped away.

Olivia shouldn’t have appreciated his touch as much as she did. She should have hated it or, at the very least, resented the fact that she didn’t hate it. Instead, she let her fingers glide through his, letting the touch linger for an extra beat before she wiped at the blood on her face and ran to her father.

He and her mom must have walked through the front door only seconds before he’d spoken. Their brows were furrowed as they took in the scene in front of them—the candles, the pushed-aside furniture, Olivia crying.

“Dad,” she choked out as she ran into his arms.

“I know, honey,” he told her, his voice broken. “Noah called me and told me everything. I’m so sorry, Livvy.”

Olivia closed her eyes, more tears dropping to her cheeks. She hadn’t known how much she needed to hear those words from her dad. They weren’t just an apology. They were an acknowledgment of everything she’d been through. He believed her, and she wasn’t sure how she could have ever doubted that he would.

“We’re so sorry,” her mom said, her hand lifting to land on Olivia’s shoulder. She squeezed gently, but the touch held a lot of weight. “If I’d known, I would have killed that piece of shit.”

Olivia let out a shocked laugh. Her devout and God-fearing mom sounded completely serious.

“And I would have helped,” her dad added, squeezing her tighter.

Olivia smiled even as her throat tightened. “It’s okay. He’s gone now.” She opened her eyes and looked back at the circle of candles. “Riley made sure of it.”